Customer Reviews

An Enormous Crime: The Definitive Account of American POWs Abandoned in Southeast Asia

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AN ENORMOUS CRIME is simply the BEST book ever written about the biggest cover-up in American political history.

One of the keys to understanding the POW issue - and it is all explained in detail in this seminal work - is the context in which these 700 US POWs were abandoned. By the spring of 1973 - just when Operation Homecoming was underway and the first group of POWs was being released in Hanoi - Watergate began to dominate President Nixon's thinking, time, concentration and focus. Simply stated, he was fighting to save his presidency.

And then came word that not all the POWs we thought would be returned had been released. AN ENORMOUS CRIME proves there was a second, 'secret' system of POWs kept behind - following the example of Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs prisoner swap - and these 700 men were kept as an 'insurance policy' against the $4.75 billion President Nixon secretly promised to pay Vietnam on Februarly 1, 1973.

Since Watergate soon consumed the Nixon Administration, the unwitting victims became this second group of yet-to-be-released POWs. They simply fell through the cracks.

And the US Government started to do what it always does: denied a fact. Just denied it. Defense Secretary William Clements said, "There are no more POWs." Period. End of story.

Only it wasn't - and isn't - the end of the story. AN ENORMOUS CRIME details how the Defense Intelligence Agency tracked these POWs for years - and even photographed Escape and Evasion signals that these airmen placed in fields, on roof-tops and in rice paddies. The message? "I am a US airman. Please come rescue me right now!!!"

AN ENORMOUS CRIME will become one of the biggest books of 2007 once it is read and the message spreads. With 200,000 US troops in Iraq, the lessons of the abandoned POWs in Vietnam and Laos are directly relevant to our current war effort.

This book is not only a great read but - for all patriots who care about our country's future - AN ENORMOUS CRIME is also a MUST read.

I finished the book last night, I must say that I am totally convinced that our government intentionally and routinely covered up our live POW. I was never one to believe there were live POW's left behind, I swallowed the government's spin. This book will open your eyes as it did mine. Through out the book, time and time again, you will discover how the government attacked every aspect of any information that showed there were live American POWs left behind. You will discover at no time was there ever anyone in any of the administrations who looked at the information with an objective view to use that information to validate there were prisoners. The administrations took the position of debunking everything and time and again the government is laid out as presenting a false case.

You will learn the depths of the relationship between John Kerry and John McCain; how they both derailed any hope our POWs had of ever being returned. You will learn that John Kerry intentionally lied about his trips to Hanoi. You must remember that John Kerry illegally met with the representatives of North Vietnam during the time when the Peace accords were being conducted (1973) on several occassios returning back to the US to advocate that America adapt all the North Vietnamese positions.

Our government's acts are disgusting beyond belief and criminal in all aspects.

I am sure the administration, past and present, will attacks the authors and book as a continuing process they have prefected; however, until they can stand and show me that they are taking an in-depth, objective look at each bit of evidence with someone who has not already shown themselves to be negative to the process, I'll just blow them off as liars they have shown themselves to be. I will not be blinded by someone who goes to Vietnam and demands to see prisons who already has a mindset that there are no prisoners. Do you think Kerry is stupid, he knew well in advance there would be no Americans in the prison he chose to inspect--if there had been, his career would have been shot and he has shown himself to be far to slick and sleazy to have that happen to him. Only an idiot would accept his word that he had a no warning prison inspection.

I recently received information that I can get $2,000.00 for each recruit I get to enlist in the military, how can I do that, knowing how our government will one day willing abandon them on the field of battle?

I have two sons in the Armed Forces and one Son In Law, now I must realize that their continued service may subject them to the status of POWs, with the Democrats wanting to pull out of Iraq, will our government once again walk away leaving these young men behind. I am conflicted, I love the military, but I know I must ensure they are fully aware their government "WILL NOT" stand behind them when the chips are down and suggest they may want to consider another way of life.

I just got off the phone with my Grandson who is graduating high school this week and advised him that in no way would I recommend him going the military until he has read the book and understand the risk that he may never his homeland again and forgottened by his countrymen. It's one thing to be killed in action and quite another to be an abandoned Prisoner of War.

My brother was Killed in Action in Vietnam, he was a Special Forces medic, I later volunteered to serve in Vietnam as a sole surviving son in Special Forces as an Operations and Intelligent Sergeant First Class and later receiving a Battlefield Commission.

Robert L. Noe
Captain, US Army Retired
MACVSOG, SFA, SFA, MUSTANG

A former Congressman who served on the POW MIA Committee in Congress writes An Enormous Crime. Congressman Bill Hendon was involved with POW issues and had access to top secret documents regarding American Prisoners of War. He and other congressmen want to tell the real story about Vietnam and the POWs. The author spent ten years researching and putting together the book.

A great read about how Washington D.C. really works. Should be required reading for all who are interested in Vietnam and citizens concerned about the future of America. This is a real life historical adventure.

A fascinating book that is hard to put down once you start reading. There are real life stories about secret rescue missions, presidential politics and military intelligence that involve many of today's top leaders.

The book highlights the American can do spirit, battles between good guys and bad guys and efforts to free American prisoners of war.

The author takes you right into the action, negotiating for prisoners, working with the intelligence agencies, organizing rescue missions and how major world events shaped policies regarding POW issues.

Starting with an excerpt from World War II to today, the book examines the battles and struggles between America and its enemies, especially Cuba and its relationship to Vietnam.

The author takes you inside the White House Oval Office for planning meetings to the jungles of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The book covers privately funded rescue missions funded by Hollywood heavy weights such as Clint Eastwood and William Shatner.

Billionaire Ross Perot, who successfully organized a hostage rescue mission in Iran is involved with trying to get the POWs home from Vietnam.

Once you buy it you won't be able to put it down.

A monumental work of of research and dedication, this is a tragic and true account of how America's leaders--both Republican and Democrat--turned their backs on the men they sent into battle. If Vietnam was a mistake, then the fate of U.S. POWs is a colossal tragedy. Hendon and Stewart have harnessed the brutal facts, Liz Trotta

Stunning, massive 600 page exhaustive study of the unaccounted for/abandoned men America left behind in Vietnam. This is the definitive account and dramatic history of living American POWs left in Vietnam, and the first full account of the circumstances that left them there. The product of 25 years of research, this book exposes the reasons why these heroic American soldiers and airman were held back by the North Vietnamese at Operation Homecoming in 1973, and what these patriots have endured since. A stiff read packed with incredible facts and thousands of now unclassified sighting accounts, Congressman Hendon's study will go beyond shocking you in how America covered up and obfuscated the truth - all for politics. Every President, their administration, and their military hierarchy from Nixon on knew the truth but turned a blind eye while telling the American people and the men's families they were doing all they could to resolve the problem. Simply not true. A conspiricy in the JFK assassination genre? NO. BUT, due to political expediences these heroes were simply left behind and their fate sealed. Is it true? Did America really do this? Congressman Hendon's (R-NC) research and 100 pages of footnotes seem to indicate it is.
OF COURSE the politicos and military types tried to hide this and completely and totally blasted Hendon as a liar and fool! All the more reason it probably is true in some form. Remember: The cover-up is always worse than the crime.
The book is well written but can be a tough slog. I'm a historian by training and liked the [...] attention to detail. If only 1/10 of the book is true and only 1 man knowingly left behind it is truly an Enormous Crime and the perpetrators need be exposed for their dastardly actions. IMHO this does more to hurt the military ethic of "leave no man behind" than anything that happened before or after the fact. How our military leaders could not only allow this but condone it is the most shocking part of the book.
NOTE: I flew rescue in Vietnam and personally know of several incidences when we talked to a downed pilot but due to night conditions could not rescue him. These men were in good physical condition after ejection/bailout. Advised to hunker down for the night, we would return at first light to pick them up. The following day they were GONE never to be seen or head of again. What happened to them? Unknown/MIA.

I could not put this down. It reads like a finely crafted novel yet it's true! I liked it so much I bought a copy for my Dad for father's day and he only allows himself to read a few pages a day to savor it. If you ever wondered how the inner workings of corrupt government officials work and you would like to know the real McCaine and Kerry. Read this book. I was both fascinated, disgusted, shocked and in the end really sad at what took place for these many years. It's really a fantastic book. We all need to read this and remember how and why our best and brightest (mostly pilots) were abandoned in the face of incontrovertible proof of life years after all POW's were supposedly returned.

If this 563-page heavily documented book by Bill Hendon and Elizabeth A. Stewart, published in 2007, doesn't make your blood boil, you are either as cold blooded as a snake or you are completely lacking in reading comprehension skills. Yes, we all know that soldiers are just expendable pawns in the game of politics, but condemning hundreds of your countrymen to a life of imprisonment far from home and pretending they are dead takes mistreatment of these pawns and their families and loved ones to a whole new level.

But could it really be true? Why would the Vietnamese and the Laotians hang on to almost as many prisoners as they released? What could they hope to gain?

The authors answer all these questions very persuasively. Concerning the first one, that's precisely why the anger must rise up inside you as you turn the pages of the book. There is simply far too much evidence of American POWs having been seen by scores of witnesses, many of whom corroborate one another: by former South Vietnamese sent to "re-education camps," by defectors, by visiting businessmen, by many, many credible people who have no reason to lie. Aerial surveillance has also picked up patterns stamped out on the ground and in foliage of secret distress symbols known only to American combat fliers. Some of the prisoners have even been identified by names that correspond to those of missing U.S. servicemen. U.S. POWs were also known by U.S. intelligence to have been used as human shields at certain bridges and power plants, while none of the prisoners actually released have recounted those particular experiences. Reports of sightings actually rose through the 1980s as refugees escaped from Vietnam and were debriefed by American military investigators. Hendon and Stewart have drawn upon declassified transcripts of such briefings that had not previously been made public.

Now that this book has been written, to deny that the American government, in a cold and calculating fashion, left hundreds of prisoners of war behind in Southeast Asia is equivalent to denying that the Soviet Union had slave labor camps for political prisoners after Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago had been published. Hendon, unlike Solzhenitsyn, has not been a prisoner; he hasn't seen the prisons from the inside. But he has seen the cover-up very nearly from the inside, as a Congressman (R-NC), then as a Pentagon consultant working on the POW issue, as a Congressman again, and finally as an intelligence investigator for the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. His inquiries have taken him to South and Southeast Asia 33 times. No one except the immediate perpetrators of the cover-up knows the subject better.

Hendon's co-author, Ms. Stewart, is an attorney and the daughter of an Air Force colonel missing in action in North Vietnam. She, too, has traveled extensively in Southeast Asia and has researched the POW/MIA question for more than 20 years. Reading on pp. 376-377 a letter she sent then President George H. W. Bush, with its graceful prose so similar in style to the writing in the book, one gets the impression that the main division of labor in producing the book was researching by Hendon and writing by Stewart.

The authors paint a picture of a great morality play in which a few rare and courageous individuals within the U.S. government have stood up for truth and justice, and they have paid for it with their careers. Those who have gone along with the sellout, on the other hand, have prospered politically. When it comes down to a contest between those who are feathering their career nests and those who are committing career suicide, the decision as to who is more likely to be telling the truth is an easy one to make.

The families of all those tragically abandoned POWs and anyone who cares about truth and justice owe these authors a tremendous debt of gratitude. You owe it to yourself to read this book.

Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed its Own POWs in Vietnam

This reviewer has followed the POW/MIA saga since 1973 and is well versed on the rueful subject. The strongest feature to "An Enormous Crime" is that is a virtual compendium. Authors Hendon and Stewart have done yeoman's research, buttressing the text with 74 pages of notes. Many of the accounts found in previous POW/MIA tales are right here in one admittedly large volume. It is truly disheartening and sad how so many stories repeat themselves in print, over and over again. EVERY President has had a negative hand in this mess but George Bush I comes off the worst here, though that was no major revelation to this reviewer. Sadly Colin Powell is negatively portrayed in EC, along with a laundry list; make that a dirty laundry list, of "old Republican hands". Most shocking and distressing to this reviewer was the thoroughly negative characterization of Ann Mills Griffiths, Executive Director of the National League of POW/MIA Families. This reviewer has supported that group for years and years; now he has to wonder: Who is on what side? It definitely appears that far too many folks are concentrating on the eminently worthy cause of repatriating remains but have given up on rescuing live POWs. The Kerry/McCain committee of the early `90s is so negatively described in EC that one is sickened. As the headline states EC is indeed distressing but so much information is here, we believers have to steel ourselves to read. If only all Americans had been on the same page-and certain politicians had shown some intestinal fortitude-we would not be revisiting this subject 34 years after the so called peace treaty signed in Paris.

And, the moral of the story is: Don't get left behind. At least if Bill Hendon and Elizabeth Stewart can be believed. And, after reading their documentation, I have difficulty disbelieving them. Interestingly enough, the story is just like old home week with familiar names floating, if you know what I mean, to the top. Here are a few familiar names of folks, my church deems good Christian men except for Kerry, who have adamantly denied the existence of live U.S. soldiers left behind in Southeast Asia: Head of C.I.A. George H.W. Bush (p. 153), Jimmy Carter (p. 160), Ronald Reagan (p. 225), George W. Bush (p. 278), Indiana's very own good old boy, Lee Hamilton (p. 279), Colin Powell (p. 282), John Kerry (p. 468), and Henry Kissinger (all over the book!) to name the major players. The story in brief: Live American soliders (perhaps up to 1,200) may have been held to guarantee an agreed upon reparation payment by the U.S. government for damage done by the U.S.military. The money, considered blackmail, was never paid. The letter from Nixon was never revealed. Now, both sides contend living U.S. soldiers do not exist. And, frankly, I doubt they exist anymore,at least at this late date. "An Enormous Crime" is a huge book. If you cannot bring yourself to read the entirety, at least read the epilogue beginning on page 483. I give this book only 4 stars, not because it is well documented, but because it will not get one politician to admit one darn thing!

As a Vietnam veteran who was involved in pilot rescue I can only confirm first hand that on occasion we were unable to rescue every person or pilot who was shot down. We were often in radio contact with them, until the point of capture. Not all of these men were reported released or were there names released at the end of the war.

This book is accurate in its facts and time line. At the time all of knew that men, both officers and enlisted, were being held in places other than the known much publicized POW camps. It is my opinion that they are now dead or killed. Not the whole world values human life like here in the U.S. The political cost of discovering them would be too high.

Thank you to the authors for writing this book and how big brother continues its enormous crime on misinformation. I often think the political unrest, young peoples movement and protest against the establishment need to be revived from the 60's and 70's. This book shows what and how and how far the general public can be duped and lied to.

Will we ever learn?