A former North Carolina Congressman claims that President Reagan ignored evidence that Vietnam still held MIAs in the mid 1980s.
According to the recently published "An Enormous Crime," then U.S. Rep. Bill Hendon writes that he told Reagan during a Jan. 9, 1986, meeting that he had heard a report that the Southeast Asian country had asked for $4 billion for the return of captured prisoners.
His source for the information was an unnamed Secret Service agent who said he overheard a discussion while stationed outside the Oval Office in 1981.
"Hendon asked Reagan, 'Respectfully, Mr. President, is it true? Did the Vietnamese offer to trade the prisoners back for $4 billion?"
Reagan said he didn't remember, according to Hendon's book. (In his diary, however, he wrote that Hendon was "off his rocker.")
More after the jump.
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Vice President George H.W. Bush, who was also in the meeting, then told Hendon that the offer had been for the return of remains, not living prisoners. He grew "agitated," and demanded to know the source of the information, Hendon writes.
The following day, Bush called Hendon and accused him of "insulting the president of the United States."
"If you continue to pursue this matter you will be questioning the personal integrity of the president," Hendon quotes Bush as telling him.
"Astounded by Bush's threatening tone and the crystal-clear message he had just conveyed, Hendon, facing a tough re-election fight in the fall, pledged not to raise the matter of the offer again."
Hendon lost his re-election campaign.
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