Bill Hendon

Who is Bill Hendon?

William Martin Hendon is an author, POW/MIA activist, and two-term Republican U.S. Congressman from North Carolina's 11th District.

Hendon is an alumnus of the University of Tennessee, where he also taught from 1968 to 1970. In the 1980s Hendon’s congressional campaigns became nationally famous due to his rivalry with Democrat Jamie Clarke. In 1982, Clarke defeated Hendon’s bid for re-election by less than 1,500 votes. In 1984 Hendon gained revenge by defeating Clarke’s bid for re-election by just two percentage points. In their third consecutive meeting in 1986 Hendon lost to Clarke by one percentage point. Despite being encouraged to run against Clarke for a fourth time in 1988, Hendon declined.

His 2007 New York Times bestseller, An Enormous Crime, co-written with attorney Elizabeth Stewart, argues that American soldiers were abandoned in Indochina following the Vietnam War. In its review, Publishers Weekly stated, "controversial former North Carolina congressman Hendon and attorney Stewart make the case that the U.S. knowingly left hundreds of POWs in Vietnam and Laos in 1973, and that every presidential administration since then has covered it up.” Kirkus Reviews called it “a sprawling indictment of eight U.S. Administrations.… A convincing, urgent argument.”