President Obama's father once considered putting him up for adoption, according to a new book by Boston Globe reporter Sally Jacobs about the president's father, Barack H. Obama. In the newspaper today, she writes:

 In the spring of 1961, President Obama's father revealed a plan for his unborn son that might have changed the course of American political history.

The elder Barack H. Obama, a sophomore at the University of Hawaii, had come under scrutiny by federal immigration officials who were concerned that he had more than one wife. When he was questioned by the school's foreign student adviser, the 24-year-old Obama insisted that he had divorced his wife in his native Kenya. Although his new wife, Ann Dunham, was five months pregnant with their child -- who would be called Barack Obama II -- Obama declared that they intended to put their child up for adoption.

 "Subject got his USC (United States citizen) wife 'Hapai' [Hawaiian for pregnant] and although they were married they do not live together and Miss Dunham is making arrangements with the Salvation Army to give the baby away,'' according to a memo describing the conversation with Obama written by Lyle H. Dahling, an administrator in the Honolulu office of what was then called the US Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The book, titled The Other Barack: The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama's Father hits store shelves on Tuesday. According to Jacobs, Obama's staff and family were not aware of the adoption plans, and President Obama was not aware of the INS memo. Former White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told her the president "is absolutely convinced" that Obama's mother Ann Dunham "did not" have the aforementioned discussion with the Salvation Army to give away the baby. The plot thickens!

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John Hudson