Barack Obama, Sr. declared to immigration officials that he planned to put Barack, Jr. up for adoption.

The Boston Globe reports:

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 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.

Of course, Obama, Sr. could have been lying about the plan. (Obama, Jr. says he doesn't believe his mother ever considered putting him up for adoption.)

Although [Obama, Sr. ] told Duham that he had gotten divorced from his Kenyan wife, he apparently did not tell her about his other children.

Obama was a member of the Luo ethnic group, the third largest of Kenya’s tribes, among whose members polygamy was common. His own father had at least four wives. In fact, Obama was still married to his Kenyan wife, Grace Kezia Obama, and apparently worried about the financial burden of another child.

So, he was lying about the divorce? I don't understand that sentence that begins with the word "Although." There's no contrast between clause 1 and clause 2 of that sentence. He lied to her about 2 things. "Although" doesn't work.

Now, you may wonder, why would Obama Sr. lie to the authorities about adoption? Isn't his case for staying in the United States stronger if he is rearing a USC child? The article suggests that a new child combined with bigamy is what would make him a worse candidate and notes that the immigration authorities had been "alarmed" about his "playboy" ways. Once he married an American citizen, they anticipated that she would petition to make him a U.S. citizen, and the question of the validity of the marriage would arise. Officials considered "charging Obama with polygamy or bigamy in order to get a deportation order against him," but decided to watch him closely instead and question the validity of the marriage if he attempted to become a citizen. In the end, Obama Sr. left Hawaii (and Dunham and baby Barack) to go to Harvard, where he would find a new wife and "the question of how many wives he had would spiral into a confrontation with devastating consequences."

Why — let's ask the question again — did Barack Obama, Jr. write a book called "Dreams From My Father"? Why did this man, rather than his mother, deserve to be the centerpiece of his autobiography?