I quote from --http://www.geocities.com/matwilson_2000/ch13.htm -- a controversial sourse -- (just for consideration):
The claim that John Lennon was the target of a political assassination is not original. In 1989, Fenton Bresler, an intelligent British Barrister wrote a book called The Murder of Lennon, and he raises many of the serious questions about Lennon's murder that have been almost totally ignored. In particular, he convincingly argues that Mark Chapman, Lennon's assassin was brainwashed by the CIA.
Indeed, all the "traditional" motivations that are ascribed to Mark Chapman are relatively absurd compared to Bresler's analysis. On December 17, 1992, Chapman was interviewed on Larry King Live, and that was certainly an eye opener in terms of exposing the real Mark Chapman. In a nutshell, Chapman reflected the demeanour of a cold, dispassionate, methodical, cold blooded murderer. In particular, Chapman ascribed a phoney motivation to account for Lennon's murder, and that is certainly the mark of a cover up. On the one hand, Chapman claimed that he "was so bonded with Lennon" and on the other, he boldly asserted that he "struck out at something he perceived to be phoney, and that extraordinary contradiction, reflects duplicity, deception and the fact that Mark Chapman was not a "lone nut."
*******
Since he murdered John Lennon, Mark Chapman boasted: "I murdered a man. I took a lot more with me than just myself. A whole era ended. It was the last nail in the coffin of the '60's."After killing his target and simultaneously satisfying the paranoia of "time warp patriots" who are in a perpetual war against the so-called 1960's, Chapman did not flee the murder scene, he calmly started to read his copy of The Catcher in the Rye when amazed New York City police officers arrested him. Chapman obviously wanted to get caught -the implication being that he would plead guilty and the Lennon case would close without investigation.
Over the years, when asked why he murdered Lennon, Chapman would direct attention to the book The Catcher in the Rye. That in turn, directs attention towards patriots like George Herbert Walker Bush, who claim to have been most influenced by the books War and Peace and The Catcher in the Rye. The Catcher in the Rye is about a "crusade against phoneyness" and Mark Chapman, who used the assassination of Lennon to promote the book, claimed that he was motivated by Holden Caulfield, the book's sixteen-year-old "crusader". In a nutshell, Holden Caulfield hated phonies and Mark Chapman's crusade against a "phoney" like Lennon was "ideologically" aligned with the agenda of overzealous "patriots" who were occupied by the obsession to neutralize the influence of popular antiwar activists. In the awkward words of Mark Chapman: "I have a small part in me that cannot understand the world and what goes on in it. I did not want to kill anybody... I fought against the small part for a long time. I'm sure the large part of me is Holden Caulfield. The small part of me must be the Devil."Seeking to activate the "big part" of Mark Chapman, his "handlers" could have easily exploited his evident compassion for children and made him believe that "phonies" like John Lennon were ultimately responsible for the horror and the dislocation of war.
Friends and associates made a point of having observed a very close bond between Mark Chapman and children, and that certainly provided the opportunity to exploit his Achilles heel. In the words of Mark Chapman: "I never wanted to hurt anybody my friends will tell you that. I have two parts in me the big part is very kind, the children I worked with will tell you that."Chapman struggled to avoid hurting Lennon but his "big part won" and he took his gun out of his coat pocket and shot Lennon in the chest, in the left arm and in the head.
Mark Chapman had evidently mustered up the courage he required to satisfy the agenda of patriots who considered themselves to be exempt from the normal restraint of the law, because in their eyes, the "big picture", the "big part", the national security interest or whatever else they chose to call it, was essentially a license to kill -and John Lennon was clearly a priority target.
In the final analysis, the terrifying reality is that the impressionable Mark Chapman is just one of hundreds of thousands of young people who are not appreciably distinct, in the absence of the "exposure" they receive. Under the circumstances, since Chapman travelled the world as a guest of the YMCA, it is reasonable to expect the organization that sponsored Chapman's psychologically harrowing adventures to assume at least some responsibility for the extraordinary mental transformation -from Mark Chapman, the compassionate young man, to Mark Chapman, the awkward, reluctant assassin who had to be prodded, to murder John Lennon.
********
I liked John's music, so I was interested in finding out why this guy killed him. I still don't know why, but it is interesting to read of the CIA/YMCA connection.