Posted on 12/20/2006 5:52:03 AM PST by ShadowDancer
Secret John Lennon Files Released By FBI
Documents Conclude Former Beatle Wasn't Serious Threat
POSTED: 7:35 am EST December 20, 2006
LOS ANGELES -- The FBI has released its final surveillance documents on John Lennon to a university historian who has waged a 25-year legal battle to obtain the secret files.
The 10 pages contain new details about Lennon's ties to leftist and anti-war groups in London in the early 1970s, but nothing indicating government officials considered the former Beatle a serious threat, historian Jon Wiener told the Los Angeles Times in Wednesday's editions.
The FBI had unsuccessfully argued that an unnamed foreign government secretly provided the information, and releasing the documents could lead to diplomatic, political or economic retaliation against the United States.
The newly released documents include a surveillance report stating that two prominent British leftists had courted Lennon in hopes that he would finance "a left-wing bookshop and reading room in London" but that Lennon gave them no money.
Another page states that there was "no certain proof" that Lennon had provided money "for subversive purposes."
"I doubt that Tony Blair's government will launch a military strike on the U.S. in retaliation for the release of these documents," Wiener told the newspaper. "Today, we can see that the national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning."
Wiener first requested the documents in 1981, several months after he decided to write a book about Lennon following the singer's murder.
He initially obtained some documents, but the FBI withheld numerous files, saying they contained national security information and were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.
Wiener sued the government and received a number of files in 1997 as part of a settlement with the FBI. Justice Department lawyers continued to withhold the final 10 pages until a federal judge in 2004 ordered their release.
The previously released files showed that the FBI closely monitored Lennon from 1971 to 1972.
This is the best use of my taxes, to annoy a celebrity I mildly dislike.
Why the personal attack? Did I insult you?
And she can't sing worth a darn either. Lennon must have been blinded and made deaf by love.
Gathering information without using it is a waste of time. I don't think it qualifies as a grab of power to investigate Lennon.
Nope, just stating the truth. And if this thread is so insignificant to you, why didn't you just bypass it entirely? That's what I do when a thread doesn't interest me.
Or the LSD.
I'd say the FBI did a good job stringing the case along until nobody cares. 25 years is the right length of time to declassify secrets, anyway.
The Brits were most likely the source of the information. Their Official Secrets Act is a bit different from ours. Something like the life of everyone concerned, plus 20 years. One of the people indirectly concerned, Yoko Ono, is still alive.
25 years of national security claims for this info is what I was talking about, not the initial investigation.
Yoko Ono was a CIA plot to neutralize the Marxist threat that Lennon posed. < /tinfoil >
"But is Paul dead or isn't he?"
Yeah, but his soul has entered Hanoi Jane's body....
lol
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| "Gathering information without using it is a waste of time. I don't think it qualifies as a grab of power to investigate Lennon." I agree it's not a grab of power, however, doesn't one have to gather information and analyze it to discover it was a waste of time? |
"But if you want money for people with pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone, anyhow."---John Lennon on Revolution.
Wow! You must be a psychic. You know by a headline that the story won't interest you?
The headline caught my eye but the resultant story proved to be insignificant. Am I not allowed to comment on your threads? Are people only allowed to comment if they agree with you?
Still, why insult me? Just because someone posts a story doesn't mean the comments are about the poster of that thread. Yet, you chose to insult me. How thin skinned of you.
He later admitted to regretting that line about Mao.
He said it was a last second thing that he shouldn't have written.
I agree. That's what makes it a non story. The only reason anyone got worked up over this was because it was a socialist, John Lennon, who got investigated.
The FBI doesn't want us to forget who's in charge.
Agreed. I'm no fan of his politics, but it seems clear that the FBI stepped over their bounds because they didn't like his politics either.
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