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.
...paid $500 a month [by the FBI] to...
Heaven forbid he was one of the millions of people who opposed the Vietnam War and thought the Nixon administration was bad . . . thank God the government kept tabs on him!
In the old days I would have said yes, that the innocent need not fear investigation. Today, I would fear a dim with that sort of control. IMO, the majority of todays dimocraps are corrupt and have/will corrupt any agency within their control. The klintoon administration is proof of that.
But that fear is indicative of a much larger problem, a larger corruption. Third-world government type of corruption.
Why should we, the electorate, fear that one party will try to take down another without just cause and due process? We fear Government power to the point that we allow thieves, adulterers, traitors, all kinds of lawbreakers to walk the halls of Congress and the White house and we do not DEMAND they tend the People business constitutionally.
In 2008, the electorate needs to clean out the entire present Government and start over, IMO. The political partisanship and power grabbing for the sake of power, is a corruption none of us should abide from either party.
The Democrats use voter fraud to gain power and we say nothing, demand, nothing. Well, we are going to say and do nothing right into living under a third-world, dictatorial, government.
Why the hell would I have done that? If you thought that was funny, I question your sense of humor.
Drawing a conclusion on someone from a screen name . . . typical FR newbie behavior.
Hey Francis: lighten up.
Yes, LSD is a hallucinogen, meaning it makes the user see and hear things that aren't really there. In John's case, it made him see an attractive woman when looking at Yoko and made him hear appealing music when Yoko screeched.
I show my kids Joko's "Live Peace in Toronto" video as a life-lesson on why not to do drugs.
I was correcting your false assertion that his politics were "ambivalent."
You were wrong about that. And now you've moved on to another equally false assertion.
It is preposterous to pretend that Lennon was just another person opposed to the war in Vietnam.
Lennon was one of the most influential persons of his generation. He recognized that, and sought to use his influence to oppose the Vietnam war.
To cite just one example, Lennon intended to write the Marseilles for the "peace movement" -- and with "Give Peace A Chance" he did.
Clearly you are ignorant on that entire period. Why don't you go read up on it and come back when you are in better position to discuss the subject responsibly?
LOL. You didn't bring it up because you didn't know about it.
And I question anybody's judgment who would claim to be the spiritual heir of Hemingway.
And I've been on this forum since 1996.
You're batting a thousand.
We fear Government power to the point that we allow thieves, adulterers, traitors, all kinds of lawbreakers to walk the halls of Congress and the White house
Or conduct surveillance of law-abiding Americans just because they don't like their politics.
"Or conduct surveillance of law-abiding Americans just because they don't like their politics."
Great argument. Except that Lennon wasn't an American and he wasn't law abiding.
But other than that...
Yeah, but he was talking about Congressional leaders with whom we have a political disagreement. That's to what I was referring.
I think the issue is one of methods not results.
How did the FBI find out two left wingers were going to hit lennon up for money?
How many other such leftists were in his regular circle?
Who was feeding the information?
History Channel did a documentary on him recently, saw part of it. The more I learn of Lennon the less respect I have for him.
I'm a huge Beatles fan and have read countless books about Lennon, who I find to be the most interesting of the four.
Lennon's entire being was a paradox. One minute he could be extremely kind and the next a total bastard. One minute he could be political and the next a retiring house husband. One minute he could be generous and the next a total skin flint. One minute he could espouse liberal values and the next conservative values. Even in the song "Revolution" he couldn't decide until the last minute whether to be with Chairman Mao or against him.
I do believe that a combination of his upbringing, the insanity of the Beatles and the drug-taking made him deeply disturbed. I also believe he had no core values, which is why he bounced from thing to thing.
Lennon was a latecomer, at best, to the anti-war movement, which had run its course full well by the time the draft ended. "Give Peace a Chance" was a dopey pop song that meant little in the grand scheme of things . . . only retarded dreamers and people who are trying to sell you something have the opinion that pop music "can change the world." Lennon was nowhere near the man behind the curtain you seem to think he was.
"Everyone's talking about bag-ism . . . isn't it the most?" Yeah, that's right up there with the best of them . . . give me a break.
As for the Hemingway barb, why would that have any relevance at all to the topic at hand---John Lennon? Why in the world would I have brought that up on this thread? I know Hemingway's biography as well as anyone here, thank you very much---your mentioning it was just a childish attempt to score points in whatever game you think it is you're playing with me. Is it recess time for you, or are you always this childish?
You've been here since '96?
Sam Hill
Since Jul 12, 2005
So why are you flying false colors? Who were you before Jul 12, 2005? You get booted off for something?
Lennon was abandoned by his mother.
He was raised by a very abusive aunt who brow-beated him. (She continued to treated him like a failure even after his Beatles success.)
Lennon spent his life trying to prove he wasn't a failure to his aunt and to himself. It messed him up.
The drugs exacerbated the problems.
As for the song "Revolution," as others have pointed out he regretted parts of it. And in the "slow version" he says "you can count me out -- in..."
But regardless of his inner conflicts, his public persona at the time was unmistakably against the Vietnam War.
. . . as it is for most celebrities, I'll agree . . .
The man was a great musician and a great composer. No more, no less. Just as E. M. Hemingway was a great writer, but a complete bastard otherwise. See, Sam Hill? I made a Hemingway comment just for you---happy?
I was banned in May 1999 for defending Bush and the CIA against claims that W was a cocaine addict and that his father and the CIA were drug dealers.
In fact, I was banned for opposing the very kind of claims that would get a person banned today.
What's it to you? If you were really interested you could have sent a private Freepmail?
Are you trying to change the subject?
Lennon also supported Ronald Reagan in 1980. Lennon met Reagan on December 9, 1974 when they were both interviewed by Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford during halftime at Monday Night Football. Reagan taught Lennon the rules of American football. Lennon met Jimmy Carter at inaugural gala through a mutual friend, art dealer Sam Green (who I've met a few times), and Lennon was angry that Carter didn't recognize him. A friend of mine, Fred Seaman, who was Lennon's personal assistant at the end of his life, said that Lennon hated Carter and felt that he made America look weak. Mike Tree, Lennon's gardener, said in an online interview that John liked Reagan because he heard that Reagan was into astrology and John said, "He'll be the greatest president of our time."
I've also met Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, and May Pang, the woman John lived with during his 18-month separation from Yoko. May said that John had outgrown radical politics by the time he and Yoko separated in 1973.
I finally had to open this to see if there were actually two John Lennons.
No way to know if known socialists are law-abiding unless they are investigated.
This is what is wrong with this country: Lovers of socialism, communism, and terrorism, place fear in the hearts of the innocent - fear of unjust surveillance, in order to PROTECT the guilty.
All in the name of "individual" rights. No individual, innocent or guilty, has the RIGHT to deny investigation which may be crucial to the security of this country as a whole.
In this nation, we do not presume guilt. Even for people with whom we have political disagreements.
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