http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130401193
October 8, 2010
Oct. 9, 2010 would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday. Fresh Air
remembers the legendary musician with excerpts from interviews
conducted with people who knew him, and people who studied his life.
This discussion with Jon Wiener was originally broadcast on Jan. 25, 2000.
--
Anti-war songs, like "Give Peace a Chance," didn't exactly endear
former Beatle John Lennon to the Nixon administration. In 1971,
shortly after Lennon went to New York on a visa and met up with
radical anti-war activists, the FBI put Lennon under surveillance,
and the Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him a
year later.
Historian Jon Wiener spent 14 years fighting to gain access to the
FBI's secret files on John Lennon. At first, the FBI refused to
release many of the documents, saying their release would endanger
national security. Wiener's Freedom of Information case went all the
way to the Supreme Court before the FBI agreed to settle.
Wiener spoke with Terry Gross about the case in 2000. His book about
John Lennon's FBI files is entitled Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon
FBI Files. Wiener also consulted on the documentary The U.S. vs. John
Lennon, which features interviews with Gore Vidal, Angela Davis, Yoko
Ono and Walter Cronkite about the case.
Jon Wiener is a history professor at the University of
California-Irvine and a contributing editor to The Nation magazine.
His other books include Come Together: John Lennon in his Time and
Historians in Trouble.
--
Transcript:
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli sitting in for Terry Gross.
Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the birth of John Lennon. In his
lifetime, during and after The Beatles, Lennon lobbied hard to
question and change the status quo - sometimes in song.
(Soundbite of song, "Give Peace a Chance")
Mr. JOHN LENNON (Singer-songwriter, musician): (Singing) Two, a one,
two, three four. Everybody's talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism,
Madism, Ragism, Tagism, this-ism, that-ism. Isn't it the most?
All we are saying is give peace a chance. All we are saying...
BIANCULLI: Anti-war music, like "Give Peace a Chance," didn't exactly
endear John Lennon to the Nixon administration. In 1971, shortly
after John Lennon arrived in New York on a visa, he began associating
with radical anti-war activists, and the FBI put Lennon under
surveillance. The Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him.
Jon Wiener is a historian who investigated what the FBI and the INS
did to Lennon between 1971 and 1972. After Lennon was murdered,
Wiener requested Lennon's FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act.
Terry Spoke with Jon Wiener in 2000, the year he wrote a book about
the FBI files called "Gimme Some Truth." It opens with a memo from
Senator Strom Thurmond to the Nixon White House, about an upcoming
Beatle tour of the United States. The memo warns that John Lennon
might combine rock music with politics and organize young people to
vote against Nixon in the 1972 election. Thurmond's memo also
suggests that terminating Lennon's visa might be an effective countermeasure.
Professor JON WIENER (Author, "Gimme Some Truth"): A little
historical background here, the '72 election was going to be the
first in which 18-year olds had the right to vote. Before that you
had to be 21. Everybody knew that young people were the strongest
anti-war constituency, so the question was, for Lennon, how could he
use his power as a celebrity to get young people into the political
process? And also, this is a time when kids are very alienated from,
you know, mainstream politics. So to get Lennon out of the country,
the strategic countermeasure is to deport Lennon so he won't be able
to take this tour that would register young voters. At the same time
they're worried that, you know, young voters will vote against Nixon
for kicking out, you know, the clever Beatle.
TERRY GROSS: Now how accurate was the FBI's information that John
Lennon did want to help organize these political concerts - that
would be for peace and against Nixon?
Prof. WIENER: There's no question that Lennon was talking about this
his friends - his friends being Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Bobby
Seale -and they tried doing one of these in Ann Arbor, Michigan in
December, 1971. They had John and Yoko headlined a political rock
concert, the Free John Sinclair concert. Every once in a while I run
into somebody who was there. Fifteen thousand people spent six hours
in Chrysler Arena, they listened not only to John and Yoko, but
Stevie Wonder came, Commander Cody came, the MC5 came, William
Kunstler gave a speech, Jerry Rubin gave a speech, Bobby Seale gave a
speech. And a lot of it was about, you know, mobilizing young people
to oppose Nixon. So - and they were very excited. John and Yoko were
very excited about the tremendous turnout they had for this concert
and how successful it was. So they were interested in the idea. They
never got to the stage of setting up the national concert tour
because the deportation order came down just two months later.
GROSS: How far did the INS get in deporting Lennon?
Prof. WIENER: Well, for much of 1972 and '73, Lennon was under an
order to leave the country within 60 days. He had very talented legal
help and they kept getting these deadlines extended. There was a lot
of people mobilized to support him, but really, it wasnt until after
Watergate, after Nixon left office, that the Gerald Ford
administration immigration service finally agreed to grant Lennon his
green card on very narrow legal grounds. So for two years he was
under a 60 day order to leave the country, almost continuously.
GROSS: Now, let's talk more about the FBI documents that you were
finally able to get through the Freedom of Information Act. You say
that the FBI documents make the FBI look more like the Keystone Cops
than the Gestapo. Give us an example of one of the documents that you
think makes them look like Keystone Cops.
Prof. WIENER: Well, there's one where they - J. Edgar Hoover sends
out instructions to locate Lennon as quickly as possible. They say
his last known address is St. Regis Hotel, 150 Bank Street, New York
City. Now every cop and cab driver in New York knows that the St
Regis Hotel, you know, is on Central Park. It's not - and that Bank
Street is in the West Village, so this couldnt be right. In fact.
Lennon at the time, was living on Bank Street, but he was living at
105 Bank Street, not 150 Bank Street. So here's like this all points
bulletin, you know, find Lennon. They're just confused. I mean it
could've happened to any of us, I guess.
The other really strange one is that there's a kind of a wanted
poster for Lennon. The FBI proposed that "Lennon should be arrested,
if at all possible, on possession of narcotics charges" - I'm quoting
now from one of the documents "which would make him more immediately
deportable." And these instructions to local police officials include
a kind of a wanted poster. A picture of Lennon, you know, height,
weight, eye color and so on. You'd think that they wouldnt really
need this. Lennon was certainly one of the most recognizable faces in
the world in 1972. They have a picture there anyway. But the
strangest thing is the picture isn't of John Lennon. It's of another guy.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. WIENER: A guy - I mean I know who it is. It's a guy named David Peel...
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. WIENER: ...who was an East Village folk singer, a street
singer, the busker type, who looked a little like Lennon. I mean he
wore the wire-rimmed glasses and had Lennon's style of long hair, of
course, lots of other people did in 1972. David Peel had recorded on
Apple Records. Maybe that's how they got confused. So the FBI, you
know, was lamentably out of touch with the mainstream, not just of,
you know, the radical counterculture of New York City, but you would,
you know, you would think John Lennon is kind of pretty much the
mainstream in 1972.
GROSS: Well, the funny thing is is that the FBI documents - for
instance, there's a memo from Hoover in which he describes Lennon as
something like a member of the singing group, The Beatles. As if like...
(Soundbite of laughter)
GROSS: You know, as if like who The Beatles are really needs to be explained.
Prof. WIENER: You know, I've always been fascinated by that sentence.
This is in J. Edgar Hoover's letter to H.R. Haldeman. And the first
sentence is John Winston Lennon is a member of The Beatles singing
group. Now what I'm not sure is, is it that J. Edgar Hoover wants to
prove that he knows what The Beatles are and the names of The
Beatles? Or is it that he thinks that Nixon does not know who John Lennon is?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. WIENER: Or that it's this John Lennon, the John Lennon who is
The Beatle is the one that we're talking about here. I've never been
able to figure out which of those is the case.
GROSS: Did you find anything in the FBI files that were released to
you that indicated that the FBI went beyond surveillance - that they
ever tried to set Lennon up?
Prof. WIENER: You know, there's like a couple of documents. Their
concern was that Lennon would participate in some kind of concert,
rally, anti-war demonstration outside the Republican National
Convention. And there's a memo from J. Edgar Hoover to the head of
the Miami FBI office that suggests that if Lennon could be arrested
on possession of narcotics charges he would become more immediately
deportable. Now this seems to me an effort to set Lennon up for a
drug bust. The FBI doesnt enforce possession of narcotics charges,
that's a state offense, this is not part of what the FBI is supposed
to be doing. I then filed a Freedom of Information request with the
Miami FBI office, asking for their files on Lennon, to see what their
response to this was. They replied to me that their John Lennon file
had been destroyed as a part of a routine file destruction procedure.
GROSS: Hmm.
Prof. WIENER: Now I have to note that - know that Lennon files were
collected in five other cities and none of those places destroyed
their Lennon file, so we wonder what was in the Miami Lennon file
that was destroyed.
BIANCULLI: Historian Jon Wiener speaking to Terry Gross in the year 2000.
More after a break.
This is FRESH AIR.
(Soundbite of music)
BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2000 interview with historian
Jon Wiener whose book about the FBI investigation of John Lennon is
titled "Gimme Some Truth."
GROSS: Now you have the FBI document that explains why the FBI
stopped its surveillance of Lennon. Would you summarize and read an
excerpt of that document for us?
Prof. WIENER: This is dated August 30th 1972. This is like two months
before the presidential election. This is a memo to the acting
director - now that's L. Patrick Gray, J. Edgar Hoover had died in
May - from the special agent in charge of the New York FBI office. It
says (Reading) For the past several months there has been no
information received to indicate that the subject is active in the new left.
And it indicated what the sources are. (Reading) All advised that
during the month of July 1972, that the subject has fallen out of
favor of activists Jerry Rubin, Stewart Albert and Rennie Davis, due
to subject's lack of interest in committing himself to involvement in
anti-war and new left activities. In view of this information, the
New York division is placing this case in a pending inactive status.
GROSS: Now is that true of the whole FBI or just the New York division?
Prof. WIENER: Well, New York was the office of origin - the OO - as
its called in the files. They are the ones who are responsible for
conducting the investigation. I mean, what this really is saying here
is that the Immigration Service and the FBI have succeeded in
pressuring Lennon to cancel his plans for this national concert tour
and to withdraw from anti-war activity. His lawyers told him that his
case for fighting deportation was a pretty weak one. In fact, they'd
never seen anyone win a case under these terms, and therefore, the
legal advice was dont do anything more that would further provoke the
Nixon administration. He really wanted to stay in the United States.
Yoko was involved, at that point, in a custody dispute over her
daughter from a previous marriage - her daughter Kyoko. So John, if
he had been deported, Yoko would've stayed behind. He didnt want to
be separated from Yoko, so he cancelled the plans for the concert
tour. He dropped out of movement activity and the FBI is reporting
that they have accomplished their job.
GROSS: So in that sense the FBI did succeed in neutralizing - as they
like to put it - in neutralizing John Lennon.
Prof. WIENER: Yeah, neutralizing is one of the scary words which
appear in the file. Some people think this refers, you know, to
assassination plans or something like that. I dont think that that's
the case. Neutralizing means silencing him, getting him out of the
picture through this deportation threat. And there's no question that
Lennon was silenced as a spokesman of the anti-war movement.
GROSS: How much do you think John Lennon knew about the FBI's
surveillance of him?
Prof. WIENER: Well, he understood that this whole deportation thing
was politically motivated. He complained publicly on TV shows, on
"The Mike Douglas Show," on "The Dick Cavett Show," you know, these
criminal enterprises that - too many people were coming to fix his
phones down on Bank Street in the West Village and that there were
strange men outside in suits who followed him around. He eventually
sued the FBI, claiming he had been the target of illegal wiretapping.
Part of his FBI file is the FBI's own response to that charge. They
replied that they could find no evidence of authorized wiretapping in
their files. You know, this seems to me like a typical Nixon-era,
non-denial denial. They say they could find no evidence, but maybe
they didnt look very hard. They said they could find no evidence of
authorized wiretapping, but it could've been unauthorized. It's also
possible that the wiretapping was not done by the FBI but was done by
the New York police or some other agency.
So Lennon sometimes thought he was just being paranoid. He would say,
you know, he wasnt important enough to be the target of this kind of
surveillance. And other times he, you know, loudly proclaimed that he
was the target of government persecution. It turns out it's the
second that was correct. But he never was sure in his own time that
it was the FBI that was after him.
GROSS: Do you have evidence that his phone really was tapped?
Prof. WIENER: There are no wiretapping logs in the Lennon FBI file of
the kind that there are, say, in the Martin Luther King files, so...
GROSS: Mm-hmm.
Prof. WIENER: ...this remains an open question. I mean, he lived next
door to John Cage on Bank Street, and whenever he needed to take a...
GROSS: Wow.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. WIENER: It's, you know, it's the '60s. It's the West Village in
the '60s. Whenever he needed to make, you know, a secure
conversation, they would go next door and use John Cage's phone in
the belief that the FBI didn't know John Cage was. They were probably
right about that.
GROSS: Right. The FBI wasn't interested in chance music, huh?
(Soundbite of laughter)
Prof. WIENER: Probably not.
GROSS: You know, you say in your book that one of the things you
really find fascinating about these FBI files is that they document
an era when rock music seemed to have real political force. Say some
more about that.
Prof. WIENER: Well, you know, it's a little hard to believe today
that a president would fear the power of a rock star. Rock stars
often today have political causes, but they're always or - they're
often - they're usually the safe ones - you know, save the rain
forest or fight breast cancer or something like that, issues that
nobody is going to, you know, try to deport you for advocating.
It's still hard to figure out whether the effort to deport Lennon was
a complete paranoia on Nixon's part. After all, Nixon did win the
1972 election by an overwhelming landslide. His opponent, George
McGovern, carried what, two or three states, something like that. So
maybe the whole thing was just paranoia on the part of Nixon matched
by paranoia on the part of Lennon and his friends.
On the other hand, all of this was put in motion long before that
presidential election, you know, in the winter beforehand. And at
that point, I don't think it was clear to anybody that Nixon was
going to win in a landslide. Nixon was concerned about this youth
vote and how that might affect the elections. It wasn't clear that
McGovern was going to be the candidate.
You know, there's a lot of reasons not to like Richard Nixon. I don't
-never liked him very much myself. But, you know, he was one of the
most successful political candidates in recent history. So I'm kind
of willing to accept Nixon's judgment that Lennon's political plans
for 1972 were significant, were interesting, and, you know, did merit
some kind of presidential response.
GROSS: And that's something that you find interesting about the
times, and something that you admire Lennon for.
Prof. WIENER: Yeah. I mean, Lennon really took risks here of a kind
that you hardly see anybody ever taking. How many people in the
entertainment world have faced deportation because of their political
actions? I mean, what - Charlie Chaplin was sort of run out of the
United States. Paul Robeson left. It was sort of the opposite, where
he was denied the right to travel, and then he left, you know,
anyway. You know, Bertolt Brecht fled after being quizzed by HUAC.
This is a very small group of people.
So I think it underscores the intensity of Lennon's commitment. I
mean, I don't think he knew the risks he was taking. But, you know,
that's sort of what he was like. He was a risk-taker. He wanted to
stand up for what he believed in. He wasn't going to play it safe. It
wasn't a safe age. So I think that's admirable.
GROSS: Well, John Wiener, I thank you so much for talking with us.
Prof. WIENER: My pleasure.
BIANCULLI: Historian John Wiener, speaking to Terry Gross in the year
2000. His book about the FBI investigation of John Lennon is called
"Gimme Some Truth."
John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, would have turned 70 tomorrow.
On our website, you can link to an op-ed by John Weiner in today's
L.A. Times and read letters supporting Lennon's case to stay in the
country written by Bob Dylan, John Cage and others. That's at
freshair.npr.org.
Coming up: Film critic David Edelstein reviews two new movies. This
is FRESH AIR.
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