The FBI agreed Tuesday to make public the final 10 documents about the surveillance of John Lennon that it had withheld for 25 years from a UC Irvine historian on the grounds that releasing them could cause "military retaliation against the United States."
Despite the fierce battle the government waged to keep the documents secret, the files contain information that is hardly shocking, just new details about Lennon's ties to New Left leaders and antiwar groups in London in the early 1970s, said the historian, Jon Wiener.
For example, in one memo, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to H.R. Haldeman, President Nixon's chief of staff, that "Lennon had taken an interest in 'extreme left-wing activities in Britain' and is known to be a sympathizer of Trotskyist communists in England."
Another document had been blacked out on the grounds of national security when Wiener obtained it more than 20 years ago through litigation brought under the Freedom of Information Act. It is now known that it said two prominent British leftists, Tariq Ali and Robin Blackburn, had courted Lennon in hopes that he would "finance a left-wing bookshop and reading room in London."
But the newly released document adds that Lennon apparently gave them no money "despite a long courtship by Blackburn and Ali."
Another surveillance report states explicitly that there was "no certain proof" that Lennon had provided money "for subversive purposes." And yet another says there was no evidence that Lennon had any formal tie to any leftist group.
Another describes an interview with Lennon published in 1971 in an underground London newspaper called the Red Mole. "Lennon emphasized his proletarian background and his sympathy with the oppressed and underprivileged people of Britain and the world," the document says.
Wiener and his attorneys, Dan Marmalefsky of Morrison & Foerster and Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, all said the documents revealed there was no sign that government officials considered Lennon a serious threat. They said they were mystified that several administrations had resisted making the material public.
"The content of the files released today is an embarrassment to the U.S. government," said Wiener, 62, who has written two books on the late Beatle, "Come Together: John Lennon in His Time" and "Gimme Some Truth: the John Lennon FBI Files."
