FBI releases controversial Lennon files

[deminks]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-me-lennon20dec20,1,1904263.story?track=rss

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 University of California, 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 aide, 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 that had been totally 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, said that 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."

(snip)

Rather, the previously classified document states that Lennon was using his "tangible assets" to try to get custody of his wife Yoko Ono's child, who was in the care of her former husband.

[Roland99]

1. Tariq Ali? The same that wrote "Clash of Fundamentalisms"?

[Lautremont]

2. Maybe this will pave the way for the release of the controversial

Lemmon files. It'll be notes from Hoover asking where he got that dress he wears in "Some Like It Hot."

[shanti]

3. must be because of the upcoming release

of "the u.s. vs. john lennon", which is in my netflix queue.

[bananas]

4. releasing them could cause "military retaliation against the United States" - from England?

England seems to be the only country mentioned.

[Lautremont]

5. From Pepperland, perhaps.

A whole fleet of Yellow Submarines ready to torpedo key naval bases - this would indeed be a frightening prospect.

[catzies]

6. Anything to do with the movie US vs. John Lennon which came & went quickly?

I wondered if it got yanked because it said too much. I really want to see it. Especially now.

[NVMojo]

7. me too ...

[OneBlueSky]

8. you know the government is screwed up when they consider John Lennon . . .

more dangerous than, say, Goerge Bush . . .