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DEC 25 - 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.
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John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono raise their fists as they
join a protest in front of British Overseas Airways Corp.
offices in New York in this Feb. 5, 1972, file photo. The
demonstrators called for the withdrawal of British troops from
Northern Ireland.The FBI has released its final surveillance
documents on 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,Dec. 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Ron
Frehm, file) |
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. (AP)
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