FBI to release last of its John Lennon files. LA Times: “The U.S. had said such an act could stir military retaliation. The papers, withheld 25 years, don’t seem to bear that out.”
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 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.
… Wiener initially obtained some files showing that the FBI closely monitored Lennon’s activities in 1971 and 1972. The documents indicated Nixon administration concern that Lennon would support then-Sen. George S. McGovern (D-S.D.) for president against incumbent Richard M. Nixon in 1972, the first year that 18-year-olds could vote.
But the FBI also withheld numerous files, saying they were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, including part of a surveillance report on a December 1971 antiwar rally in Michigan. There, Lennon urged the release of activist and singer John Sinclair, who was serving a 10-year sentence for possession of two marijuana joints. A judge soon freed him.
… Scott Hodes, who was acting chief of the FBI litigation unit dealing with freedom of information cases, said disclosure of the documents could strain relations between the U.S. and a foreign government, lead to diplomatic, political or economic retaliation and have a chilling effect on the flow of information between the two countries. Hodes also said disclosure of the documents could subject the government agents involved in the Lennon operation to “public ridicule, ostracism” or even jeopardize their safety.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
[LA Times]
Interview with Jon Wiener: Talk of the Nation, December 21, 2006
After a 25-year-long legal battle, the FBI has released the final documents relating to its surveillance of John Lennon in the 1970s.
Jon Wiener, a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine and author of Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files.
[NPR]
John Lennon - FBI Files: lennonfbifiles.com
Interview - Thursday 21st January 1971 - John Lennon and Yoko Ono talk to Robin Blackburn and Tariq Ali for the underground magazine Red Mole
John Lennon: I’ve always been politically minded, you know, and against the status quo. It’s pretty basic when you’re brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere.
… I’d always felt repressed. We were all so pressurised that there was hardly any chance of expressing ourselves, especially working at that rate, touring continually and always kept in a cocoon of myths and dreams. It’s pretty hard when you are Caesar and everyone is saying how wonderful you are and they are giving you all the goodies and the girls, it’s pretty hard to break out of that, to say ‘Well, I don’t want to be king, I want to be real.’
… Art is only a way of expressing pain. I mean the reason Yoko does such far out stuff is that it’s a far out kind of pain she went through.
… Oh, Jesus Christ, [stardom] was a complete oppression. I mean we had to go through humiliation upon humiliation with the middle classes and showbiz and Lord Mayors and all that. They were so condescending and stupid. Everybody trying to use us. It was a special humiliation for me because I could never keep my mouth shut and I’d always have to be drunk or pilled to counteract this pressure. It was really hell …. I found I was having continually to please the sort of people I’d always hated when I was a child.
… I keep on reading the Morning Star [the Communist newspaper] to see if there’s any hope, but it seems to be in the 19th century; it seems to be written for dropped-out, middle-aged liberals. 
We should be trying to reach the young workers because that’s when you’re most idealistic and have least fear.
… I’ve been reading Khrushchev Remembers. I know he’s a bit of a lad himself - but he seemed to think that making a religion out of an individual was bad; that doesn’t seem to be part of the basic Communist idea. Still people are people, that’s the difficulty.
Yoko Ono: I want to incite people to loosen their oppression by giving them something to work with, to build on. They shouldn’t be frightened of creating themselves - that’s why I make things very open, with things for people to do, like in my book.
Because basically there are two types of people in the world: people who are confident because they know they have the ability to create, and then people who have been demoralised, who have no confidence in themselves because they have been told they have no creative ability, but must just take orders [emphasis added]. The Establishment likes people who take no responsibility and cannot respect themselves.
[Link]
Thought for today:
Roland is a fine singer, songwriter, guitarist, dancer, and more. 
“Music is sex.”
Vijaya Anand
A standard is something that we use to measure other things. It is the 
His guitar work nicely supports and complements his voice. On the album, his band, The Truly Richards, delivers the rock context; although I preferred his solo interpretation at the Cedar Cultural Center, just JP and his guitar.