December 3, 2020 • 42 mins
Did you know that Richard Nixon had a FBI case file open on Beatle John Lennon? Well he did! Why? Listen in to find out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan out there. Jerry's here, special guest, Jerry.
This is the Stuff you Should Know, the Super Subversive Edition. Yeah,
(00:27):
which is I mean it's a it's subversive, but not
coming from who you'd expect in this case. The subversive people, Chuck,
are two of the crookedest, worst Americans to ever take
a breath of life in the United States. Yes, Hoover
and Nixon. Right, Yes, Herbert Hoover and Charles J. Nixon.
(00:52):
M hmmm, no, no, no, not those two. Was it
Ja Egger Hoover and Richard Nixon? Richard mill House. I
think it's sa middle House, that's right. So you picked
this one, right? Um? Yeah, I think we got help
from our buddy, was it? Um? Oh, it is a
grabst article, right, this is a grabster So? Um, why
(01:16):
did you choose this one? Chuck? I'm just a Beatles nut.
I'm reading a massive Beatles book and just I'm always
thinking about the Beatles. So this is something I knew
a ton about. So now I know I know more.
What are you thinking about the Beatles right now? They
(01:36):
could write a song like they could like they're really
good at writing songs. You mean, I think so. I
know you're not a Beatles guy, but they're regarded as
good songwriters. Sure, I'm willing to concede that at least. Yeah,
I'm a grown person. I'm I can concede when I'm
wrong or when I've been bested. I think we differ
on Yoko oh no though, so that'll be you know,
(01:57):
that's where the tables are turned. Okay, because you like
her singing, isn't that right? I appreciate it. I don't know.
Like is a pretty strong word, but I definitely appreciate it.
There's some songs like have you ever heard I Love
You Earth? Sure, that's a pretty sweet song. I like
her singing on that. But have you ever heard her
(02:17):
her cover of Katie Perry's Fireworks? No, I bet that's
something she did it at um maybe MoMA or the
Mad or something like that. And she's just standing there whaling.
She's not singing words or anything like that, just whaling.
And it was her cover of of Katie Perry's Firework
and it's it's pretty great to see I'm sure if
(02:38):
you look it up on YouTube. But I appreciate a
lot of her stuff. How about that. I appreciate her
as a human. And it's always fun to look back
at at performances, live performances with Lennon when she would
do a full like four or five songs on the
row in the middle of like Madison Square Garden concert
and you could kind of see his his backing band
(03:00):
just kind of like a boy. I can't believe we're
doing this right right, Um. And she's actually pretty strongly
implicated in this whole thing we're talking about John Lennon
um being pursued and and surveilled and basically harassed by
the FBI UM in the nineteen seventy two actually seventy two,
(03:25):
I believe um for a very specific reason. And it
was at a time when John Lennon and Yoko had
just got married. They got married like two to three
years before, and um, we're a very famous couple. The
grab star argues that they may have been like the
first genuine celebrity activist couple who actually used their celebrity
as a way to help help influence or help causes
(03:49):
that kind of thing. Um and by the time two
rolled around, Richard Milhouse Nixon was actually running for re
election again, and he decided that he didn't like people
like John Lennon running around conceivably swaying the vote, particularly
among newly minted voters in the eighteen to twenty one
(04:11):
year old block. Yeah, I mean, he and Yoko had
been contributors to causes, working class causes. It's sort of
the notion that Lennon was always known as the working
class hero. But uh, of all the Beatles, he grew
up more solidly middle class than any of the rest
of him. And not to say that that was a
(04:33):
false persona, but he definitely sort of, um, sort of
jumped and sort of leaned into that, as Noel Brown
would say, as far as is his persona. And I
think a lot of people that don't dig deep kind
of think that John Lennon grew up in with a
very hard scrap of life they're in Liverpool, which is
not the case. But um, as a result of that,
(04:54):
he championed the working man. He and Yoko contributed to causes. Uh,
he became him along with Yoko, very much pacifist activists.
And if you're a pacifist activist in the early seventies.
You're not going to be a big fan of Richard Nixon,
and he's not going to be a big fan of
you because he was. He was not cry about war, No,
(05:16):
he really wasn't. He'd even campaigned, um, I think in
sixty eight on ending the Vietnam War and then actually
went the exact opposite direction with that. Um, there was
a lot if you're a pacifist, there was a lot
to be upset about in the sixties and early seventies
because of Vietnam alone, you know, yeah, for sure. One
of the ways I think that got the most pressed
that when people think about John and Yoco's activism is
(05:39):
the bed ends that they had. That is B E. D, DASH,
I N S. And that is if you don't know
what those are, that's when you lay around in bed
and you invite the press to come to your room
and talk to you while you lay around in bed,
and why are why you're laying around in bed? And
it looked kind of ridiculous to a lot of people,
(05:59):
especially people on the right. But um, John Lennon's whole
kind of point, and he was a very tongue in
cheek kind of had a great sense of humor. But
I think it all sort of stemmed from that, which
is like, hey, are you gotta do a stay in
bed and not go and start wars? And this is
a pretty ridiculous way to drive that point home. Yeah. Yeah,
Like rather than having to like go out and oppose violence,
(06:19):
you could oppose violence just by laying around in bed
and doing nothing, letting your hair grow, I think is
what they were saying, which is pretty awesome. And and
the thing is is it's John Lennon and you know,
Yoko Ono, and they're sitting around in bed with the
press in their hotel room, and like that in and
of itself is getting pressed. And then if you say,
well what is all this about, and you read a
(06:39):
little further into the article, I don't know, maybe it
kind of gets you in just the right way, and
all of a sudden you start thinking that way too.
And to the people who were, you know, running the
whole military industrial complex, that that, I mean, that's a threat, um,
even if it's just a threat of the threat of
saying like just don't you don't even have to oppose war,
(07:01):
just don't do anything. And that opposes Warren and of itself.
And that was like kind of the way things were
at the time. Like there was a lot of a
lot of people in power who were really opposed to
that kind of thinking, who were opposed to people who
were opposed to Vietnam or war in general, or violence
(07:22):
of any kind. Um, there was a big opposition of that,
and the people who were running the show in the
United States were chief among those people. Like we said
Nixon as president and then running for reelection, then JEdgar Hoover,
who was not shy at all about doing whatever he
needed to to quiet dissent, Like he would generate dossier's
(07:42):
on elected officials, especially ones who were more liberal, to
to basically keep them in line by threatening them with
blackmail or even the threat of blackmail. You know. Um,
there were plenty of hippies who got their heads cracked
in there were people who were surveilled. Um, we did
an up as it on the Black Panthers, if you remember,
we talked about um co intel pro the whole program
(08:05):
to basically undermine and smear the Black Panthers in the
public's mind. Like the Jake Er Hoover was a vicious
terrible human being. Um, And he ran the FBI for
decades and was still running the FBI when they started
to target John Lennon. Yeah. So to set the stage
here of kind of have this all worked out, was, um,
(08:27):
John Lennon had uh, he was able to enter. The
whole thing kind of boils down to whether or not
he would be allowed to live in the US, or
whether or not, if he was eventually allowed to live
in the U s if they could legally deport him.
So he was able to enter the US on a
work visa in seventy one. And concurrent with this, Yoko
Ono had a custody battle going on. She had a
(08:51):
daughter from her previous marriage in the early seventies and
she wasn't gonna leave at all. She was legally there.
They did try and deport her. They didn't know that
she had a green card already, which was sort of
the first foible in this thing. But they they knew
that they had a lot of leverage over Lennon because
if they deported him, he would be without his wife
(09:13):
who was going to stay there, So they have this leverage.
Lennon loved living in New York City. That's where he
wanted to make his permanent home so much so that
that was also leverage that they had to Yeah. Absolutely,
And so Nixon's up for re election in seventy two. Um,
he would go on to win, you know, in a big,
big way against McGovern. But they were, you know, they
(09:36):
were and it was about to comm an organization. They
were an administration that was very paranoid. Um. They would
obviously with Watergate, they showed that they were willing to
do anything to ensure their victory, and that included being
really worried about people like John Lennon. I don't think
he was at the top of their list of things
(09:57):
to worry about, but he was on their list thanks
to strom thurm of all people. Yeah. So strom Thurman,
the horrible segregationist senator UM from what South Carolina? Right, Uh.
He he actually kicked this whole thing off because I guess, uh,
he noticed that John Lennon was was you know, he
(10:19):
was left leaning rock star activists. He's he seems to
have been one of the first people that notice the
activism that was developing among John Lennon and Yoko on
No and to perceive it as a threat to the
establishment because all those um recently enfranchised eighteen, nineteen and
twenty year old voters who hadn't had the right to
(10:40):
vote until the twenty sixth Amendment had been passed. I
don't remember exactly when it was past, but it was
between sixty eight and seventy two, because seventy two was
the first election those younger kids were going to be
able to vote in, and he apparently saw Lennon as
among a group of people who could speak to those
kids and way them to the left and potentially unseen
(11:02):
Richard Nixon, which it would turn out is just a
total laugh because Nixon beat McGovern in a landslide. But
at the time they didn't know this, and Richard Nixon
wasn't going to take any chances, so his his the
note from strom Thurman was very well received in the
Nixon administration. Yeah, I think, Uh, what I want to
know is who told strom Thurman. That's what I want
(11:22):
to note too, because that's the biggest mystery here. Yeah.
I doubt of strom Thurman was too hip to any
of this, but somebody probably got in his ear and
he said he sent a note that specifically said they
try and get him deported as a quote strategic countermeasure. Uh,
and that's really kind of what got the ball rolling.
We should also mention this other guy, John. I don't
(11:44):
know if it's Weener or Winer. In this case, it's
pronounced weener slave. Oh it is no. Do you remember
there was a thirty Rock episode where there's like an
HR mediator and he's like this very soft, rosy cheeked,
very calm, mild bannerd man and um Liz Lemon says, well,
Mr Weiner's slav and he goes, no, it's pronounced weener slave.
(12:07):
I missed that show. It's like that was a really
good moment. They had such a great fun with dumb
jokes like that Bob blah blah. Yeah right, No, that
was the rest of development. Oh, that's right, that was
the rest of development. They kind of had the same
DNA though. So Weener slave Uh was a writer and
or is a writer and historian still, and he is
(12:28):
why we know so much of this. He was writing
a lot about John Lennon, writing a lot about the Beatles.
Um he decided to file uh Freedom of Information Act
requests to get a lot of these documents uncovered over
the years, and eventually he was successful, um in a
big dump in n then another smaller one in two
(12:49):
thousand and six. And if it not been for his tenacity, UM,
I don't know if anyone else would have picked up
this mantel too, because you know, in the end, it's
not the most interesting story in the world. This is true.
I say that in a whisper It's not like some
huge like oh my God, revelations. It's sort of one
of those things that's like just another example of the
(13:11):
small things that authoritarians do in this country under you know,
in the back rooms and in the whispered rooms of
the White House. Well, you know, I think that that's
really true. And that's a really good point, is that,
Like if you just look at it on his face,
like you know, the FBI followed around John Lennon, kept
tabs on him, and like if you read the files,
(13:31):
it's really pedestrian, boring stuff. UM, you might miss like
the real story here. In the real story here is
that a sitting president directed the FBI to get dirt
that he could use against a political rival and activist
rock Star, to help get him deported or to figure
out what leverage he could use against him. So that
(13:52):
that that sitting president could get reelected. That's the real
story here, and that the FBI acted as as you know,
this um basically a get Stapo type agency on behalf
of Nixon. That's the real story that I think kind
of gets covered up by John Lennon and Yoko Ono's
celebrity and the you know, the FBI kind of wackily
(14:13):
following up around. Yeah, it is funny because if you
look at some of the files and some of the reports,
like they would go to his concerts and undercover agents
would go to the concerts and report things like, you know,
he for his encore, he's saying give Piece of Chance
and we all know about that song, and they would
take notes on song lyrics and stuff like that. So
it's all just kind of silly. But um, yeah, I
(14:36):
definitely agree that it's it's just an example of the
links that Nixon would go to to be a dirty thief. Yes, well, Chuck,
I think we should demonstrate the links that will go
to to bring everyone a message break. What do you
think by just shutting up for two minutes? Okay, so
(15:13):
the whole thing um started. Eventually, it wasn't clear what
was gonna happen. But the real thing that kicked all
of John Lennon's big problems off was that he was
arrested in ninety eight in London for possession of narcotics
um and making air quotes you can't see because he
was busted with some pot I think maybe some hash
(15:34):
um and like rolling paraphernale. Is there's some really bs
beef that they got him on in London. There was
some true believer, zealous anti drug cop named Detective Sergeant
Norman pilcher Um who was later jailed actually for committing
perjury as a police officer. Um. But he uh, he
(15:58):
was alleged to have planted the evidence that may or
may not be true. But it was like a rap
that Lennon shouldn't have had on him or Yoko shouldn't
have had on her. Um that they just wanted a
high profile bust, and that happened in nine and it
turned out that that would follow Lennon for years to
come and really kind of be the fulcrum that the
(16:19):
US government had on him to try to keep him
from staying in the US. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't
even doing heroin at this point. I don't think so
they should have waited if they wanted a real case. Well,
it makes you wonder, Like I I remember hearing in
our I think Our Black Panther episode that the FBI
was not above like addicting activists and dissidents with Heroin,
(16:43):
like turning him onto Heroin and then getting him addicted
and then just you know, taking him out of the
game like that. Yeah, I think Lennon never shot Heroin.
That was his jam. Okay, so early seventy one, like
I said, he was able to enter on a tourist
visa and then when Nixon and his cronies get going
on the deportation. The whole thing was based on the
(17:05):
fact that he had overstayed his visa. UM. But along
with that, it was very valuable to them that he
had a drug conviction under his belt at that point,
so they were surveilling him. They were surveilling other artists
around the country to who they thought were subversive and
sending messages UM Lennon speaking of getting busted for Pott,
(17:26):
Lennon very famously wrote a song called John Sinclair Uh
in support and did a tribute or not tribute but
a concert in UM I don't know if they were
raising money or just awareness both. Okay. For John Sinclair,
who was a poet, he was the manager of the
m C five great great rock band UM and he
(17:50):
offered to undercover cops a couple of joints and went
and he had already had a couple of minor pot offenses.
But he went to prison for ten years for the
US and a big refrain in that song John Sinclair,
which is a cool song and very um roots and bluesy,
not like very linen at all. Uh is tin for two?
Tin for two is what they keep saying. Ten years
(18:12):
for two joints. Yeah, that he's sold to undercover cop right, Yeah,
but it worked. He actually was sprung from prison shortly
after this concert, yeah, like two days after. And some
people say, I think that indicates he was already going
to be sprung, that the Michigan Supreme Court knew this
was a this is a trumped up charge, but other
people say not. The concert surely had some impact, but
(18:35):
Sinclair is UM. So the point about Sinclair and John
Lennon is John Lennon performed the song. He was the
headliner at this concert in ann Arbor, and he had
been coordinating with other people in John Sinclair's Orbit UM
that were prominent figures in the New Left. And at
this time, in the early seventies, the sixties had ended
(18:58):
UM the the it had become clear that flower power
hadn't worked. The evil people were still in charge. So
what was next? Uh, maybe non violent coordination and UM
and resistance wasn't the way to go. Now. Lennon and
Yoko were dedicated pacifists. They didn't want anything to do
with violence, They didn't condone violence, they didn't like violence
(19:19):
in any way shape before. But there were elements in
the New Left UM who weren't necessarily convinced that that
wasn't the only way to to change the course of
of the United States and get rid of people like
Nixon and his cronies UM. And So, if you're watching
this from the outside, like your Jacker Hoover and Richard Nixon,
(19:41):
you're watching the people on the New Left, and you
don't know which way they're gonna break, violent, non violent,
who knows, But you're treating all of them with suspicion,
And all of a sudden, John Lennon, one of the
most recognizable and popular people on the Planet is suddenly
hanging out with some of these new left cats that
you don't know which way they're gonna go violent or
non violent, And that really drew the attention of the
(20:03):
FBI to John Line. It wasn't necessarily he and Yoko
and their pacifist stuff. It was some people think that
it was his involvement with genuine bona fide new left
activists like John Sinclair or like Um, like Bobby seal
Um like John Sinclair founded the White Panther Party, which
(20:25):
they had a ten point platform like the Black Panthers platform,
and the first platform in the White Panther platform is
that it's fully in support of the Black Panthers ten
point platform. So he's hanging out with a bunch of
people that um had proven themselves as as as died
in the wool foes of the Nixon administration. That definitely
caught the FBI's attention. Yeah, and they had big plans.
(20:48):
They got together and I think their first meeting was
that the Alla Ala Mooki Township and so I'm going
to pronounce it the Scaramucci Township in New jery Z.
And initially called themselves the Alamouki Tribe, but wisely changed
their name to the Election Year Strategy Information Center. And
their plan was in nineteen seventy two is to hosted
(21:12):
and Lennon gave them money. He gave him like seventy
grand to kind of get going and said, here, listen
to a bunch of concerts with the help of John Lennon,
all across all across the country in nineteen seventy two.
We can have different artists performing different speakers, um, you know,
like pounding home the anti war message. And then as
these concerts roll closer and closer to the election, it'll
(21:34):
culminate in a big protest at the RNC in Miami. Um,
this is all very legal stuff. It wasn't. They weren't
staging riots or anything. These were just concerts awareness, um,
trying to keep Nixon from winning. And Nixon got worried
and he knew that, Like you said, the influence that
someone like John Lennon could have was like, he didn't
(21:56):
have anyone on his side. There was no Scott Bayo
at the time, wooing the youngsters blah blah to the right.
Oh he was blah blah blah, wouldn't he That's funny? Um,
So this is all going on, and this is kind
of what ramps up the pressure to get Lennon out
of there. Uh, this custody battles going on, they know
about that, and so there their first step was to
(22:20):
instruct immigration and naturalization to try and say, hey, you've
overstayed your visa. You gotta get out of here. And
Lennon knew this was coming. This is no secret. He
had gone on TV shows talking about being uh followed
by the FBI being having his phone tapped, which we
still aren't sure if that really happened. I think it
says officially that there was no legal phone tapping in
(22:44):
the FBI documents, but that throwing that word legal in
there just kind of makes you think, like, well, were
there any illegal ones that you're not going to tell
us about? Yeah, I've read I read an interview, so
this is like the depths of mind, depravity. I didn't
even listen to the interview. I read a Fresh Air
interview with John Weener or winer Um about this and
(23:05):
he said that in the FBI responded and said they
they found no evidence of illegal wire tapping by the
FBI or no legal wire tapping by the FBI. So
so Winer's like, Okay, does that mean they were doing
illegal wire tapping or does it mean that they didn't
look very hard for evidence. It doesn't mean that they
weren't tapping his phone, is what he's saying. Right. Uh,
(23:29):
at least made Lenin paranoid enough, Like he wasn't just
not he wasn't not sweating this. He was this made
him very paranoid, um and with good reason. But he
took to going next door at the Dakoda building so
he would let Lennon use his phone in his apartment, uh,
to make phone calls and I guess, you know, assist
(23:50):
with the cause at the same time a little bit.
And then the FBI said, you know what could really
help is if we could bust them currently for narcotics
in the United States, if we have an active charge
drug charge against them, And Hoover sent it out himself.
He said, quote for info on a bureau n y
(24:11):
CPD Narcotics Division is aware of the subject's recent use
of narcotics, which is like every day, and are attempting
to obtain enough info to arrest both subject and wife
Yoko based on p D investigation. Yeah, by this time
I'm thinking he was using heroin. I think that's what
they were referencing, is his recent use. Oh really, I
didn't think that started until later. I thought it was
(24:32):
the early seventies. I thought it happened during his lost weekend.
But I may be wrong in that. I'm not that
far long. I'm gonna air towards you then, because I'm
just surmising here. I'm not the one who is a
big old book of Beatles history. M so. Um, I
don't know. They never they never actually busted him, right,
This was all just like they were planning on doing this,
(24:52):
but they never needed to. I don't think he was
arrested uh in the United States? Was he? I didn't know.
I didn't get that impression, but but it seemed like
everything was kind of barreling toward that. And even like
you were saying, the FBI was like, we've let the
NYPD know to to to go do this, um so,
And if you take a step back, like this is
(25:14):
some heat, this is some pressure that they're putting on
John and Yoko. They're basically saying, we're gonna split you
guys up by deporting John because we know that Yoko
is not going to leave the country because of this
custody battle. She can't afford to so she has to
stay here. So if we threatened deportation to John Lennon,
it might actually UM keep him in line. And the
(25:35):
FBI used the word neutralized that they were seeking to
neutralize Lennon. UM, and I guess some people who don't
dig very deeply into the story or like they were
going to assassinate John Lennon and UM John wiener Weiner
UM has pointed out like this is not at all
what they meant. They meant like basically making him ineffective,
like UM, taking him out of the game, basically one
(25:57):
way or another. UM, but not killing him, just convincing
him through putting this undo unfair undemocratic pressure on him
to drop his activities with the New Left. Yeah, and
they And by the way, I think I think he
probably was using heir when in the late sixties then
headed on again off again, but either way, so so
(26:19):
that makes sense because I did see that guys like
Jerry Rubin and UM, I think Renny Davis, a couple
of like the Chicago Seven, like they didn't even like
hang out with them because he was doing too many drugs,
and I'm guessing that it wasn't like he was smoking
so much pot. We can't even talk with them anymore.
Like I think he was shooting dope and they weren't. Yeah,
(26:40):
well he never shot it. He always smoked it, smoking dope,
but he and I think he and Yoko were doing
here when actually before the Beatles broke up at the end,
when they were sort of a strange not with the Beatles,
not John and Yoko, but um at any rate, they,
like I said, these investigations are going on and they're
going to his concerts and they're not even sending information
(27:00):
that really means much. They're even saying some of these informants,
like you know what they're they're not even really down with,
Like the New Left isn't even down with them because
they think they're just quote self aggrand aggrandizing rock stars
or there's a little chance that they'll accomplish anything because
they spend all their time doing drugs. They're kind of
sending the message like you really don't need to worry
(27:23):
so much about John Lennon. He's not much of a threat. Uh.
Kind Of One of the funny things about this investigation
was when um the Lennon was one of the most
famous people in the world, one of the most recognizable
faces in the world on planet Earth, along with Yoko
oh No, and the FBI, it passes around a sheet
with Lennon's picture on it so they can recognize him.
(27:46):
But it was the wrong photo. It was of a
different human being. It wasn't even John Lennon. Yeah, it
was a street busker from the West Village named David Peel,
so funny, who had a record that I guess John
Lennon helped produce or something, and he looked vaguely like
John Lennon. But that was the That was the picture
that the FBI passed around of the cops of the
(28:06):
wrong guy. They also the FBI also put out at
All Points bulletin UM searching for John Lennon and said
that he's at the St. Regis at one fifty Bank Street,
UM landscape. Sup. That's right. I guess that's what they meant,
because the St. Regis Hotel is on Central Park UM
and John Lennon was indeed living on Bank Street at
(28:27):
the time, but he was at one oh five Bank Street,
so that All Points bulletin was all kinds of wrong.
But this is the level of like um copery that
that that the FBI was conducting, you know, trying to
get John Lennon. All right, well, let's take a break
and we'll come back and talk a little bit about
Lennon's official defense right after this. Alright, so John Lennon
(29:08):
is not going to take this lying down. He was.
He was paranoid. He was going on like the Mike
Douglas Show and talking about the FBI coming after him. Um.
The first thing he did was probably what any really
really rich person would do, is he hires a top
rate bulldog attorney UM to try and defend this or
at least delay this. And this guy's name was Leon
(29:28):
Wilde's and he really did delay this. He was sort
of a master at filing these motions and getting it
extended and extended, and Lennon was able to stay in
the country longer and longer and longer. But he was
also kind of instrumental in UM kind of letting Lennon
know that this was a real situation that he was
involved in. Right. UM. The thing is is, if you
(29:51):
UM are a immigration prosecutor for the federal government of
the United States, you know that there's not a ton
of resources allocated to your division, right or traditionally there
hasn't been, and so customarily the Justice Department has or
I guess i n S has left it up to
each prosecutor to determine how hard they want to prosecute
(30:14):
the case. And so if you are a UM, upstanding
person who's never posed any sort of threat to the
United States, and maybe you own a business or your
productive member of society, there's a chance that the I
n S is going to look the other way and
not actually deport you, even if you are here illegally,
(30:35):
you have overstayed your visa or you came to the
country illegally who knows. Um. And that's actually where the
Dreamer program came from, docca uh. It basically said, like,
these particular immigrants were brought here as children and they
pose no threat. Most of them are going to college
or college bounder there in the military, so we're going
to not deport them. Um. And what what Lennon's um
(30:58):
lawyer told him was like all of this is true,
and yet they're putting the heat on you like I
have never seen this is this is clearly coming down
from on high, like they want to get you out
of the United States. And it's not just this prosecutor. Yeah.
And the other thing that happens when it comes to
a case like this is they have to weigh or
(31:19):
they can be decided basically on the value that an
immigrant might bring to the US by being an American
or living in the United States. And so there was
you know, it's kind of funny to look back now
and think that there had to be a case made
that John Lennon brings any kind of value, But they did.
And there was a series of letters written um by
(31:41):
Bob Dylan and John Baya's and Joyce, Carol Oates, Leonard Bernstein,
John Updike, just a series of very famous artist kind
of arguing in favor of John Lennon being allowed to
live here. It was sort of a flood of public
outcry like what you know, what little was known back
then at least, like you can't just there's tremendous value
(32:01):
to letting John Lennon stay in this country, right, And
don't forget John Cage wrote a letter to and I'm
sure it was kind of like, well, you know, do
you want me to write a letter for you, John,
He's like, yeah, sure, I'm sure that would help a lot,
John Cage, because I'm sure no one in the Nixon
administration has ever heard of you. So, um the one
(32:23):
kind of the up shot, I'm just going full on
using this word now. The upshot of of that letter
writing campaign was not even just so much to demonstrate
the value of of John Lennon remaining in the United States.
It was if you kick him out, like, there's going
to be a public outcry and you're gonna be held
to account and asked to explain why you guys kicked
(32:44):
him out. Um So, it did have a bit of that,
combined with um, his his attorney's tenacity, it kept John
Lennon in the country. He was actually never deported, even
though they were. He had a He lived for I
think two or three years with a you have sixty
days to leave the country order, and his his lawyer
kept getting it extended and extended and extended. But for
(33:07):
three years that was the threat that he was living under,
and again he was deported. He would leave without his wife,
who had to stay in the country for her own
custody battle. Um So that was that was a lot
of strain on him. Actually, And UM, the worst part
about this whole thing is not that the FBI did
this and that the Knickson administration single mounter, that it
(33:29):
all came down to strom Thurman writing this memo to
kick things off. It was that it worked. Like they
sought to neutralize John Lennon and his political activism and
he stopped. He actually did. He gave in uh in
August nine seventy two by announcing that he was not
going to take part in that series of concerts that
was going to culminate at the Republican National Convention, or
(33:52):
engage in any kind of activist activities any longer. He's
just going to go back to being a musician again. Yeah.
And by this point, Hoover was dead. Uh L. Patrick
Gray was the acting director of the FBI, and in
that same month at August before the election, in November, UM,
the FBI's New York office reported to Gray that he's
(34:15):
no longer going to be involved with these concerts, he's
no longer with the new Left. Um, we don't really
need to worry about him anymore. UM, We're gonna basically
settle this case and close this case. After Nixon wins
the election, and like we said earlier, a couple of
times by landslide. So this is all sort of for
not anyway, um Gerald. Ford ended up overturning Lennon's deportation
(34:37):
order in nineteen five that was already filed, and in
seventy six he got his green card and lived in
New York, very famously in the Dakota for the last
four years of his life before he was murdered in
the street. Which I think we should do an episode
on that at some point, maybe in a couple of years,
once this one is well in the rear view mirror.
(34:57):
You bet it would be a good one. Um So
if if John Lennon, apparently before he died, he gave
a couple interviews and he said of this time like
that it nearly ruined him as an artist, you know,
like you said, he wasn't he wasn't just not sweating it,
like he sweated it every day. It was a big,
hairy problem in his life all the time and a
(35:19):
source of great stress. Um So, in addition to the
stress that it stole his focus, like it made him
think about that and like how much he hated the
Nixon administration and how terrible the FBI was for how
they were harassing him and possibly tapping his phone, and
it just took his mind from his art, and he
later said that it almost ruined him as an artist
(35:42):
because the work he was producing at the time was journalism,
not poetry, as he put it, um which is a
very sad effect, but it's it's a really real world effect.
When you've got something just looming in the front of
your mind that you can't get out of your mind,
especially if it's dealing with badness, it's that has a
(36:03):
terrible effect on you and and your life in general.
It can produce an entire bad period of your life,
you know. Yeah, he was like, I had to let
Yoko sing a lot. I've got I have something I
have to say. I don't want to forget it. And
one of the FBI notes at that John Sinclair concert,
the FBI informant reported that the song Johnson Claire was
(36:27):
not up to Lennon's usual standards. And you get this,
Yoko can't even remain on key. That was an FBI informat. Yeah,
he had a good hear, but you know, I like
the song. It doesn't like belong up there with his
greatest songs. But it was very it was very clear.
It was sort of in the tradition of protest songs.
It's got this acoustic slide dough Bro guitar and uh,
(36:51):
you know, it's sort of it fits in with the
great folk songs of all time, I think, but not
necessarily one of the great Lenin or Beatles songs. Is
it as good as John Henry was a steel driving man.
I think it's better. I like get better really, Uh yeah,
And you know, like we mentioned earlier, the reason we
know all this was because of Wieners reporting and uh
(37:14):
he eventually got those documents released, and there was you know,
in his circle, there was a big hubbub like what's
going to be in there? Um, what what secrets or
will be revealed? And really not much. What was revealed
was um embarrassment for the FBI, embarrassment that they released
a picture that wasn't even John Lennon, Embarrassment that they
(37:36):
had a very unethical um and perhaps even illegal um
motivation behind trying to get uh this person deported and
it was just egg on the face and that's why
they tried to keep it under wraps for so many
years hoping that it would not get out, not because
there were some big revealing documents, but they were just like,
can we just sort of act like this didn't happen. Yeah,
(37:57):
so we'll we'll classify everything as an national security risk
and they did, and actually that that last trove of documents,
the little handful that trickled out in two thousand and six,
was an m I five kind of British Secret Service
UM file on Lennon that the U S said if
they it was that that last bit of document contained
(38:20):
a file from a foreign government that had trusted the
US to keep it, and that it could result in economic,
diplomatic and military action if they were to release it,
Like the UK was just gonna gonna bomb the US
for releasing their document or their file on John Lennon.
That's why the FBI held onto it until two thousand
and six, and then they lost a court case. So like,
(38:42):
if there's a hero of the story, it's John Weener
or John Weiner, I don't know how he says his name,
And I'm sorry either way, because he was the one
that really stood up not just for John Lennon, but
for the First Amendment, you know, and people's ability to
be politically active without you know, the threat being intimidated. Um,
(39:02):
so good for him, totally. Uh, you got anything else
about this? Got nothing else? I have an article to
direct everybody too, is on pop Matters, John Lennon Colon
revolutionary man as political artist, and it's about all this
sorry history, but also just a pretty good critical evaluation
(39:24):
of him as an activist. And and it's just a
really good interesting article. So check it out. And since
I said check it out, everybody, it's time for a
listener mail. This is in reference of our haunted real estate.
I guess that was a short stuff, right, had to be. Yeah, yeah,
it was like, please tell me we didn't do forty
(39:46):
five minutes on that. We could have. Hey, guys, been
a listener for years and finally have a good reason
to write you. I was listening to the episode on
whether You're supposed to disclose whether a house is haunted
or not, and to hit close to home. Two years ago,
we bought our first house and I made a point
to run a report to see if anyone died in
the house. The previous owner had just died within the year,
but it didn't say where. I wasn't really worried about
(40:08):
someone actually dying in the house. I was really just
trying to get a big discount. However, the agent said
he didn't know, so no big discount. Cut to two
years later, I found out for neighbors and research that
the previous owner did not die. However, he was a
creep who actually had multiple abuse charges. In fact, I
found an article stating that he had a woman tied
(40:29):
up in our basement, man who he tortured until she
was luckily able to escape for weeks. That's like almost
worse than just a regular somebody dying of natural causes.
It's a million times worth. Well, no, I was about
to say, worse than a murder. I guess they're on bar. Yeah, well,
let's debate that at point. I don't want to. I
(40:50):
don't want to rank awful crimes, but I think that
might creep me out just as much. Let's just say
that the police searched the house and found oodles of weapons.
The charges were eventually dropped. Apparently he had money and
he redid the entire basement, which is beyond creepy. I
don't know if this qualifies as info that should have
been provided to us at purchase. But it sure seems
(41:12):
like it. Huh that is from Andy? Andy? I okay, Well,
thanks a lot. Andy. Is is there a heart over
the eye? Uh No, but it's typed is it? Um?
It could be uh Andy McDowell. I think she spelled
her name like that. I can see something like this
happening to any McDowell came. Well, whether it's from Andy
(41:34):
McDowell or not, we appreciate the email. UM, thank you,
and yes, I agree. I think the realtors should have
disclosed that if you asked me totally. If you want
to let us know about some way a realtor wronged
you or anybody did we want to hear about it,
you can send us an email to stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
(41:57):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, and
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M h m
hm
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan out there. Jerry's here, special guest, Jerry.
This is the Stuff you Should Know, the Super Subversive Edition. Yeah,
(00:27):
which is I mean it's a it's subversive, but not
coming from who you'd expect in this case. The subversive people, Chuck,
are two of the crookedest, worst Americans to ever take
a breath of life in the United States. Yes, Hoover
and Nixon. Right, Yes, Herbert Hoover and Charles J. Nixon.
(00:52):
M hmmm, no, no, no, not those two. Was it
Ja Egger Hoover and Richard Nixon? Richard mill House. I
think it's sa middle House, that's right. So you picked
this one, right? Um? Yeah, I think we got help
from our buddy, was it? Um? Oh, it is a
grabst article, right, this is a grabster So? Um, why
(01:16):
did you choose this one? Chuck? I'm just a Beatles nut.
I'm reading a massive Beatles book and just I'm always
thinking about the Beatles. So this is something I knew
a ton about. So now I know I know more.
What are you thinking about the Beatles right now? They
(01:36):
could write a song like they could like they're really
good at writing songs. You mean, I think so. I
know you're not a Beatles guy, but they're regarded as
good songwriters. Sure, I'm willing to concede that at least. Yeah,
I'm a grown person. I'm I can concede when I'm
wrong or when I've been bested. I think we differ
on Yoko oh no though, so that'll be you know,
(01:57):
that's where the tables are turned. Okay, because you like
her singing, isn't that right? I appreciate it. I don't know.
Like is a pretty strong word, but I definitely appreciate it.
There's some songs like have you ever heard I Love
You Earth? Sure, that's a pretty sweet song. I like
her singing on that. But have you ever heard her
(02:17):
her cover of Katie Perry's Fireworks? No, I bet that's
something she did it at um maybe MoMA or the
Mad or something like that. And she's just standing there whaling.
She's not singing words or anything like that, just whaling.
And it was her cover of of Katie Perry's Firework
and it's it's pretty great to see I'm sure if
(02:38):
you look it up on YouTube. But I appreciate a
lot of her stuff. How about that. I appreciate her
as a human. And it's always fun to look back
at at performances, live performances with Lennon when she would
do a full like four or five songs on the
row in the middle of like Madison Square Garden concert
and you could kind of see his his backing band
(03:00):
just kind of like a boy. I can't believe we're
doing this right right, Um. And she's actually pretty strongly
implicated in this whole thing we're talking about John Lennon
um being pursued and and surveilled and basically harassed by
the FBI UM in the nineteen seventy two actually seventy two,
(03:25):
I believe um for a very specific reason. And it
was at a time when John Lennon and Yoko had
just got married. They got married like two to three
years before, and um, we're a very famous couple. The
grab star argues that they may have been like the
first genuine celebrity activist couple who actually used their celebrity
as a way to help help influence or help causes
(03:49):
that kind of thing. Um and by the time two
rolled around, Richard Milhouse Nixon was actually running for re
election again, and he decided that he didn't like people
like John Lennon running around conceivably swaying the vote, particularly
among newly minted voters in the eighteen to twenty one
(04:11):
year old block. Yeah, I mean, he and Yoko had
been contributors to causes, working class causes. It's sort of
the notion that Lennon was always known as the working
class hero. But uh, of all the Beatles, he grew
up more solidly middle class than any of the rest
of him. And not to say that that was a
(04:33):
false persona, but he definitely sort of, um, sort of
jumped and sort of leaned into that, as Noel Brown
would say, as far as is his persona. And I
think a lot of people that don't dig deep kind
of think that John Lennon grew up in with a
very hard scrap of life they're in Liverpool, which is
not the case. But um, as a result of that,
(04:54):
he championed the working man. He and Yoko contributed to causes. Uh,
he became him along with Yoko, very much pacifist activists.
And if you're a pacifist activist in the early seventies.
You're not going to be a big fan of Richard Nixon,
and he's not going to be a big fan of
you because he was. He was not cry about war, No,
(05:16):
he really wasn't. He'd even campaigned, um, I think in
sixty eight on ending the Vietnam War and then actually
went the exact opposite direction with that. Um, there was
a lot if you're a pacifist, there was a lot
to be upset about in the sixties and early seventies
because of Vietnam alone, you know, yeah, for sure. One
of the ways I think that got the most pressed
that when people think about John and Yoco's activism is
(05:39):
the bed ends that they had. That is B E. D, DASH,
I N S. And that is if you don't know
what those are, that's when you lay around in bed
and you invite the press to come to your room
and talk to you while you lay around in bed,
and why are why you're laying around in bed? And
it looked kind of ridiculous to a lot of people,
(05:59):
especially people on the right. But um, John Lennon's whole
kind of point, and he was a very tongue in
cheek kind of had a great sense of humor. But
I think it all sort of stemmed from that, which
is like, hey, are you gotta do a stay in
bed and not go and start wars? And this is
a pretty ridiculous way to drive that point home. Yeah. Yeah,
Like rather than having to like go out and oppose violence,
(06:19):
you could oppose violence just by laying around in bed
and doing nothing, letting your hair grow, I think is
what they were saying, which is pretty awesome. And and
the thing is is it's John Lennon and you know,
Yoko Ono, and they're sitting around in bed with the
press in their hotel room, and like that in and
of itself is getting pressed. And then if you say,
well what is all this about, and you read a
(06:39):
little further into the article, I don't know, maybe it
kind of gets you in just the right way, and
all of a sudden you start thinking that way too.
And to the people who were, you know, running the
whole military industrial complex, that that, I mean, that's a threat, um,
even if it's just a threat of the threat of
saying like just don't you don't even have to oppose war,
(07:01):
just don't do anything. And that opposes Warren and of itself.
And that was like kind of the way things were
at the time. Like there was a lot of a
lot of people in power who were really opposed to
that kind of thinking, who were opposed to people who
were opposed to Vietnam or war in general, or violence
(07:22):
of any kind. Um, there was a big opposition of that,
and the people who were running the show in the
United States were chief among those people. Like we said
Nixon as president and then running for reelection, then JEdgar Hoover,
who was not shy at all about doing whatever he
needed to to quiet dissent, Like he would generate dossier's
(07:42):
on elected officials, especially ones who were more liberal, to
to basically keep them in line by threatening them with
blackmail or even the threat of blackmail. You know. Um,
there were plenty of hippies who got their heads cracked
in there were people who were surveilled. Um, we did
an up as it on the Black Panthers, if you remember,
we talked about um co intel pro the whole program
(08:05):
to basically undermine and smear the Black Panthers in the
public's mind. Like the Jake Er Hoover was a vicious
terrible human being. Um, And he ran the FBI for
decades and was still running the FBI when they started
to target John Lennon. Yeah. So to set the stage
here of kind of have this all worked out, was, um,
(08:27):
John Lennon had uh, he was able to enter. The
whole thing kind of boils down to whether or not
he would be allowed to live in the US, or
whether or not, if he was eventually allowed to live
in the U s if they could legally deport him.
So he was able to enter the US on a
work visa in seventy one. And concurrent with this, Yoko
Ono had a custody battle going on. She had a
(08:51):
daughter from her previous marriage in the early seventies and
she wasn't gonna leave at all. She was legally there.
They did try and deport her. They didn't know that
she had a green card already, which was sort of
the first foible in this thing. But they they knew
that they had a lot of leverage over Lennon because
if they deported him, he would be without his wife
(09:13):
who was going to stay there, So they have this leverage.
Lennon loved living in New York City. That's where he
wanted to make his permanent home so much so that
that was also leverage that they had to Yeah. Absolutely,
And so Nixon's up for re election in seventy two. Um,
he would go on to win, you know, in a big,
big way against McGovern. But they were, you know, they
(09:36):
were and it was about to comm an organization. They
were an administration that was very paranoid. Um. They would
obviously with Watergate, they showed that they were willing to
do anything to ensure their victory, and that included being
really worried about people like John Lennon. I don't think
he was at the top of their list of things
(09:57):
to worry about, but he was on their list thanks
to strom thurm of all people. Yeah. So strom Thurman,
the horrible segregationist senator UM from what South Carolina? Right, Uh.
He he actually kicked this whole thing off because I guess, uh,
he noticed that John Lennon was was you know, he
(10:19):
was left leaning rock star activists. He's he seems to
have been one of the first people that notice the
activism that was developing among John Lennon and Yoko on
No and to perceive it as a threat to the
establishment because all those um recently enfranchised eighteen, nineteen and
twenty year old voters who hadn't had the right to
(10:40):
vote until the twenty sixth Amendment had been passed. I
don't remember exactly when it was past, but it was
between sixty eight and seventy two, because seventy two was
the first election those younger kids were going to be
able to vote in, and he apparently saw Lennon as
among a group of people who could speak to those
kids and way them to the left and potentially unseen
(11:02):
Richard Nixon, which it would turn out is just a
total laugh because Nixon beat McGovern in a landslide. But
at the time they didn't know this, and Richard Nixon
wasn't going to take any chances, so his his the
note from strom Thurman was very well received in the
Nixon administration. Yeah, I think, Uh, what I want to
know is who told strom Thurman. That's what I want
(11:22):
to note too, because that's the biggest mystery here. Yeah.
I doubt of strom Thurman was too hip to any
of this, but somebody probably got in his ear and
he said he sent a note that specifically said they
try and get him deported as a quote strategic countermeasure. Uh,
and that's really kind of what got the ball rolling.
We should also mention this other guy, John. I don't
(11:44):
know if it's Weener or Winer. In this case, it's
pronounced weener slave. Oh it is no. Do you remember
there was a thirty Rock episode where there's like an
HR mediator and he's like this very soft, rosy cheeked,
very calm, mild bannerd man and um Liz Lemon says, well,
Mr Weiner's slav and he goes, no, it's pronounced weener slave.
(12:07):
I missed that show. It's like that was a really
good moment. They had such a great fun with dumb
jokes like that Bob blah blah. Yeah right, No, that
was the rest of development. Oh, that's right, that was
the rest of development. They kind of had the same
DNA though. So Weener slave Uh was a writer and
or is a writer and historian still, and he is
(12:28):
why we know so much of this. He was writing
a lot about John Lennon, writing a lot about the Beatles.
Um he decided to file uh Freedom of Information Act
requests to get a lot of these documents uncovered over
the years, and eventually he was successful, um in a
big dump in n then another smaller one in two
(12:49):
thousand and six. And if it not been for his tenacity, UM,
I don't know if anyone else would have picked up
this mantel too, because you know, in the end, it's
not the most interesting story in the world. This is true.
I say that in a whisper It's not like some
huge like oh my God, revelations. It's sort of one
of those things that's like just another example of the
(13:11):
small things that authoritarians do in this country under you know,
in the back rooms and in the whispered rooms of
the White House. Well, you know, I think that that's
really true. And that's a really good point, is that,
Like if you just look at it on his face,
like you know, the FBI followed around John Lennon, kept
tabs on him, and like if you read the files,
(13:31):
it's really pedestrian, boring stuff. UM, you might miss like
the real story here. In the real story here is
that a sitting president directed the FBI to get dirt
that he could use against a political rival and activist
rock Star, to help get him deported or to figure
out what leverage he could use against him. So that
(13:52):
that that sitting president could get reelected. That's the real
story here, and that the FBI acted as as you know,
this um basically a get Stapo type agency on behalf
of Nixon. That's the real story that I think kind
of gets covered up by John Lennon and Yoko Ono's
celebrity and the you know, the FBI kind of wackily
(14:13):
following up around. Yeah, it is funny because if you
look at some of the files and some of the reports,
like they would go to his concerts and undercover agents
would go to the concerts and report things like, you know,
he for his encore, he's saying give Piece of Chance
and we all know about that song, and they would
take notes on song lyrics and stuff like that. So
it's all just kind of silly. But um, yeah, I
(14:36):
definitely agree that it's it's just an example of the
links that Nixon would go to to be a dirty thief. Yes, well, Chuck,
I think we should demonstrate the links that will go
to to bring everyone a message break. What do you
think by just shutting up for two minutes? Okay, so
(15:13):
the whole thing um started. Eventually, it wasn't clear what
was gonna happen. But the real thing that kicked all
of John Lennon's big problems off was that he was
arrested in ninety eight in London for possession of narcotics
um and making air quotes you can't see because he
was busted with some pot I think maybe some hash
(15:34):
um and like rolling paraphernale. Is there's some really bs
beef that they got him on in London. There was
some true believer, zealous anti drug cop named Detective Sergeant
Norman pilcher Um who was later jailed actually for committing
perjury as a police officer. Um. But he uh, he
(15:58):
was alleged to have planted the evidence that may or
may not be true. But it was like a rap
that Lennon shouldn't have had on him or Yoko shouldn't
have had on her. Um that they just wanted a
high profile bust, and that happened in nine and it
turned out that that would follow Lennon for years to
come and really kind of be the fulcrum that the
(16:19):
US government had on him to try to keep him
from staying in the US. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't
even doing heroin at this point. I don't think so
they should have waited if they wanted a real case. Well,
it makes you wonder, Like I I remember hearing in
our I think Our Black Panther episode that the FBI
was not above like addicting activists and dissidents with Heroin,
(16:43):
like turning him onto Heroin and then getting him addicted
and then just you know, taking him out of the
game like that. Yeah, I think Lennon never shot Heroin.
That was his jam. Okay, so early seventy one, like
I said, he was able to enter on a tourist
visa and then when Nixon and his cronies get going
on the deportation. The whole thing was based on the
(17:05):
fact that he had overstayed his visa. UM. But along
with that, it was very valuable to them that he
had a drug conviction under his belt at that point,
so they were surveilling him. They were surveilling other artists
around the country to who they thought were subversive and
sending messages UM Lennon speaking of getting busted for Pott,
(17:26):
Lennon very famously wrote a song called John Sinclair Uh
in support and did a tribute or not tribute but
a concert in UM I don't know if they were
raising money or just awareness both. Okay. For John Sinclair,
who was a poet, he was the manager of the
m C five great great rock band UM and he
(17:50):
offered to undercover cops a couple of joints and went
and he had already had a couple of minor pot offenses.
But he went to prison for ten years for the
US and a big refrain in that song John Sinclair,
which is a cool song and very um roots and bluesy,
not like very linen at all. Uh is tin for two?
Tin for two is what they keep saying. Ten years
(18:12):
for two joints. Yeah, that he's sold to undercover cop right, Yeah,
but it worked. He actually was sprung from prison shortly
after this concert, yeah, like two days after. And some
people say, I think that indicates he was already going
to be sprung, that the Michigan Supreme Court knew this
was a this is a trumped up charge, but other
people say not. The concert surely had some impact, but
(18:35):
Sinclair is UM. So the point about Sinclair and John
Lennon is John Lennon performed the song. He was the
headliner at this concert in ann Arbor, and he had
been coordinating with other people in John Sinclair's Orbit UM
that were prominent figures in the New Left. And at
this time, in the early seventies, the sixties had ended
(18:58):
UM the the it had become clear that flower power
hadn't worked. The evil people were still in charge. So
what was next? Uh, maybe non violent coordination and UM
and resistance wasn't the way to go. Now. Lennon and
Yoko were dedicated pacifists. They didn't want anything to do
with violence, They didn't condone violence, they didn't like violence
(19:19):
in any way shape before. But there were elements in
the New Left UM who weren't necessarily convinced that that
wasn't the only way to to change the course of
of the United States and get rid of people like
Nixon and his cronies UM. And So, if you're watching
this from the outside, like your Jacker Hoover and Richard Nixon,
(19:41):
you're watching the people on the New Left, and you
don't know which way they're gonna break, violent, non violent,
who knows, But you're treating all of them with suspicion,
And all of a sudden, John Lennon, one of the
most recognizable and popular people on the Planet is suddenly
hanging out with some of these new left cats that
you don't know which way they're gonna go violent or
non violent, And that really drew the attention of the
(20:03):
FBI to John Line. It wasn't necessarily he and Yoko
and their pacifist stuff. It was some people think that
it was his involvement with genuine bona fide new left
activists like John Sinclair or like Um, like Bobby seal
Um like John Sinclair founded the White Panther Party, which
(20:25):
they had a ten point platform like the Black Panthers platform,
and the first platform in the White Panther platform is
that it's fully in support of the Black Panthers ten
point platform. So he's hanging out with a bunch of
people that um had proven themselves as as as died
in the wool foes of the Nixon administration. That definitely
caught the FBI's attention. Yeah, and they had big plans.
(20:48):
They got together and I think their first meeting was
that the Alla Ala Mooki Township and so I'm going
to pronounce it the Scaramucci Township in New jery Z.
And initially called themselves the Alamouki Tribe, but wisely changed
their name to the Election Year Strategy Information Center. And
their plan was in nineteen seventy two is to hosted
(21:12):
and Lennon gave them money. He gave him like seventy
grand to kind of get going and said, here, listen
to a bunch of concerts with the help of John Lennon,
all across all across the country in nineteen seventy two.
We can have different artists performing different speakers, um, you know,
like pounding home the anti war message. And then as
these concerts roll closer and closer to the election, it'll
(21:34):
culminate in a big protest at the RNC in Miami. Um,
this is all very legal stuff. It wasn't. They weren't
staging riots or anything. These were just concerts awareness, um,
trying to keep Nixon from winning. And Nixon got worried
and he knew that, Like you said, the influence that
someone like John Lennon could have was like, he didn't
(21:56):
have anyone on his side. There was no Scott Bayo
at the time, wooing the youngsters blah blah to the right.
Oh he was blah blah blah, wouldn't he That's funny? Um,
So this is all going on, and this is kind
of what ramps up the pressure to get Lennon out
of there. Uh, this custody battles going on, they know
about that, and so there their first step was to
(22:20):
instruct immigration and naturalization to try and say, hey, you've
overstayed your visa. You gotta get out of here. And
Lennon knew this was coming. This is no secret. He
had gone on TV shows talking about being uh followed
by the FBI being having his phone tapped, which we
still aren't sure if that really happened. I think it
says officially that there was no legal phone tapping in
(22:44):
the FBI documents, but that throwing that word legal in
there just kind of makes you think, like, well, were
there any illegal ones that you're not going to tell
us about? Yeah, I've read I read an interview, so
this is like the depths of mind, depravity. I didn't
even listen to the interview. I read a Fresh Air
interview with John Weener or winer Um about this and
(23:05):
he said that in the FBI responded and said they
they found no evidence of illegal wire tapping by the
FBI or no legal wire tapping by the FBI. So
so Winer's like, Okay, does that mean they were doing
illegal wire tapping or does it mean that they didn't
look very hard for evidence. It doesn't mean that they
weren't tapping his phone, is what he's saying. Right. Uh,
(23:29):
at least made Lenin paranoid enough, Like he wasn't just
not he wasn't not sweating this. He was this made
him very paranoid, um and with good reason. But he
took to going next door at the Dakoda building so
he would let Lennon use his phone in his apartment, uh,
to make phone calls and I guess, you know, assist
(23:50):
with the cause at the same time a little bit.
And then the FBI said, you know what could really
help is if we could bust them currently for narcotics
in the United States, if we have an active charge
drug charge against them, And Hoover sent it out himself.
He said, quote for info on a bureau n y
(24:11):
CPD Narcotics Division is aware of the subject's recent use
of narcotics, which is like every day, and are attempting
to obtain enough info to arrest both subject and wife
Yoko based on p D investigation. Yeah, by this time
I'm thinking he was using heroin. I think that's what
they were referencing, is his recent use. Oh really, I
didn't think that started until later. I thought it was
(24:32):
the early seventies. I thought it happened during his lost weekend.
But I may be wrong in that. I'm not that
far long. I'm gonna air towards you then, because I'm
just surmising here. I'm not the one who is a
big old book of Beatles history. M so. Um, I
don't know. They never they never actually busted him, right,
This was all just like they were planning on doing this,
(24:52):
but they never needed to. I don't think he was
arrested uh in the United States? Was he? I didn't know.
I didn't get that impression, but but it seemed like
everything was kind of barreling toward that. And even like
you were saying, the FBI was like, we've let the
NYPD know to to to go do this, um so,
And if you take a step back, like this is
(25:14):
some heat, this is some pressure that they're putting on
John and Yoko. They're basically saying, we're gonna split you
guys up by deporting John because we know that Yoko
is not going to leave the country because of this
custody battle. She can't afford to so she has to
stay here. So if we threatened deportation to John Lennon,
it might actually UM keep him in line. And the
(25:35):
FBI used the word neutralized that they were seeking to
neutralize Lennon. UM, and I guess some people who don't
dig very deeply into the story or like they were
going to assassinate John Lennon and UM John wiener Weiner
UM has pointed out like this is not at all
what they meant. They meant like basically making him ineffective,
like UM, taking him out of the game, basically one
(25:57):
way or another. UM, but not killing him, just convincing
him through putting this undo unfair undemocratic pressure on him
to drop his activities with the New Left. Yeah, and
they And by the way, I think I think he
probably was using heir when in the late sixties then
headed on again off again, but either way, so so
(26:19):
that makes sense because I did see that guys like
Jerry Rubin and UM, I think Renny Davis, a couple
of like the Chicago Seven, like they didn't even like
hang out with them because he was doing too many drugs,
and I'm guessing that it wasn't like he was smoking
so much pot. We can't even talk with them anymore.
Like I think he was shooting dope and they weren't. Yeah,
(26:40):
well he never shot it. He always smoked it, smoking dope,
but he and I think he and Yoko were doing
here when actually before the Beatles broke up at the end,
when they were sort of a strange not with the Beatles,
not John and Yoko, but um at any rate, they,
like I said, these investigations are going on and they're
going to his concerts and they're not even sending information
(27:00):
that really means much. They're even saying some of these informants,
like you know what they're they're not even really down with,
Like the New Left isn't even down with them because
they think they're just quote self aggrand aggrandizing rock stars
or there's a little chance that they'll accomplish anything because
they spend all their time doing drugs. They're kind of
sending the message like you really don't need to worry
(27:23):
so much about John Lennon. He's not much of a threat. Uh.
Kind Of One of the funny things about this investigation
was when um the Lennon was one of the most
famous people in the world, one of the most recognizable
faces in the world on planet Earth, along with Yoko
oh No, and the FBI, it passes around a sheet
with Lennon's picture on it so they can recognize him.
(27:46):
But it was the wrong photo. It was of a
different human being. It wasn't even John Lennon. Yeah, it
was a street busker from the West Village named David Peel,
so funny, who had a record that I guess John
Lennon helped produce or something, and he looked vaguely like
John Lennon. But that was the That was the picture
that the FBI passed around of the cops of the
(28:06):
wrong guy. They also the FBI also put out at
All Points bulletin UM searching for John Lennon and said
that he's at the St. Regis at one fifty Bank Street,
UM landscape. Sup. That's right. I guess that's what they meant,
because the St. Regis Hotel is on Central Park UM
and John Lennon was indeed living on Bank Street at
(28:27):
the time, but he was at one oh five Bank Street,
so that All Points bulletin was all kinds of wrong.
But this is the level of like um copery that
that that the FBI was conducting, you know, trying to
get John Lennon. All right, well, let's take a break
and we'll come back and talk a little bit about
Lennon's official defense right after this. Alright, so John Lennon
(29:08):
is not going to take this lying down. He was.
He was paranoid. He was going on like the Mike
Douglas Show and talking about the FBI coming after him. Um.
The first thing he did was probably what any really
really rich person would do, is he hires a top
rate bulldog attorney UM to try and defend this or
at least delay this. And this guy's name was Leon
(29:28):
Wilde's and he really did delay this. He was sort
of a master at filing these motions and getting it
extended and extended, and Lennon was able to stay in
the country longer and longer and longer. But he was
also kind of instrumental in UM kind of letting Lennon
know that this was a real situation that he was
involved in. Right. UM. The thing is is, if you
(29:51):
UM are a immigration prosecutor for the federal government of
the United States, you know that there's not a ton
of resources allocated to your division, right or traditionally there
hasn't been, and so customarily the Justice Department has or
I guess i n S has left it up to
each prosecutor to determine how hard they want to prosecute
(30:14):
the case. And so if you are a UM, upstanding
person who's never posed any sort of threat to the
United States, and maybe you own a business or your
productive member of society, there's a chance that the I
n S is going to look the other way and
not actually deport you, even if you are here illegally,
(30:35):
you have overstayed your visa or you came to the
country illegally who knows. Um. And that's actually where the
Dreamer program came from, docca uh. It basically said, like,
these particular immigrants were brought here as children and they
pose no threat. Most of them are going to college
or college bounder there in the military, so we're going
to not deport them. Um. And what what Lennon's um
(30:58):
lawyer told him was like all of this is true,
and yet they're putting the heat on you like I
have never seen this is this is clearly coming down
from on high, like they want to get you out
of the United States. And it's not just this prosecutor. Yeah.
And the other thing that happens when it comes to
a case like this is they have to weigh or
(31:19):
they can be decided basically on the value that an
immigrant might bring to the US by being an American
or living in the United States. And so there was
you know, it's kind of funny to look back now
and think that there had to be a case made
that John Lennon brings any kind of value, But they did.
And there was a series of letters written um by
(31:41):
Bob Dylan and John Baya's and Joyce, Carol Oates, Leonard Bernstein,
John Updike, just a series of very famous artist kind
of arguing in favor of John Lennon being allowed to
live here. It was sort of a flood of public
outcry like what you know, what little was known back
then at least, like you can't just there's tremendous value
(32:01):
to letting John Lennon stay in this country, right, And
don't forget John Cage wrote a letter to and I'm
sure it was kind of like, well, you know, do
you want me to write a letter for you, John,
He's like, yeah, sure, I'm sure that would help a lot,
John Cage, because I'm sure no one in the Nixon
administration has ever heard of you. So, um the one
(32:23):
kind of the up shot, I'm just going full on
using this word now. The upshot of of that letter
writing campaign was not even just so much to demonstrate
the value of of John Lennon remaining in the United States.
It was if you kick him out, like, there's going
to be a public outcry and you're gonna be held
to account and asked to explain why you guys kicked
(32:44):
him out. Um So, it did have a bit of that,
combined with um, his his attorney's tenacity, it kept John
Lennon in the country. He was actually never deported, even
though they were. He had a He lived for I
think two or three years with a you have sixty
days to leave the country order, and his his lawyer
kept getting it extended and extended and extended. But for
(33:07):
three years that was the threat that he was living under,
and again he was deported. He would leave without his wife,
who had to stay in the country for her own
custody battle. Um So that was that was a lot
of strain on him. Actually, And UM, the worst part
about this whole thing is not that the FBI did
this and that the Knickson administration single mounter, that it
(33:29):
all came down to strom Thurman writing this memo to
kick things off. It was that it worked. Like they
sought to neutralize John Lennon and his political activism and
he stopped. He actually did. He gave in uh in
August nine seventy two by announcing that he was not
going to take part in that series of concerts that
was going to culminate at the Republican National Convention, or
(33:52):
engage in any kind of activist activities any longer. He's
just going to go back to being a musician again. Yeah.
And by this point, Hoover was dead. Uh L. Patrick
Gray was the acting director of the FBI, and in
that same month at August before the election, in November, UM,
the FBI's New York office reported to Gray that he's
(34:15):
no longer going to be involved with these concerts, he's
no longer with the new Left. Um, we don't really
need to worry about him anymore. UM, We're gonna basically
settle this case and close this case. After Nixon wins
the election, and like we said earlier, a couple of
times by landslide. So this is all sort of for
not anyway, um Gerald. Ford ended up overturning Lennon's deportation
(34:37):
order in nineteen five that was already filed, and in
seventy six he got his green card and lived in
New York, very famously in the Dakota for the last
four years of his life before he was murdered in
the street. Which I think we should do an episode
on that at some point, maybe in a couple of years,
once this one is well in the rear view mirror.
(34:57):
You bet it would be a good one. Um So
if if John Lennon, apparently before he died, he gave
a couple interviews and he said of this time like
that it nearly ruined him as an artist, you know,
like you said, he wasn't he wasn't just not sweating it,
like he sweated it every day. It was a big,
hairy problem in his life all the time and a
(35:19):
source of great stress. Um So, in addition to the
stress that it stole his focus, like it made him
think about that and like how much he hated the
Nixon administration and how terrible the FBI was for how
they were harassing him and possibly tapping his phone, and
it just took his mind from his art, and he
later said that it almost ruined him as an artist
(35:42):
because the work he was producing at the time was journalism,
not poetry, as he put it, um which is a
very sad effect, but it's it's a really real world effect.
When you've got something just looming in the front of
your mind that you can't get out of your mind,
especially if it's dealing with badness, it's that has a
(36:03):
terrible effect on you and and your life in general.
It can produce an entire bad period of your life,
you know. Yeah, he was like, I had to let
Yoko sing a lot. I've got I have something I
have to say. I don't want to forget it. And
one of the FBI notes at that John Sinclair concert,
the FBI informant reported that the song Johnson Claire was
(36:27):
not up to Lennon's usual standards. And you get this,
Yoko can't even remain on key. That was an FBI informat. Yeah,
he had a good hear, but you know, I like
the song. It doesn't like belong up there with his
greatest songs. But it was very it was very clear.
It was sort of in the tradition of protest songs.
It's got this acoustic slide dough Bro guitar and uh,
(36:51):
you know, it's sort of it fits in with the
great folk songs of all time, I think, but not
necessarily one of the great Lenin or Beatles songs. Is
it as good as John Henry was a steel driving man.
I think it's better. I like get better really, Uh yeah,
And you know, like we mentioned earlier, the reason we
know all this was because of Wieners reporting and uh
(37:14):
he eventually got those documents released, and there was you know,
in his circle, there was a big hubbub like what's
going to be in there? Um, what what secrets or
will be revealed? And really not much. What was revealed
was um embarrassment for the FBI, embarrassment that they released
a picture that wasn't even John Lennon, Embarrassment that they
(37:36):
had a very unethical um and perhaps even illegal um
motivation behind trying to get uh this person deported and
it was just egg on the face and that's why
they tried to keep it under wraps for so many
years hoping that it would not get out, not because
there were some big revealing documents, but they were just like,
can we just sort of act like this didn't happen. Yeah,
(37:57):
so we'll we'll classify everything as an national security risk
and they did, and actually that that last trove of documents,
the little handful that trickled out in two thousand and six,
was an m I five kind of British Secret Service
UM file on Lennon that the U S said if
they it was that that last bit of document contained
(38:20):
a file from a foreign government that had trusted the
US to keep it, and that it could result in economic,
diplomatic and military action if they were to release it,
Like the UK was just gonna gonna bomb the US
for releasing their document or their file on John Lennon.
That's why the FBI held onto it until two thousand
and six, and then they lost a court case. So like,
(38:42):
if there's a hero of the story, it's John Weener
or John Weiner, I don't know how he says his name,
And I'm sorry either way, because he was the one
that really stood up not just for John Lennon, but
for the First Amendment, you know, and people's ability to
be politically active without you know, the threat being intimidated. Um,
(39:02):
so good for him, totally. Uh, you got anything else
about this? Got nothing else? I have an article to
direct everybody too, is on pop Matters, John Lennon Colon
revolutionary man as political artist, and it's about all this
sorry history, but also just a pretty good critical evaluation
(39:24):
of him as an activist. And and it's just a
really good interesting article. So check it out. And since
I said check it out, everybody, it's time for a
listener mail. This is in reference of our haunted real estate.
I guess that was a short stuff, right, had to be. Yeah, yeah,
it was like, please tell me we didn't do forty
(39:46):
five minutes on that. We could have. Hey, guys, been
a listener for years and finally have a good reason
to write you. I was listening to the episode on
whether You're supposed to disclose whether a house is haunted
or not, and to hit close to home. Two years ago,
we bought our first house and I made a point
to run a report to see if anyone died in
the house. The previous owner had just died within the year,
but it didn't say where. I wasn't really worried about
(40:08):
someone actually dying in the house. I was really just
trying to get a big discount. However, the agent said
he didn't know, so no big discount. Cut to two
years later, I found out for neighbors and research that
the previous owner did not die. However, he was a
creep who actually had multiple abuse charges. In fact, I
found an article stating that he had a woman tied
(40:29):
up in our basement, man who he tortured until she
was luckily able to escape for weeks. That's like almost
worse than just a regular somebody dying of natural causes.
It's a million times worth. Well, no, I was about
to say, worse than a murder. I guess they're on bar. Yeah, well,
let's debate that at point. I don't want to. I
(40:50):
don't want to rank awful crimes, but I think that
might creep me out just as much. Let's just say
that the police searched the house and found oodles of weapons.
The charges were eventually dropped. Apparently he had money and
he redid the entire basement, which is beyond creepy. I
don't know if this qualifies as info that should have
been provided to us at purchase. But it sure seems
(41:12):
like it. Huh that is from Andy? Andy? I okay, Well,
thanks a lot. Andy. Is is there a heart over
the eye? Uh No, but it's typed is it? Um?
It could be uh Andy McDowell. I think she spelled
her name like that. I can see something like this
happening to any McDowell came. Well, whether it's from Andy
(41:34):
McDowell or not, we appreciate the email. UM, thank you,
and yes, I agree. I think the realtors should have
disclosed that if you asked me totally. If you want
to let us know about some way a realtor wronged
you or anybody did we want to hear about it,
you can send us an email to stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
(41:57):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, and
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M h m
hm
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