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John Lennon File Released by FBI After 25-year Legal Battle
After 25-years of holding on to surveillance documents surrounding the life of former Beatle John Lennon the FBI has finally turned over the reports to a university historian.
Jon Wiener has been trying to get the documents from the FBI for over a quarter-century and his persistence has finally paid off. The final 10 pages of documents were released to Weiner despite the FBI’s attempts to withhold the information.
The pages reveal Lennon’s ties to leftist and anti-war groups in London during the early 1970s. While the peace proponent had ties to these groups the U.S. government never considered him a serious threat.
Weiner began petitioning for the release of the government documents shortly after Lennon was assassinated on Dec. 8, 1980. The FBI refused to comply citing national security issues surrounded the files. They declared that an unnamed foreign government had supplied them with the information and if the documents were released the U.S. could face retaliation.
That argument was dismissed and the files were handed over to Wiener. According to the reports of the FBI Lennon had been approached by British leftists in hopes the singer would finance a left-wing bookshop in London. Lennon never gave the pair any money for their project.
The Justice Department was ordered by a federal judge to turn over the documents in 2004
