# Selects: John Lennon and the FBI

An episode of [Stuff You Should Know](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/278981407), 24 Oct 2026, 43 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/a91018a4-ea4f-4130-bf55-ae270180c327/50977401-b32e-4473-974f-b4ec01254583/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=44710ecc-10bb-48d1-93c7-ae270180c33e

Did you know that Richard Nixon had a FBI case file open on Beatle John Lennon? Well he did! Why? Listen to this classic episode to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Christmas is in the air because December 3rd, 2020.
[0:04] Speaker 1: And you know what's also in the air? COVID. SARS. 19.
[0:10] Speaker 1: Is that what it was called? I can't even remember.
[0:11] Speaker 1: I think I got that wrong. And I'm glad that
[0:14] Speaker 1: I got that wrong because it's not something that I
[0:16] Speaker 1: care to remember in that kind of detail. I'm just
[0:18] Speaker 1: going to call it the Cove. So we are in
[0:21] Speaker 1: December with the Cove at this point. And we did
[0:24] Speaker 1: a very fun episode for me, at least, because I'm
[0:26] Speaker 1: a big Beatles fan. I know Josh is not, but
[0:28] Speaker 1: he indulges me occasionally. With episodes like this, and this
[0:31] Speaker 1: one is not just on the Beatles. In fact, it
[0:33] Speaker 1: is on John Lennon and the FBI because he was
[0:35] Speaker 1: under surveillance by the FBI for a lot of reasons
[0:39] Speaker 1: and had a pretty dodgy relationship here in the United
[0:42] Speaker 1: States at times. So check out this episode right now.
[0:45] Speaker 1: I think you'll enjoy it. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
[0:53] Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio.
[1:01] Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
[1:04] Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryan out there. Jerry's here. Special guest Jerry.
[1:08] Speaker 2: This is Stuff You Should Know, the super subversive edition.
[1:15] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:17] Speaker 2: Which is, I mean, it's subversive, but not coming from
[1:23] Speaker 2: who you'd expect. In this case, the subversive people, Chuck,
[1:28] Speaker 2: are two of the crookedest, Worst Americans to ever take
[1:32] Speaker 2: a breath of life in the United States.
[1:34] Speaker 1: Yes. Hoover and Nixon, right?
[1:38] Speaker 2: Yes. Herbert Hoover and Charles J. Nixon. No. Oh, no.
[1:45] Speaker 2: Not those two. Was it J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon?
[1:49] Speaker 1: Richard Milhouse, I think is his name.
[1:52] Speaker 2: Milhouse. That's right. So you picked this one, right?
[1:56] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:58] Speaker 2: I think we got help from our buddy. Oh, it
[2:02] Speaker 2: was a Grabster article, right?
[2:03] Speaker 1: This is a Grabster.
[2:05] Speaker 2: So why did you choose this.
[2:07] Speaker 1: One, Chuck? I'm just a Beatles nut. I'm reading a
[2:11] Speaker 1: massive Beatles book, and I'm always thinking about the Beatles,
[2:15] Speaker 1: so this isn't something I knew a ton about. So
[2:19] Speaker 1: now I know more.
[2:20] Speaker 2: What are you thinking about the Beatles right now?
[2:26] Speaker 1: They could write a song.
[2:29] Speaker 2: Like they could, like they're really good at writing songs,
[2:31] Speaker 2: you mean?
[2:31] Speaker 1: I think so. I know you're not a Beatles guy,
[2:33] Speaker 1: but they're regarded as good songwriters.
[2:35] Speaker 2: Sure. I'm willing to concede that at least. I'm a
[2:39] Speaker 2: grown person. I can concede when I'm wrong or when
[2:42] Speaker 2: I've been bested.
[2:44] Speaker 1: I think we differ on Yoko Ono though. So that'll be,
[2:46] Speaker 1: you know, that's where the tables are turned.
[2:48] Speaker 2: Okay.
[2:50] Speaker 1: Because you like her singing, isn't that right?
[2:52] Speaker 2: I appreciate it. I don't know. Like is a pretty
[2:55] Speaker 2: strong word, but I definitely appreciate it. There's some songs, like,
[2:58] Speaker 2: have you ever heard I Love You, Earth?
[3:00] Speaker 1: Sure.
[3:01] Speaker 2: That's a pretty sweet song. I like her singing on that.
[3:04] Speaker 2: All right. Have you ever heard her cover of Katy
[3:09] Speaker 2: Perry's Fireworks? No.
[3:11] Speaker 1: I bet that's something.
[3:13] Speaker 2: She did it at... maybe MoMA or The Met or
[3:16] Speaker 2: something like that. And she's just standing there wailing. She's
[3:20] Speaker 2: not singing words or anything like that, just wailing. And
[3:23] Speaker 2: it was her cover of Katy Perry's Firework. And it's
[3:26] Speaker 2: pretty great to see. I'm sure if you look it
[3:29] Speaker 2: up on YouTube. But I appreciate a lot of her stuff.
[3:32] Speaker 2: How about that?
[3:33] Speaker 1: I appreciate her as a human. And it's always fun
[3:36] Speaker 1: to look back at performances, live performances with Lynn Enwin.
[3:42] Speaker 1: she would do a full like four or five songs
[3:44] Speaker 1: in the row in the middle of like Madison square
[3:46] Speaker 1: garden concert. And you could kind of see his, his
[3:50] Speaker 1: backing band just kind of like, Oh boy, I can't
[3:52] Speaker 1: believe we're doing this. I can't believe she's really doing this.
[3:55] Speaker 2: Right. Right. Um, and she's actually pretty strongly implicated in
[4:00] Speaker 2: this whole thing. We're talking about John Lennon, um, being
[4:04] Speaker 2: pursued and, and surveilled and basically harassed by the FBI. Um,
[4:12] Speaker 2: in the 1972, actually 1971, 72, I believe, um, for
[4:17] Speaker 2: a very specific reason. And it was at a time
[4:19] Speaker 2: when John Lennon and Yoko Ono had just gotten married.
[4:22] Speaker 2: They got married like two, two, three years before. And, um,
[4:25] Speaker 2: we're a very famous couple. The Grabster argues that they
[4:29] Speaker 2: may have been like the first genuine celebrity activist couple
[4:33] Speaker 2: who actually used their celebrity as a way to, um, help,
[4:37] Speaker 2: help influence or help causes that kind of thing. Um,
[4:42] Speaker 2: And by the time 1971-72 rolled around, Richard Milhouse Nixon
[4:47] Speaker 2: was actually running for re-election again. And he decided that
[4:51] Speaker 2: he didn't like people like John Lennon running around conceivably
[4:56] Speaker 2: swaying the vote, particularly among newly minted voters in the
[5:01] Speaker 2: 18 to 21-year-old block.
[5:03] Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, he and Yoko had been contributors to causes,
[5:09] Speaker 1: working class causes. It's sort of the notion that Lennon
[5:13] Speaker 1: was always known as the working class hero, but of
[5:17] Speaker 1: all the Beatles, he grew up more solidly middle class
[5:19] Speaker 1: than any of the rest of them. And not to
[5:22] Speaker 1: say that that was a false persona, but he definitely
[5:25] Speaker 1: sort of jumped and sort of leaned into that, as
[5:30] Speaker 1: Noel Brown would say, as far as his persona. And
[5:34] Speaker 1: I think a lot of people that don't dig deep
[5:36] Speaker 1: kind of think that John Lennon grew up with a
[5:38] Speaker 1: very hard scrap of life, They're in Liverpool, which is
[5:41] Speaker 1: not the case. But as a result of that, he
[5:44] Speaker 1: championed the working man. He and Yoko contributed to causes.
[5:49] Speaker 1: He became, along with Yoko, very much pacifist activists. And
[5:54] Speaker 1: if you're a pacifist activist in the early 70s, you're
[5:58] Speaker 1: not going to be a big fan of Richard Nixon
[6:00] Speaker 1: and he's not going to be a big fan of
[6:01] Speaker 1: you because he was not shy about war.
[6:06] Speaker 2: No, he really wasn't. He'd even campaigned, I think, in
[6:10] Speaker 2: 68 on ending the Vietnam War and then actually went
[6:12] Speaker 2: the exact opposite direction with that. There was a lot,
[6:16] Speaker 2: if you were a pacifist, there was a lot to
[6:17] Speaker 2: be upset about in the 60s and early 70s because
[6:20] Speaker 2: of Vietnam alone, you know?
[6:22] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. One of the ways I think that
[6:25] Speaker 1: got the most press that when people think about John
[6:28] Speaker 1: and Yolka's activism is the bed-ins that they had, that
[6:31] Speaker 1: is B-E-D-I-N-S, and that is If you don't know what
[6:36] Speaker 1: those are, that's when you lay around in bed and
[6:38] Speaker 1: you invite the press to come to your room and
[6:42] Speaker 1: talk to you while you lay around in bed and
[6:45] Speaker 1: why you're laying around in bed. And it looked kind
[6:48] Speaker 1: of ridiculous to a lot of people, especially people on
[6:50] Speaker 1: the right. But John Lennon's whole kind of point, and
[6:53] Speaker 1: he was very tongue in cheek, kind of had a
[6:55] Speaker 1: great sense of humor. But I think it all sort
[6:57] Speaker 1: of stemmed from that, which is like, hey, all you
[7:00] Speaker 1: got to do is stay in bed and not go
[7:01] Speaker 1: and start wars. And this is a pretty ridiculous way
[7:04] Speaker 1: to drive that point home.
[7:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Like, rather than having to, like, go out
[7:08] Speaker 2: and oppose violence, you could oppose violence just by laying
[7:12] Speaker 2: around in bed and doing nothing. Letting your hair grow,
[7:14] Speaker 2: I think, is what they were saying. Sure. Which is
[7:17] Speaker 2: pretty awesome. And... The thing is, is it's John Lennon and,
[7:20] Speaker 2: you know, Yoko Ono, and they're sitting around in bed
[7:23] Speaker 2: with the press in their hotel room. And like that
[7:25] Speaker 2: in and of itself is getting press. And then if
[7:28] Speaker 2: you say, well, what is all this about? And you
[7:29] Speaker 2: read a little further into the article.
[7:32] Speaker 1: I don't know.
[7:32] Speaker 2: Maybe it kind of gets you in just the right way.
[7:34] Speaker 2: And all of a sudden you start thinking that way, too.
[7:36] Speaker 2: And to the people who were, you know, running the
[7:40] Speaker 2: whole military industrial complex that I mean, that's a threat,
[7:45] Speaker 2: even if it's. just a threat of the threat of
[7:48] Speaker 2: saying like, just don't, you don't even have to oppose war,
[7:51] Speaker 2: just don't do anything. And that opposes war in and
[7:53] Speaker 2: of itself. And that was like kind of the way
[7:56] Speaker 2: things were at the time. Like there was a lot of,
[8:00] Speaker 2: a lot of people in power who were really opposed
[8:05] Speaker 2: to that kind of thinking, who were opposed to people
[8:08] Speaker 2: who were opposed to Vietnam or war in general or
[8:11] Speaker 2: violence of any kind. There was a big opposition to that.
[8:15] Speaker 2: And the people who were running the show in the
[8:17] Speaker 2: United States were chief among those people. Like we said,
[8:21] Speaker 2: Nixon as president and then running for reelection. Then J.
[8:24] Speaker 2: Edgar Hoover, who was not shy at all about doing
[8:28] Speaker 2: whatever he needed to to quiet dissent. Like he would
[8:31] Speaker 2: generate dossiers on elected officials, especially ones who were more liberal,
[8:37] Speaker 2: to basically keep them in line by threatening them with
[8:40] Speaker 2: blackmail or even the threat of blackmail, you know? there
[8:44] Speaker 2: were plenty of hippies who got their heads cracked in.
[8:46] Speaker 2: There were people who were surveilled. We did an episode
[8:50] Speaker 2: on the Black Panthers, if you remember. We talked about COINTELPRO,
[8:54] Speaker 2: the whole program to basically undermine and smear the Black
[8:57] Speaker 2: Panthers in the public's mind. Like, J. Edgar Hoover was
[9:01] Speaker 2: a vicious, terrible human being. And he ran the FBI
[9:07] Speaker 2: for decades and was still running the FBI when they
[9:09] Speaker 2: started to target John Lennon.
[9:11] Speaker 1: Yeah, so to set the stage here of kind of
[9:14] Speaker 1: how this all worked out was John Lennon had– he
[9:20] Speaker 1: was able to enter– the whole thing kind of boils
[9:21] Speaker 1: down to whether or not he would be allowed to
[9:24] Speaker 1: live in the U.S. or whether or not if he
[9:26] Speaker 1: was eventually allowed to live in the U.S., if they
[9:28] Speaker 1: could legally deport him. So he was able to enter
[9:32] Speaker 1: the U.S. on a work visa in 71. And concurrent
[9:36] Speaker 1: with this, Yoko Ono had a custody battle going on.
[9:41] Speaker 1: She had a daughter from a previous marriage in the
[9:43] Speaker 1: early 70s, and she wasn't going to leave at all.
[9:47] Speaker 1: She was legally there. They did try and deport her.
[9:50] Speaker 1: They didn't know that she had a green card already,
[9:51] Speaker 1: which was sort of the first foible in this thing. Right.
[9:55] Speaker 1: But they knew that they had a lot of leverage
[9:58] Speaker 1: over Lennon because— if they deported him, he would be
[10:02] Speaker 1: without his wife, who was going to stay there. So
[10:05] Speaker 1: they had this leverage. Lennon loved living in New York City.
[10:08] Speaker 1: That's where he wanted to make his permanent home.
[10:11] Speaker 2: So much so that that was also leverage that they had, too.
[10:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And so Nixon's up for reelection in 72.
[10:20] Speaker 1: He would go on to win, you know, in a big,
[10:22] Speaker 1: big way against McGovern. But they were, you know, they
[10:26] Speaker 1: were an organization. They were an administration that was very paranoid.
[10:34] Speaker 1: They would obviously with Watergate, they showed that they were
[10:37] Speaker 1: willing to do anything to ensure their victory. And that
[10:41] Speaker 1: included being really worried about people like John Lennon. I
[10:45] Speaker 1: don't think he was at the top of their list
[10:47] Speaker 1: of things to worry about. But he was on their
[10:49] Speaker 1: list thanks to Strom Thurmond, of all people.
[10:53] Speaker 2: Yeah. So Strom Thurmond, the horrible segregationist senator from what?
[10:58] Speaker 2: South Carolina, right? He he actually kicked this whole thing
[11:03] Speaker 2: off because I guess he noticed that John Lennon was was,
[11:08] Speaker 2: you know, he was a left leaning person. rock star activist.
[11:13] Speaker 2: He seems to have been one of the first people
[11:15] Speaker 2: to notice the activism that was developing among John Lennon
[11:18] Speaker 2: and Yoko Ono and to perceive it as a threat
[11:21] Speaker 2: to the establishment because all those recently enfranchised 18, 19
[11:28] Speaker 2: and 20 year old voters who hadn't had the right
[11:30] Speaker 2: to vote until the 26th Amendment had been passed I
[11:34] Speaker 2: don't remember exactly when it was passed, but it was
[11:36] Speaker 2: between 68 and 72 because 72 is the first election
[11:40] Speaker 2: those younger kids were going to be able to vote in.
[11:43] Speaker 2: And he apparently saw Lenin as among a group of
[11:47] Speaker 2: people who could speak to those kids and sway them
[11:50] Speaker 2: to the left and potentially unseat Richard Nixon, which it
[11:53] Speaker 2: would turn out is just a total laugh because Nixon
[11:56] Speaker 2: beat McGovern in a landslide. But at the time, they
[11:58] Speaker 2: didn't know this, and Richard Nixon wasn't going to take
[12:01] Speaker 2: any chances either. So the note from Strom Thurmond was
[12:05] Speaker 2: very well received in the Nixon administration.
[12:08] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what I want to know is who
[12:10] Speaker 1: told Strom Thurmond.
[12:12] Speaker 2: That's what I want to know, too. Because that's the
[12:14] Speaker 2: biggest mystery here.
[12:15] Speaker 1: Yeah, I doubt if Strom Thurmond was too hip to
[12:17] Speaker 1: any of this. But somebody probably got in his ear
[12:20] Speaker 1: and he sent a note that specifically said they try
[12:24] Speaker 1: and get him deported as a, quote, strategic countermeasure.
[12:28] Speaker 2: Right.
[12:29] Speaker 1: And that's really kind of what got the ball rolling.
[12:31] Speaker 1: We should also mention this other guy, John. I don't
[12:34] Speaker 1: know if it's Wiener or Weiner in this case.
[12:36] Speaker 2: It's pronounced Wienerslave.
[12:38] Speaker 1: Oh, it is?
[12:39] Speaker 2: No. Do you remember there was a 30 Rock episode
[12:42] Speaker 2: where there's like an HR mediator and he's like this
[12:45] Speaker 2: very soft, rosy-cheeked, very calm, mild-mannered man. And Liz Lemon says, well, Mr. Wienerslav.
[12:54] Speaker 2: And he goes, no, it's pronounced Wienerslave.
[12:57] Speaker 1: I miss that show.
[12:58] Speaker 2: That was a really good moment.
[13:00] Speaker 1: They had such great fun with dumb jokes like that
[13:03] Speaker 1: and blah, blah, blah.
[13:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, right. No, that was Arrested Development.
[13:07] Speaker 1: Oh, that's right. That was Arrested Development. They kind of
[13:09] Speaker 1: had the same DNA, though.
[13:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
[13:11] Speaker 1: So Wienerslave was a writer or is a writer and
[13:16] Speaker 1: historian still, and he is why we know so much
[13:19] Speaker 1: of this. He was writing a lot about John Lennon,
[13:22] Speaker 1: writing a lot about the Beatles. he decided to file
[13:27] Speaker 1: Freedom of Information Act requests to get a lot of
[13:30] Speaker 1: these documents uncovered over the years and eventually was successful
[13:35] Speaker 1: in a big dump in 1997 and then in another
[13:38] Speaker 1: smaller one in 2006. And if it had not been
[13:41] Speaker 1: for his tenacity, I don't know if anyone else would
[13:46] Speaker 1: have picked up this mantle. Because, you know, in the end,
[13:49] Speaker 1: it's not the most interesting story in the world.
[13:52] Speaker 2: This is true.
[13:53] Speaker 1: I say that in a whisper. It's not like some
[13:55] Speaker 1: huge like, oh, my God, revelations. It's sort of one
[13:57] Speaker 1: of those things. It's like just another example of the
[14:01] Speaker 1: small things that authoritarians do in this country under, you know,
[14:05] Speaker 1: in the back rooms and in the whispered rooms of
[14:09] Speaker 1: the White House.
[14:10] Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think like that's really true. And
[14:12] Speaker 2: that's a really good point is that like if you
[14:15] Speaker 2: just look at it on its face, like, you know,
[14:17] Speaker 2: the FBI followed around. John Lennon kept tabs on them.
[14:20] Speaker 2: And like if you read the files, it's really pedestrian,
[14:23] Speaker 2: boring stuff. You might miss like the real story here.
[14:27] Speaker 2: And the real story here is that a sitting president
[14:29] Speaker 2: directed the FBI to get dirt that he could use
[14:33] Speaker 2: against a political rival, an activist rock star, to help
[14:38] Speaker 2: get him deported. or to figure out what leverage he
[14:40] Speaker 2: could use against him so that that sitting president could
[14:43] Speaker 2: get reelected. That's the real story here. And that the
[14:47] Speaker 2: FBI acted as, you know, this basically a Gestapo-type agency
[14:53] Speaker 2: on behalf of Nixon. That's the real story that I
[14:57] Speaker 2: think kind of gets covered up by John Lennon and
[14:59] Speaker 2: Yoko Ono's celebrity and, you know, the FBI kind of
[15:02] Speaker 2: wackily following him around.
[15:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, it is funny because if you look at some
[15:07] Speaker 1: of the files and Some of the reports, like they
[15:09] Speaker 1: would go to his concerts and undercover agents would go
[15:12] Speaker 1: to the concerts and report things like, you know, for
[15:16] Speaker 1: his encore, he's saying, give peace a chance. And we
[15:18] Speaker 1: all know about that song.
[15:20] Speaker 2: Right.
[15:20] Speaker 1: They would take notes on song lyrics and stuff like that.
[15:23] Speaker 1: So it's all just kind of silly. But yeah, I
[15:26] Speaker 1: definitely agree that it's just an example of the lengths
[15:30] Speaker 1: that Nixon would go to to be a dirty thief. Yes.
[15:34] Speaker 2: Yes. Well, Chuck, I think we should demonstrate the links
[15:37] Speaker 2: that we'll go to to bring everyone a message break.
[15:39] Speaker 2: What do you think?
[15:40] Speaker 1: By just shutting up for two minutes?
[15:42] Speaker 2: Yep. Okay, so the whole thing started eventually, and it
[16:07] Speaker 2: wasn't clear what was going to happen, but the real
[16:09] Speaker 2: thing that kicked all of John Lennon's big problems off
[16:12] Speaker 2: was that he was arrested in 1968 in London for
[16:16] Speaker 2: possession of narcotics. I'm making air quotes you can't see
[16:20] Speaker 2: because he was busted with some pot, I think maybe
[16:22] Speaker 2: some hash, and like rolling paraphernalia. Some really BS beef
[16:28] Speaker 2: that they got him on in London. There was some
[16:32] Speaker 2: true believer, zealous anti-drug cop named Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher,
[16:39] Speaker 2: who was later jailed, actually, for committing perjury as a
[16:43] Speaker 2: police officer. But he was alleged to have planted the
[16:49] Speaker 2: evidence that may or may not be true. But it
[16:51] Speaker 2: was like a rap that Lennon shouldn't have had on
[16:54] Speaker 2: him or Yoko shouldn't have had on her, that they
[16:57] Speaker 2: just wanted a high-profile bust. And that happened in 1968,
[17:00] Speaker 2: and it turned out that that would follow Lenin for
[17:05] Speaker 2: years to come and really kind of be the fulcrum
[17:09] Speaker 2: that the U.S. government had on him to try to
[17:12] Speaker 2: keep him from staying in the U.S.
[17:14] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he wasn't even doing heroin at this point,
[17:17] Speaker 1: I don't think.
[17:17] Speaker 2: No.
[17:18] Speaker 1: So they should have waited if they wanted a real case.
[17:21] Speaker 2: Well, it makes you wonder. I remember hearing in, I think,
[17:25] Speaker 2: our Black Panther episode, that the FBI was not above
[17:28] Speaker 2: like addicting activists and dissidents with heroin, like turning them
[17:34] Speaker 2: on to heroin and then getting them addicted and then just,
[17:37] Speaker 2: you know, taking them out of the game like that.
[17:39] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Lenin never shot heroin. That was his jam.
[17:43] Speaker 2: Okay.
[17:44] Speaker 1: So early 71, like I said, he was able to
[17:48] Speaker 1: enter on a tourist visa. And then when Nixon and
[17:51] Speaker 1: his cronies get going on the deportation, The whole thing
[17:54] Speaker 1: was based on the fact that he had overstayed his visa.
[17:58] Speaker 1: But along with that, it was very valuable to them
[18:01] Speaker 1: that he had a drug conviction under his belt at
[18:04] Speaker 1: that point. So they were surveilling him. They were surveilling
[18:08] Speaker 1: other artists around the country, too, who they thought were
[18:11] Speaker 1: subversive and sending messages. Lennon, speaking of getting busted for pot,
[18:16] Speaker 1: Lennon very famously wrote a song called John Sinclair in
[18:21] Speaker 1: support and did a tribute, or not tribute, but a
[18:24] Speaker 1: a concert in, I don't know if they were raising money.
[18:28] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[18:29] Speaker 1: Or just awareness. Both. Okay. For John Sinclair, who was
[18:33] Speaker 1: a poet, he was the manager of the MC5, great,
[18:37] Speaker 1: great rock band. And he offered two undercover cops a
[18:42] Speaker 1: couple of joints and went to, and he had already
[18:45] Speaker 1: had a couple of minor pot offenses, but he went
[18:47] Speaker 1: to prison for 10 years for this. And a big
[18:51] Speaker 1: refrain in that song, John Sinclair said, which is a
[18:53] Speaker 1: cool song and very rootsy and bluesy, not like very
[18:57] Speaker 1: Lennon at all, is 10 for 2, 10 for 2
[19:00] Speaker 1: is what they keep saying, 10 years for two joints.
[19:03] Speaker 2: Yeah, that he sold to an undercover cop, right?
[19:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, but it worked. He actually was sprung from prison
[19:09] Speaker 1: shortly after this concert.
[19:10] Speaker 2: Yeah, like two days after. And some people say, I
[19:13] Speaker 2: think that indicates he was already going to be sprung,
[19:15] Speaker 2: that the Michigan Supreme Court knew this was a trumped
[19:19] Speaker 2: up charge. But Other people say, no, the concert surely
[19:23] Speaker 2: had some impact. But Sinclair is, so the point about
[19:29] Speaker 2: Sinclair and John Lennon is John Lennon performed the song.
[19:32] Speaker 2: He was the headliner at this concert in Ann Arbor.
[19:36] Speaker 2: And he had been coordinating with other people in John
[19:40] Speaker 2: Sinclair's orbit that were prominent figures in the new left.
[19:44] Speaker 2: And at this time in the early 70s, the 60s
[19:47] Speaker 2: had ended, the, the, it become clear that flower power
[19:51] Speaker 2: hadn't worked. The evil people were still in charge. So
[19:55] Speaker 2: what was next? Maybe nonviolent coordination and resistance wasn't the
[20:01] Speaker 2: way to go. Now, Lenin and Yoko were were dedicated pacifists.
[20:06] Speaker 2: They didn't want anything to do with violence. They didn't
[20:08] Speaker 2: condone violence. They didn't like violence in any way, shape,
[20:10] Speaker 2: or form. But there were elements in the new left
[20:14] Speaker 2: who weren't necessarily convinced that that wasn't the only way
[20:18] Speaker 2: to change the course of the United States and get
[20:22] Speaker 2: rid of people like Nixon and his cronies. And so
[20:27] Speaker 2: if you're watching this from the outside, like you're J.
[20:28] Speaker 2: Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, you're watching the people on
[20:32] Speaker 2: the new left and you don't know which way they're
[20:33] Speaker 2: going to break. Violent, nonviolent, who knows? But you're treating
[20:37] Speaker 2: all of them with suspicion. And all of a sudden,
[20:39] Speaker 2: John Lennon, one of the most recognizable and popular people
[20:42] Speaker 2: on the planet, is suddenly hanging out with some of
[20:45] Speaker 2: these new left cats that you don't know which way
[20:47] Speaker 2: they're going to go, violent or nonviolent. And that really
[20:51] Speaker 2: drew the attention of the FBI to John Lennon. It
[20:54] Speaker 2: wasn't necessarily he and Yoko and their pacifist stuff. Some
[20:59] Speaker 2: people think that it was his involvement with genuine bona
[21:03] Speaker 2: fide new left activists like John Sinclair or like Bobby Seale.
[21:12] Speaker 2: Like John Sinclair founded the White Panther Party, which they
[21:15] Speaker 2: had a 10 point platform like the Black Panthers platform
[21:18] Speaker 2: and the first platform in the White Panther platform. is
[21:20] Speaker 2: that it's fully in support of the Black Panther's 10-point platform.
[21:24] Speaker 2: So he's hanging out with a bunch of people that
[21:28] Speaker 2: had proven themselves as dyed-in-the-wool foes of the Nixon administration.
[21:34] Speaker 2: That definitely caught the FBI's attention.
[21:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, and they had big plans. They got together, and
[21:40] Speaker 1: I think their first meeting was at the Alamookie Township.
[21:46] Speaker 1: That's how I'm going to pronounce it.
[21:47] Speaker 2: The Scaramoochie Township. In New Jersey.
[21:49] Speaker 1: In New Jersey. And initially called themselves the Alamookie Tribe,
[21:52] Speaker 1: but wisely changed their name to the Election Year Strategy
[21:56] Speaker 1: Information Center. And their plan was in 1972 is to
[22:00] Speaker 1: host this. And Lennon gave them money. He gave them
[22:04] Speaker 1: like 75 grand to kind of get going and said, here,
[22:07] Speaker 1: let's do a bunch of concerts with the help of
[22:09] Speaker 1: John Lennon all across the country in 1972. We can
[22:14] Speaker 1: have different artists performing, different speakers, you know, like pounding
[22:18] Speaker 1: home the anti-war message. And then as these concerts roll
[22:22] Speaker 1: closer and closer to the election, it'll culminate in a
[22:25] Speaker 1: big protest at the RNC in Miami. This is all
[22:29] Speaker 1: very legal stuff. It wasn't, they weren't staging riots or anything.
[22:32] Speaker 1: These were just concerts, awareness, trying to keep Nixon from winning.
[22:38] Speaker 1: And Nixon got worried. And he knew that, like you said,
[22:42] Speaker 1: the influence that someone like John Lennon could have was like,
[22:45] Speaker 1: he didn't have anyone on his side. There was no
[22:48] Speaker 1: Scott Baio at the time, wooing the youngsters.
[22:51] Speaker 2: Bob Blah Blah?
[22:52] Speaker 1: To the right. Oh, he was Bob Blah Blah, wasn't he?
[22:55] Speaker 1: That's funny. So this is all going on, and this
[22:59] Speaker 1: is kind of what ramps up the pressure to get
[23:01] Speaker 1: Lennon out of there. This custody battle's going on. They
[23:05] Speaker 1: know about that. And so their first step was to
[23:10] Speaker 1: instruct immigration and naturalization to try and say, hey, you've
[23:15] Speaker 1: overstayed your visa. You got to get out of here.
[23:17] Speaker 1: And Lennon knew this was coming. This was no secret.
[23:20] Speaker 1: He had gone on TV shows talking about being followed
[23:23] Speaker 1: by the FBI, having his phone tapped, which we still
[23:27] Speaker 1: aren't sure if that really happened. I think it says
[23:30] Speaker 1: officially that there was no legal phone tapping in the
[23:34] Speaker 1: FBI documents. But throwing that word legal in there just
[23:38] Speaker 1: kind of makes you think like, well, were there any
[23:40] Speaker 1: illegal ones that you're not going to tell us about?
[23:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, I read an interview online. So this is like
[23:46] Speaker 2: the depths of my depravity. I didn't even listen to
[23:49] Speaker 2: the interview. I read a Fresh Air interview with John
[23:52] Speaker 2: Weiner about this. And he said that the FBI responded
[23:58] Speaker 2: and said they found no evidence of illegal wiretapping by
[24:03] Speaker 2: the FBI or no legal wiretapping by the FBI. So so.
[24:08] Speaker 2: whiners like okay does that mean they were doing illegal
[24:11] Speaker 2: wiretapping or does it mean that they didn't look very
[24:13] Speaker 2: hard for evidence it doesn't mean that they weren't tapping
[24:16] Speaker 2: his phone is what he's saying.
[24:18] Speaker 1: Right uh it at least made Lennon paranoid enough yeah
[24:22] Speaker 1: like he wasn't just not he wasn't not sweating this
[24:25] Speaker 1: he was this made him very paranoid um and with
[24:28] Speaker 1: good reason but he took to going next door at
[24:31] Speaker 1: the uh Dakota building so he would let Lennon use
[24:35] Speaker 1: his phone in his apartment and to make phone calls,
[24:39] Speaker 1: and I guess assist with the calls at the same
[24:41] Speaker 1: time a little bit. And then the FBI said, you
[24:44] Speaker 1: know what could really help is if we could bust
[24:49] Speaker 1: them currently for narcotics in the United States. If we
[24:53] Speaker 1: have an active charge, drug charge against them, and Hoover
[24:56] Speaker 1: sent it out himself. He said, quote, for info of Bureau,
[25:01] Speaker 1: NYCPD Narcotics Division is aware of the subject's recent use
[25:04] Speaker 1: of narcotics, which is like every day, and are attempting
[25:07] Speaker 1: to obtain enough info to arrest both subject and wife
[25:10] Speaker 1: Yoko based on PD investigation.
[25:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, and by this time, I'm thinking he was using heroin.
[25:15] Speaker 2: I think that's what they were referencing as his recent use.
[25:19] Speaker 1: Oh, really? I didn't think that started until later.
[25:21] Speaker 2: I thought it was the early 70s.
[25:24] Speaker 1: I thought it happened during his lost weekend, but I
[25:26] Speaker 1: may be wrong on that. I'm not that far along
[25:28] Speaker 1: in the book yet.
[25:28] Speaker 2: I'm going to err toward you then, because I'm just
[25:30] Speaker 2: surmising here. I'm not the one who has a big
[25:32] Speaker 2: old book of Beatles history. So I don't know. They
[25:39] Speaker 2: never actually busted him, right? This was all just like
[25:41] Speaker 2: they were planning on doing this, but they never needed to?
[25:44] Speaker 1: I don't think he was arrested in the United States,
[25:49] Speaker 1: was he?
[25:49] Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't know. I didn't get that impression. But
[25:52] Speaker 2: it seemed like everything was kind of barreling toward that.
[25:54] Speaker 2: And even like you were saying, the FBI was like,
[25:56] Speaker 2: we've let the NYPD know to go do this. So
[26:01] Speaker 2: and if you take a step back, like, This is
[26:04] Speaker 2: some heat. This is some pressure that they're putting on
[26:07] Speaker 2: John and Yoko. They're basically saying, we're going to split
[26:09] Speaker 2: you guys up by deporting John because we know that
[26:12] Speaker 2: Yoko is not going to leave the country because of
[26:14] Speaker 2: this custody battle. She can't afford to. So she has
[26:17] Speaker 2: to stay here. So if we threaten deportation to John Lennon,
[26:21] Speaker 2: it might actually keep him in line. And the FBI
[26:25] Speaker 2: used the word neutralized, that they were seeking to neutralize Lennon.
[26:31] Speaker 2: And I guess some people who don't dig very deeply
[26:33] Speaker 2: into the story are like, they were going to assassinate
[26:35] Speaker 2: John Lennon. And John Weiner has pointed out like that's
[26:41] Speaker 2: not at all what they meant. They meant like basically
[26:43] Speaker 2: making him ineffective, like taking him out of the game
[26:46] Speaker 2: basically one way or another, but not killing him, just
[26:51] Speaker 2: convincing him through putting this undue, unfair, undemocratic pressure on
[26:56] Speaker 2: him to drop his activities with the new left.
[27:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, I think he probably was
[27:03] Speaker 1: using heroin in the late 60s and had an on-again-off-again.
[27:06] Speaker 1: But either way.
[27:08] Speaker 2: So that makes sense because I did see that guys
[27:11] Speaker 2: like Jerry Rubin and I think Rennie Davis, a couple
[27:17] Speaker 2: of like the Chicago 7, like they didn't even like
[27:19] Speaker 2: hang out with him because he was doing too many drugs.
[27:22] Speaker 2: And I'm guessing that it wasn't like he was smoking
[27:25] Speaker 2: so much pot we can't even talk with him anymore.
[27:27] Speaker 2: Like I think he was shooting dope and they weren't.
[27:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, he never shot it. He always smoked it.
[27:32] Speaker 2: Or smoking dope.
[27:33] Speaker 1: But I think he and Yoko were doing heroin actually
[27:36] Speaker 1: before the Beatles broke up at the end.
[27:38] Speaker 2: Okay.
[27:39] Speaker 1: When they were sort of estranged. Not with the Beatles,
[27:41] Speaker 1: not John and Yoko. But at any rate, like I said,
[27:45] Speaker 1: these investigations are going on and they're going to his concerts.
[27:48] Speaker 1: And they're not even sending back information that really means much.
[27:52] Speaker 1: They're even saying some of these informants like, you know what,
[27:56] Speaker 1: they're not even really down with, like the new left
[27:58] Speaker 1: isn't even down with them. because they think they're just, quote,
[28:02] Speaker 1: self-aggrandizing rock stars, or there's little chance they'll accomplish anything
[28:07] Speaker 1: because they spend all their time doing drugs. They're kind
[28:10] Speaker 1: of sending the message like, you really don't need to
[28:13] Speaker 1: worry so much about John Lennon. He's not much of
[28:15] Speaker 1: a threat. Kind of one of the funny things about
[28:19] Speaker 1: this investigation was when, and Lennon was one of the
[28:22] Speaker 1: most famous people in the world, one of the most
[28:25] Speaker 1: recognizable faces in the world on planet Earth, along with
[28:28] Speaker 1: Yoko Ono. And the FBI passes around a sheet with
[28:32] Speaker 1: Lennon's picture on it so they can recognize him. But
[28:36] Speaker 1: it was the wrong photo. It was of a different
[28:38] Speaker 1: human being. It wasn't even John Lennon.
[28:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a street busker from the West Village
[28:44] Speaker 2: named David Peel.
[28:45] Speaker 1: So funny.
[28:46] Speaker 2: Who had a record that I guess John Lennon helped
[28:48] Speaker 2: produce or something. He looked vaguely like John Lennon, but
[28:51] Speaker 2: that was the picture that the FBI passed around to
[28:55] Speaker 2: the cops of the wrong guy. The FBI also put
[28:59] Speaker 2: out an all-points bulletin searching for John Lennon and said
[29:03] Speaker 2: that he's at the St. Regis at 150 Bank Street. St.
[29:07] Speaker 1: Regis Landscape Supply?
[29:09] Speaker 2: That's right. I guess that's what they meant because the St.
[29:12] Speaker 2: Regis Hotel is on Central Park. And John Lennon was
[29:16] Speaker 2: indeed living on Bank Street at the time, but he
[29:18] Speaker 2: was at 105 Bank Street. So that all-points bulletin was
[29:22] Speaker 2: all kinds of wrong. But this is the level of like–
[29:25] Speaker 2: coppery that the FBI was conducting, you know, trying to
[29:30] Speaker 2: get John Lennon.
[29:31] Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's take a break and we'll come
[29:33] Speaker 1: back and talk a little bit about Lennon's official defense
[29:36] Speaker 1: right after this. So All right. So John Lennon is
[29:58] Speaker 1: not going to take this lying down. He was he
[30:00] Speaker 1: was paranoid. He was going on like the Mike Douglas
[30:02] Speaker 1: show and talking about the FBI coming after him. The
[30:07] Speaker 1: first thing he did was probably what any really, really
[30:10] Speaker 1: rich person would do is he hires a top rate
[30:12] Speaker 1: bulldog attorney to try and defend this or at least
[30:16] Speaker 1: delay this. And this guy's name was Leon Wilds. And
[30:20] Speaker 1: he really did delay this. He was sort of a
[30:21] Speaker 1: master at filing these motions. and getting it extended and extended,
[30:26] Speaker 1: and Lennon was able to stay in the country longer
[30:27] Speaker 1: and longer and longer. But he was also kind of
[30:30] Speaker 1: instrumental in kind of letting Lennon know that this was
[30:34] Speaker 1: a real situation that he was involved in.
[30:38] Speaker 2: Right. The thing is, is if you are a immigration
[30:43] Speaker 2: prosecutor for the federal government of the United States, you
[30:46] Speaker 2: know that there is not a ton of resources allocated
[30:50] Speaker 2: to your division, right? Or traditionally there hasn't been. And
[30:53] Speaker 2: so customarily, the Justice Department has or I guess INS
[30:58] Speaker 2: has left it up to each prosecutor to determine how
[31:03] Speaker 2: hard they want to prosecute the case. And so if
[31:06] Speaker 2: you are a upstanding person who's never posed any sort
[31:12] Speaker 2: of threat to the United States and maybe you own
[31:15] Speaker 2: a business or you're a productive member of society, There
[31:18] Speaker 2: is a chance that the INS is going to look
[31:20] Speaker 2: the other way and not actually deport you, even if
[31:23] Speaker 2: you are here illegally. You have overstayed your visa or
[31:26] Speaker 2: you came to the country illegally. Who knows? And that's
[31:29] Speaker 2: actually where the Dreamer program came from, DACA. It basically
[31:33] Speaker 2: said like these particular immigrants were brought here as children
[31:37] Speaker 2: and they pose no threat. Most of them are going
[31:41] Speaker 2: to college or college bound or they're in the military.
[31:43] Speaker 2: So we're going to not deport them. And what what
[31:47] Speaker 2: Lennon's lawyer told him was like, all of this is true.
[31:51] Speaker 2: And yet they're putting the heat on you like I
[31:53] Speaker 2: have never seen. This is this is clearly coming down
[31:57] Speaker 2: from on high. Like they want to get you out
[31:59] Speaker 2: of the United States. And it's not just this prosecutor. Yeah.
[32:03] Speaker 1: And the other thing that happens when it comes to
[32:05] Speaker 1: a case like this is they have to weigh or
[32:09] Speaker 1: they can be decided basically on the value of that
[32:12] Speaker 1: an immigrant might bring to the U.S. by being an
[32:14] Speaker 1: American or living in the United States.
[32:17] Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
[32:18] Speaker 1: And so there was, you know, it's kind of funny
[32:21] Speaker 1: to look back now and think that there had to
[32:23] Speaker 1: be a case made that John Lennon brings any kind
[32:25] Speaker 1: of value. But they did, and there was a series
[32:28] Speaker 1: of letters written by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and
[32:33] Speaker 1: Joyce Carol Oates, Leonard Bernstein, John Updike, just a series
[32:36] Speaker 1: of very famous artists. Mm-hmm. kind of arguing in favor
[32:40] Speaker 1: of John Lennon being allowed to live here. It was
[32:42] Speaker 1: sort of a flood of public outcry, like what little
[32:47] Speaker 1: was known back then, at least. There's tremendous value to
[32:52] Speaker 1: letting John Lennon stay in this country.
[32:54] Speaker 2: Right. And don't forget, John Cage wrote a letter, too.
[32:57] Speaker 2: And I'm sure it was kind of like, well, you know,
[32:59] Speaker 2: do you want me to write a letter for you, John?
[33:01] Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, sure. I'm sure that would help a lot,
[33:04] Speaker 2: John Cage. Because I'm sure no one in the Nixon
[33:08] Speaker 2: administration has ever heard of you.
[33:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, probably so.
[33:11] Speaker 2: So the one kind of the upshot, I'm just going
[33:16] Speaker 2: full on using this word now. The upshot of that
[33:19] Speaker 2: letter writing campaign was not even just so much to
[33:22] Speaker 2: demonstrate the value of John Lennon remaining in the United States.
[33:27] Speaker 2: It was if you kick him out, like there's going
[33:29] Speaker 2: to be a public outcry and you're going to be
[33:31] Speaker 2: held to account and asked to explain why you guys
[33:34] Speaker 2: kicked him out. So it did have a bit of
[33:38] Speaker 2: that combined with his his attorney's tenacity. It kept John
[33:43] Speaker 2: Lennon in the country. He was actually never deported, even
[33:45] Speaker 2: though they were he had a he lived for, I think,
[33:48] Speaker 2: two or three years with us. You have 60 days
[33:51] Speaker 2: to leave the country order. And his his lawyer kept
[33:54] Speaker 2: getting it extended and extended and extended. But for three years,
[33:57] Speaker 2: that was the threat that he was living under. And again,
[33:59] Speaker 2: if he was deported, he would leave without his wife,
[34:02] Speaker 2: who had to stay in the country for her own
[34:03] Speaker 2: custody battle. So that was a lot of strain on him, actually.
[34:09] Speaker 2: And the worst part about this whole thing is not
[34:13] Speaker 2: that the FBI did this and that the Nixon administration,
[34:18] Speaker 2: Singleton Mounder, that it all came down to Strom Thurmond
[34:20] Speaker 2: writing this memo to kick things off. It was that
[34:23] Speaker 2: it worked. They sought to neutralize John Lennon and his
[34:28] Speaker 2: political activism, and he stopped. He actually did. He gave
[34:31] Speaker 2: in in August of 1972 by announcing that he was
[34:35] Speaker 2: not going to take part in that series of concerts
[34:37] Speaker 2: that was going to culminate at the Republican National Convention
[34:41] Speaker 2: or engage in any kind of activist activities any longer.
[34:45] Speaker 2: He was just going to go back to being a
[34:47] Speaker 2: musician again.
[34:49] Speaker 1: Yeah, and by this point, Hoover was dead. L. Patrick
[34:54] Speaker 1: Gray died. was the acting director of the FBI. And
[34:56] Speaker 1: in that same month, that August, before the election in November,
[35:01] Speaker 1: the FBI's New York office reported to Gray that he's
[35:05] Speaker 1: no longer going to be involved with these concerts. He's
[35:07] Speaker 1: no longer with the new left. We don't really need
[35:11] Speaker 1: to worry about him anymore. We're going to basically settle
[35:14] Speaker 1: this case and close this case after Nixon wins the election.
[35:18] Speaker 1: And like we said earlier a couple of times by landslide,
[35:21] Speaker 1: so this is all sort of for naught anyway. Gerald
[35:24] Speaker 1: Ford ended up overturning Lennon's deportation order in 1975 that
[35:29] Speaker 1: was already filed. And in 76, he got his green
[35:32] Speaker 1: card and lived in New York very famously in the
[35:35] Speaker 1: Dakota for the last four years of his life before
[35:38] Speaker 1: he was murdered in the street, which I think we
[35:42] Speaker 1: should do an episode on that at some point, maybe
[35:44] Speaker 1: in a couple of years once this one is well
[35:46] Speaker 1: in the rearview mirror.
[35:47] Speaker 2: You bet.
[35:48] Speaker 1: That'd be a good one.
[35:49] Speaker 2: I agree. So if John Lennon, apparently before he died,
[35:54] Speaker 2: he gave a couple interviews and he said of this time,
[35:57] Speaker 2: like that it nearly ruined him as an artist. You know,
[36:00] Speaker 2: like you said, he wasn't just not sweating it. Like
[36:03] Speaker 2: he sweated it every day. It was a big, hairy
[36:06] Speaker 2: problem in his life all the time and a source
[36:09] Speaker 2: of great stress. So in addition to the stress, it
[36:14] Speaker 2: stole his focus. Like it made him think about that
[36:17] Speaker 2: and like how much he hated the Nixon administration and
[36:19] Speaker 2: how terrible the FBI was for how they were harassing
[36:23] Speaker 2: him and possibly tapping his phone. And it just took
[36:27] Speaker 2: his mind from his art. And he later said that
[36:30] Speaker 2: it almost ruined him as an artist because the work
[36:33] Speaker 2: he was producing at the time was journalism, not poetry,
[36:37] Speaker 2: as he put it, which is a very sad effect.
[36:40] Speaker 2: But it's a really real world effect when you've got
[36:43] Speaker 2: something just looming in in the front of your mind
[36:47] Speaker 2: that you can't get out of your mind, especially if
[36:50] Speaker 2: it's dealing with badness. That has a terrible effect on
[36:55] Speaker 2: you and your life in general. It can produce an
[36:58] Speaker 2: entire bad period of your life, you know?
[37:00] Speaker 1: Yeah. He was like, I had to let Yoko sing
[37:03] Speaker 1: a lot.
[37:05] Speaker 2: I have something I have to say. I don't want
[37:07] Speaker 2: to forget it. In one of the FBI notes at
[37:10] Speaker 2: that John Sinclair concert, Mm-hmm. The FBI informant reported that
[37:15] Speaker 2: the song, John Sinclair, was not up to Glennon's usual standards.
[37:20] Speaker 2: And you get this, Yoko can't even remain on key.
[37:24] Speaker 2: That was an FBI informant.
[37:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, he had a good ear. But, you know, I
[37:29] Speaker 1: like the song. It doesn't, like, belong up there with
[37:31] Speaker 1: his greatest songs. But it was very clear. It was
[37:34] Speaker 1: sort of in the tradition of protest songs. It's got
[37:37] Speaker 1: this acoustic slide dobro guitar, and, you know, it's sort of,
[37:42] Speaker 1: It fits in with the great folk songs of all time,
[37:46] Speaker 1: I think, but not necessarily one of the great Lennon
[37:49] Speaker 1: or Beatles songs.
[37:50] Speaker 2: Is it as good as John Henry was a steel
[37:52] Speaker 2: driving man?
[37:54] Speaker 1: I think it's better. I like it better.
[37:55] Speaker 2: Really? Yeah.
[37:58] Speaker 1: And, you know, like we mentioned earlier, the reason we
[38:00] Speaker 1: know all this was because of Wiener's reporting. And he
[38:05] Speaker 1: eventually got those documents released. And there was, you know,
[38:08] Speaker 1: in his circle, there was a big hubbub, like what's
[38:11] Speaker 1: going to be in there? what secrets will be revealed.
[38:15] Speaker 1: And really not much. What was revealed was embarrassment for
[38:20] Speaker 1: the FBI, embarrassment that they released a picture that wasn't
[38:23] Speaker 1: even John Lennon, embarrassment that they had a very unethical
[38:29] Speaker 1: and perhaps even illegal motivation behind trying to get this
[38:33] Speaker 1: person deported. And it was just egg on the face.
[38:36] Speaker 1: And that's why they tried to keep it under wraps
[38:38] Speaker 1: for so many years, hoping that it would not get out.
[38:41] Speaker 1: Not because there were some big revealing documents, but they
[38:44] Speaker 1: were just like, can we just sort of act like
[38:45] Speaker 1: this didn't happen?
[38:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, so we'll classify everything as a national security risk.
[38:51] Speaker 2: And they did. And actually, that last trove of documents,
[38:54] Speaker 2: the little handful that trickled out in 2006, was a MI5,
[39:00] Speaker 2: a British Secret Service file on London that the U.S.
[39:05] Speaker 2: said if they— it was— And that that last bit of
[39:09] Speaker 2: document contained a file from a foreign government that had
[39:13] Speaker 2: trusted the U.S. to keep it and that it could
[39:15] Speaker 2: result in economic, diplomatic and military action if they were
[39:20] Speaker 2: to release it. Like the U.K. was just going to
[39:23] Speaker 2: bomb the U.S. for releasing their document or their file
[39:26] Speaker 2: on John Lennon. That's why the FBI held onto it
[39:29] Speaker 2: until 2006. And then they lost a court case. So
[39:31] Speaker 2: if there's a hero of the story, it's John Weiner
[39:34] Speaker 2: or John Weiner. I don't know how he says his
[39:37] Speaker 2: name and I'm sorry either way, because he was the
[39:40] Speaker 2: one that really stood up, not just for John Lennon,
[39:42] Speaker 2: but for The First Amendment, you know, and people's ability
[39:46] Speaker 2: to be politically active without, you know, the threat of
[39:50] Speaker 2: being intimidated. So good for him.
[39:54] Speaker 1: Totally.
[39:56] Speaker 2: You got anything else about this?
[39:58] Speaker 1: Got nothing else.
[40:00] Speaker 2: I have an article to direct everybody to is on
[40:02] Speaker 2: Pop Matters. John Lennon, colon, revolutionary man as political artist.
[40:08] Speaker 2: And it's about all this, sorry, history, but also just
[40:12] Speaker 2: a pretty good critical evaluation of him as an activist.
[40:15] Speaker 2: And it's just a really good, interesting article. So check
[40:19] Speaker 2: it out. And since I said check it out, everybody,
[40:21] Speaker 2: it's time for Listener Mail.
[40:25] Speaker 1: This is in reference of our haunted real estate. I
[40:30] Speaker 1: guess that was a short stuff, right? Had to be.
[40:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was.
[40:35] Speaker 1: Please tell me we didn't do 45 minutes on that.
[40:37] Speaker 2: We could have.
[40:39] Speaker 1: Hey, guys. Been a listener for years and finally have
[40:41] Speaker 1: a good reason to write you. I was listening to
[40:43] Speaker 1: the episode on whether you're supposed to disclose whether a
[40:45] Speaker 1: house is haunted or not, and it hit close to home.
[40:48] Speaker 1: Two years ago, we bought our first house, and I
[40:49] Speaker 1: made a point to run a report to see if
[40:51] Speaker 1: anyone died in the house. The previous owner had just
[40:54] Speaker 1: died within a year, but it didn't say where. I
[40:56] Speaker 1: wasn't really worried about someone actually dying in the house.
[40:59] Speaker 1: I was really just trying to get a big discount. However,
[41:03] Speaker 1: the agent said he didn't know, so no big discount.
[41:06] Speaker 1: Cut to two years later, I found out from neighbors
[41:08] Speaker 1: and research that the previous owner did not die. However,
[41:12] Speaker 1: he was a creep who actually had multiple abuse charges.
[41:15] Speaker 1: In fact, I found an article stating that he had
[41:17] Speaker 1: a woman tied up in our basement who he tortured
[41:22] Speaker 1: until she was luckily able to escape for weeks. That's
[41:26] Speaker 1: like almost worse than just a regular person dying.
[41:30] Speaker 2: Is somebody dying of natural causes? It's a million times worse.
[41:33] Speaker 1: Well, no, I was about to say worse than a murder.
[41:35] Speaker 1: I guess they're on par.
[41:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let's debate that at length.
[41:39] Speaker 1: I don't want to rank awful crimes. Right. But I
[41:43] Speaker 1: think that might creep me out just as much. Let's
[41:45] Speaker 1: just say that. Sure. The police searched the house and
[41:49] Speaker 1: found oodles of weapons. The charges were eventually dropped. Apparently,
[41:52] Speaker 1: he had money, and he redid the entire basement, which
[41:55] Speaker 1: is beyond creepy. I don't know if this qualifies as
[41:58] Speaker 1: info that should have been provided to us at purchase,
[42:01] Speaker 1: but it sure seems like it, huh?
[42:02] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[42:03] Speaker 1: That is from Andy, Andy I. Oh, okay.
[42:07] Speaker 2: Well, thanks a lot, Andy. Is there a heart over
[42:10] Speaker 2: the I?
[42:12] Speaker 1: No, but it's typed.
[42:14] Speaker 2: Is it? It could be Andy McDowell. I think she
[42:18] Speaker 2: spells her name like that. I could see something like
[42:20] Speaker 2: this happening to Andy McDowell.
[42:22] Speaker 1: Sure. I love Andy McDowell.
[42:23] Speaker 2: Well, whether it's from Andy McDowell or not, we appreciate
[42:26] Speaker 2: the email. Thank you. And yes, I agree. I think
[42:28] Speaker 2: the realtor should have disclosed that if you ask me.
[42:31] Speaker 1: Totally.
[42:33] Speaker 2: If you want to let us know about some way
[42:35] Speaker 2: a realtor wronged you or anybody did, we want to
[42:38] Speaker 2: hear about it. You can send us an email to
[42:41] Speaker 2: stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com. Stuff You Should Know is a production
[42:48] Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
[42:53] Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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