I apologize for my scarcity lately, but I have had increasing difficulty in gaining cybertime and access. Rest assured, however, that I have no intention of leaving the blogosphere anytime soon, and that I will visit your pages as time permits. Update 10/10/10.

US Intelligence stepped up surveillance against John Lennon in 1972, when his association with Rennie Davis and other leftist activists intensified. The FBI, in particular, noted with some concern the amount of money ($75,000) Lennon donated to the Election Year Strategy Information Center (EYSIC--formerly known as the Allamuchy Tribe), an organization founded in large part by Rennie Davis. Davis, along with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, had been convicted earlier on conspiracy charges stemming from the Chicago Seven protests at the 1968 Democratic Party convention.* Rumors persisted that Davis' EYSIC would engage in similar protests at the 1972 Republican Convention, originally to take place in San Diego, CA.**

President Richard Nixon, seeking reelection, worried in particular about the effect Lennon might have had on his bid to remain in the White House. The 1972 election would be the first in which eighteen-year-olds would exercise the right to vote, and such a charismatic figure as Lennon might have swayed them away from the GOP. Senator Strom Thurmond, a Republican ally from South Carolina, also worried about the effect Lennon might have had in 1972, and personally suggested to Nixon that they prod the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to find a way to deport the ex-Beatle back to England. The misdemeanor drug charge Lennon pleaded guilty to in 1968 might have been enough to declare him an undesirable alien. The FBI subsequently emphasized Lennon's drug in communications with INS, the CIA, and local police forces.

Lennon, meanwhile, had applied for a B-2 visa in an attempt to become a US citizen. He planned on touring in support of EYSIC, but now faced a serious battle to remain in New York. The tour never materialized.

Also in 1972, Yoko Ono became heavily involved with the Rainbow People's Party (RRP), which included Rubin, Hoffman, John Sinclair and the other usual suspects. The RRP, which Lennon also supported, threw its support behind the Democratic Party nominee, Senator George McGovern. The FBI followed this development closely, including in their Lennon file a column penned by journalist Lowell Young, which sought to tarnish McGovern by association.

Humorist and subversive journalist Paul Krassner met Ono in 1964, when he purchased some of her art. He later befriended Lennon when John and Yoko became an item. In 1972, Lennon told Krassner that should he and Ono die in an automobile accident, or if they both died suddenly in some other way, that he should assume that someone murdered him. By someone, he meant, of course, he meant the US Government. He had apparently been receiving death threats.

Lennon faced a number of other problems, in 1972. In addition to harrassing surveillance, which literally included agents in plain sight around his house, obvious telephone surveillance, death threats, personal foibles and political concerns, he and Ono faced a nightmarish personal problem: the kidnapping of Yoko's daughter Kyoko by her ex-husband, Tony Cox. FBI agents monitoring Lennon cynically suggested that Lennon paid Cox to kidnap his stepdaughter so that he would have an excuse to stay in the US. The FBI seized upon the chance this might be true, thus giving them a reason to arrest and deport Lennon for good. An FBI teletype dated May 23, 1972 stated:

LENNONS USING DELAY TACTICS IN DEPORTATION OF ATTEMPTING TO LOCATE YOKO ONO'S CHILD KYOKO COX WHO WAS REPORTED ABDUCTED BY NATURAL FATHER ANTHONY DAVID COX. HOUSTON COURT HAS AWARDED CUSTODY OF CHILD TO LENNONS. NO PROCESS OUT ON COX. NYD IN RECEIPT OF INFORMATION THIS DATE THAT LENNONS HAVE HIDDEN CHILD AT RESIDENCE OF [redacted] IN ATTEMTPS [sic] TO DELAY DEPORTATION.

INS HAS ADVISED THAT THEY WILL FILE PERJURY CHARGES AGAINST LENNONS IF ESTABLISHED LENNON FURNISHED FALSE INFORMATION DURING INS HEARING. [caps and punctuation original]

History would prove that Lennon and Ono had nothing to do with Cox's kidnapping. First of all, the Lennons' search began immediately in 1971, before the pressure from INS. Second, John and Yoko spent considerable money looking for her. And as it turns out, Cox had gotten involved with a Christian cult known as The Walk, through which he carefully hid Kyoko's whereabouts for over twenty years.*** Kyoko eventually contacted Ono on her own, finally reuniting with her and Sean in 2001.

Figure 1. Kyoko Cox with Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon


Curiously, the FBI thought it worthy of their attention to chronicle, in their files, the harassment of both Lennon and Bob Dylan by a guy named Alan Julius Webberman. Originally, Webberman had made a habit of trying to confront Dylan when the latter walked about Greenwich Village, and wrote little nasty notes to the editors of the Village Voice and other local papers about him. I guess nowadays, you might call him a celebrity stalker, but back then the famous weren't quite as isolated from the general population as they are now. Webberman's venom eventually turned to Lennon. Lennon and Dylan were planning a series of peace concerts throughout the years (as the FBI also noted in 1972).

The FBI provides absolutely no context for this development--no explanatory memos or letters. Whether or not they or CIA had anything to do with Webberman, it's clear that he provided Lennon with one additional source of stress. And Lennon consciously realized that the stress had gotten to him. As he explained to his friend and biographer, Anthony Fawcett:

In 1972, it was really gettin' to me. Not only was I physically having to appear in court cases, it just seemed like a toothache that wouldn't go away. There was a period where I just couldn't function, you know. I was so paranoid from them tappin' the phone and followin' me.

Not surprisingly given the external stress and their own strong personlities, Lennon and Ono's marriage began to derail. While recording the album Mind Games in 1973, Ono asked Lennon to leave their apartment, perhaps for good. She asked her assistant, May Pang (left), to serve as his secretary and mistress until she made a decision on whether or not to take him back. While Lennon publicly described the ensuing eighteen-month separation from Ono as "The Lost Weekend," there are conflicting reports as to his state of mind, the nature of his relationship to Pang, and the nature of his reconciliation with Ono. Ono has since said that Lennon practically begged for her to take him back while backstage of an Elton John concert. Other sources, however, have said that Pang kinda shined in her role as an ersatz Yoko, and that Lennon wasn't exactly dying for home cooking.

Whatever the case, we have to see the estrangement as an additional source of stress for both Ono and Lennon. In retrospect, Mae Brussell--introduced to the Lennons by mutual friend Paul Krassner--saw more in these stressors than simple bad luck and synchronicity. She felt that US Intel might have created the tension in Lennon's life, so that he would either move away from the US, or do something to damage his credibility among the very people over whom he might have wielded some political influence.

Undoubtedly, the surveillance came from the government. It was not only obvious, but the FBI didn't even bother to hide the fact in later years, which it often does. Lennon's declassified FBI file is pretty thick, and the bulk of it documents his life from 1971-1976. Moreover, the FBI also talks about the information it got from electronic espionage, and tacitly conceded that most of the espionage was illegal. In a memo to FBI Director Clarence Kelley dated September 18, 1973, Assistant Attorney General Henry Petersen requested information from both legal and illegal surveillance, purposefully distinguishing between the two:

Would you please supply us with electronic surveillance information pertaining to the individual named on the attached list [i.e., Lennon], following the form set forth in our memorandum to you dated April 16, 1969. In addition, should your files reveal that the individual or the premises in which he had a proprietary interest were subjected to electronic surveillance, we would appreciate your furnishing Mr. Robert P. Weidner, Government Regulations Section, Criminal Division, with the following:

The Bureau lists a number of items, among them logs of conversation Lennon had, either privately at his home or on the phone, summaries of those logs, and memos indicating leads gained from electronic surveillance. Presumably, the Justice Department wanted to investigate the FBI to see if it violated any rules in its monitoring of Lennon. However, those charged with holding the Bureau to regulations didn't seem particularly concerned about the legality of these activities. They obviously saw them as illegal, as one can see from another paragraph in this memo:

It is also requested that you advise us whether the individual has been subjected to any lawful electronic surveillance, including such surveillance where one of the parties might have consented to the surveillance....

It would be next to impossible to determine if other sources of stress and harassment might have originated from a government source. I doubt that the FBI orchestrated Cox's kidnapping of Kyoko. Yet, it is odd that the FBI seems particularly interested in A.J. Webberman. Might they have regarded him a CIA asset? Might they have known him as an informant? Could either the Bureau or the Agency have had some involvement to interfere with Ono and Lennon's marriage? Little suggests this, but the FBI certainly engaged in identical behavior during the 1960s via its COINTELPRO.

Could government sources be behind the attempt to deport him? Undoubtedly. That's pretty clear from Sen. Thrurmond's advice to Nixon. Moreover, the FBI assisted the INS in its efforts to deport Lennon on the grounds of his conviction on a misdemeanor marijuana conviction back in 1968--despite the fact that most British citizens weren't denied B-2 visas for this and similar offenses.
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*Specifically, Davis and four others were convicted of conspiring to violate a provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, the crossing of state lines to incite a riot.

**The Republican National Committee moved the 1972 Convention to Miami, FL for myriad reasons, among them security issues and the possible appearance of improper influence from an International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) lobbyist.

***See comments on this post made by Bluejay Young and someone close to The Walk for more details and context on this movement.

To read earlier posts in this series, click here.