INQUIRY ON LENNON DISCLOSES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303620001-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 26, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0303620001-8
ARTICLE AFEEARED
ON PAGE
NEW YORK TIMES
26 June 1984
,Inquiry on Lennon Disclosed
LOS ANGELES, June 25 (UPI) -
The Central Intelligence Agency joined
'the Federal Bureau of Investigation in
gathering intelligence on John Lennon
,because the agencies feared he would
;disrupt the 1972 Republican National
Convention, according to a historian
who has written about Mr. Lennon.
The intelligence agency asked the
bureau for information about Mr. Len-
non's ties to a group that was planning
demonstrations at the convention, the
historian, Jon Wiener, said Friday. He
cited previously classified documents
he obtained under the Freedom of In-
formation Act.
Mr. Wiener said that in one of five
heavily censored documents released
by the intelligence agecy, J. Edgar
Hoover, the F.B.I Director, wrote that
the investigation of Mr. Lennon's anti-
war activities "must be handled on an
expedite basis and by mature, experi-
enced agents."
Mr. Wiener requested the documents
as part of his research for a recently
published book on Mr. Lennon, the for-
mer Beatle who was slain in 1980. Mr.
Wiener said he received 26 pounds of
F.B.I. and Immigration and Naturali-
zation Service documents last year.
But Mr. Wiener said the bureau with-
held some documents in the Lennon file
for national security reasons. He sued
the agency in 1983 for release of materi-
als. At a hearing in March, Federal
District Judge Robert M. Takasugi or-
dered the bureau to justify why it was
withholding any Lennon material.
"This is the first acknowledgement
by the C.I.A. that the agency also par-
ticipated in the Nixon era campaign to
neutralize Lennon's antiwar activi-
ties," said Mr. Wiener, a professor at
the University of California, Irvine.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP9O-00552ROO0303620001-8