DOCUMENTS SHOW CIA AND FBI SPIED ON LENNON

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303620003-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: June 23, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303620003-6
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
23 June 1984
DOCUMENTS SHOW CIA AND FBI SPIED ON LENNON
BY JOAN GOULDING
LOS ANGELES
Fearing he would disrupt the 1972 Republican convention, the CIA under the
Nixon administration joined the FBI in gathering intelligence on slain ex-Beatle
John Lennon, documents show.
The CIA asked the FBI for information about Lennon's ties to a group
planning demonstrations at the GOP convention, said historian Jon Wiener, who
obtained the previously classified documents under the Freedom of Information
In one of five heavily censored documents released by the CIA, FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover wrote that the investigation of Lennon's anti-war activities
''must be handled on an expedite basis and by mature, experienced agents,''
Wiener said Friday.
Wiener, who was researching his recently published book on Lennon, ''Come
Together: John Lennon in His Time,'' said he received 26 pounds of FBI and
Immigration and Naturalization Service documents last year, which first revealed
FBI involvement in the investigation.
But the FBI withheld some documents in the Lennon file for national security
reasons and Wiener sued the agency in 1983 for release of materials. At a March
1984 hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert Takasugi ordered the FBI to justify in
detail why it is withholding any Lennon material.
" This is the first acknowledgement by the CIA that the agency also
participated in the Nixon era campaign, to neutralize Lennon's antiwar
activities, '' said Wiener, a professor at the University of California, Irvine.
Although Wiener had not requested CIA documents under the Freedom of
Information Act, the agency was required to account for deleted material in the
FBI file, he said.
CIA information review officer Louis Dube filed a 10-page affidavit that
was attached to the 11 pages of documents released this week, Wiener said.
He said Dube stated that the Lennon documents contained CIA cryptonyms,
which are '' codewords used to conceal the true nature or identity of some
intelligence activity, operation, or person. ''
Continued
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Documents released by the FBI last year revealed the Nixon administration was
told in February 1972 that Lennon was thinking of participating in
demonstrations at the convention, and Attorney General John Mitchell ordered the
Immigration and Naturalization Service to begin deportation proceedings against
the British singer.
Lennon fought the deportation order until 1976, when he was granted permanent
residency. He was shot and killed outside his Manhattan apartment in December
1980 by Mark David Chapman.
Eliot Mintz, a longtime friend of Lennon, said he saw the CIA documents and
affidavit and informed the musician's wife, Yoko Ono, of the development.
''She was definitely surprised," Mintz said in Los Angeles. ''Throughout the
period of time in question ... the two were aware of surveillance to one degree
or another. From the new revelations in the classified files, it was far greater
than John and Yoko thought. '
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/23: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303620003-6