Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan out there. Jerry's here, special guest, Jerry.
Speaker 1: This is the Stuff you Should Know, the Super Subversive Edition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I mean it's a it's subversive, but not
Speaker 1: coming from who you'd expect in this case. The subversive people, Chuck,
Speaker 1: are two of the crookedest, worst Americans to ever take
Speaker 1: a breath of life in the United States. Yes, Hoover
Speaker 1: and Nixon. Right, Yes, Herbert Hoover and Charles J. Nixon.
Speaker 1: M hmmm, no, no, no, not those two. Was it
Speaker 1: Ja Egger Hoover and Richard Nixon? Richard mill House. I
Speaker 1: think it's sa middle House, that's right. So you picked
Speaker 1: this one, right? Um? Yeah, I think we got help
Speaker 1: from our buddy, was it? Um? Oh, it is a
Speaker 1: grabst article, right, this is a grabster So? Um, why
Speaker 1: did you choose this one? Chuck? I'm just a Beatles nut.
Speaker 1: I'm reading a massive Beatles book and just I'm always
Speaker 1: thinking about the Beatles. So this is something I knew
Speaker 1: a ton about. So now I know I know more.
Speaker 1: What are you thinking about the Beatles right now? They
Speaker 1: could write a song like they could like they're really
Speaker 1: good at writing songs. You mean, I think so. I
Speaker 1: know you're not a Beatles guy, but they're regarded as
Speaker 1: good songwriters. Sure, I'm willing to concede that at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a grown person. I'm I can concede when I'm
Speaker 1: wrong or when I've been bested. I think we differ
Speaker 1: on Yoko oh no though, so that'll be you know,
Speaker 1: that's where the tables are turned. Okay, because you like
Speaker 1: her singing, isn't that right? I appreciate it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Like is a pretty strong word, but I definitely appreciate it.
Speaker 1: There's some songs like have you ever heard I Love
Speaker 1: You Earth? Sure, that's a pretty sweet song. I like
Speaker 1: her singing on that. But have you ever heard her
Speaker 1: her cover of Katie Perry's Fireworks? No, I bet that's
Speaker 1: something she did it at um maybe MoMA or the
Speaker 1: Mad or something like that. And she's just standing there whaling.
Speaker 1: She's not singing words or anything like that, just whaling.
Speaker 1: And it was her cover of of Katie Perry's Firework
Speaker 1: and it's it's pretty great to see I'm sure if
Speaker 1: you look it up on YouTube. But I appreciate a
Speaker 1: lot of her stuff. How about that. I appreciate her
Speaker 1: as a human. And it's always fun to look back
Speaker 1: at at performances, live performances with Lennon when she would
Speaker 1: do a full like four or five songs on the
Speaker 1: row in the middle of like Madison Square Garden concert
Speaker 1: and you could kind of see his his backing band
Speaker 1: just kind of like a boy. I can't believe we're
Speaker 1: doing this right right, Um. And she's actually pretty strongly
Speaker 1: implicated in this whole thing we're talking about John Lennon
Speaker 1: um being pursued and and surveilled and basically harassed by
Speaker 1: the FBI UM in the nineteen seventy two actually seventy two,
Speaker 1: I believe um for a very specific reason. And it
Speaker 1: was at a time when John Lennon and Yoko had
Speaker 1: just got married. They got married like two to three
Speaker 1: years before, and um, we're a very famous couple. The
Speaker 1: grab star argues that they may have been like the
Speaker 1: first genuine celebrity activist couple who actually used their celebrity
Speaker 1: as a way to help help influence or help causes
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um and by the time two
Speaker 1: rolled around, Richard Milhouse Nixon was actually running for re
Speaker 1: election again, and he decided that he didn't like people
Speaker 1: like John Lennon running around conceivably swaying the vote, particularly
Speaker 1: among newly minted voters in the eighteen to twenty one
Speaker 1: year old block. Yeah, I mean, he and Yoko had
Speaker 1: been contributors to causes, working class causes. It's sort of
Speaker 1: the notion that Lennon was always known as the working
Speaker 1: class hero. But uh, of all the Beatles, he grew
Speaker 1: up more solidly middle class than any of the rest
Speaker 1: of him. And not to say that that was a
Speaker 1: false persona, but he definitely sort of, um, sort of
Speaker 1: jumped and sort of leaned into that, as Noel Brown
Speaker 1: would say, as far as is his persona. And I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people that don't dig deep kind
Speaker 1: of think that John Lennon grew up in with a
Speaker 1: very hard scrap of life they're in Liverpool, which is
Speaker 1: not the case. But um, as a result of that,
Speaker 1: he championed the working man. He and Yoko contributed to causes. Uh,
Speaker 1: he became him along with Yoko, very much pacifist activists.
Speaker 1: And if you're a pacifist activist in the early seventies.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be a big fan of Richard Nixon,
Speaker 1: and he's not going to be a big fan of
Speaker 1: you because he was. He was not cry about war, No,
Speaker 1: he really wasn't. He'd even campaigned, um, I think in
Speaker 1: sixty eight on ending the Vietnam War and then actually
Speaker 1: went the exact opposite direction with that. Um, there was
Speaker 1: a lot if you're a pacifist, there was a lot
Speaker 1: to be upset about in the sixties and early seventies
Speaker 1: because of Vietnam alone, you know, yeah, for sure. One
Speaker 1: of the ways I think that got the most pressed
Speaker 1: that when people think about John and Yoco's activism is
Speaker 1: the bed ends that they had. That is B E. D, DASH,
Speaker 1: I N S. And that is if you don't know
Speaker 1: what those are, that's when you lay around in bed
Speaker 1: and you invite the press to come to your room
Speaker 1: and talk to you while you lay around in bed,
Speaker 1: and why are why you're laying around in bed? And
Speaker 1: it looked kind of ridiculous to a lot of people,
Speaker 1: especially people on the right. But um, John Lennon's whole
Speaker 1: kind of point, and he was a very tongue in
Speaker 1: cheek kind of had a great sense of humor. But
Speaker 1: I think it all sort of stemmed from that, which
Speaker 1: is like, hey, are you gotta do a stay in
Speaker 1: bed and not go and start wars? And this is
Speaker 1: a pretty ridiculous way to drive that point home. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like rather than having to like go out and oppose violence,
Speaker 1: you could oppose violence just by laying around in bed
Speaker 1: and doing nothing, letting your hair grow, I think is
Speaker 1: what they were saying, which is pretty awesome. And and
Speaker 1: the thing is is it's John Lennon and you know,
Speaker 1: Yoko Ono, and they're sitting around in bed with the
Speaker 1: press in their hotel room, and like that in and
Speaker 1: of itself is getting pressed. And then if you say,
Speaker 1: well what is all this about, and you read a
Speaker 1: little further into the article, I don't know, maybe it
Speaker 1: kind of gets you in just the right way, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you start thinking that way too.
Speaker 1: And to the people who were, you know, running the
Speaker 1: whole military industrial complex, that that, I mean, that's a threat, um,
Speaker 1: even if it's just a threat of the threat of
Speaker 1: saying like just don't you don't even have to oppose war,
Speaker 1: just don't do anything. And that opposes Warren and of itself.
Speaker 1: And that was like kind of the way things were
Speaker 1: at the time. Like there was a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of people in power who were really opposed to
Speaker 1: that kind of thinking, who were opposed to people who
Speaker 1: were opposed to Vietnam or war in general, or violence
Speaker 1: of any kind. Um, there was a big opposition of that,
Speaker 1: and the people who were running the show in the
Speaker 1: United States were chief among those people. Like we said
Speaker 1: Nixon as president and then running for reelection, then JEdgar Hoover,
Speaker 1: who was not shy at all about doing whatever he
Speaker 1: needed to to quiet dissent, Like he would generate dossier's
Speaker 1: on elected officials, especially ones who were more liberal, to
Speaker 1: to basically keep them in line by threatening them with
Speaker 1: blackmail or even the threat of blackmail. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: there were plenty of hippies who got their heads cracked
Speaker 1: in there were people who were surveilled. Um, we did
Speaker 1: an up as it on the Black Panthers, if you remember,
Speaker 1: we talked about um co intel pro the whole program
Speaker 1: to basically undermine and smear the Black Panthers in the
Speaker 1: public's mind. Like the Jake Er Hoover was a vicious
Speaker 1: terrible human being. Um, And he ran the FBI for
Speaker 1: decades and was still running the FBI when they started
Speaker 1: to target John Lennon. Yeah. So to set the stage
Speaker 1: here of kind of have this all worked out, was, um,
Speaker 1: John Lennon had uh, he was able to enter. The
Speaker 1: whole thing kind of boils down to whether or not
Speaker 1: he would be allowed to live in the US, or
Speaker 1: whether or not, if he was eventually allowed to live
Speaker 1: in the U s if they could legally deport him.
Speaker 1: So he was able to enter the US on a
Speaker 1: work visa in seventy one. And concurrent with this, Yoko
Speaker 1: Ono had a custody battle going on. She had a
Speaker 1: daughter from her previous marriage in the early seventies and
Speaker 1: she wasn't gonna leave at all. She was legally there.
Speaker 1: They did try and deport her. They didn't know that
Speaker 1: she had a green card already, which was sort of
Speaker 1: the first foible in this thing. But they they knew
Speaker 1: that they had a lot of leverage over Lennon because
Speaker 1: if they deported him, he would be without his wife
Speaker 1: who was going to stay there, So they have this leverage.
Speaker 1: Lennon loved living in New York City. That's where he
Speaker 1: wanted to make his permanent home so much so that
Speaker 1: that was also leverage that they had to Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And so Nixon's up for re election in seventy two. Um,
Speaker 1: he would go on to win, you know, in a big,
Speaker 1: big way against McGovern. But they were, you know, they
Speaker 1: were and it was about to comm an organization. They
Speaker 1: were an administration that was very paranoid. Um. They would
Speaker 1: obviously with Watergate, they showed that they were willing to
Speaker 1: do anything to ensure their victory, and that included being
Speaker 1: really worried about people like John Lennon. I don't think
Speaker 1: he was at the top of their list of things
Speaker 1: to worry about, but he was on their list thanks
Speaker 1: to strom thurm of all people. Yeah. So strom Thurman,
Speaker 1: the horrible segregationist senator UM from what South Carolina? Right, Uh.
Speaker 1: He he actually kicked this whole thing off because I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: he noticed that John Lennon was was you know, he
Speaker 1: was left leaning rock star activists. He's he seems to
Speaker 1: have been one of the first people that notice the
Speaker 1: activism that was developing among John Lennon and Yoko on
Speaker 1: No and to perceive it as a threat to the
Speaker 1: establishment because all those um recently enfranchised eighteen, nineteen and
Speaker 1: twenty year old voters who hadn't had the right to
Speaker 1: vote until the twenty sixth Amendment had been passed. I
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly when it was past, but it was
Speaker 1: between sixty eight and seventy two, because seventy two was
Speaker 1: the first election those younger kids were going to be
Speaker 1: able to vote in, and he apparently saw Lennon as
Speaker 1: among a group of people who could speak to those
Speaker 1: kids and way them to the left and potentially unseen
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon, which it would turn out is just a
Speaker 1: total laugh because Nixon beat McGovern in a landslide. But
Speaker 1: at the time they didn't know this, and Richard Nixon
Speaker 1: wasn't going to take any chances, so his his the
Speaker 1: note from strom Thurman was very well received in the
Speaker 1: Nixon administration. Yeah, I think, Uh, what I want to
Speaker 1: know is who told strom Thurman. That's what I want
Speaker 1: to note too, because that's the biggest mystery here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I doubt of strom Thurman was too hip to any
Speaker 1: of this, but somebody probably got in his ear and
Speaker 1: he said he sent a note that specifically said they
Speaker 1: try and get him deported as a quote strategic countermeasure. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that's really kind of what got the ball rolling.
Speaker 1: We should also mention this other guy, John. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's Weener or Winer. In this case, it's
Speaker 1: pronounced weener slave. Oh it is no. Do you remember
Speaker 1: there was a thirty Rock episode where there's like an
Speaker 1: HR mediator and he's like this very soft, rosy cheeked,
Speaker 1: very calm, mild bannerd man and um Liz Lemon says, well,
Speaker 1: Mr Weiner's slav and he goes, no, it's pronounced weener slave.
Speaker 1: I missed that show. It's like that was a really
Speaker 1: good moment. They had such a great fun with dumb
Speaker 1: jokes like that Bob blah blah. Yeah right, No, that
Speaker 1: was the rest of development. Oh, that's right, that was
Speaker 1: the rest of development. They kind of had the same
Speaker 1: DNA though. So Weener slave Uh was a writer and
Speaker 1: or is a writer and historian still, and he is
Speaker 1: why we know so much of this. He was writing
Speaker 1: a lot about John Lennon, writing a lot about the Beatles.
Speaker 1: Um he decided to file uh Freedom of Information Act
Speaker 1: requests to get a lot of these documents uncovered over
Speaker 1: the years, and eventually he was successful, um in a
Speaker 1: big dump in n then another smaller one in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. And if it not been for his tenacity, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone else would have picked up
Speaker 1: this mantel too, because you know, in the end, it's
Speaker 1: not the most interesting story in the world. This is true.
Speaker 1: I say that in a whisper It's not like some
Speaker 1: huge like oh my God, revelations. It's sort of one
Speaker 1: of those things that's like just another example of the
Speaker 1: small things that authoritarians do in this country under you know,
Speaker 1: in the back rooms and in the whispered rooms of
Speaker 1: the White House. Well, you know, I think that that's
Speaker 1: really true. And that's a really good point, is that,
Speaker 1: Like if you just look at it on his face,
Speaker 1: like you know, the FBI followed around John Lennon, kept
Speaker 1: tabs on him, and like if you read the files,
Speaker 1: it's really pedestrian, boring stuff. UM, you might miss like
Speaker 1: the real story here. In the real story here is
Speaker 1: that a sitting president directed the FBI to get dirt
Speaker 1: that he could use against a political rival and activist
Speaker 1: rock Star, to help get him deported or to figure
Speaker 1: out what leverage he could use against him. So that
Speaker 1: that that sitting president could get reelected. That's the real
Speaker 1: story here, and that the FBI acted as as you know,
Speaker 1: this um basically a get Stapo type agency on behalf
Speaker 1: of Nixon. That's the real story that I think kind
Speaker 1: of gets covered up by John Lennon and Yoko Ono's
Speaker 1: celebrity and the you know, the FBI kind of wackily
Speaker 1: following up around. Yeah, it is funny because if you
Speaker 1: look at some of the files and some of the reports,
Speaker 1: like they would go to his concerts and undercover agents
Speaker 1: would go to the concerts and report things like, you know,
Speaker 1: he for his encore, he's saying give Piece of Chance
Speaker 1: and we all know about that song, and they would
Speaker 1: take notes on song lyrics and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: it's all just kind of silly. But um, yeah, I
Speaker 1: definitely agree that it's it's just an example of the
Speaker 1: links that Nixon would go to to be a dirty thief. Yes, well, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I think we should demonstrate the links that will go
Speaker 1: to to bring everyone a message break. What do you
Speaker 1: think by just shutting up for two minutes? Okay, so
Speaker 1: the whole thing um started. Eventually, it wasn't clear what
Speaker 1: was gonna happen. But the real thing that kicked all
Speaker 1: of John Lennon's big problems off was that he was
Speaker 1: arrested in ninety eight in London for possession of narcotics
Speaker 1: um and making air quotes you can't see because he
Speaker 1: was busted with some pot I think maybe some hash
Speaker 1: um and like rolling paraphernale. Is there's some really bs
Speaker 1: beef that they got him on in London. There was
Speaker 1: some true believer, zealous anti drug cop named Detective Sergeant
Speaker 1: Norman pilcher Um who was later jailed actually for committing
Speaker 1: perjury as a police officer. Um. But he uh, he
Speaker 1: was alleged to have planted the evidence that may or
Speaker 1: may not be true. But it was like a rap
Speaker 1: that Lennon shouldn't have had on him or Yoko shouldn't
Speaker 1: have had on her. Um that they just wanted a
Speaker 1: high profile bust, and that happened in nine and it
Speaker 1: turned out that that would follow Lennon for years to
Speaker 1: come and really kind of be the fulcrum that the
Speaker 1: US government had on him to try to keep him
Speaker 1: from staying in the US. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't
Speaker 1: even doing heroin at this point. I don't think so
Speaker 1: they should have waited if they wanted a real case. Well,
Speaker 1: it makes you wonder, Like I I remember hearing in
Speaker 1: our I think Our Black Panther episode that the FBI
Speaker 1: was not above like addicting activists and dissidents with Heroin,
Speaker 1: like turning him onto Heroin and then getting him addicted
Speaker 1: and then just you know, taking him out of the
Speaker 1: game like that. Yeah, I think Lennon never shot Heroin.
Speaker 1: That was his jam. Okay, so early seventy one, like
Speaker 1: I said, he was able to enter on a tourist
Speaker 1: visa and then when Nixon and his cronies get going
Speaker 1: on the deportation. The whole thing was based on the
Speaker 1: fact that he had overstayed his visa. UM. But along
Speaker 1: with that, it was very valuable to them that he
Speaker 1: had a drug conviction under his belt at that point,
Speaker 1: so they were surveilling him. They were surveilling other artists
Speaker 1: around the country to who they thought were subversive and
Speaker 1: sending messages UM Lennon speaking of getting busted for Pott,
Speaker 1: Lennon very famously wrote a song called John Sinclair Uh
Speaker 1: in support and did a tribute or not tribute but
Speaker 1: a concert in UM I don't know if they were
Speaker 1: raising money or just awareness both. Okay. For John Sinclair,
Speaker 1: who was a poet, he was the manager of the
Speaker 1: m C five great great rock band UM and he
Speaker 1: offered to undercover cops a couple of joints and went
Speaker 1: and he had already had a couple of minor pot offenses.
Speaker 1: But he went to prison for ten years for the
Speaker 1: US and a big refrain in that song John Sinclair,
Speaker 1: which is a cool song and very um roots and bluesy,
Speaker 1: not like very linen at all. Uh is tin for two?
Speaker 1: Tin for two is what they keep saying. Ten years
Speaker 1: for two joints. Yeah, that he's sold to undercover cop right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it worked. He actually was sprung from prison shortly
Speaker 1: after this concert, yeah, like two days after. And some
Speaker 1: people say, I think that indicates he was already going
Speaker 1: to be sprung, that the Michigan Supreme Court knew this
Speaker 1: was a this is a trumped up charge, but other
Speaker 1: people say not. The concert surely had some impact, but
Speaker 1: Sinclair is UM. So the point about Sinclair and John
Speaker 1: Lennon is John Lennon performed the song. He was the
Speaker 1: headliner at this concert in ann Arbor, and he had
Speaker 1: been coordinating with other people in John Sinclair's Orbit UM
Speaker 1: that were prominent figures in the New Left. And at
Speaker 1: this time, in the early seventies, the sixties had ended
Speaker 1: UM the the it had become clear that flower power
Speaker 1: hadn't worked. The evil people were still in charge. So
Speaker 1: what was next? Uh, maybe non violent coordination and UM
Speaker 1: and resistance wasn't the way to go. Now. Lennon and
Speaker 1: Yoko were dedicated pacifists. They didn't want anything to do
Speaker 1: with violence, They didn't condone violence, they didn't like violence
Speaker 1: in any way shape before. But there were elements in
Speaker 1: the New Left UM who weren't necessarily convinced that that
Speaker 1: wasn't the only way to to change the course of
Speaker 1: of the United States and get rid of people like
Speaker 1: Nixon and his cronies UM. And So, if you're watching
Speaker 1: this from the outside, like your Jacker Hoover and Richard Nixon,
Speaker 1: you're watching the people on the New Left, and you
Speaker 1: don't know which way they're gonna break, violent, non violent,
Speaker 1: who knows, But you're treating all of them with suspicion,
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, John Lennon, one of the
Speaker 1: most recognizable and popular people on the Planet is suddenly
Speaker 1: hanging out with some of these new left cats that
Speaker 1: you don't know which way they're gonna go violent or
Speaker 1: non violent, And that really drew the attention of the
Speaker 1: FBI to John Line. It wasn't necessarily he and Yoko
Speaker 1: and their pacifist stuff. It was some people think that
Speaker 1: it was his involvement with genuine bona fide new left
Speaker 1: activists like John Sinclair or like Um, like Bobby seal
Speaker 1: Um like John Sinclair founded the White Panther Party, which
Speaker 1: they had a ten point platform like the Black Panthers platform,
Speaker 1: and the first platform in the White Panther platform is
Speaker 1: that it's fully in support of the Black Panthers ten
Speaker 1: point platform. So he's hanging out with a bunch of
Speaker 1: people that um had proven themselves as as as died
Speaker 1: in the wool foes of the Nixon administration. That definitely
Speaker 1: caught the FBI's attention. Yeah, and they had big plans.
Speaker 1: They got together and I think their first meeting was
Speaker 1: that the Alla Ala Mooki Township and so I'm going
Speaker 1: to pronounce it the Scaramucci Township in New jery Z.
Speaker 1: And initially called themselves the Alamouki Tribe, but wisely changed
Speaker 1: their name to the Election Year Strategy Information Center. And
Speaker 1: their plan was in nineteen seventy two is to hosted
Speaker 1: and Lennon gave them money. He gave him like seventy
Speaker 1: grand to kind of get going and said, here, listen
Speaker 1: to a bunch of concerts with the help of John Lennon,
Speaker 1: all across all across the country in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 1: We can have different artists performing different speakers, um, you know,
Speaker 1: like pounding home the anti war message. And then as
Speaker 1: these concerts roll closer and closer to the election, it'll
Speaker 1: culminate in a big protest at the RNC in Miami. Um,
Speaker 1: this is all very legal stuff. It wasn't. They weren't
Speaker 1: staging riots or anything. These were just concerts awareness, um,
Speaker 1: trying to keep Nixon from winning. And Nixon got worried
Speaker 1: and he knew that, Like you said, the influence that
Speaker 1: someone like John Lennon could have was like, he didn't
Speaker 1: have anyone on his side. There was no Scott Bayo
Speaker 1: at the time, wooing the youngsters blah blah to the right.
Speaker 1: Oh he was blah blah blah, wouldn't he That's funny? Um,
Speaker 1: So this is all going on, and this is kind
Speaker 1: of what ramps up the pressure to get Lennon out
Speaker 1: of there. Uh, this custody battles going on, they know
Speaker 1: about that, and so there their first step was to
Speaker 1: instruct immigration and naturalization to try and say, hey, you've
Speaker 1: overstayed your visa. You gotta get out of here. And
Speaker 1: Lennon knew this was coming. This is no secret. He
Speaker 1: had gone on TV shows talking about being uh followed
Speaker 1: by the FBI being having his phone tapped, which we
Speaker 1: still aren't sure if that really happened. I think it
Speaker 1: says officially that there was no legal phone tapping in
Speaker 1: the FBI documents, but that throwing that word legal in
Speaker 1: there just kind of makes you think, like, well, were
Speaker 1: there any illegal ones that you're not going to tell
Speaker 1: us about? Yeah, I've read I read an interview, so
Speaker 1: this is like the depths of mind, depravity. I didn't
Speaker 1: even listen to the interview. I read a Fresh Air
Speaker 1: interview with John Weener or winer Um about this and
Speaker 1: he said that in the FBI responded and said they
Speaker 1: they found no evidence of illegal wire tapping by the
Speaker 1: FBI or no legal wire tapping by the FBI. So
Speaker 1: so Winer's like, Okay, does that mean they were doing
Speaker 1: illegal wire tapping or does it mean that they didn't
Speaker 1: look very hard for evidence. It doesn't mean that they
Speaker 1: weren't tapping his phone, is what he's saying. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: at least made Lenin paranoid enough, Like he wasn't just
Speaker 1: not he wasn't not sweating this. He was this made
Speaker 1: him very paranoid, um and with good reason. But he
Speaker 1: took to going next door at the Dakoda building so
Speaker 1: he would let Lennon use his phone in his apartment, uh,
Speaker 1: to make phone calls and I guess, you know, assist
Speaker 1: with the cause at the same time a little bit.
Speaker 1: And then the FBI said, you know what could really
Speaker 1: help is if we could bust them currently for narcotics
Speaker 1: in the United States, if we have an active charge
Speaker 1: drug charge against them, And Hoover sent it out himself.
Speaker 1: He said, quote for info on a bureau n y
Speaker 1: CPD Narcotics Division is aware of the subject's recent use
Speaker 1: of narcotics, which is like every day, and are attempting
Speaker 1: to obtain enough info to arrest both subject and wife
Speaker 1: Yoko based on p D investigation. Yeah, by this time
Speaker 1: I'm thinking he was using heroin. I think that's what
Speaker 1: they were referencing, is his recent use. Oh really, I
Speaker 1: didn't think that started until later. I thought it was
Speaker 1: the early seventies. I thought it happened during his lost weekend.
Speaker 1: But I may be wrong in that. I'm not that
Speaker 1: far long. I'm gonna air towards you then, because I'm
Speaker 1: just surmising here. I'm not the one who is a
Speaker 1: big old book of Beatles history. M so. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know. They never they never actually busted him, right,
Speaker 1: This was all just like they were planning on doing this,
Speaker 1: but they never needed to. I don't think he was
Speaker 1: arrested uh in the United States? Was he? I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't get that impression, but but it seemed like
Speaker 1: everything was kind of barreling toward that. And even like
Speaker 1: you were saying, the FBI was like, we've let the
Speaker 1: NYPD know to to to go do this, um so,
Speaker 1: And if you take a step back, like this is
Speaker 1: some heat, this is some pressure that they're putting on
Speaker 1: John and Yoko. They're basically saying, we're gonna split you
Speaker 1: guys up by deporting John because we know that Yoko
Speaker 1: is not going to leave the country because of this
Speaker 1: custody battle. She can't afford to so she has to
Speaker 1: stay here. So if we threatened deportation to John Lennon,
Speaker 1: it might actually UM keep him in line. And the
Speaker 1: FBI used the word neutralized that they were seeking to
Speaker 1: neutralize Lennon. UM, and I guess some people who don't
Speaker 1: dig very deeply into the story or like they were
Speaker 1: going to assassinate John Lennon and UM John wiener Weiner
Speaker 1: UM has pointed out like this is not at all
Speaker 1: what they meant. They meant like basically making him ineffective,
Speaker 1: like UM, taking him out of the game, basically one
Speaker 1: way or another. UM, but not killing him, just convincing
Speaker 1: him through putting this undo unfair undemocratic pressure on him
Speaker 1: to drop his activities with the New Left. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they And by the way, I think I think he
Speaker 1: probably was using heir when in the late sixties then
Speaker 1: headed on again off again, but either way, so so
Speaker 1: that makes sense because I did see that guys like
Speaker 1: Jerry Rubin and UM, I think Renny Davis, a couple
Speaker 1: of like the Chicago Seven, like they didn't even like
Speaker 1: hang out with them because he was doing too many drugs,
Speaker 1: and I'm guessing that it wasn't like he was smoking
Speaker 1: so much pot. We can't even talk with them anymore.
Speaker 1: Like I think he was shooting dope and they weren't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well he never shot it. He always smoked it, smoking dope,
Speaker 1: but he and I think he and Yoko were doing
Speaker 1: here when actually before the Beatles broke up at the end,
Speaker 1: when they were sort of a strange not with the Beatles,
Speaker 1: not John and Yoko, but um at any rate, they,
Speaker 1: like I said, these investigations are going on and they're
Speaker 1: going to his concerts and they're not even sending information
Speaker 1: that really means much. They're even saying some of these informants,
Speaker 1: like you know what they're they're not even really down with,
Speaker 1: Like the New Left isn't even down with them because
Speaker 1: they think they're just quote self aggrand aggrandizing rock stars
Speaker 1: or there's a little chance that they'll accomplish anything because
Speaker 1: they spend all their time doing drugs. They're kind of
Speaker 1: sending the message like you really don't need to worry
Speaker 1: so much about John Lennon. He's not much of a threat. Uh.
Speaker 1: Kind Of One of the funny things about this investigation
Speaker 1: was when um the Lennon was one of the most
Speaker 1: famous people in the world, one of the most recognizable
Speaker 1: faces in the world on planet Earth, along with Yoko
Speaker 1: oh No, and the FBI, it passes around a sheet
Speaker 1: with Lennon's picture on it so they can recognize him.
Speaker 1: But it was the wrong photo. It was of a
Speaker 1: different human being. It wasn't even John Lennon. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a street busker from the West Village named David Peel,
Speaker 1: so funny, who had a record that I guess John
Speaker 1: Lennon helped produce or something, and he looked vaguely like
Speaker 1: John Lennon. But that was the That was the picture
Speaker 1: that the FBI passed around of the cops of the
Speaker 1: wrong guy. They also the FBI also put out at
Speaker 1: All Points bulletin UM searching for John Lennon and said
Speaker 1: that he's at the St. Regis at one fifty Bank Street,
Speaker 1: UM landscape. Sup. That's right. I guess that's what they meant,
Speaker 1: because the St. Regis Hotel is on Central Park UM
Speaker 1: and John Lennon was indeed living on Bank Street at
Speaker 1: the time, but he was at one oh five Bank Street,
Speaker 1: so that All Points bulletin was all kinds of wrong.
Speaker 1: But this is the level of like um copery that
Speaker 1: that that the FBI was conducting, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: get John Lennon. All right, well, let's take a break
Speaker 1: and we'll come back and talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: Lennon's official defense right after this. Alright, so John Lennon
Speaker 1: is not going to take this lying down. He was.
Speaker 1: He was paranoid. He was going on like the Mike
Speaker 1: Douglas Show and talking about the FBI coming after him. Um.
Speaker 1: The first thing he did was probably what any really
Speaker 1: really rich person would do, is he hires a top
Speaker 1: rate bulldog attorney UM to try and defend this or
Speaker 1: at least delay this. And this guy's name was Leon
Speaker 1: Wilde's and he really did delay this. He was sort
Speaker 1: of a master at filing these motions and getting it
Speaker 1: extended and extended, and Lennon was able to stay in
Speaker 1: the country longer and longer and longer. But he was
Speaker 1: also kind of instrumental in UM kind of letting Lennon
Speaker 1: know that this was a real situation that he was
Speaker 1: involved in. Right. UM. The thing is is, if you
Speaker 1: UM are a immigration prosecutor for the federal government of
Speaker 1: the United States, you know that there's not a ton
Speaker 1: of resources allocated to your division, right or traditionally there
Speaker 1: hasn't been, and so customarily the Justice Department has or
Speaker 1: I guess i n S has left it up to
Speaker 1: each prosecutor to determine how hard they want to prosecute
Speaker 1: the case. And so if you are a UM, upstanding
Speaker 1: person who's never posed any sort of threat to the
Speaker 1: United States, and maybe you own a business or your
Speaker 1: productive member of society, there's a chance that the I
Speaker 1: n S is going to look the other way and
Speaker 1: not actually deport you, even if you are here illegally,
Speaker 1: you have overstayed your visa or you came to the
Speaker 1: country illegally who knows. Um. And that's actually where the
Speaker 1: Dreamer program came from, docca uh. It basically said, like,
Speaker 1: these particular immigrants were brought here as children and they
Speaker 1: pose no threat. Most of them are going to college
Speaker 1: or college bounder there in the military, so we're going
Speaker 1: to not deport them. Um. And what what Lennon's um
Speaker 1: lawyer told him was like all of this is true,
Speaker 1: and yet they're putting the heat on you like I
Speaker 1: have never seen this is this is clearly coming down
Speaker 1: from on high, like they want to get you out
Speaker 1: of the United States. And it's not just this prosecutor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that happens when it comes to
Speaker 1: a case like this is they have to weigh or
Speaker 1: they can be decided basically on the value that an
Speaker 1: immigrant might bring to the US by being an American
Speaker 1: or living in the United States. And so there was
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of funny to look back now
Speaker 1: and think that there had to be a case made
Speaker 1: that John Lennon brings any kind of value, But they did.
Speaker 1: And there was a series of letters written um by
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan and John Baya's and Joyce, Carol Oates, Leonard Bernstein,
Speaker 1: John Updike, just a series of very famous artist kind
Speaker 1: of arguing in favor of John Lennon being allowed to
Speaker 1: live here. It was sort of a flood of public
Speaker 1: outcry like what you know, what little was known back
Speaker 1: then at least, like you can't just there's tremendous value
Speaker 1: to letting John Lennon stay in this country, right, And
Speaker 1: don't forget John Cage wrote a letter to and I'm
Speaker 1: sure it was kind of like, well, you know, do
Speaker 1: you want me to write a letter for you, John,
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, sure, I'm sure that would help a lot,
Speaker 1: John Cage, because I'm sure no one in the Nixon
Speaker 1: administration has ever heard of you. So, um the one
Speaker 1: kind of the up shot, I'm just going full on
Speaker 1: using this word now. The upshot of of that letter
Speaker 1: writing campaign was not even just so much to demonstrate
Speaker 1: the value of of John Lennon remaining in the United States.
Speaker 1: It was if you kick him out, like, there's going
Speaker 1: to be a public outcry and you're gonna be held
Speaker 1: to account and asked to explain why you guys kicked
Speaker 1: him out. Um So, it did have a bit of that,
Speaker 1: combined with um, his his attorney's tenacity, it kept John
Speaker 1: Lennon in the country. He was actually never deported, even
Speaker 1: though they were. He had a He lived for I
Speaker 1: think two or three years with a you have sixty
Speaker 1: days to leave the country order, and his his lawyer
Speaker 1: kept getting it extended and extended and extended. But for
Speaker 1: three years that was the threat that he was living under,
Speaker 1: and again he was deported. He would leave without his wife,
Speaker 1: who had to stay in the country for her own
Speaker 1: custody battle. Um So that was that was a lot
Speaker 1: of strain on him. Actually, And UM, the worst part
Speaker 1: about this whole thing is not that the FBI did
Speaker 1: this and that the Knickson administration single mounter, that it
Speaker 1: all came down to strom Thurman writing this memo to
Speaker 1: kick things off. It was that it worked. Like they
Speaker 1: sought to neutralize John Lennon and his political activism and
Speaker 1: he stopped. He actually did. He gave in uh in
Speaker 1: August nine seventy two by announcing that he was not
Speaker 1: going to take part in that series of concerts that
Speaker 1: was going to culminate at the Republican National Convention, or
Speaker 1: engage in any kind of activist activities any longer. He's
Speaker 1: just going to go back to being a musician again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And by this point, Hoover was dead. Uh L. Patrick
Speaker 1: Gray was the acting director of the FBI, and in
Speaker 1: that same month at August before the election, in November, UM,
Speaker 1: the FBI's New York office reported to Gray that he's
Speaker 1: no longer going to be involved with these concerts, he's
Speaker 1: no longer with the new Left. Um, we don't really
Speaker 1: need to worry about him anymore. UM, We're gonna basically
Speaker 1: settle this case and close this case. After Nixon wins
Speaker 1: the election, and like we said earlier, a couple of
Speaker 1: times by landslide. So this is all sort of for
Speaker 1: not anyway, um Gerald. Ford ended up overturning Lennon's deportation
Speaker 1: order in nineteen five that was already filed, and in
Speaker 1: seventy six he got his green card and lived in
Speaker 1: New York, very famously in the Dakota for the last
Speaker 1: four years of his life before he was murdered in
Speaker 1: the street. Which I think we should do an episode
Speaker 1: on that at some point, maybe in a couple of years,
Speaker 1: once this one is well in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 1: You bet it would be a good one. Um So
Speaker 1: if if John Lennon, apparently before he died, he gave
Speaker 1: a couple interviews and he said of this time like
Speaker 1: that it nearly ruined him as an artist, you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, he wasn't he wasn't just not sweating it,
Speaker 1: like he sweated it every day. It was a big,
Speaker 1: hairy problem in his life all the time and a
Speaker 1: source of great stress. Um So, in addition to the
Speaker 1: stress that it stole his focus, like it made him
Speaker 1: think about that and like how much he hated the
Speaker 1: Nixon administration and how terrible the FBI was for how
Speaker 1: they were harassing him and possibly tapping his phone, and
Speaker 1: it just took his mind from his art, and he
Speaker 1: later said that it almost ruined him as an artist
Speaker 1: because the work he was producing at the time was journalism,
Speaker 1: not poetry, as he put it, um which is a
Speaker 1: very sad effect, but it's it's a really real world effect.
Speaker 1: When you've got something just looming in the front of
Speaker 1: your mind that you can't get out of your mind,
Speaker 1: especially if it's dealing with badness, it's that has a
Speaker 1: terrible effect on you and and your life in general.
Speaker 1: It can produce an entire bad period of your life,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, he was like, I had to let
Speaker 1: Yoko sing a lot. I've got I have something I
Speaker 1: have to say. I don't want to forget it. And
Speaker 1: one of the FBI notes at that John Sinclair concert,
Speaker 1: the FBI informant reported that the song Johnson Claire was
Speaker 1: not up to Lennon's usual standards. And you get this,
Speaker 1: Yoko can't even remain on key. That was an FBI informat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had a good hear, but you know, I like
Speaker 1: the song. It doesn't like belong up there with his
Speaker 1: greatest songs. But it was very it was very clear.
Speaker 1: It was sort of in the tradition of protest songs.
Speaker 1: It's got this acoustic slide dough Bro guitar and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's sort of it fits in with the
Speaker 1: great folk songs of all time, I think, but not
Speaker 1: necessarily one of the great Lenin or Beatles songs. Is
Speaker 1: it as good as John Henry was a steel driving man.
Speaker 1: I think it's better. I like get better really, Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, like we mentioned earlier, the reason we
Speaker 1: know all this was because of Wieners reporting and uh
Speaker 1: he eventually got those documents released, and there was you know,
Speaker 1: in his circle, there was a big hubbub like what's
Speaker 1: going to be in there? Um, what what secrets or
Speaker 1: will be revealed? And really not much. What was revealed
Speaker 1: was um embarrassment for the FBI, embarrassment that they released
Speaker 1: a picture that wasn't even John Lennon, Embarrassment that they
Speaker 1: had a very unethical um and perhaps even illegal um
Speaker 1: motivation behind trying to get uh this person deported and
Speaker 1: it was just egg on the face and that's why
Speaker 1: they tried to keep it under wraps for so many
Speaker 1: years hoping that it would not get out, not because
Speaker 1: there were some big revealing documents, but they were just like,
Speaker 1: can we just sort of act like this didn't happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we'll we'll classify everything as an national security risk
Speaker 1: and they did, and actually that that last trove of documents,
Speaker 1: the little handful that trickled out in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: was an m I five kind of British Secret Service
Speaker 1: UM file on Lennon that the U S said if
Speaker 1: they it was that that last bit of document contained
Speaker 1: a file from a foreign government that had trusted the
Speaker 1: US to keep it, and that it could result in economic,
Speaker 1: diplomatic and military action if they were to release it,
Speaker 1: Like the UK was just gonna gonna bomb the US
Speaker 1: for releasing their document or their file on John Lennon.
Speaker 1: That's why the FBI held onto it until two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, and then they lost a court case. So like,
Speaker 1: if there's a hero of the story, it's John Weener
Speaker 1: or John Weiner, I don't know how he says his name,
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry either way, because he was the one
Speaker 1: that really stood up not just for John Lennon, but
Speaker 1: for the First Amendment, you know, and people's ability to
Speaker 1: be politically active without you know, the threat being intimidated. Um,
Speaker 1: so good for him, totally. Uh, you got anything else
Speaker 1: about this? Got nothing else? I have an article to
Speaker 1: direct everybody too, is on pop Matters, John Lennon Colon
Speaker 1: revolutionary man as political artist, and it's about all this
Speaker 1: sorry history, but also just a pretty good critical evaluation
Speaker 1: of him as an activist. And and it's just a
Speaker 1: really good interesting article. So check it out. And since
Speaker 1: I said check it out, everybody, it's time for a
Speaker 1: listener mail. This is in reference of our haunted real estate.
Speaker 1: I guess that was a short stuff, right, had to be. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like, please tell me we didn't do forty
Speaker 1: five minutes on that. We could have. Hey, guys, been
Speaker 1: a listener for years and finally have a good reason
Speaker 1: to write you. I was listening to the episode on
Speaker 1: whether You're supposed to disclose whether a house is haunted
Speaker 1: or not, and to hit close to home. Two years ago,
Speaker 1: we bought our first house and I made a point
Speaker 1: to run a report to see if anyone died in
Speaker 1: the house. The previous owner had just died within the year,
Speaker 1: but it didn't say where. I wasn't really worried about
Speaker 1: someone actually dying in the house. I was really just
Speaker 1: trying to get a big discount. However, the agent said
Speaker 1: he didn't know, so no big discount. Cut to two
Speaker 1: years later, I found out for neighbors and research that
Speaker 1: the previous owner did not die. However, he was a
Speaker 1: creep who actually had multiple abuse charges. In fact, I
Speaker 1: found an article stating that he had a woman tied
Speaker 1: up in our basement, man who he tortured until she
Speaker 1: was luckily able to escape for weeks. That's like almost
Speaker 1: worse than just a regular somebody dying of natural causes.
Speaker 1: It's a million times worth. Well, no, I was about
Speaker 1: to say, worse than a murder. I guess they're on bar. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's debate that at point. I don't want to. I
Speaker 1: don't want to rank awful crimes, but I think that
Speaker 1: might creep me out just as much. Let's just say
Speaker 1: that the police searched the house and found oodles of weapons.
Speaker 1: The charges were eventually dropped. Apparently he had money and
Speaker 1: he redid the entire basement, which is beyond creepy. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this qualifies as info that should have
Speaker 1: been provided to us at purchase. But it sure seems
Speaker 1: like it. Huh that is from Andy? Andy? I okay, Well,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot. Andy. Is is there a heart over
Speaker 1: the eye? Uh No, but it's typed is it? Um?
Speaker 1: It could be uh Andy McDowell. I think she spelled
Speaker 1: her name like that. I can see something like this
Speaker 1: happening to any McDowell came. Well, whether it's from Andy
Speaker 1: McDowell or not, we appreciate the email. UM, thank you,
Speaker 1: and yes, I agree. I think the realtors should have
Speaker 1: disclosed that if you asked me totally. If you want
Speaker 1: to let us know about some way a realtor wronged
Speaker 1: you or anybody did we want to hear about it,
Speaker 1: you can send us an email to stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, and
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M h m
Speaker 1: hm