The U.S. vs John Lennon – courtesy of the Not-Shown-at-a-Theater-Near-You summer film festival – Documentary of the Nixon administration’s efforts to silence former Beatle John Lennon’s appeal to people to give peace a chance instead of war. John Lennon and Yoko Ono agreed to appear and perform at a concert in Michigan in December 1971 on behalf of John Sinclair, who had been convicted in 1969 of marijuana possession and sentenced to a decade in prison. Just prior to the concert, the Michigan Supreme Court had refused Sinclair’s appeal, but following the public uproar after the concert, the Court reversed itself and freed Sinclair.

J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI took notice of Lennon’s charismatic influence and stepped up its surveillance of the Lennons, including wire taps. John and Yoko knew they were being watched, their phones tapped, their public appearances monitored. The Nixon administration, especially Attorney John Mitchell’s Department of Justice, brought its resources and attention to bear on John Lennon, first planning a public trial to discredit him for his counterculture lifestyle; association with prominent anti-war protesters such as Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, and Bobby Seale of the Black Panthers; and his anti-government (“Imagine there’s no country”) views as an alien (a British citizen residing in the US); but then fearing a revolt by American youths with such a show trial, the administration took Senator Strom Thurmond’s suggestion to deport John and Yoko based on a drug conviction (for marijuana) in England.

The Lennons hired Leon Wildes, who specialized in immigration law, to fight for their right to remain in the US. The government’s singling out John Lennon for punishment was purely a political act; other celebrities with prior legal troubles elsewhere but who had not confronted the Nixon administration’s foreign policy in Vietnam had not been treated similarly. Interviews with George McGovern, Tom Smothers, Ron Kovic (Vietnam vet and author of Born on the 4^th of July), Gore Vidal, Mario Cuomo, Tariq Ali (expresses astonishment that the government of the most powerful country in the world appeared to be afraid of a rock star), Walter Cronkite, Geraldo Rivera, G. Gordon Liddy, former FBI agent Jack Ryan (“We were being used to stop dissent.”), Chris Charlesworth, John Dean, Noam Chomsky, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Carl Bernstein, Yoko Ono, friends, and others accompanied by songs of John Lennon.

From his childhood onward John Lennon was a rebel, largely unwanted and abandoned by his parents, troublesome in school and frequently expelled; he first created an uproar in the US in 1966 when he said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. His political philosophy evolved into a belief in revolution by peaceful means. In Yoko Ono he found an artist who complemented his awareness, who gave him a keener appreciation of radical alertness, completing his transformation into a revolutionary with a compelling voice. “Once they’ve got you violent, they know how to handle you,” John said of the government’s efforts to harass him. So for their honeymoon in Amsterdam, John and Yoko stayed in bed for a week of “Bed Peace,” drawing media attention to their cause of ending the war in Vietnam. John’s song “Give Peace a Chance” became the national anthem of the peace movement. In December 1971 John and Yoko paid for posters and billboards in several major cities in the US and Europe with the slogan “War Is Over – If You Want It” at the same time he released his Christmas message/song of the same.

Eventually after Richard Nixon had left the White House in disgrace, documents surfaced demonstrating improper interference from the White House; Wildes on behalf of the Lennons had sued John Mitchell and others in the Nixon administration. In July 1976 on John Lennon’s birthday and the same day Yoko gave birth to their son Sean, Wildes informed John that he’d won his 4 ½ year legal struggle against the United States government thus clearing the way for him to receive his green card. Asked by the media his thoughts about those who had tried so hard to remove him from American soil, he replied: “Time wounds all heels.”

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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