Irvine Professor Loses Legal Battle to See FBI’s Lennon Papers

A federal judge refused this week to order the FBI to release records of its surveillance of former Beatle John Lennon to a UC Irvine professor, claiming that disclosure could compromise national security.

The ruling came in connection with a lawsuit filed in 1983 by UCI history Prof. Jon Wiener over the FBI’s refusal to turn over its dossier on Lennon in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Part of the file, including a number of documents relating to Lennon’s anti-war activities in the 1970s, was released after the lawsuit was filed, and U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi ordered the FBI four years ago to explain why it was refusing to release the rest.

On Monday, after meetings with government attorneys in the judge’s chambers, Takasugi issued a brief order denying Wiener’s request for the rest of the file and dismissing the lawsuit.

“They claimed some of these documents would damage national security,” Wiener said. “To me, it sounds like a ridiculous thing to say about 18-year-old documents about the political activities of a dead rock star.”

Lennon was murdered in New York City in 1980.

Lawyers in the office of U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner, which represented the FBI in the case, could not be reached for comment.

Wiener, who has alleged that the Nixon Administration conducted a campaign to harass Lennon, said he plans to appeal the ruling.

The portion of the file released to Wiener earlier included transcribed lyrics of Beatles songs, photocopies of album covers, newspaper articles on Lennon’s anti-war activities and even music reviews, according to ACLU attorney Mark Rosenbaum, who represents Wiener in the case.

The records showed that copies of some surveillance reports had been sent to H. R. Haldeman, then President Richard M. Nixon’s chief of staff, and longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

The FBI withheld 69 documents--about a third of its total file on Lennon, according to Wiener--on several grounds, including national security and the need to protect federal informants and intelligence techniques.

Rosenbaum said the surveillance was based on “the bottom line that (Lennon) was making political statements that were offensive to the Administration.”

“The campaign of surveillance against Lennon was conducted by the FBI and had as its objective, apparently, to harass and to neutralize his political effectiveness” as an anti-war spokesman, Rosenbaum said.

Rosenbaum noted that Lennon, a British national then living in the United States, was the target of a deportation effort in the early 1970s after he was convicted of marijuana possession in London. But Lennon was never “arrested, indicted or prosecuted for any crime” as a result of the FBI surveillance, Rosenbaum said.

The files released earlier contained “striking evidence of FBI misconduct,” according to Wiener, who wrote the 1984 Random House biography “Come Together: John Lennon in His Time.”

There was evidence, according to Wiener, that federal agents hoped to arrest Lennon on a drug charge so that he could be deported. He was also closely watched before the Republican National Convention in 1972 in Miami, where agents feared he was planning to stage anti-war demonstrations.

Takasugi issued his decision Monday after reviewing the FBI’s claim that the remaining documents did not come under the Freedom of Information Act.

The judge cited nine sworn statements submitted by FBI and CIA officials, most of them made during a closed-door session in chambers, as demonstrating that the files were properly withheld.

One document from the FBI files originated with the CIA. The 1972 memo requested any information on Lennon’s ties to a group that the FBI believed was headed by Rennie Davis, a leading anti-war activist.

In the mid-1970s, a Senate committee reported that domestic surveillance activity had been undertaken by the CIA during the Nixon Administration at the President’s request. The CIA’s charter prohibits it from operating within the United States.

Wiener said he was “disappointed and angry” that Takasugi did not provide a complete written opinion in the case. The judge filed five pages of findings of fact and conclusions of law earlier this week in support of his one-sentence order dismissing Wiener’s lawsuit.

Wiener said government lawyers had never explained how national security could be endangered by release of the Lennon file.

“One day in court, I can remember where we argued that the government has to give specific reasons (for refusing to turn over documents), that they can’t just say ‘national security,’ ” Wiener said.

“They replied, ‘To explain why this would endanger the national security would itself endanger the national security, so we can’t say any more,’ ” Wiener said.

The appeal will be filed with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“This case doesn’t implicate issues of life and death,” Rosenbaum said. “People aren’t going to go hungry because of the results of this case, but it’s a sad and revealing story about the government’s illegal political surveillance of a rock musician.

“It shows the government isn’t as open as it pretends to be.”