SHORT TAKES : ACLU Seeks FBI File on Lennon

Nearly nine years after John Lennon’s death, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California will ask a federal panel today to force the FBI to release information contained in its files on the former Beatle.

ACLU attorneys will have 30 minutes to argue before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the FBI should be ordered to turn over its files on the singer who was shot to death Dec. 8, 1980, outside his New York City apartment.

The case originally was brought to the ACLU by UC Irvine history Prof. Jonathan M. Wiener. He had requested the files in 1981 as part of his research for his 1984 book, “Come Together: John Lennon in His Time.”

A federal judge ruled Feb. 29, 1988, that the FBI--which claimed exemptions due to national security and a legitimate law enforcement investigation--did not have to disclose information it had deleted from the Lennon documents.

The files Wiener was given indicated that the FBI had closely monitored the controversial Lennon in the early 1970s and that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover regularly communicated with the Nixon White House regarding the agency’s surveillance of the singer, according to the ACLU.

That surveillance, according to the ACLU, apparently was aimed at neutralizing Lennon’s effectiveness in marshaling anti-war sentiment during Nixon’s 1972 reelection campaign.

“It’s ridiculous to say that releasing the file would threaten national security,” Wiener said. “Lennon hoped to impact the reelection of Nixon, but that’s not a crime. That’s precisely the type of activity protected by the First Amendment.”

Lennon had planned to stage a rock concert in Miami at the site of the Republican convention in August, 1972.