RocknRoll is a security threat

Because of rap and the passing of time, RnR is no longer considered a threat to society. But back in the day, John Lennon was considered a dangerous freaking individual. To the US government, anyway. Question is, who would they investigate today? Thom Yorke? Eddie Argos?

(AP)LOS ANGELES -- The FBI has released its final surveillance documents on John Lennon to a university historian who has waged a 25-year legal battle to obtain the secret files.

The 10 pages contain new details about Lennon's ties to leftist and anti-war groups in London in the early 1970s, but nothing indicating government officials considered the former Beatle a serious threat, historian Jon Wiener told the Los Angeles Times in Wednesday's editions.

The FBI had unsuccessfully argued that an unnamed foreign government secretly provided the information, and releasing the documents could lead to diplomatic, political or economic retaliation against the United States.

The newly released documents include a surveillance report stating that two prominent British leftists had courted Lennon in hopes that he would finance "a left-wing bookshop and reading room in London" but that Lennon gave them no money. Another page states that there was "no certain proof" that Lennon had provided money "for subversive purposes."

"I doubt that Tony Blair's government will launch a military strike on the U.S. in retaliation for the release of these documents," Wiener told the newspaper. "Today, we can see that the national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning."

Wiener first requested the documents in 1981, several months after he decided to write a book about Lennon following the singer's murder. He initially obtained some documents, but the FBI withheld numerous files, saying they contained national security information and were exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

Wiener sued the government and received a number of files in 1997 as part of a settlement with the FBI. Justice Department lawyers continued to withhold the final 10 pages until a federal judge in 2004 ordered their release.

The previously released files showed that the FBI closely monitored Lennon from 1971 to 1972.

i hope they don't shred the documents.

Question is, who would they investigate today?

Cat Stevens
Richard Thompson

Good work, FBI!

[www.historytalk.org]

In the mid 70s International Times ended up on Portobello, over the road from Frendz, for a few more Lennon financed issues. After IT folded in ’73 Yoko called the last editor Roger ‘High 60s’ Hutchinson, at 299, on John’s behalf to see if his subscription was up to date. When Hutchinson told her IT had gone bust she invited him round to Apple, and gave him a cheque for £1,000. Hutchinson returned to Portobello to rent an office at 286, out of which he and his 299 flatmates, Caroline McKechnie and Ed Barker, and Jonathon Green, published a few more monthly issues. That was IT’s lot, apart from shortlived revivals in the late 70s and mid 80s. Mick Farren won the last underground press obscenity trial, of his ‘Nasty Tales’ comic (running up a tab at the All Saints taxi office), and made the missing link between Elvis and the Angry Brigade in ‘Watch Out Kids’; designed by Ed Barker on Portobello. Then Farren, Miles, CSM, Kent, Bubbles, and the photographers Pennie Smith and Joe Stevens, deserted the underground for the NME. Ed Barker was also responsible for Fairies sleeves, their flying pig logo, and Boss Goodman’s Dingwalls ads.

Speaking of Mick Farren, any chance there'll someday be an archive of his TP columns on this site?

we should ask him!!!

[doc40.blogspot.com]

Paganizer wrote:

> Because of rap and the passing of time, RnR is no longer
> considered a threat to society. But back in the day, John
> Lennon was considered a dangerous freaking individual. To the
> US government, anyway. Question is, who would they investigate
> today? Thom Yorke? Eddie Argos?
>


neil young

in fact, i'm kinda surprised he hasn't already a little practice landing on waterboard...