The U.S. vs John Lennon Page #7

and the tide of public opinion

turned in my favor

almost 180 degrees,

because regular people thought,

"Gee, this guy from The Beatles

"is coming to sing

about this guy's case.

There must be

something wrong with it."

On Monday morning

the Michigan Supreme Court

reversed itself

and let Sinclair out,

let him free.

That's when the FBI

began to see the beginning

of the power of John and Yoko,

especially John Lennon.

We are certifying

the 26th Amendment

to the Constitution

of the United States.

That amendment, as you know,

provides for the right to vote

of all of our young people

between 18 and 21.

11 million new voters as a result

of this amendment

that you now will see certified

by the GSA administrator.

So Nixon now is facing

a huge electorate

that he has never faced before,

this 18- to 21-year-old

demographic,

the heart and soul

of John's fans.

See, there was a fear

that John could stir,

that John could affect,

that John could imperil the political

existence of Richard Nixon.

Well, I suppose, if you want

to kind of list your enemies

and decide

who is most dangerous,

if I were Nixon, I would put Lennon

up near the top.

A few years ago you would have said,

"Let's not vote. Voting's irrelevant."

I had that feeling, too.

I never did vote in my life.

But now I've met you and a lot of people

and you're all saying register to vote.

That doesn't seem

very radical to me.

What's the change in...

Two years ago, you would say,

"Don't vote," and now you say, "Vote."

This time, since there's 18-year-old vote...

It ought to be

reduced to 12.

We think that all young people

should vote as a block,

and we shouldn't vote

for any candidate

that doesn't automatically withdraw

everything from Vietnam,

and we ought to go

to both conventions

in Miami and San Diego

and nonviolently make our presence felt

and stand on the issues.

They were so heady

from the success

of getting Sinclair out of jail

from that concert

that there were quite a few meetings,

as I recall,

in New York, where they were really

planning a tour...

Quite a large tour.

We talked about, you know,

how could we stage a tour,

basically,

that would follow

Richard Nixon around America

during the presidential

campaign of 1972.

Our job now is to tell them

that there is still hope

and we still

have things to do,

and we must get out there

and change their heads,

and tell them it's okay.

We can change it.

It isn't over just because

"flower power" didn't work.

It's only the beginning.

We're just in

the inception of revolution.

We're just at

the beginning of change.

And they're apathetic

because they're young,

and they think, "Oh, it didn't

work today, so it's all over."

We must get them excited

about what we can do again,

and that's why we're

gonna go on the road...

And we were going to end up with

a free three-day rock festival

outside the Republican

National Convention.

From America it will spread

to the rest of the world.

Viva la revolucion.

It was our perspective

of Lennon

that most of the time

he was walking around stoned,

whacked out of his mind.

But he was a high-profile figure,

and so his activities

were being monitored.

They knew for a fact that they didn't

want hundreds, thousands,

millions of young people attending

a counter-convention,

especially where

John Lennon would perform.

I don't think he realized the strength of

the American political establishment

and how much power

it could exert onto him

with regard to silencing him,

or covert ways in which they might

follow his activities.

We were certain

the phones were all tapped,

and it was...

Like most things, our wildest dreams

did not begin to touch

what they were actually

doing against us.

Do you think that they are

kind of picking on you, John?

Oh, yeah, they picked on me.

I'm telling you,

when it first started

I was followed in a car

and my phone was tapped.

I think they wanted me

to know to scare me,

and I was scared, paranoid.

People thought I was crazy then.

I mean, they do anyway,

but, I mean, more so.

You know, "Lennon,

you big-headed maniac.

Who's going to follow you around?

What do they want?"

That's what I'm saying.

What do they want?

I'm not going to

cause them any problem.

It surprised me when I heard that Lennon

had been under surveillance,

that he'd been wiretapped,

just as it did when I heard

that Martin Luther King had been.

These sort of things

that came out of the FBI

really caught me

as being so unnecessary

and so risky, and why?

I can't prove it.

I just know there's a lot of repairs

going on in the cellar.

I know the difference between the phone

being normal when I pick it up

and when every time I pick it up

there's a lot of noises.

I'd open the door

and there'd be guys

standing on the other side

of the street.

I'd get in the car and they'd be

following me in a car

and not hiding, you see?

That's why I got

a bit paranoid, as well.

They wanted me to see

I was being followed.

Suddenly I realized

this was serious.

They were coming for me

one way or the other.

They were harassing me.

I remember John said to me

at one point,

"If anything happens

to Yoko and me,

it was not an accident."

When we found out

that they were specifically interested

in stopping our plans,

that's when we realized that it wasn't

just the usual surveillance,

but that they were going to take

aggressive steps against us.

This story begins,

at least from

the White House perspective,

with a letter that

Senator Strom Thurmond wrote.

The Congress is long overdue

in investigating the radical left

for the purpose of

devising new legislation

to protect the security

of our nation

from enemy subversive efforts.

He was a major figure

on the right

as the right became much

more of a dominant force

in our politics

in this country in the '70s.

Strom Thurmond was

a Republican senator

on the Senate Internal

Security Subcommittee,

and he had been given

the information

about the plans that Lennon was making

with Jerry Rubin,

Abbie Hoffman, and other people

for this national concert tour.

This is what Strom Thurmond

wrote the White House about.

And this

is where Strom Thurmond

came up with a proposal

to stop this.

Strom Thurmond's memo

to the White House ends,

"If Lennon's visa were terminated, it would

be a strategic counter-measure."

One day somebody

knocked at the door,

and we didn't open the door.

We said, "Who is it?"

"Lmmigration."

And the person just slipped a paper

underneath the door,

because we didn't

open the door.

Maybe that's why.

We looked at it

and it was a notice...

A deportation notice.

We just looked at

each other.

"What are we going to do?"

It was a very

frightening moment.

John, what did you say?

You said you felt

it was shocking?

Well, yeah,

we're a bit shocked.

Do you think that

you will be deported?

I've no idea. Maybe it's just a process.

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