The John Lennon/Nixon/COINTELPRO Affair

This censorship movement was brought to an end on this day after twenty-five years, first of supression of what was perfectly legal political activism, and then afterward a cover-up of the full scope of the movement.

In a piece titled He Didn't Have to Do It. That's One Reason He's Still Admired, reprinted at CommonDreams.org, Jon Wiener examines the president-launched censorship movement against John Lennon. He begins by superficially comparing the Dixie Chicks Affair to this one, and then examines the evolution of anti-Lennon sentiment in the press as Lennon became increasing fringe-active.

One aspect Mr. Wiener wrote of is:

The striking fact is that Lennon could have avoided all of this. He didn't have to campaign against Nixon. It didn't sell records or help his career. But Lennon wanted to use his power as a superstar to do something worthwhile. And the great issue of the day was the unjust and disastrous war in Vietnam.

In some ways Lennon was naive. When he moved to New York, he thought he was coming to the land of the free. He had little idea of the power of the state to come down on those it regarded as enemies. His claim that the FBI had him under surveillance was rejected as the fantasy of an egomaniac, but 300 pages of FBI files, released under freedom of information after his murder, show he was right. The FBI is still withholding 10 documents - which we hope will finally be released today - on the grounds that they contain "national security information provided by a foreign government": almost certainly MI5 documents on Lennon's radical days in London.

Lennon decided to hold a rock concert tour, but Nixon was so badly frightened by this activism that he ordered agents in his government to begin deportation proceedings against Lennon. This action was effective; it created a strong chill against political activism by the superstar when his own attorney in the deportation proceedings told him to stop being so high profile. Lennon nixed the tour, although he did continue with lower profile activism. This censorship illustrates how corrupt government benefits from such actions to the detriment of humanity: Nixon was re-elected and the human-sacrificing of American servicemen and the Viet Namese people continued for three more years.

According to FBI to Release Last of Its John Lennon Files, by Henry Weinstein, the final documents were to be released by the FBI after twenty-five years of living in fear that releasing said documents could launch a "military retaliation against the United States". In fact, Mr Weinstein reported:

Scott Hodes, who was acting chief of the FBI litigation unit dealing with freedom of information cases, said disclosure of the documents could strain relations between the U.S. and a foreign government, lead to diplomatic, political or economic retaliation and have a chilling effect on the flow of information between the two countries. Hodes also said disclosure of the documents could subject the government agents involved in the Lennon operation to "public ridicule, ostracism" or even jeopardize their safety.

Mr Weinstein's article contains a great deal of background on this matter; it seems that the best argument that U.S. government officials could come up with in the end, was, effectively: Releasing the documents would reveal how silly the reasons for withholding them were, and make the government look silly in the bargain, so we should be allowed to continue withholding the documents.

The FBI did finally release those dcouments, however, but not unqualifiedly. They still negotiated the redaction of the specific source for the information on Lennon's unpopular albeit legal activities in the United Kingdom. Mr. Wiener said that this remaining redaction did not matter, however, as it was clear as to where the initial material had come from: the U.K. government.

Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, commented about the entire state of affairs: "The release of these final documents, concealed from public view for nearly a quarter of a century, reveals government paranoia at a pathological level and an attempt to shield executive branch abuse of civil liberties under the rubric of national security. The ultimate lesson of these documents is that the head of document classification for the FBI must be [satirist] Stephen Colbert."

Now, this is a viewpoint I agree with most wholeheartedly. Consider: The almighty United States, one of two superpowers in the world, claimed to be afraid of military retaliation from a country which was then and still is an ideological ally, and a military ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance. A county with which its soldiery has participated in military exercises, in which it has military bases, and which in recent years has been a willing partner in the Echelon program of monitoring international, satellite communications, and which allied itself with the U.S. in the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The U.S. government rationale here absolutely boggles the mind.

Mind you, one could examine the issue in greater depth. Let us suppose that the person whose mind is being boggled is a reasonable person. Let us further suppose that the issue is being examined by a reasonable person who has engaged in a long term study of language and its use, misuse, and abuse; someone with a hyper-awareness of such activities. I believe that I am such a person; so, I might very well add the viewpoint that, in this context, "military retaliation" might not mean armed agression against the insulting party, but might mean diplomatic protest expressed through the retraction of military support. We could suppose that the U.S. government covered-up a wholesale human rights and civil liberties violation perpetrated by the presidency itself in an effort to save an allied foreign power some minor embarrassment, just so that allied power wouldn't fly off the handle, overreact, and maybe withdraw from a major, hemi-global alliance that foreign power would still have needed to cover its ass anyway.

Otherwise at stake would have been basing rights for nuclear weapons and troops needed to face down the Red Menace, an intricate and massive espionage program on all phone calls routed through satellites for the same purpose (at that time, but which is now undoubtedly used to try to spy on "terrorists"), and, more recently, the need for somebody else to do some of the killing in Iraq alongside the U.S.

Hmmmm.

You know what? Put that way this action still boggles the mind.

How in the name of Hell can a government quake in fear at such vague, ill-defined apprehensions, and still expect to be taken seriously and respected by the rest of the world? Especially when said government touts itself as the bastion of freedom and the cradle of liberty and as presiding over the home of the brave?

FOOTNOTES:

[01] "Vietnam" is the anglo-western spelling of the country's name. Viet Nam is the SE Asian spelling for it since about 1802. As far as I'm concerned, a people's name for themselves takes precedence over whatever they might be called by imperialists who consider those people less than civilized because they do not do things the way the imperialists do.
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[02] I need a neologism for this concept. Resisted-occupation is the best term I can come up with to describe the situations in both Viet Nam and Iraq. Both actions are un-wars, as there was no formal declaration of war by Congress, the only legal way for the U.S. to be at war, and both occupations were and are violently contested by elements of the local citizenry. Compare these situations with the occupation of post-World War Two Germany by the various allied powers. Germany was thoroughly conquered; it had nothing left with which to fight. Viet Nam and Iraq had and have not been conquered, only occupied. "Un-war" is the term used to describe American military agression that is a war in fact, but not in law.
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