'Tamara' And 'Funny Story': Uneasy, But Amusing.

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Beatle Paul McCartney Remembers John Lennon

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli of tvworthwatching.com, sitting
in for Terry Gross.

Tomorrow is John Lennon's birthday. The former Beatle who was murdered
in 1980 would've been 70 years old. Several celebrations are planned to
honor the event, including today's edition of FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of song, "Instant Karma")

Mr. JOHN LENNON (Musician): (Singing) Instant karma's gonna get you.
Gonna look you right in the face. Better get yourself together darlin',
join the human race. How in the world you gonna see laughing at fools
like me? Who in the hell do you think you are? A superstar? Well, right
you are. Well, we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun.
Well, we all shine on. Everyone, come on. Instant karma's gonna get you.

BIANCULLI: That's "Instant Karma," one of the songs included in a new
11-CD box set called "John Lennon's Signature." Also released this week:
"Double Fantasy Stripped Down," a CD including barebones recordings of
John Lennon's first mainstream album with his wife, Yoko Ono.

On today's show, we'll hear interviews Terry recorded with Ringo Starr,
with John Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, and with an author who
investigated the FBI's investigation of John Lennon.

We'll begin with Lennon's songwriting partner, Paul McCartney. Terry
Spoke with McCartney in 2001 about his collecting of old and new poems
titled "Blackbird Singing." One of the poems was written for John. Terry
asked him to read it.

Mr. PAUL McCARTNEY (Musician): This poem's called "Here Today." It was
originally a song I recorded for John Lennon.

(Reading) And if I said I really knew you well, what would your answer
be if you were here today? Well, knowing you, you'd probably laugh and
say that we were worlds apart, if you were here today.

But as for me, I still remember how it was before, and I'm holding back
the tears no more. I love you. What about the time we met? Well, I
suppose you could say that we were playing hard to get, didn't
understand a thing, but we could always sing.

What about the night we cried because there wasn't any reason left to
keep it all inside? Never understood a word, but you were always there
with a smile. And if I say I really loved you and was glad you came
along, then you were here today, for you were in my song, here today.

TERRY GROSS, host:

When did you write this?

Mr. MCCARTNEY: I wrote that shortly after John died.

GROSS: What was the night that we cried that you refer to in the poem?

Mr. MCCARTNEY: I seem to remember we had some time off in Key West,
Florida, and it was because there was a hurricane, and we'd been
diverted, I think, from Jacksonville.

So we had to spend a night or two in Key West, is where we ended up,
anyway. And at that age, with that much time on our hands, we really
didn't know what to do with it except get drunk.

And so that was what we did. And we stayed up all night talking,
talking, talking like it was going out of style. And at some point early
in the morning, I think we must have touched on some points that were
really emotional, and we ended up crying, which was very unusual for us,
because we - members of a band and young guys, we didn't do that kind of
thing. So I always remembered it as a sort of important emotional
landmark.

GROSS: Do you remember what you were talking about that led to that?

Mr. MCCARTNEY: Probably our mothers dying, because John and I shared
that experience. My mother died when I was about 14, and his died
shortly after - about a year or so after, I think. So this was a great
bond John and I always had.

We both knew the pain of it, and we both knew that we had to put on a
brave face because we were sort of teenage guys, and you didn't talk
about that kind of thing where we came from.

GROSS: Now that's the kind of thing that John really acted out through
his music. I mean, he had a couple of songs that were really about that
and were...

Mr. MCCARTNEY: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...were very emotional. It's not the kind of thing you really
did, though. None of the songs, as far as I know, were really about your
mother.

Mr. MCCARTNEY: Well, no. Mine's veiled. My style is more veiled. And
also, at the time the songs were written that you're talking about, like
"Mother," John was going through primal scream therapy.

GROSS: Exactly. Right.

Mr. MCCARTNEY: And, you know, that's going to get it out of you.

GROSS: Right.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MCCARTNEY: I didn't actually go through any of that.

BIANCULLI: Paul McCartney, speaking to Terry Gross in 2001.
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Cynthia Lennon Reflects On Life With John

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

Our next guest on today's birthday tribute to John Lennon, who would
have turned 70 years old tomorrow, is his first wife Cynthia Lennon.
They were married from 1962 - two years before he appeared with the
Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show," where they superimposed the words
sorry, girls, he's married - to 1968.

But when The Beatles were breaking out, pop stars weren't supposed to be
married. So Cynthia was told to stay in the background. She spent much
of her time at home with their son, Julian. Terry spoke with Cynthia
Lennon in 1985.

TERRY GROSS, host:

What was it like in the days when you were a young mother and John was
mostly on the road touring, and he'd have, I guess, like a couple of
weeks here and there in between tours to come home and play the role of
husband and father? Was he able to make that transition from rock star
and figure of fantasy to young father and husband?

Ms. CYNTHIA LENNON: Extremely difficult for him, because even though -
when he wasn't on the road touring, he was in the recording studio. So
we saw very little of him. And when he did come home, he was so
exhausted and so tired and so overwhelmed by the pressures of the
outside world that when he came home, all he wanted to do was to
collapse. And he used to sleep an awful lot, and he would wake up when
we were ready to go to bed, if you know what I mean. With a small child,
you have to be up early in the morning, and then you're pretty exhausted
at night, whereas John's hours changed. You know, he'd be up at night
and in bed during the day.

So the whole fabric of our life changed because of the work that he was
doing and because of the pressures from outside.

GROSS: Were you able to maintain a private life of your own?

Ms. LENNON: Well, my private life was with friends, I suppose, the
friends that I'd known from college days that I kept in contact with. I
frequently went back to my roots, which was in the north. I mean, we
moved down south.

And I had Julian, who I love dearly, and cared for him most of the time,
when I was there. You know, I'd sometimes go away with John on holiday.
But the problem with me was that I had to cope with a household. I mean,
we moved into a virtual mansion, you know, as soon as the money came in.

We needed the space. So the first thing to do is if you're a pop star
and you get a lot of money, you buy a mansion. That takes you from one
extreme of life to another extreme. And John being away, the house was
far too large for me to handle on my own.

So all of a sudden, you find yourself with a chauffeur and a housekeeper
and a cook and an interior designer and all the things in life that
you've never experienced before and you weren't brought up to, I was
left to cope with and handle, which was hard work. It was a full-time
job, actually.

GROSS: Did you want to go on the tours, ever?

Ms. LENNON: Well, I was allowed to go on the first tour - allowed, and I
mean allowed - but I didn't ask John. I think John wanted me to go
because it was so exciting to come to America for the first time. I'd
never been to America, and it was a treat for me. It was really a
fantastic experience. But that was enough. I wouldn't want to have done
it again. It was just too much.

GROSS: Do you mean being on the tour was too much?

Ms. LENNON: It was just understanding and seeing what went on on a tour.
It sounds extremely exciting. It sounds wonderful, you know, different
hotels and wonderful food and seeing new places. But all we saw were the
inside of hotel rooms, the inside of Cadillacs. We were surrounded by
mounted police on one occasion, motorbike escorts on another occasion,
trying to escape from hotels.

It was quite horrendous, apart from the actual performances, which were
fantastic. The rest of it was horrendous because you couldn't see beyond
the prison that you were in at that particular time.

GROSS: Were you exposed to any of the groupies who were hanging around
John Lennon and the other Beatles then?

Ms. LENNON: Well, actually, the first experience - which was funny for
all of us - when we first came to New York, and we were staying at the
Plaza, and I think it was Murray the K was there. He was the first disc
jockey that we'd ever met, American disc jockeys. I was very impressed.
He happened to be there. And in the room, there were sort of all these
draped, beautiful ladies. This is their suite, Murray the K, and about
five beautiful model ladies all draped round.

And we all walked in and looked at them and looked at each other and
wondered what on earth we were supposed to do in a situation like this,
because it was obvious, you know, what they were there for.

And, of course, I was the fly in the ointment because I was the wife of
one the Beatles. So it was embarrassing for them, and embarrassing for
me. And it was situation that clicked with me. I mean, I realized then
what it was going to be like, you know, in the future. I mean,
obviously, that was what it was going to be like, just women throwing
themselves at them the whole time.

BIANCULLI: Cynthia Lennon, speaking to Terry Gross in 1985.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 1985 interview with Cynthia Lennon,
the first wife of former Beatle John Lennon, who would have turned 70
years old tomorrow.

GROSS: One of the changes that he experienced, which I would assume you
didn't, at least to that degree, was the introduction of marijuana and
hallucinogenic drugs. I mean, the Beatles became famous for that.

Did you participate in any of that? Were you anxious to try it?

Ms. LENNON: I was never anxious to try it, but our first experience was
a friend of George's, actually, a dentist person, and we went for
dinner. And after dinner, he put sugar cubes in our coffee which were
laced with LSD.

And, of course, it hit us all at the same time, and we had the most
horrendous night and a very dangerous drive home. We could all have been
killed, because we were absolutely out of our minds.

And for me, that was hell, sheer hell, mental torture. And I couldn't
cope with it, and I would never, ever wanted to do it again. And yet for
John. It was something else.

You see, John was a different animal. He was a searcher. He was a - he
desired something new in life, constantly changing, constantly wanting
new experiences. And, of course, he didn't have a bad time on this
particular drug. So he tried it again.

GROSS: What are some of the others ways you saw him changed by the fame
and the money that he achieved?

Ms. LENNON: I think he became extremely lethargic at home, really rather
sad and tired. He just didn't have any stimulation anymore. He was
losing out on concert tours, and he wasn't happy in his performance
because he couldn't hear himself.

He wasn't getting any audience response. He wasn't close enough to the
people that he was entertaining anymore. I mean, he was surrounded by
adulation and material goods and all the things that other people would
think were fantastic in life. But for John, it wasn't enough. It wasn't
good enough. It wasn't honest enough.

GROSS: So what did it look like he was going to turn to instead?

Ms. LENNON: Well, I think what – it was very hard to describe what he
was going to turn to. I mean, he was on that particular road. We did
turn to meditation and maharishi in India.

GROSS: Did you go to that?

Ms. LENNON: Yes. I was there for two months. But he took that
wholeheartedly, again, and so did George - very, very deeply into
meditation. And I didn't. I took half and half. I sort of tried to get a
balanced view of it.

So I would do artwork. Half of my time was doing artwork, and half of my
time was doing meditation because I didn't want to get hooked on
anything. You know, I think you've got to believe in yourself and your
capabilities, and I think John, again, was looking for an escape.

This time, it was a healthy escape. It was escape into meditation, into
peace of mind, relaxation, away from the pressures. And it was at this
particular time that he met Yoko. And, of course, again, before we went
to India, Brian died.

So the whole thing - our whole lifestyle changed again, very quickly,
you know, after the first time. It was constantly changing. And this was
a great break and a great rift for all of us. I mean, we were all
devastated by Brian's death.

GROSS: When John and Yoko went off together, their relationship was
probably the most covered, press-covered relationship of the year. They
were on the cover of everything. They were holding press conferences in
their bed. I mean, it was one big media event after another. How much of
that did you want to expose yourself to? Did you read it?

Ms. LENNON: Oh, I read everything, yes, because of course, the man – we
had divorced. I didn't mean to say I didn't - I'd stopped loving him or
caring for him or worrying about him, I mean, because I didn't have any
anger or bitterness about it. I had a lot of hurt.

But, of course, I was looking after his interests, in my own little way,
and caring about his future and hoping that he was happy, because he'd
had to go through such hell to do what he did. And he became almost a
leper in the eyes of the British and the press.

And he had hell to go through because he'd broke away from the system of
being one of the four mop-tops that were doing so well, and such good
ambassadors for Britain. And he moved out of that, and he became an
individual. And he did what he wanted - to the extreme, as John would
always do, anyway.

And I felt extremely worried for him, really, at that time, because he
had to take so much from the press and media and from fans and people
who loved him.

GROSS: Did you hear about his assassination through the press, or did
someone notify you before it got out on the wires?

Ms. LENNON: Yes. I was staying with Maureen Starkey at the time, and I
had a – she had a phone call from Ringo to tell her. So she told me.

BIANCULLI: Cynthia Lennon, speaking to Terry Gross in 1985. She now
lives in Spain, where she's continued her career as an artist.
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Ringo Starr Remembers John Lennon

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

Ringo Starr was the last member to join the Beatles. He came aboard just
as the group's recording career began. Terry spoke with Ringo in 1995,
when ABC was about to present a multipart retrospective documentary
called "The Beatles Anthology." He explained how the new project led,
eventually, to a new Beatles recording.

Mr. RINGO STARR (Musician): You know, we finally put it together, but it
needed something new, instead of it just being, like, the documentary.
And so we all decided to be involved ourselves.

And the follow on to that was, well, why don't we make some music for
it? And the problem we had with that - well, yes, it's real easy that
Paul, George and Ringo can go in the studio and make this music, but
that's not the Beatles.

So we needed something that, you know, it would still be the Beatles.
And Yoko came up with a couple tracks of John's that had never been out
there - just demos, really.

So we really worked on them to get them, you know, clean enough and
usable enough, really. We put them down on 24-track, and then we all
worked with that.

So it just seemed like, you know, it's a natural progression, where
we're all loose enough to do this together now. And it make it real
easy, because now John's in it.

TERRY GROSS, host:

Through the demo.

Mr. STARR: Through the tape. Yeah.

GROSS: What was it like playing together again? Did...

Mr. STARR: It was very emotional. I mean, it was very emotional, first
of all, listening to John on the tape, you know, because he is not here.
But his voice was there.

And then, you know, we had to, you know, we've all called each other and
spoke about it. You know, we had to say, okay, well, are we going to do
this? It's pretty strange.

And we came to the conclusion that, well, what we'll do is we'll just
feel like - you know, we'll just sort of say, well, John's gone on
holiday for a while, or he's gone for a cup of tea. And that's how we
got into it. So it felt okay, you know.

But we still have the difficulty of, you know, the three of us doing
anything. So it was a lifesaver, really.

(Soundbite of song, "Free as a Bird")

THE BEATLES (Rock Band): (Singing) Free as a bird. It's the next best
thing to be, free as a bird. Home, home and dry...

BIANCULLI: Ringo Starr spoke to Terry Gross in 1995. Ringo was the first
former Beatle to appear on FRESH AIR.

We'll hear more about John Lennon in the second half of the show. I'm
David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.
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Uncovering The 'Truth' Behind Lennon's FBI Files

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli sitting in for Terry Gross.
Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the birth of John Lennon. In his
lifetime, during and after The Beatles, Lennon lobbied hard to question
and change the status quo - sometimes in song.

(Soundbite of song, "Give Peace a Chance")

Mr. JOHN LENNON (Singer-songwriter, musician): (Singing) Two, a one,
two, three four. Everybody's talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism,
Madism, Ragism, Tagism, this-ism, that-ism. Isn't it the most?

All we are saying is give peace a chance. All we are saying...

BIANCULLI: Anti-war music, like "Give Peace a Chance," didn't exactly
endear John Lennon to the Nixon administration. In 1971, shortly after
John Lennon arrived in New York on a visa, he began associating with
radical anti-war activists, and the FBI put Lennon under surveillance.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him.

Jon Wiener is a historian who investigated what the FBI and the INS did
to Lennon between 1971 and 1972. After Lennon was murdered, Wiener
requested Lennon's FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act.

Terry Spoke with Jon Wiener in 2000, the year he wrote a book about the
FBI files called "Gimme Some Truth." It opens with a memo from Senator
Strom Thurmond to the Nixon White House, about an upcoming Beatle tour
of the United States. The memo warns that John Lennon might combine rock
music with politics and organize young people to vote against Nixon in
the 1972 election. Thurmond's memo also suggests that terminating
Lennon's visa might be an effective countermeasure.

Professor JON WIENER (Author, "Gimme Some Truth"): A little historical
background here, the '72 election was going to be the first in which 18-
year olds had the right to vote. Before that you had to be 21. Everybody
knew that young people were the strongest anti-war constituency, so the
question was, for Lennon, how could he use his power as a celebrity to
get young people into the political process? And also, this is a time
when kids are very alienated from, you know, mainstream politics. So to
get Lennon out of the country, the strategic countermeasure is to deport
Lennon so he won't be able to take this tour that would register young
voters. At the same time they're worried that, you know, young voters
will vote against Nixon for kicking out, you know, the clever Beatle.

TERRY GROSS: Now how accurate was the FBI's information that John Lennon
did want to help organize these political concerts - that would be for
peace and against Nixon?

Prof. WIENER: There's no question that Lennon was talking about this his
friends - his friends being Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Bobby Seale -
and they tried doing one of these in Ann Arbor, Michigan in December,
1971. They had John and Yoko headlined a political rock concert, the
Free John Sinclair concert. Every once in a while I run into somebody
who was there. Fifteen thousand people spent six hours in Chrysler
Arena, they listened not only to John and Yoko, but Stevie Wonder came,
Commander Cody came, the MC5 came, William Kunstler gave a speech, Jerry
Rubin gave a speech, Bobby Seale gave a speech. And a lot of it was
about, you know, mobilizing young people to oppose Nixon. So - and they
were very excited. John and Yoko were very excited about the tremendous
turnout they had for this concert and how successful it was. So they
were interested in the idea. They never got to the stage of setting up
the national concert tour because the deportation order came down just
two months later.

GROSS: How far did the INS get in deporting Lennon?

Prof. WIENER: Well, for much of 1972 and '73, Lennon was under an order
to leave the country within 60 days. He had very talented legal help and
they kept getting these deadlines extended. There was a lot of people
mobilized to support him, but really, it wasn’t until after Watergate,
after Nixon left office, that the Gerald Ford administration immigration
service finally agreed to grant Lennon his green card on very narrow
legal grounds. So for two years he was under a 60 day order to leave the
country, almost continuously.

GROSS: Now, let's talk more about the FBI documents that you were
finally able to get through the Freedom of Information Act. You say that
the FBI documents make the FBI look more like the Keystone Cops than the
Gestapo. Give us an example of one of the documents that you think makes
them look like Keystone Cops.

Prof. WIENER: Well, there's one where they - J. Edgar Hoover sends out
instructions to locate Lennon as quickly as possible. They say his last
known address is St. Regis Hotel, 150 Bank Street, New York City. Now
every cop and cab driver in New York knows that the St Regis Hotel, you
know, is on Central Park. It's not - and that Bank Street is in the West
Village, so this couldn’t be right. In fact. Lennon at the time, was
living on Bank Street, but he was living at 105 Bank Street, not 150
Bank Street. So here's like this all points bulletin, you know, find
Lennon. They're just confused. I mean it could've happened to any of us,
I guess.

The other really strange one is that there's a kind of a wanted poster
for Lennon. The FBI proposed that "Lennon should be arrested, if at all
possible, on possession of narcotics charges" - I'm quoting now from one
of the documents – "which would make him more immediately deportable."
And these instructions to local police officials include a kind of a
wanted poster. A picture of Lennon, you know, height, weight, eye color
and so on. You'd think that they wouldn’t really need this. Lennon was
certainly one of the most recognizable faces in the world in 1972. They
have a picture there anyway. But the strangest thing is the picture
isn't of John Lennon. It's of another guy.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. WIENER: A guy - I mean I know who it is. It's a guy named David
Peel...

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. WIENER: ...who was an East Village folk singer, a street singer,
the busker type, who looked a little like Lennon. I mean he wore the
wire-rimmed glasses and had Lennon's style of long hair, of course, lots
of other people did in 1972. David Peel had recorded on Apple Records.
Maybe that's how they got confused. So the FBI, you know, was lamentably
out of touch with the mainstream, not just of, you know, the radical
counterculture of New York City, but you would, you know, you would
think John Lennon is kind of pretty much the mainstream in 1972.

GROSS: Well, the funny thing is is that the FBI documents - for
instance, there's a memo from Hoover in which he describes Lennon as
something like a member of the singing group, The Beatles. As if like...

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: You know, as if like who The Beatles are really needs to be
explained.

Prof. WIENER: You know, I've always been fascinated by that sentence.
This is in J. Edgar Hoover's letter to H.R. Haldeman. And the first
sentence is John Winston Lennon is a member of The Beatles singing
group. Now what I'm not sure is, is it that J. Edgar Hoover wants to
prove that he knows what The Beatles are and the names of The Beatles?
Or is it that he thinks that Nixon does not know who John Lennon is?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. WIENER: Or that it's this John Lennon, the John Lennon who is The
Beatle is the one that we're talking about here. I've never been able to
figure out which of those is the case.

GROSS: Did you find anything in the FBI files that were released to you
that indicated that the FBI went beyond surveillance - that they ever
tried to set Lennon up?

Prof. WIENER: You know, there's like a couple of documents. Their
concern was that Lennon would participate in some kind of concert,
rally, anti-war demonstration outside the Republican National
Convention. And there's a memo from J. Edgar Hoover to the head of the
Miami FBI office that suggests that if Lennon could be arrested on
possession of narcotics charges he would become more immediately
deportable. Now this seems to me an effort to set Lennon up for a drug
bust. The FBI doesn’t enforce possession of narcotics charges, that's a
state offense, this is not part of what the FBI is supposed to be doing.
I then filed a Freedom of Information request with the Miami FBI office,
asking for their files on Lennon, to see what their response to this
was. They replied to me that their John Lennon file had been destroyed
as a part of a routine file destruction procedure.

GROSS: Hmm.

Prof. WIENER: Now I have to note that - know that Lennon files were
collected in five other cities and none of those places destroyed their
Lennon file, so we wonder what was in the Miami Lennon file that was
destroyed.

BIANCULLI: Historian Jon Wiener speaking to Terry Gross in the year
2000.

More after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2000 interview with historian Jon
Wiener whose book about the FBI investigation of John Lennon is titled
"Gimme Some Truth."

GROSS: Now you have the FBI document that explains why the FBI stopped
its surveillance of Lennon. Would you summarize and read an excerpt of
that document for us?

Prof. WIENER: This is dated August 30th 1972. This is like two months
before the presidential election. This is a memo to the acting director
- now that's L. Patrick Gray, J. Edgar Hoover had died in May - from the
special agent in charge of the New York FBI office. It says (Reading)
For the past several months there has been no information received to
indicate that the subject is active in the new left.

And it indicated what the sources are. (Reading) All advised that during
the month of July 1972, that the subject has fallen out of favor of
activists Jerry Rubin, Stewart Albert and Rennie Davis, due to subject's
lack of interest in committing himself to involvement in anti-war and
new left activities. In view of this information, the New York division
is placing this case in a pending inactive status.

GROSS: Now is that true of the whole FBI or just the New York division?

Prof. WIENER: Well, New York was the office of origin - the OO - as it’s
called in the files. They are the ones who are responsible for
conducting the investigation. I mean, what this really is saying here is
that the Immigration Service and the FBI have succeeded in pressuring
Lennon to cancel his plans for this national concert tour and to
withdraw from anti-war activity. His lawyers told him that his case for
fighting deportation was a pretty weak one. In fact, they'd never seen
anyone win a case under these terms, and therefore, the legal advice was
don’t do anything more that would further provoke the Nixon
administration. He really wanted to stay in the United States. Yoko was
involved, at that point, in a custody dispute over her daughter from a
previous marriage - her daughter Kyoko. So John, if he had been
deported, Yoko would've stayed behind. He didn’t want to be separated
from Yoko, so he cancelled the plans for the concert tour. He dropped
out of movement activity and the FBI is reporting that they have
accomplished their job.

GROSS: So in that sense the FBI did succeed in neutralizing - as they
like to put it - in neutralizing John Lennon.

Prof. WIENER: Yeah, neutralizing is one of the scary words which appear
in the file. Some people think this refers, you know, to assassination
plans or something like that. I don’t think that that's the case.
Neutralizing means silencing him, getting him out of the picture through
this deportation threat. And there's no question that Lennon was
silenced as a spokesman of the anti-war movement.

GROSS: How much do you think John Lennon knew about the FBI's
surveillance of him?

Prof. WIENER: Well, he understood that this whole deportation thing was
politically motivated. He complained publicly on TV shows, on "The Mike
Douglas Show," on "The Dick Cavett Show," you know, these criminal
enterprises that - too many people were coming to fix his phones down on
Bank Street in the West Village and that there were strange men outside
in suits who followed him around. He eventually sued the FBI, claiming
he had been the target of illegal wiretapping.

Part of his FBI file is the FBI's own response to that charge. They
replied that they could find no evidence of authorized wiretapping in
their files. You know, this seems to me like a typical Nixon-era, non-
denial denial. They say they could find no evidence, but maybe they
didn’t look very hard. They said they could find no evidence of
authorized wiretapping, but it could've been unauthorized. It's also
possible that the wiretapping was not done by the FBI but was done by
the New York police or some other agency.

So Lennon sometimes thought he was just being paranoid. He would say,
you know, he wasn’t important enough to be the target of this kind of
surveillance. And other times he, you know, loudly proclaimed that he
was the target of government persecution. It turns out it's the second
that was correct. But he never was sure in his own time that it was the
FBI that was after him.

GROSS: Do you have evidence that his phone really was tapped?

Prof. WIENER: There are no wiretapping logs in the Lennon FBI file of
the kind that there are, say, in the Martin Luther King files, so...

GROSS: Mm-hmm.

Prof. WIENER: ...this remains an open question. I mean, he lived next
door to John Cage on Bank Street, and whenever he needed to take a...

GROSS: Wow.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. WIENER: It's, you know, it's the '60s. It's the West Village in
the '60s. Whenever he needed to make, you know, a secure conversation,
they would go next door and use John Cage's phone in the belief that the
FBI didn't know John Cage was. They were probably right about that.

GROSS: Right. The FBI wasn't interested in chance music, huh?

(Soundbite of laughter)

Prof. WIENER: Probably not.

GROSS: You know, you say in your book that one of the things you really
find fascinating about these FBI files is that they document an era when
rock music seemed to have real political force. Say some more about
that.

Prof. WIENER: Well, you know, it's a little hard to believe today that a
president would fear the power of a rock star. Rock stars often today
have political causes, but they're always or - they're often - they're
usually the safe ones - you know, save the rain forest or fight breast
cancer or something like that, issues that nobody is going to, you know,
try to deport you for advocating.

It's still hard to figure out whether the effort to deport Lennon was a
complete paranoia on Nixon's part. After all, Nixon did win the 1972
election by an overwhelming landslide. His opponent, George McGovern,
carried what, two or three states, something like that. So maybe the
whole thing was just paranoia on the part of Nixon matched by paranoia
on the part of Lennon and his friends.

On the other hand, all of this was put in motion long before that
presidential election, you know, in the winter beforehand. And at that
point, I don't think it was clear to anybody that Nixon was going to win
in a landslide. Nixon was concerned about this youth vote and how that
might affect the elections. It wasn't clear that McGovern was going to
be the candidate.

You know, there's a lot of reasons not to like Richard Nixon. I don't -
never liked him very much myself. But, you know, he was one of the most
successful political candidates in recent history. So I'm kind of
willing to accept Nixon's judgment that Lennon's political plans for
1972 were significant, were interesting, and, you know, did merit some
kind of presidential response.

GROSS: And that's something that you find interesting about the times,
and something that you admire Lennon for.

Prof. WIENER: Yeah. I mean, Lennon really took risks here of a kind that
you hardly see anybody ever taking. How many people in the entertainment
world have faced deportation because of their political actions? I mean,
what - Charlie Chaplin was sort of run out of the United States. Paul
Robeson left. It was sort of the opposite, where he was denied the right
to travel, and then he left, you know, anyway. You know, Bertolt Brecht
fled after being quizzed by HUAC. This is a very small group of people.

So I think it underscores the intensity of Lennon's commitment. I mean,
I don't think he knew the risks he was taking. But, you know, that's
sort of what he was like. He was a risk-taker. He wanted to stand up for
what he believed in. He wasn't going to play it safe. It wasn't a safe
age. So I think that's admirable.

GROSS: Well, John Wiener, I thank you so much for talking with us.

Prof. WIENER: My pleasure.

BIANCULLI: Historian John Wiener, speaking to Terry Gross in the year
2000. His book about the FBI investigation of John Lennon is called
"Gimme Some Truth."

John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, would have turned 70 tomorrow.

On our website, you can link to an op-ed by John Weiner in today's L.A.
Times and read letters supporting Lennon's case to stay in the country
written by Bob Dylan, John Cage and others. That's at freshair.npr.org.

Coming up: Film critic David Edelstein reviews two new movies. This is
FRESH AIR.
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'Tamara' And 'Funny Story': Uneasy, But Amusing

DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

Two misery-filled comedies open this week: "Tamara Drewe" and "It's kind
of a Funny Story." The first unfolds at a writers' retreat in the
English countryside, the second inside the psych ward of a New York
hospital.

Film critic David Edelstein has this review.

DAVID EDELSTEIN: "Tamara Drewe" is based on a graphic novel by Posy
Simmonds, which was inspired by Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding
Crowd." And after a spate of graphic-novel movies that aim inexplicably,
strenuously, and self-defeatingly to evoke their source material, it's a
relief to find one that puts the spirit of the thing ahead of the form.
Director Stephen Frears gets the feel of Simmonds' frames: busy but
airy, the characters looking especially precarious against the fixed
landscapes.

Gemma Arterton's Tamara Drewe - chatty lifestyle columnist for a London
newspaper - is the last character to arrive in this small English
backwater, but she's the catalyst, setting everything in madcap motion.
She has two key attributes: She's utterly gorgeous, showing up in a pair
of short-shorts and riveting the gaze of men and women both. And she
knows that her gorgeousness is provisional. She grew up with a near-
Cyrano-sized honker she had fixed, and now she can't quite believe her
new power.

Because this is Hardy-inspired, there's an unusually large number of
perspectives. Tamsin Greig's Beth Hardiment owns this writer's retreat
with her husband, bestselling mystery writer Nicholas. She doesn't just
cook and clean. She's a kind of muse, giving him ideas and typing his
handwritten drafts. But the aging fop cheats on her like mad, which
gives hope to the schlubby, radiantly unsuccessful Hardy scholar played
by American stage actor Bill Camp. Perhaps, he thinks, Beth could be his
muse.

Luke Evans is the dreamy handyman who loves Tamara, Dominic Cooper the
rock-star drummer who plays his sticks up and down her body to seduce
her. And there are two local high-school girls, Casey and Jody, who
sneak into Tamara's house and send a lascivious email in her name that
ushers in the apocalypse.

In its unpretentious way, "Tamara Drewe" has the fullness of an 18th-
century novel in which fate is inexorable, character equals destiny, and
there are casualties. But in place of Hardy's pathos is a perverse
little smile that's blessedly contagious.

"It's Kind of a Funny Story" is also set on the border between funny and
discomfiting. It opens with its narrator, Craig, played by Keir
Gilchrist, having a vision of himself jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge.
Vaguely suicidal, he talks his way into a psychiatric ward. He has a
dad, played by Jim Gaffigan, who's not particularly verbal, but whose
driving ambition for the boy has reduced him to a wreck. Craig has a
best friend with a 4.6 grade point average - how, he asks, is that even
possible - and a relationship with the girl Craig adores. More pressing
is an unfinished summer-school application that his father believes
holds the key to future success.

With all the ingredients for a self-pitying, narcissistic adolescent
fantasy, the movie manages to be offhand. As in Ned Vizzini's
endearingly nervous novel, directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden keep one
eye on the protagonist and the other on the patients. One is a girl who
cuts herself who's played by the impossibly pretty Emma Roberts, and her
immediate rapport with Craig is enough to make most teenage males think
about signing themselves into the local hospital. Her character is a
stretch.

But the one who dominates the movie is slobby, bearded Zach
Galifianakis' Bobby, who first appears to Craig in the emergency room
waiting area dressed in a doctor's white coat and scrubs.

(Soundbite of movie, "It's Kind of a Funny Story")

Mr. ZACH GALIFIANAKIS (Actor): (as Bobby) How you doing? You got a
cigarette?

Mr. KEIR GILCHRIST (Actor): (as Craig) No. Sorry.

Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (as Bobby) What's wrong with you?

Mr. GILCHRIST: (as Craig) I just don't smoke.

Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (as Bobby) No, I mean why are you in an ER? It's five
o'clock on a Sunday morning.

Mr. GILCHRIST: (as Craig) Well, I guess there's just been a lot going on
in my mind lately.

Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (as Bobby) Go ahead.

Mr. GILCHRIST: (as Craig) OK. Well, this is sort of difficult to
explain, but see, there's this girl...

Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (as Bobby) Yeah. Gotcha.

Mr. GILCHRIST: (as Craig) ...and this summer school application that I'm
really nervous about.

Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (as Bobby) Summer school.

Mr. GILCHRIST: (as Craig) Yeah. It's like this super-prestigious kind
of...

Mr. GALIFIANAKIS: (as Bobby) Why would you want to be in school in the
summer? You should be on Coney Island, bird-dogging chicks.

Mr. GILCHRIST: (as Craig) Are you a doctor?

EDELSTEIN: Galifianakis is stunningly good. His Bobby describes himself
as on vacation from the world, and this is something of a working
vacation for Galifianakis, too. He slows himself down, takes a breather
from his manic comedian persona, and allows something melancholy and
bitter to emerge. His Bobby understands the pressure Craig is under to
perform.

"It's Kind of a Funny Story" is too tidy and often too cute. What saves
it is the directors' soft sell. It's not about breakthroughs,
epiphanies, one-size-fits-all cures for depression. It's about seeing
one's own confusion in a larger context and learning that misery really
does love company.

BIANCULLI: David Edelstein is film critic for New York magazine.
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