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Gimme Some Truth: the John Lennon Fbi Files

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I'm curious... What do you think?
The Woodstock Nation revisited
Better than Elvis's sleeping pills
A Legal Mystery Tour

Gimme Some Truth: the John Lennon Fbi Files
Jon Wiener
Manufacturer: California
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Conspiracy Theories | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Come Together: JOHN LENNON IN HIS TIME
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The U.S. vs. John Lennon
Lennon: Definitive Biography, The

ASIN: B0001PBYAO

Book Description

When FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover reported to the Nixon White House in 1972 about the Bureau's surveillance of John Lennon, he began by explaining that Lennon was a "former member of the Beatles singing group." When a copy of this letter arrived in response to Jon Wiener's 1981 Freedom of Information request, the entire text was withheld--along with almost 200 other pages--on the grounds that releasing it would endanger national security. This book tells the story of the author's remarkable fourteen-year court battle to win release of the Lennon files under the Freedom of Information Act in a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. With the publication of Gimme Some Truth, 100 key pages of the Lennon FBI file are available--complete and unexpurgated, fully annotated and presented in a "before and after" format.
Lennon's file was compiled in 1972, when the war in Vietnam was at its peak, when Nixon was facing reelection, and when the "clever Beatle" was living in New York and joining up with the New Left and the anti-war movement. The Nixon administration's efforts to "neutralize" Lennon are the subject of Lennon's file. The documents are reproduced in facsimile so that readers can see all the classification stamps, marginal notes, blacked out passages and--in some cases--the initials of J. Edgar Hoover. The file includes lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges.
Fascinating, engrossing, at points hilarious and absurd, Gimme Some Truth documents an era when rock music seemed to have real political force and when youth culture challenged the status quo in Washington. It also delineates the ways the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations fought to preserve government secrecy, and highlights the legal strategies adopted by those who have challenged it.

Customer Reviews:

I'm curious... What do you think?.......2005-10-23

Did the government have something to do with the assassination of John Lennon? Click yes if you think so or no if you don't.

The Woodstock Nation revisited.......2003-10-18

It did bring me back "...to those thrilling day's of yesteryear." I was 18 and in the Army in 1972. I have forgoten most of the events unfolding that year, and this book brought back those scene's, as well as the THEN famous people who are just "faded memories" now. John and Yoko, Abby and Jerry, The other Chicago seven members, all of them are here and live again in these declassified FBI files. You would think some of the printed report's on the coming's and going's of the counter-culture leaders were written by old busy-bodies. Most documents are just plain nonsense and gossip. Why the Government tried to supress these for so long is a wonder. I would like to know what the British sent over to the FBI in the way of documents. These are shown to the reader as still being blacked out, and some dated beyond the date the FBI stopped watching Lennon's movements. A well done book by the Prof. and well worth the time if you like to read book's of a more political theme. Not for the four mop top's type of Beatle's fan. If you lived through the Day's of rage and wish to take a walk down those paranoid paths of the Hippie era then buy this book (I did not say "Steal This Book.")

Better than Elvis's sleeping pills.......2001-07-28

Well I just woke up from a long nap after trying yet again to *yawn* read a chapter of this *yawn* book. Definitely not nearly enough bananas or geese in it for me. If you want to hear long drawn-out stories about getting files from government agencies....well all I'm saying is I guess my primary interest in Lennon has always been his music and I just don't give a hoot about this stuff-- not enough entertainment value. I thought the book "The day Elvis Met Nixon" was much better. Oh go ahead write me a negative response.

A Legal Mystery Tour.......2000-06-04

First a simple test. To whom was FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover referring when he wrote to President Nixon's Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, "[He is]...a paradox because he is difficult to judge by the normal standards of civilized life....His main reason for being is to destroy, blindly and indiscriminately, to tear down and provoke chaos...."? Adolf Hitler maybe, or some seminal Osama bin-Laden? Of course not, as you already know it was none other than our friendly, pudgy-faced, mop-headed, evil genius, that heinous John Lennon, composer of such bellicose anthems as "Imagine" and "Give Peace a Chance." Reason enough to warrant the FBI's surveillance of the man for 24 hours a day, for years on end? Well, not really, but they did it anyway. This book details the efforts by the author, Jon Wiener, and two ACLU attorneys, Mark Rosenbaum and Dan Marmalefsky, to obtain the 200 odd pages of documents held by the FBI on Mr. Lennon, that the agency had refused to release, (typically on grounds of either national security or ostensibly to protect confidential sources). To this end the attorneys employed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) as their basis to obtain these documents. The run-around that they were given by the government should be nothing new to students of previous such encounters, and the fact that it took 15 years to achieve it should not prove too surprising either. But without doubt the central point of this book, and one that cannot be overemphasized, is that it was the FBI (acting outside of its own charter and the explicit instructions contained in the FOIA) that violated the law, while finding no criminal activity on the part of Mr. Lennon. Possibly I'm too old, too jaded or just plain too cynical to be surprised to find out that the government, or its representatives, are capable of lying, placing illegal wire-taps, harassment, obfuscation and underhandedness. Certainly all of that happened here, and it is hats off to Rosenbaum and Marmalefsky for uncovering much of the skullduggery. Although most of the information on Mr. Lennon that was unearthed as a result of this effort was largely already known to any diligent reader of, for example, "Rolling Stone" magazine, following the trail of the hearings and legal arguments is a fascinating and worthwhile one, and the book's final chapter was (for me, at least) an eye-opener.

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interesting but at times a stretch
Meandering with moments of interest.

John Lennon and the FBI Files
Phil Strongman , and Alan Parker
Manufacturer: Sanctuary Publishing, Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Gimme Some Truth: the John Lennon Fbi Files

ASIN: 1860745229

Book Description

Once the Beatles split up, John Lennon found time to explore his strong political activist side. Moving to New York City, he and wife Yoko Ono befriended a host of activists and writers with a variety of agendas, encouraging and supporting them to such an extent that the FBI took notice. What followed was an escalating, and often bizarre, series of harassments - apartment bugging, deportation orders, attempted declaration of the Lennons' "insanity," concert embargoes, a set-up pot bust, harassment of friends like David Bowie, culminating, the authors argue, in the Beatle's death. The strange and sinister story of the U.S. government's secret war on the Lennons is dramatically told in this book based on recently released documents from the FBI's own archives. Included are photographs as well as new information from Lennon's music peers and fellow activists.

Customer Reviews:

interesting but at times a stretch.......2005-09-01

this book is a fairly interesting read however the author basically blends consipacy theories with fact, and treats them as fact. the book is also overtly opinionated. i do not condem the author or the book, but i think it should have been written in a manner that did not frequently display possibilities (even if they seem likely or at least plausible) as though they were known facts. that being said, i did enjoy reading the book. i dont know if i am with it all the way through but it was definitly interesting and did present a lot of facts about Lennon and about the history of the times that i, being born at the tail end of those days, didnt know much about. certainly whether or not all the conspiracy theories are true are not there are some fascinating similarities between various events discussed, odd coincidences, and really untidy loose ends that leave the possibilies open. i recomend this for those interested in such topics as sociology and history as well as the conspiracy theorists of the world, and for those interested in Lennon, although the books focus is really only on his death and only gives a brief overview of his life.

Meandering with moments of interest........2004-06-21

"John Lennon and the FBI Files" suggests that Lennon's assassin was not a deranged fan, but a programmed killer. Despite being this being the main objective of the book, it only occupies the latter third of the book's content. The majority of the book outlines the history of the CIA and FBI organizations and the various theories about mind control and programmed killers as pertaining to the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations.
By comparing Lennon's murder to the murder's of JFK and MLK it only exposes the lack of tangible evidence. While there's much evidence to help fuel the conspiracy theories of those assassinations, there's not a great deal of evidence in the Lennon shooting. The authors make a rather thin case in this book for a conspiracy. It's an interesting idea, but the most interesting portion of this book is dealing with the history of the CIA, which is better discussed in other books.

John Lennon: The FBI Files (Moments of History)

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John Lennon: The FBI Files (Moments of History)
Tim Coates
Manufacturer: Tim Coates Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1843810042

John Lennon & The FBI Files - Autographed

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John Lennon & The FBI Files - Autographed
John Lennon
Manufacturer: K&B
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Tankobon Hardcover
ASIN: 4902800012

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GIMME SOME TRUTH: THE JOHN LENNON FBI FILES.
Jon. Wiener
Manufacturer: Univ. of California Press,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NW9T8O

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