MYSTERY WIRE — Tuesday, December 8, 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Beatle legend John Lennon.
Lennon rose to musical stardom in the early 1960s along with Beatles bandmates Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman on the night of Dec. 8, 1980, as he and wife Yoko Ono were returning to their Upper West Side apartment in New York, he was 40 years old.
Earlier on the day of his death, Lennon had signed an autograph for Chapman on a copy of his recently released album, “Double Fantasy”. Chapman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison and was last denied parole in 2020. His next parole hearing is set for August 2022.
Following his murder in 1980, Lennon’s remains were cremated and his ashes scattered in New York’s Central Park.
Photos, flowers and candles are left at Strawberry Fields in New York’s Central Park to remember John Lennon, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, in New York. The rock star and former Beatle was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by a fan on Dec. 8, 1980. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) 
People adjust a small tree at Strawberry Fields in New York’s Central Park to remember John Lennon, Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020. The rock star and former Beatle was shot to death outside his New York City apartment building by a fan on Dec. 8, 1980. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) 
Susan Ryan, who conducts Beatles walking tours around New York, points at The Dakota apartment building, where John Lennon and Yoko Ono lived, across from Central Park on December 3, 2020 in New York City. – On December 8, 1980, the filigree gates of New York’s Dakota residence across from Central Park went down in history as the spot John Lennon was shot dead. But for nearly a decade prior to his shock murder, the former Beatle’s adopted hometown was where he rediscovered life. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
During the years leading up to his murder, Lennon had been in the spotlight for his political and personal beliefs. This time the spotlight was coming from the top levels of the American government.
History now shows Lennon was the target of a deportation effort from the Nixon administration because the president felt Lennon’s actions threatened his reelection efforts. The deportation threat hung on an old marijuana charge.
At the same time the FBI also had Lennon as a target, under FBI director John Edgar Hoover, Lennon was under surveillance primarily for his anti-war activities.
Dennis Mitchell is a lifelong Beatles fan and produces a week radio show called Breakfast with the Beatles. Mitchell said the FBI investigation was a black mark for the agency, “You’re talking about the J. Edgar Hoover days in the FBI. When we look back … those days that were not so savory, and do not come out making the agency look very good. And when you pick on a guy like John Lennon for a trumped-up pot conviction from five or six years before, you’re really grasping for straws.”
Mitchell went on to talk about the legacy left by the FBI’s investigation of Lennon. “When you look back, how insignificant and what a gigantic waste of time and money to go after a guy like John Lennon,” Mitchell said. “If anything, it backfired enormously. And to this day, we see John as a persecuted figure because of that.”
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For several years after John Lennon’s death, the FBI kept all of its documents on Lennon classified.
Historian Jon Wiener filed a Freedom of Information Act request for FBI files about the Bureau’s role in the deportation attempt. The FBI admitted it had 281 pages of files on Lennon, but refused to release most of them on the grounds that they contained national security information.
16th August 1966: John Lennon (1940 – 1980) of the Beatles, after making a formal apology for his controversial statement that the group were ‘more popular than Jesus’. (Photo by Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images) 
Portrait of British musician John Lennon (1940 – 1980) (center) and his wife, artist and musician Yoko Ono (extreme left) as they attend an unspecified rally in Hyde Park, London, England, 1975. (Photo by Rowland Scherman/Getty Images) 
John Lennon being interviewed by journalist Steve Turner of Beat Instrumental magazine, Apple Records, London, 19th July 1971. (Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images) 
Japanese-born artist and musician Yoko Ono and British musican and artist John Lennon (1940 – 1980), December 1968. (Photo by Susan Wood/Getty Images) 
English musician, singer and guitarist with the Beatles, John Lennon (1940-1980) pictured at a press conference at Heathrow airport in London on 1st April 1969. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images) 
(Original Caption) Head shot of Beatle John Lennon with rose during the “Bed-in for Peace” demonstration. (Photo by Bettmann via Getty Images) 
2nd April 1969: Singer, songwriter and guitarist John Lennon (1940 – 1980) of The Beatles, at a press conference at Heathrow airport on his return from honeymoon with Yoko Ono. (Photo by George Stroud/Express/Getty Images) 
John Lennon and Yoko Ono photographed on November 2, 1980 – the first time in five years that Lennon had been photographed professionally and the last comprehensive photo shoot of his life. (Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty Images) 
LONDON: John Lennon in Selfridges department store, Oxford Street, London in 1971 to promote the publication of the 2nd edition of Yoko Ono’s book Grapefruit (Photo by Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns)
In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI for the documents. After 14 years of litigation the FBI released the pages.
In 1991, the ACLU, representing Wiener, won a favorable decision against the FBI in the Ninth Circuit. The Justice Department appealed the decision to the Supreme Court in April 1992, but it would take another five years for the high court to review the case.
In 1997 the Justice Department released all but 10 of the documents.
It took Wiener another nine years to get the final 10 documents released. These FBI documents dealt with Lennon’s ties with London anti-war activists in 1971.
