On October 24th, John Lennon filed a lawsuit against the US government, accusing it of tapping his phone.
After Lennon and Yoko Ono held their famed “bed-ins” in Montreal and Amsterdam, the FBI began keeping elaborate records on the muscian, including taking notes on his media appearances and wiretapping his phone.
During the tumult of the Vietnam War, the famous couple were self-proclaimed “peaceniks,” frequently criticizing Nixon and the conflicts. The couple was vocal about their anti-war opinions, creating a huge anti-war movement in the USA and making friends with several members of the “New Left.” Their political movement advocated for civil rights, gay rights, drug reforms, and feminism.
The FBI took note of their political opinions and affiliations. They became concerned that Lennon and Ono were planning a “large rock concert” in front of the convention hall in Miami Beach, where the Republican National Convention was being held. They were concerned this would interfere with the presidential election.
So, the FBI, tapped Lennon’s phone and sent their agents to follow the former Beatles. He was very aware of this, admitting these practices made him “scared” and “paranoid.”
“When it first started, I was followed in a car and my phone was tapped,” Lennon said in a 1975 interview. “I think they wanted me to notice, to scare me.
“[The administration was] coming for me one way or the other; I mean, they were harassing me. And I’d open the door and there’d be guys standing on the other side of the street. I’d get in a car, and they’d be following me in a car and not hiding,” he told an up-and-coming London-based DJ, Nick Horne, at the time.
At the time, Lennon wanted to become an American citizen, although he was fighting drug charges in his native UK. The Immigration and Naturalization Service admitted he was “more likely to be immediately deportable” should he be arrested in the US for possession of drugs.
According to the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, an official working for Reagan warned the FBI that deporting a beloved rockstar would not be great press for the administration.
While there were protests outside the Republican National Convention, Lennon and Ono were not found. Lennon would receive his green card in 1976 and would live peacefully in the US until his untimely death in 1980.
