A university historian finally forced the FBI to turn in the last 10 documents they had on John Lennon. Jon Weiner, who has waged a 25-year legal battle, immediately posted the documents on his website on Wednesday.
Though some files were released on Weiner's initial request, the FBI held 10 documents back on national security grounds, claiming that they "can reasonably be expected to ... lead to foreign diplomatic, economic and military retaliation against the United States," according to a government brief filed in 1983.
"The content of the files released today is an embarrassment to the US government," said Wiener, 62, who has written two books on the late Beatle, "Come Together: John Lennon in His Time" and "Gimme Some Truth: the John Lennon FBI Files."
"I doubt that Tony Blair's government will launch a military strike on the US in retaliation for the release of these documents. Today, we can see that the national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning," said Wiener.
[..]The FBI files on John Lennon were published at www.lennonfbifiles.com
By Nicole Belle
— December 20, 2006
