Who Killed John Lennon? And the Politics That Feared His Voice.

A football game on TV, Howard Cosell’s voice breaking the spell, and then a silence that never really ended. We start from that shared shock and pull a larger thread: how John Lennon’s voice grew into something governments measured, feared, and tried to contain.

We map the Beatles’ improbable journey from pop to power, banned in the USSR yet copied onto “bone records” by kids who risked their futures just to hear a chord. Former Soviet leaders later admitted what censors couldn’t stop: music can humanize an enemy and loosen the gears of a rigid system. Back in the States, Lennon’s moral courage showed up in concrete ways, from refusing segregated audiences to standing with activists at the Free John Sinclair concert. That stance triggered surveillance, a deportation push, and a recognition in Washington that the youth vote—and Lennon’s ability to mobilize it—could reshape elections.

Then we return to the Dakota and everything that doesn’t sit right. Conflicting medical recollections suggest a professional hit. Eyewitness stories diverge. Mark David Chapman lingers, reading The Catcher in the Rye, echoing a pattern that later brushes the Hinckley case and fuels MKUltra speculation. We don’t claim a smoking gun; we lay out the record as it exists, with care and context. Around the edges, the world was changing fast: Reagan’s incoming team, the Committee on the Present Danger, Euro-missile plans, and a new media landscape—CNN, soon MTV—ready to give Lennon a live line to millions. Pair that with signs the Beatles were edging toward shared studio time in 1981, and the stakes grow larger than one man with a pistol.

What remains is the why. A voice that couldn’t be bought, a platform that could fill streets, and a decade that was about to hinge on narratives of fear and force. We weigh the evidence, challenge the official story where it falters, and honor the cost of losing an artist who believed songs could be tools, not souvenirs. Listen, then tell us what you think—was it a lone gunman, or did policy and power have a heavier hand?

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review. Your support helps us keep asking hard questions with open eyes.

Transcript

Shock Of Lennon's Murder

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to History's Agenda. Tonight, we're gonna get back into something that we've talked about briefly, and it's been a subject of some of our videos, and will be again, and that is the assassination game that seems to go on in America and around the world about using the course of history through assassinations. And tonight I'm gonna talk about probably the one that had the most effect on myself in December of 1980 when I was coming home from watching the football game and last few minutes on when New England was gonna kick a field gold or try to kick a field gold at my parents' house with my mom and dad sitting in their chair, and Howard Cosell goes and says, Could this be true? John Lennon has been shot, and he was DOA to the hospital. Quite a shocking event. And of course, we have with us again Dom. How are you, Dom? I'm doing well, Judge. Thank you. Dom is an expert in this field. He spends a lot of time researching these things, as he does with a lot of assassinations, and we're lucky to have him with us. One of the other things of that night that I remember is that I didn't believe the broadcast. I went into my bedroom. I turned on WNEW at the time, which was the big time radio station. And when I heard they were playing the double fantasy album, I knew it was true. I don't know what you remember from that night, though.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Actually, nothing because I was sleeping. I was in uh 12th grade and I wasn't watching uh Monday Night Football. So the next morning, my mother woke me up and you know, she shook me out of bed and said John Lennon was killed last night. That's how I found out. Right. It was a tough year for us in uh 12th grade. We lost uh John Bonham in September and uh John Lennon in December.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah. So what was John Bellucci that year too? No. Uh I think he was uh March 82 or 83.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Later much later. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

I knew it was around the same time period, but whatever. But those those obviously weren't assassinations. John Bowden, I believe was a drug overdose or something like that, or a cardiac arrest from from those kind of things. But Alcohol, I think. Alcohol, yeah. Um John Lennon is an amazing story, and you think it's not related or not an assassination that would be politically driven as when we talk about Mega Revers, you know, well, we talk about MLK, RFK, JFK. But in hindsight and later it is, there are a little lot of political motivations here.

Banned In The USSR

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yeah, without question. No doubt. John was on people's radar since the 1960s. Um, you know, when the Beatles hit it big, gigantic in 1964 with Beatle Mania, they captivated the West and in uh Soviet Union and their satellite states, their music was banned. And uh there were very serious penalties for kids who got caught with the Beatles record. You would be stopped from going to school, you know, from college and finishing school. So your future was very limited. But they had a massive business in uh Beatles' bootlegs, and it it was very big. Their influence was such that the KGB actually considered them a weapon of war. And they, believe it or not, they spied on them. And what they did was in the in the 60s, it was illegal to be gay in uh Great Britain. And the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, was gay, but it wasn't known at that time. And with the KGB spying on them, they found out about it and they put together a short film that they showed to uh Soviet youth talking about the decadence of the West. But what would happen is broadcasts from high-powered radio stations would be received in Russia, and some kids had tape recorders and they would tape record Beatles songs, and they developed this ingenious way of making records. It seems that in the Soviet Union they used to have these booths that were typically typically used by soldiers to create an album to send home to their parents. And what these kids would do is they would play the record, the recording that they made, onto an X-ray that they would steal from hospitals that were that were discarded. And that would become Yeah, that would become their record. And then they would mass produce that. And what was interesting was they with the X-rays, they would walk out and you know, you could bend it over your over your arm or or your leg and it wouldn't be seen because there would be policemen there, you know, looking and checking, but they they wouldn't see it because that you could bend it. And it became a huge business. So they had the Beatles had massive influence in the Soviet Union to such a degree that later on people like Mikhail Gorbachev talked about their influence. And I actually have some quotes from him. And it says that Mikhail Gorbachev famously credited the Beatles with having a more significant impact on the end of the Cold War than traditional political or military measures. He said on the Cold War, he stated, quote, more than any ideology, more than any religion, more than Vietnam or any other war or nuclear bomb, the single most important reason for the diffusion of the Cold War was the Beatles. Think about that. And uh during a private meeting with Paul McCartney in Ray, Gorbachev told him, I do believe that the music of the Beatles taught young people of the Soviet Union that there is another life. On the fall of communism, he suggested that the band's music helped break down the unshakable dogmas of the Soviet era by making Western culture appear human and non-threatening to Soviet youth. And at the time, you know, the the uh Soviet Union fell apart in '91. And in 93, uh Putin uh uh uh excuse me, uh Paul McCartney. You have to edit that. Paul McCartney Paul McCartney did a concert in Red Square. Putin said he he attended the concert, and he said that uh the Beatles' work was a drop of freedom that helped humanize the West for young Russians, despite the error's heavy over-idealization. And there's another important statement by a Dr. Yuri Pelyashin, not good with Russian words, but he said the Beatles had a tremendous impact on Soviet kids. The Soviet authorities thought of the Beatles as a secret Cold War weapon. The kids lost their interest in all Soviet unshakable dogmas and ideas and stopped thinking of an English-speaking person as the enemy. That's when the communists lost two generations of young people. That was an incredible impact. And all this stuff about the Beatles' influence on bringing down uh you know communism and and helping end the Cold War is chronicled in the book How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin by Leslie Woodhead, who is a journalist, a filmmaker, and was a spy for England. So that shows you, you know, the the influence that they had and the power to introduce ideas into millions of people. And certainly the intellectual force behind them was John Lennon.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

So I'm surprised the Soviets let him in to do a concert.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Well, by then the Soviet Union had fallen and things changed. And what happened was, you know, there's actually a documentary on that concert, uh, you know, Paul's concert in Red Square. And one of Putin's early top dogs talks about how basically, you know, the Soviet youth in the 60s, by the late 80s, early 90s, when the Soviet Union was falling apart, they had partaken now, they were part of that system. You know, they they entered into that life. And because they were denied things from the West, they wanted to end that system. So that's that that's how that all went down. And uh Paul was like a perfect uh person to um you know to exemplify that.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Just because it shows the effect on the Soviet Union. Now, you can only imagine that the effect on American people. I mean, I know that I know when John came out and said we're more popular than Jesus Christ, I know what effect that had. Negative effect. Um I don't think it I I I think there's uh a considerable part of the right-wing community that never forgot that.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Well, without question, I mean, you know, uh if you look at the USA versus John Lennon, which is a phenomenal documentary, you know, you see this Ku Klux Klan guy in the 60s talking about how they were going to stop the Beatles, you know, performing in the South and all that. But one of the things that they did prior to all of the uh you know the stuff that happened after he made the comment about Jesus, which is taken kind of out of context.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

It was Yeah, I I thought totally out of context.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

It was a he was talking to a friend who was a writer in England for a magazine, and it it took about two months for it to come over here, and they they kind of took things out of context. You know, he was comparing the Beatles' popularity with with Jesus in England and what they meant to kids in England. But as he says, you know, it wasn't saying that we were better, which I'm just saying that we were more popular, which is probably accurate, you know.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

With kids at that time, they were incredibly popular, and you know, kids weren't coming home and you know, put they were putting on records. They weren't they weren't like grabbing onto their Bible.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah, and and at that time, uh you know, the Beatles kind of geared their audience to uh you know, to young girls, basically, you know. Uh so that was their that was their big concert going audience. So, you know, but one of the things that they did, and they're not given any credit for this, but when they started touring in the United States, when they found out about segregation, they told the Southern promoters that under no circumstances are they ever going to play any venue where black people can't sit wherever they want to sit. Lo and behold, segregation ended in those venues when the Beatles played. So that's another example of their power that they had. Not too many people were able to do that. The only other one that I know of, and uh he's not given any credit for it either, and and in some ways it's more impressive, but um, Frank Sinatra said that he will not play in any hotel in Las Vegas that does not allow Sammy Davis Jr. to stay there. And uh, given who actually owned the hotels, that was quite a statement on his part, you know. But that's unfortunate. They're not giving credit for that. They should be.

Civil Rights And Cultural Clout

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Yeah, I agree. You know, there's a lot of things they're not given credit for. I mean, other than the amazing song we're uh writing, um, you know, that I still think people think don't credit Ringo's ability as a drummer because he wasn't all over the place like other people. But if you you speak to a a lot of famous drummers, Dave Grohl, on and on and on, and Dave Grohl could be one of the best drummers I ever saw, and I saw a lot. He says Ringo's the best, and and everyone does. You know, he was just different. So that and you know, George had a different way about him, too. You know, he was very peace-oriented, it's not really given that much credit, peace and love and religious as John is, because John's more outspoken. You know, I was I was thinking about the day that Lennon was shot, and you know, he he had done a photo shoot with Ann Liebowitz um that day, and where he wanted both him and Yoko, where she wanted him and Yoko to be naked on the cover of Rolling Stone, and and Yoko had said she'd be topless, and then went back and forth. She ended up being fully clothed, and John was totally naked, which uh is you know came out because of the assassination, came out in January. Uh there was a little bit of a delay for that. And he had been recording that day one of uh putting the finished touches on on one of Yoko's songs. Now, he also spent some time signing autographs earlier in the day outside of four or five or six hours after his death. I think five hours he was signing some autographs, and he signed an autograph for the for the gentleman who is accused of being his assassin.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yep. And it's uh famously captured in a photograph. Right. So uh yeah, John signed uh this double fantasy album, which came out in November, and uh he signed it for Mark David Chapman, and uh and he said, you know, is that all you want? And Chapman said yes, and John went off to the uh recording studio.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Yeah, is there anything else you like or anything else, something like that? And yeah, and you say to yourself that, you know, apparently, um since we're talking about this a minute, apparently he came to New York before and um and uh with the purpose and changed his mind and went home back to his wife, yeah. Who's who was aware that he was looking to do this. I mean, she obviously tells a different story of the day, but she definitely was aware that he wanted to kill John Lennon to make himself famous.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

One of the things that I find very odd about Mark David Chapman is it seems like he has a lot of money because he does a lot of traveling and he also has a painting collection, and the guy was a security guard in a hospital. It I just find that kind of weird, you know. He took a trip from Hawaii and he lived in Hawaii, so uh, you know, it it's expensive to fly from Hawaii to the United States to start out with. And and this is before deregulation, so it was really expensive in the city.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

It was really expensive, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Um for the hell of it, I Googled it today. How much was uh a ticket from Hawaii to Chicago? Because that was one of the locations he went to. And they said it was uh from$400 or$700 back in 1980. So, you know, that's what, over, over, you know, two, it's around two grand today give or take.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

So I remember I went to, I believe I flew to Hawaii in 1980, actually 1979, because it was the anniversary, uh, the reason I remember the year is because it was the anniversary of statehood for Hawaii, and I remember it was really expensive that I had to save my money to do it. Um you know another little tidbit that I find really interesting that on that day, Chapman, I believe it was that day, runs into in the train station James Taylor.

The Day Of The Shooting

SPEAKER_01 17:24

So that that was, I believe, the day before. Day before? Yeah. And it's interesting, there's a whole dialogue about the potential for two Mark Chapmans who have been out there, you know, two lookalikes, because there's this guy, Ed Opperman, who was a private eye. Now he he does podcasts out of I think Las Vegas. And he was hanging out at the Yippie place. The Yippies were a political party back then. It was on Bleaker Street, Bleaker by the Bowery. And there's a Mark David Chapman hanging out, like I think it was Friday or Saturday before the assassination. And it was, he was completely unlike the Mark David Chapman that was hanging out all day by the Dakota. The the Dakota Mark David Chapman was very calm. As a matter of fact, two of the you know, people uh, you know, people have to understand that people hung out. It was very common for people to hang out all day long in front of the Dakota with the hope of getting a glimpse of John Lennon. That happened every day, every day. So the Dakota Mark David Chapman was hanging out, and he actually went to lunch with uh two girls that were hanging out. They said he was fine, he was totally normal. But Opperman says he was he behaved really strange with at the Yippie place. There was a cab driver who gave him a ride to Greenwich Village, which you know that that's where the the Yippie he probably brought him to the Yippie place. He said he was like, yeah, felt he was on drugs or something, like really, really wired. And then you have the James Taylor, you know, running into Mark David Chapman. What's interesting is is the author of this book, which I plug his book, Mind Games, the Assassination of John Lennon by David Whelan. They sp he spoke to the cab driver. Yeah, once once he found out about the cab driver, he contacted uh either he or Opperman contacted John uh uh Mark David Chapman's attorney. And this is years later, and they said, You know, do you have any recollection of uh being in this guy's cab? And Chapman said, No, you know, I don't remember that at all. Yeah, I didn't take a cab drive. So it's kind of weird.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

That's just part of it, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

That's part of the weird weirdness of it all. Yeah, like the two Oswalds, you know? There might have been two Chapmans out there that day as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Well, it's funny uh, you know, the relationship between these kinds of assassins, you know, and he did have the book with him that day. Um The Catcher in the Rye, and I believe he inscribed it to say, um, I think he inscribed it uh to Holden Caulfield from Holden Caulfield.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Right, right. Yeah. What happened was after the shooting occurred, instead of, you know, I've I've I've been to the Dakota, and all he had to do was leave the driveway and make a left, and like a few hundred feet, you have the subway. Yeah. And across the street is Central Park. So instead of trying to escape, Mark David Chapman did a very unusual thing. He went underneath a streetlight and he took out the catcher in the rye that he was holding and he started reading it. So I don't know. And the catcher in the Rye comes into play three and a half months later with the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, because when they go through John Hinckley's apartment, lo and behold, what book do they find? The Catcher in the Rye. So a lot of people that follow the idea of a Manchurian candidate through MKUltra think that somehow the Catcher in the Rye was used as a trigger for both of them.

SPEAKER_00 21:33

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Yeah.

Two Chapmans Theory

SPEAKER_00 21:36

So, I mean, we hear those stories of triggers and RFK. We hear those stories of uh assassination, you know, the woman on the back steps with the what was her dress? Polka dot. Polka dot dress. And when you think of the movie Mancharian Candidate, I'm just thinking about the original one with Frank Sinatra. Right. I mean, you know it was was it the Queen of Hearts? Yes. The Queen of Hearts was a card. That was that that clicked that programmed episode in his body. So that's certainly interesting, but there's so much more interesting. I don't know where you want to start with looking in. I mean, is there's also this HBO documentary that was multi-parts and and Dom and I both watched it together, um, and it I believe was called Murder Without Investigation? Yeah, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Uh, and I urge everyone to watch it. It's interesting. So Chapman's there, he's waiting for John Lennon. Um, and there are witnesses. And there's not one story that matches the official story. Right. Um, I don't know where you want to start. It's up to you. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

So, so John left the uh left the recording studio and arrived at Dakota sometime around 10:30 or so, 10:15, 10:30, something like that. He and Nyoko get out of the limousine. They must have passed Mark David Chapman, who was kind of like on the sidewalk by the driveway. And according to Mark David Chapman's testimony, he felt compelled to shoot John Lennon. So he pulls out his pistol, which I think held five rounds, and he fired it. He went to a combat stance and he fired it. So we are told that that's how John Lennon died, that he was shot in the back by Mark David Chapman. The problem is that David Whelan comes along and he interviews the doctor who tried to save John's life and the two attending nurses that night, and all three of them have a different story. They all say that John was shot four times, tight grouping, right above the heart, had to die instantly. We have what's also strange is the there's a pool of blood in the driveway of the Dakota that's cleaned up the next day, but people see it. You know, people who who live there saw it and they saw them the cleanup. John was not found in the driveway. John was, it seems, brought inside the Dakota and put into the back office of the concierge, or however you say that.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

His I say it weird too.

Catcher In The Rye As Trigger

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah. So that's where the police found him face down. Now the doctor says that John's death had to be instantaneous. It was a very professional job. Um, you know, anybody who shoots pistols knows that you have to be really, really good to get a tight grouping, especially while you're shooting quickly, because you know, the gun has a kick to it. But one of the police officers talks about having like a a little bit of a discussion with John, and you know, the doctor said that's impossible. He he was he was gone. So that's what you have. You have two stories that are in conflict with each other. The uh the accepted version that was put out to the public was that Mark David Chapman uh became obsessed with John Lennon, started signing John Lennon's name for as his own at the hospital, and came to New York and killed him. And then you have this other idea that maybe Chapman was an MK Ultra assassin and that there was an a real assassin waiting for John. Now, one of the things I encourage people to uh you know go to David Whelan's Substack and join it, you know, support him, uh, because he writes in every now and then. And what he talks about is recently that he found people that were living in the Dakota. And the two days before John's assassination, these people saw two men wearing hats. They never saw him before, and after the assassination, they never saw him again. And uh you have to, you know, wonder if John was targeted. And when the way John was feared by the Soviet Union in the 60s, he was also feared by the American government in the 70s. And what happened was in 1971, you know, the Beatles break up April of 1970, Paul McCartney releases uh his album, his solo album, McCartney, and he has this kind of like mock interview where he talks about you know the Beatles breaking up, doesn't know you know when and if they might get back together again.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

So just to stop you for a minute, we have questions about the how, right? The bullets, I mean, there are issues, the the nurse and the doctors apparently all say that he was shot from the front. From the front. And Chapman was in the back, and there are witnesses that said he was in the back. There's a cab driver outside, there's other people. So now we have this question. So what's the next step? The next step is well, before we can give credence to another assassin or a professional assassin, it seems to be the evidence leads to that. You get to, okay, well, if that's true, why? Right. And now here's the beginning, or at least some of the beginning, when we're talking about the paranoia of Richard Dixon and others, the beginning of the why.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Right. So in uh John remains in England for a while, and then he in August of 1971, he moves to Bank Street in Greenwich Village. And over there he meets uh Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman. Uh they were part of what was this, Chicago 7 or Chicago 8? I forget what it was called.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

I think it was eight.

Conflicting Medical Accounts

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Yeah. So these were radical left-wing anti-war activists. Now, what happens is they get John involved in the free John Sinclair movement. So John Sinclair was an anti-war activist in Michigan, and he was also in favor of legalization of marijuana. And because of his activities, he was targeted. So he handed over two joints to an undercover policewoman and was arrested for that and got 10 years in jail. So, which is quite quite a stiff sentence for two joints. So even at the time. Even at the time. So in they have this concert in Michigan, December 10th, 1971, and John and Yoko play at it with uh they had a whole host of people. Stevie Wonder was there. It was a big to-do. I think there was like 15,000 people in the audience. And John writes this song, John Sinclair, you know, and he talks about, you know, he was given 10 for two. You know, what else could the judge do? But what's also I find fascinating is he had a line in there about the CIA selling dope and making hay. Now, again, this concert was December 10th, 1971. What is probably the definitive book about the CIA and drug dealing is uh the politics of heroin in Southeast Asia. And that came out in 1972. So I kind of find it weird that John knew about that somehow. Somebody must have told him. And he put that into the lyrics of this song. So what happens is in March of 1972, the Michigan Supreme Court throws out Michigan's marijuana laws and they order John Sinclair to be released. So a lot of people on both sides of the aisle, left and right, felt that that concert was responsible for that decision. And what you have happen is while the Supreme Court of Michigan is mulling things over, Strom Thurman, a very powerful senator from down south, writes a letter in February of 72 to John Mitchell, who is uh President Nixon's attorney general. And in that letter, he calls for the deportation of John Lennon. And that's when you have an immediate impact on John's life. Uh it actually happened before that. They were following him uh in 19, they started following him in 1971. And uh the an FBI agent, believe it or not, was sent to that concert to write down everything that John Lennon had to say. You know, if he sang a song, write down the lyrics, if he talked, what did he say? And this is all chronicled in an outstanding documentary called The USA versus John Lennon. Yeah. All of this was talked about. I mean, and in the documentary, they actually get the guy, the FBI guy, who was sent to Michigan to write everything down, you know? So they had all of like, you know, as many of the original players as they could find in this story. So it's a really good documentary.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

So to set a little bit of the picture, when John Lennon's pretty much of a recluse, there's no other way to say it. He's he after he leaves the Beatles, he's not, he doesn't really go into, he likes to be um, you know, he's a little bit paranoid. I don't know what else to say. I've told Dama a story how I had witnessed him once, but we won't go into that today. And when John Lennon showed up as a concert, not only did other artists show up because they all want to be on the stage with John Lennon, but people come out and they want to see this god of a person, you know, this per this legend of a singer, an artist, and always has something great to say. And the other part of that little cube there is that in '68 was the first year that 18-year-old from 18 to 21 had the right. 72 was the first year. I thought 68.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, no, 72. That that's why the Reagan and Nixon administration became so paranoid.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

So I'm sorry. So that now in 72, these 18-year-old to 21-year-old kids who were being sent to war four years prior, you know, up until 72, I think the draft existed. Right. Um, without a voice, now have a voice. They may not be registered. Right. And and I and I think that's a l another thing in this backdrop. Go on.

Why Would Power Fear Lennon

SPEAKER_01 33:16

Yeah. So so what happened was being that they felt victorious with the John Sinclair situation, Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin turned their sights on the Nixon administration for that very reason. Uh 18-year-olds would be able to vote. That was John's audience. So they let it out that John was going to do a series of concerts, and he would also appear outside of the Republican National Convention. Now, all of that was a lie. The only thing that John gave consideration to was doing some shows and taking some of the profits from the shows and giving it to people who couldn't afford uh bail. That's the only thing that he gave consideration to, this large-scale thing of uh, you know, following Nixon around and doing concerts and all that, that was made up by Abby Hoffman and and Jerry Rubin. However, it scared the hell out of the Nixon administration because, like I said, you know, this was John's uh demographic. So they felt that he would have the ability to register, you know, maybe a million kids in that in that uh age group. So they really put the screws to John. They were following him, and John talks about this. You know, John says, you know, they they they didn't make any effort to hide. They wanted us to know that we were being followed. And John got to the point where he told friends of his, if anything ever happens to Mirayoko, it wasn't an accident. So, you know, his phone was being tapped, and you know, he heard it. It was like a crackling noise coming from the basement where the, you know, where the lines were. So he knew all this was going on. And uh there was definitely a major effort by the the Nixon administration to have him deported. And it started, I think, a three or four-year legal battle, and uh, which John eventually won on his birthday, and which is also the birth date of his son Sean, October 9th, 1975. And I believe he received his green card in 1976. But uh in an interesting twist of you know, history, the Knicks administration was scared to death of these uh, you know, they call them left-wing radicals and whatnot. So none other than G. Gordon Liddy comes up with this plan called Gemstone, and he had all these, you know, diamond and ruby and all this stuff. And one of his plots was to kidnap anti-war demonstrators, which he probably felt you know, one of them was going to be John Lennon, and and bring them to Mexico for something, you know. And this this was actually given over to John Mitchell, and John Mitchell just was Right. I heard that. This guy's crazy. But the one thing that they kept out of Gemstone was to bug the Democratic offices, which turned into the Watergate.

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Well, that's and that's when G. Gordon Liddy and who the other guy was that's running through was it Howard Hunt?

unknown 36:46

E.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Howard Hunt, yeah, I mean that to do with the committee to re-elect. So this was a lot to do with that pre-Watergate plans and whatever else you want to call them. But it's funny in the case, it's not really funny, in the case where they're trying to deport him, deport Lenin, they were after memos and things regarding the government and the uh Department of Immigration or whatever it is, or State Department or whatever it is that were trying to deport him said routinely that this is something they decided, and nobody in the administration had anything to do with it. And then at the end of the day, when the subpoenas really get executed and they end up with the documents, the judge sees that this is coming from the president of the United States. Right. Is behind this, which he was behind a lot. He personally oversaw a lot of these escapades, as you will say, against his paranoia of the Democratic uh Party at the time, or suspected Democrats' left side since he was, listen, he used to, you know, he worked with McCarthy. He was pretty far to the right.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

So it's it's quite amazing that you have John Lennon within um, you know, three or four year period, he has the leadership of two country the two most powerful countries in the world are scared to death of him. Think about that. You know, the unchecked power of an entertainer, like that probably hasn't happened before. It certainly hasn't happened since, where somebody has that amount of influence and power that, you know, countries were scared of them. The leadership of countries, at least.

Nixon, Deportation, And Surveillance

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Well, the motivation for entertainers used to be money. Yeah. Right? And and popularity. Fame. Except fame. Except for Lenin, he didn't want fame, and sure as hell he already had money. But what did he want? He wanted peace. He wanted the world different place. And he took that power. So now he's mobilizing that power and closing the ring on that. And I think that made people he couldn't be bought. No one could say, gee, I'll give you a million dollars, go over there, go stand over there for a while. He was not interested in any of that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

You know, he the protest marches in Washington absolutely impacted the residents of the White House because uh in one of them, I think it was in 71, maybe in 72, uh over 500,000 people marched on Washington. And, you know, they were all singing John's song, Give Peace a Chance. And what the Secret Service did was that they put buses all around the White House because they were scared to death. What happens if this gets violent and they charge the White House? So that's the fear that it goes along with the influence of somebody like John Lennon. You know, it's it's it's uh and that creates problems for people, you know, like John. Uh, you know, when you when you can make a president take notice of you, when you could have the KGB worried about you, you know, that creates problems.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

It's funny, my father used to say, you know, the most I used to repeat it as the most dangerous man in the world, it's the genuine article, and that really is the true believer. He said that about Malcolm X when he was killed. He goes, the guy really believed what he did. And that's why he was killed. And and routinely the people who are true believers end up getting assassinated, and he was one of them.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Yep. So where do you want to go now? Well, I mean, we obviously did the why or the possible why of the fear that you're Well, that's the beginning of the why.

SPEAKER_01 41:01

So what happens is uh John gets his green card in 1976, and there's a change in in government here. Jimmy Carter is elected, and one of the things that he looks to do is kind of uh, you know, get a handle on the CIA, and and several hundred of what they termed the cowboys were were let go. These were like the you know, the black bag job guys. And so that also coincided with the time where John was uh basically a house husband. Sean was born in, like I said, John's birthday, October 9th, and John didn't do any work after that. Interestingly, prior to that though, a lot of people don't know this, but in uh March of 1974, uh during his uh lost weekend time, what happened was uh he and Yoko had a big uh blowout in November of 72, and you know, she kicked him out and he went to Los Angeles. It was really like an 18-month uh thing, I believe. But in March of 74, uh Paul McCartney walks in on John Lennon in the studio, and uh Stevie Wonders there, Harry Nielsen, about 20 other musicians, and everybody was just, you know, they played. And there's actually it's a horrible recording. It's called a toot and a snore, because it seems that there was a sub white substance going around that night. And it's funny, John's on on uh tape saying, you know, Stevie, do you want some? Yeah, it's going around. And uh Paul played on the drums. And at that time, John was living with cast of characters, Ringo and Keith Moon from The Who. They had a house in uh LA. Ringo was out somewhere, and the next day, Paul went to John's house. Ringo wasn't there, but there's photos of John and Paul together. It's actually the last photos of them together. And Ringo came back that night and he went to the studio and he saw that his drum kit was changed. And he was like, you know, who touched my drums? And John goes, Paul, Paul was here, you know. So there uh, you know, Paul sued to dissolve the Beatles. I think that started in uh December of 70. And initially it was, you know, they were they were rough together, but by 74 they were fine. And uh there's actually 1976, an interesting thing happened. Uh, Paul again walks in on George, on John, at the Dakota this time, and uh spends all day with him. And at night they're watching Saturday Night Live. And that happened to be the night where Lauren Michaels comes out with this gigantic check and allow for the Beatles to get. Back together. Now here's John Lennon and Paul McCarty. They're looking and they look at each other. Should we go? But you know, it was late and they were tired, so they didn't go. So kind of.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

It was in New York. They were in LA.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

No, no, no, no. They were here. They were here. They were here? Yeah, yeah. John was in the Dakota by that time.

SPEAKER_00 44:17

Isn't that what and wasn't George there? Wasn't George playing that night with Paul Summer?

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Two or three weeks later, George came in.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Oh, that's when they did the shtick about for four, not for one.

Voting Age, Youth Power, And Panic

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. It was great. But it almost happened, you know, it almost happened. So John is basically from 1975 to 1980, pretty much stationed in the Dakota, is taking care of Sean. Yoko is doing a lot of the business. You know, they're buying properties, they're buying cows. They were big into buying cows. Then what happens is Paul does an album. I think it was his second solo album called McCartney 2. John said he couldn't get it out of his head. You know, there was a song coming up, I believe. And he said he just couldn't get out of his head. And what happened was that motivated him to write again. And he took this sailboat, went down to Bermuda, uh, hit really, really rough weather. John actually took the helm and they landed the boat safely. Within a couple of weeks, he wrote all the songs to what became Double Fantasy. So now prior to that, we have certain going on that I think created uh part of the, you know, the the why, the some of the politics involved. In 1979, you have the rise of communism in Central America. Nicaragua is taken over by the Sandinistas.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Right.

Plans, Myths, And Media Leverage

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Later on, that event leads to what became known as the Iran Contra scandal. In 1979, you had uh this committee created called the Committee on the Present Danger. And uh that was around in the 50s, it was around the 70s, the 2000s, and 2019. There's been four uh iterations of it. But the one in the 70s was formed right after Jimmy Carter was elected. Uh it was formed on November 11th, 1976. And 33 people who wound up being officials in the Reagan administration were part of that committee, including uh Director of Central Intelligence, William Casey, National Security Advisor Richard Allen, the ambassador to the UN, Gene Kirkpatrick, Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, Secretary of State George Schultz, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Pearl. And Reagan himself was a member in 1979. And what they did was they studied the strength of the USSR compared to our strength, specifically in the area of Europe. And they they were very concerned about the introduction of the Russian nuclear missile, the SSG. They were also very concerned and felt that we could not counter a Soviet conventional thrust into Western Europe, that they had just too many tanks, too many men, and we couldn't deal with it. So their counter move, which they proposed, was to introduce short-range and medium-range nuclear missiles into Europe, which did happen in 1983, I believe. Have these notes here. We introduced uh Pershing missiles and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles into West Germany, United Kingdom, and Italy. So now in 1980, November 1980, Ronald Reagan crushes Jimmy Carter in the election, and all of these people are about to take office, and they have these issues that they want to deal with. I'm sure that there's a lot of people left over from the Nixon administration that were concerned about John Lennon back in '72. And my guess is you know, the why. Right. I think that they did not want to deal with a world where John Lennon could protest what they were doing by putting a million people in the street. And clearly it's been demonstrated that he had that ability. You know, he had it on his own, and there's some evidence to suggest that uh the Beatles might have gotten back together again in the early 80s. Uh what happened was we have two legal documents that suggest that. One is, I believe it was in January of 1979, Paul McCartney signed a 10-year contract with CBS. Right. And in that contract, there's a clause that says he could get out of the contract if he records with John Lennon, George Harrison, and Richard Starkey, which is actually Ringo Star's real name. Then you have another legal document. What happened was in the latter 1970s, there was uh a thing in New York called Beatlemania, which was a Broadway show. I remember it. Yeah. And it was good. It was great. You know, I I I didn't see that. I saw it like later on. What happened? All phases, uh it went through all phases of the Beatles. Right. What they basically did was they broke down the Beatles' career into three phases, and then they would dress accordingly to each phase and play the songs for those phases. So this became a huge hit. And what happened was it became such a big hit that the real Beatles sued the producers of Beatle Media in New York State Court. I don't recall the year, if it was 79. For sure it was going on in 1980, because around 10 days before his assassination, John Lennon had to submit a written deposition as to why this is, you know, could damage the Beatles, you know, the real Beatles, this Broadway show. And what he said in his written deposition was that uh the Beatles were going to embark on telling their own story. It the project was tentatively titled The Long and Winding Road, and it was going to culminate with a live concert somewhere in the mid-80s.

SPEAKER_00 50:53

I remember that now.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

What John is clearly describing what became the anthology, you know, 15 years later. But that, you know, so and what's interesting is that lawsuit was concluded, I believe, in 1986. This was not a cheap lawsuit. The the real Beatles won, and they they were given a judgment of$11 million. So we're not talking little money here. John's deposition was never challenged by the attorneys for the producers of Beatlemania. So my guess is they didn't challenge it because they knew it was true. So you also have in May of 1979, three of the Beatles were invited to Eric Clapton's wedding to Patty Boyd. For some reason, John didn't get an invitation. He said he would have been there if he was invited, but he wasn't. So Paul, George, and Ringo were there, and they played together, and they actually played Sergeant Pepper, and they got along very well. What was supposed to happen was in April of 1981, all four Beatles had committed to helping Ringo in studio with his album. So they might not have been in the studio all four together, but they were going to be in the studio. So this was uh a first for that. So in the past, John had written songs for Ringo, Paul wrote songs, George played with Ringo, but all four weren't in the studio. Paul and and and John wrote their songs and sent it to him.

SPEAKER_00 52:31

I remember on one of the albums, John Lennon was named Ziggy Fanucci.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

Yeah, yeah. He did that a lot in the 70s. I I think he was uh Winston O'Boogie in uh Elton John's version of Lucy in the Sky. Right. Yeah. So uh so I think that had, you know, obviously John not been killed, um, had things gone well with Ringo's album, we probably would have seen uh a Beatles album, you know, 1982, 1983. I think that that would have happened because before, you know, they they had talked about uh, you know, John and Paul talked about for several years getting together and writing again. As a matter of fact, before uh John got back with Yoko, Paul had invited him to New Orleans to write with him on the what became Venus and Mars. And John was gonna go. And May Peng, who was John's girlfriend during that time, absolutely confirms that. And recently, fairly recently, a postcard was found. And uh I forget who John sent it to, but he said, I'll be going to New Orleans to visit the Max, you know. Also, Jack Douglas, who is the producer for Double Fantasy, he talks about how uh John talked to him about riding with Paul again. So I I think that that absolutely would have happened. Would it, you know, how long they might have done something, who knows? But I think that when you look at the power and influence of John Lennon, that's bad enough. If you have the Beatles together in 1982 and uh they're in Europe talking about, you know, don't put in these Euro missiles, you got a political problem on your hands.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

I agree. Thank you. I think I think there's a lot of fear about people who are that powerful.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

And the other thing I wish to add no matter no matter who they are, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

But I think people that are uncontrollable and cannot be bought by any sense or uh any way, shape, or form are re really scare the people that live by power and money.

House Husband To Double Fantasy

SPEAKER_01 54:56

The other thing that was happening in 1980, which contributes to John's ability now to communicate instantaneously with millions of people, is America was being wired for cable TV. And you had the introduction of you know uh CNN. MTV started in August of 1981. So they filmed in uh Fort Lee, New Jersey. So that's only like you know, a half hour or so ride from Manhattan. You know, if John was alive, don't you think that he would have had a gig whatever he wanted on MTV? And you know, you'd be you'd be able to talk to millions of people all at once. And of course, the plan uh in the in the mid-80s, you know, everything went worldwide. So, you know, before that, you know, kids today might not grasp this, but the the only way to to be on national TV was if they put you on the national news. Everything else was local. So, you know, even a John Lennon, if he was at uh uh somewhere in 1971, well, maybe the local place would have talked about it, but you know, Walter Cronkite's not going to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Right. Well, he was on Mike Douglas with Yoko, right? And for week as m as m the guest host, because he had guest hosts the whole time, and many other famous people were there. And but I remember watching the John Lennon one. Um, and that's not national. We look at it national because it was filmed in New York and and whatever, but at that time, in those early years, early years, even later, I mean, things weren't all West Coast when it comes to television. Television was in New York for a long period of time. Now there are Sydney that show was syndicated, so it was shown in other places. But there are many, many people that never saw that show. I mean, it was it was it was a great, it was great. I don't remember him singing. I don't think he did.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

I think he did with uh didn't he uh do something with Chuck Berry?

SPEAKER_00 57:03

He may have, I don't recall. Because that could have been the same time as the rock and roll album came out. Yeah. But I I remember having having conversations, long conversations with people. So Mike Douglas let him speak, and he really spoke his mind.

SPEAKER_01 57:18

You know, but he brought out uh forget if it was Huey Newton or the other guy from the Black Panthers. He brought out Jerry Rubin, you know. There's a uh I forget the name of the documentary, but a documentary, was it John and Yoko One to One, something like that? Came out last year, which chronicles that week where they uh they were the uh hosts of the Mike Douglas show.

SPEAKER_00 57:43

I was taken back. I flipped it on because my mother watched it every day. Yeah. It was on Monday to Friday at like four o'clock, three o'clock, or something. Right. And I come over from school, she flips it on. There's John Lennon and Yoko Mono on. I'm like, we didn't see them in the in that era. You didn't, you rarely heard from them. I mean, other than, you know, on the news, as you say, you know, when they did uh sleep in or bed in or whatever the heck they called it.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Yeah, that was actually that was even like in '69 up in Toronto. So you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:15

So you didn't see anything for for a long period of time, he was like a hermit.

Cold War Hawks And Euro Missiles

SPEAKER_01 58:19

Probably the biggest thing that he did uh where people watched was uh he was on the Grammys uh in, I believe, 1974 or 75. Um and um it's interesting because uh after the Grammys, uh he uh he had he was had Art Garf Garf Garf Uncle at his house, and he was talking about, you know, Paul had invited uh John to go to New Orleans, like I said before. He goes, What do you think? And Art goes, yeah, he goes, go for it, you know. But of course it never happened. Right. Um but I think that you know, what we've what we've established is reasons why uh powerful entities would not want to see John Lennon around for the 1980s. And when you have, like I said, when this book came out, you know, up until the time this book came out, I I kind of thought that Mark David Chapman was an MK Ultra guy, but that he actually did the shooting. Uh, you know, this book is has changed my mind to it. And what what is also very interesting is that Mark David Chapman was visited by two very, very prominent hypnotherapists. And one was named Bernard Diamond, who also worked with another probable MK Ultra assassin named Sirhan Sirhan, who is in jail for uh killing uh Robert Kennedy. And the other one is Milton Klein, who for some reason in 1979 went on TV and admitted that he was a consultant to the CIA and that he worked on the MK Ultra program. So I find that a little weird. So that's one right. What what what David Wheeling uh speculated, I think it's on his Substack, that they wanted to go in to check on his programming because something happened that wasn't supposed to happen. David speculates that Chapman was probably supposed to flee and go to a place where he was going to meet his uh pre-arranged demise. But that didn't happen. Like I said, he sat down and started reading the catcher in the Rye. So he thinks that, you know, he might have been reprogrammed, and that's when we get kicked in the the whole, you know, he had to kill John Lennon, he had to kill John Lennon, you know, this uh hypnotic trance type stuff that he was spewing in uh in the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:03

So if Lennon's killed from the front, right, that means there's another shooter. We can agree that Lennon's assassin didn't have the ability or training to do well, obviously to shoot him from the front because he was in the back, but but to to to, as you mentioned earlier in the beginning, to do a close round uh grouping of shots is incredibly difficult, especially under the pressure. Here's a guy that's never really um done those kind of things. He's not a warrior, he never didn't go and do assassinations for military or kill people for in the military. So he this is a new thing for him, and and obviously going to the range and shooting a real person is remarkably different. And so that means that someone else did. And that leads us to the question is who did it?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:07

That you know, um it seems that David Whelan is working on a second book, and uh hopefully he comes up with some uh possibilities. Um I I I don't have any ideas as to who you know who could have done it, who would have done it. Um I just think it was a government operation, but right.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

Who, where, what, and why. I mean, even at the assassination of RFK, they didn't want him to go forward because he was gonna challenge the powers that be, the Mixon right-wing uh armada, CIA armada of of thought process. So you would say that it's the same kind of group inside the CAA or splintered from the CIA that carry out these kinds of missions.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

Yeah, and you know, the the who, you know, who the person actually was, I don't think is as big of a deal as as the why. I agree. And I think today we see, you know, uh a lot of control for celebrities, you know. They get up there and they they have a certain line that they have to take. And if they don't take that line, then they're attacked, you know. So I think that the because of directly because of John Lennon and the fear that he created amongst people in high positions, to let today's celebrity have been uh largely neutered. I mean, no there's no nobody close to John Lennon, but uh I think that uh a lot of it has they probably were told, listen, you know, if you want to be like John, you know, to get along, you go along, right? In this institution, to get along, you go along.

Could The Beatles Reunite

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

So Well, it's funny that it seems that, you know, recent assassination attempts you saw too. And matter of fact, today's the day where where um one of the Trump assassins got life in in prison. And it seems to be from what we've seen about these assassinations in more recent times, it's not really right or left we're talking about. We're talking about an an an alternative agenda that is threatened, whether it's money, whether it's power, whether it's control, that there's some kind of agenda out there. I don't want to speculate, that you know Eisenhower called it the you know, military industrial complex. But I I think that's a catchword. I'm not sure it's the military industrial complex, but it's certainly some similar type group of people that are in power, whether it's financially, whether it's business-wise, where they control lots of people, lots of jobs, and uh have effect on governments and policy all over the world. George Carlin says a big club and you ain't in it. I think that's true. You know, I I I obviously don't want you know, in the grand scheme of things, I could care less, but I do care that people are assassinated for a political end.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:34

Yes. Yeah, it's a tragedy. I mean, you know, what was taken from the world, you know, f by by these assassinations, you know, we we we never uh would be able to um determine how things would have changed. It's a sad, sad thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

I mean, what if you don't know if Lenin was would really do something like that. Really the He was organizing a tour to register voters all over the United States, right? And that he was looking to register young people, and it wasn't Republican or Democrat, but certainly his I ideology was further left than the president administration, almost any administration. So, and certainly, if you want to talk about the military-industrial complex and the war in Vietnam, he was certainly against that and against peace and against anything. So if that was the case, certainly he had put himself in harm's way of that. Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

We'll never know how it could have turned out.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:43

Yeah. We know that we would have liked to see him write songs with Paul again and and then sing sung by the boys, and we'll never will. So I don't know if that's the place you want to leave it, or is there something else you wanted to cover?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:56

No, that that's that's a pretty good place.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:59

I think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:00

But just uh like I said, plug for uh David Wheelan. He did uh Yeoman's work on this subject, and his book is Mind Games, The Assassination of John Lennon. And uh check out his uh Substack and uh like and subscribe to this channel as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:15

Yes, uh History's Agenda. This is one of since we changed the name after the first year, this is one of the uh more important episodes that we're starting to talk about the assassination again. We're still gonna come back to RFK a little. We did talk about JFK at the end of the year. Last year, did a little round table discussion that's out there listening. There's also uh Dom and I doing something about the Reagan assassination. There is uh there's a book out there being written as we speak or published as we speak by Roger Stone, who was in many administrations, that may add the president's name to these kinds and types, kinds of assassinations. We shall see what those facts yield when they're when they're uh when they're written. But for now, I thank Dom. Thank you very much. I think he did an amazing job today. You covered it all. We went through it. John Lennon is missed and his music uh lives on forever. His son is without a father, his wife was is without a husband, and uh I think the world saw his power by the outpouring of people. Um I remember every person I ran into that day when I worked. I was a salesman in a men's clothing department, A S in Paramus Park, uh, New Jersey, uh that next day. And I hadn't slept one wink because I was up listening to WNEW. So it will it it it's it was a day that really threw me off. I wanted more than anything to just quit my job and go in the city and stand out the Dakota with everybody else, but it wasn't meant to be. So having said that, please like and subscribe to our channel, History's Agenda, and we look forward to having Dom again. And I love your comments and we love your support, and thank you very much.