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John Lennon saw many things with more clarity than most of us. He was daringly brave and a provocateur of new ideas. Today he is a legend, but in the seventies there was a great deal of self doubt as the other three Beatles recorded number one solo singles before him. he was also down about his fights with the Nixon administration over his desire to immigrate legally into the United States.
John Lennon loved America and was a true believer in peace and was active in the New York anti-war scene. The political climate in the early seventies was divisive and and extremely partisan. Lennon took to the streets of New York joining protest marches and spoke out against the Vietnam War. This made him an enemy of the Nixon administration who was very paranoid about people who were trying to promote peace. However, John Lennon had no personal agenda. He had a purist view of what the world should be. He disliked the war and wanted peace.
Lennon believed in what it was he believed in. At the time of his death he was a very wealthy man (worth over $235 million) who might have laid low and not ruffled any feathers. Instead he was associated with Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman who were promoting the peace movement. The United States government was fearful of his power over the youth of America and wanted very much to silence him. In 1972, the Nixon administration ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to begin formal proceedings against him in order to deport him. The purported reason was a marijuana conviction during the sixties in England.
However the truth came out when it was revealed that a secret memo from Republican Senator Strom Thurmond to William Timmons, assistant to President Nixon suggested that many headaches with Lennon would be avoided if he were deported. The President assured Senator Thurmond in a letter that information was being gathered to silence Lennon and that his visa was to be rescinded. The Justice Department and others in government feared that Lennon would disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention which was to be held in Miami.
The case against Lennon went on for several years. It finally ended in October 1975 when the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Lennon's favor and overturned the government case against Lennon. In open Court attorneys for Lennon argued that the federal government had taken official action against him in order to silence him. It was argued that Lennon's rights to speak were protected by the First Amendment.
Chief Judge Irving R. Kaufman, speaking for the majority on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals emphatically agreed. In his ruling, Kaufman wrote that curbing dissent was the primary reason for the government bringing its case against John Lennon.
He wrote within his opinion....
"If in our 200 years of Independence, we have in some measure realized our ideals, it is in large part because we have always found a place for those committed to the spirit of liberty and willing to help implement it........Lennon's four year battle to remain in our country is testimony to his faith in the American Dream."
More To Come
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