'THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON': A MAN WHO DARED TO DREAM

One of the weirdest episodes in American history is engagingly
chronicled in "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," David Leaf and John
Scheinfeld's revelatory documentary about the American government's
surveillance of the former Beatle in the 1970s.

And readers tempted to write that episode off as yet another paranoid
fantasy of The Left should take heed: "The U.S. vs. John Lennon"
includes the firsthand testimony of the spies themselves, from
apostate FBI agents to the unapologetic G. Gordon Liddy. It's all
there on the record, for the benefit of those who care enough about
history not to repeat it. And at a time when the country is engaged
in fresh debates about the fragile relationship between privacy and
national security, this particular chapter seems worth revisiting.

"The U.S. vs. John Lennon" opens in 1971, when Lennon and his wife,
Yoko Ono, appeared at a fundraising concert for John Sinclair, best
known to most music fans as the radical impresario behind the Detroit
punk band the MC5. That appearance succeeded in getting Sinclair --
who was serving a 10-year sentence for handing undercover narcotics
agents two marijuana joints -- released from jail. But it also
brought Lennon straight into the cross hairs of Richard Nixon, FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover and, eventually, their fellows at the
Immigration and Naturalization Service who for more than three years
tried to have Lennon deported.

Leaf and Scheinfeld deftly set the stage for Lennon's odyssey through
the dark mirror of U.S. political life, looking back to 1966 when the
singer-songwriter suggested that the Beatles had become more popular
than Jesus in Great Britain -- a comment that quickly traveled 'round
the world to become one of the most misquoted and misunderstood
observations of an increasingly contentious era. It was the focus of
high dudgeon in the American South, where disc jockeys and clergymen
encouraged their followers to boycott Beatles records and burn the
ones they already owned.

That was an early shot across the bow at a time of breathtaking
cultural and political ferment, to which the brilliant, cheekily
self-aware Lennon was singularly well-attuned -- and which is brought
to vivid life in the archival material the filmmakers have collected.
As opposition to the Vietnam War grew in the late 1960s, Lennon and
Ono became increasingly outspoken in championing nonviolence, even
turning their honeymoon in 1969 into a "bed-in," during which they
personalized the political in an alternatively hilarious and earnest
plea for peace.

Such agitprop, as recorded by the press, made Lennon and Ono fodder
for ridicule, marginalization and dismissal. (There's a fabulous
scene of a patronizing New York Times reporter, Gloria Emerson,
calling Lennon "my dear boy" as his verbal darts sail right over her
head.) But "The U.S. vs. John Lennon" makes a persuasive case that,
far from being trivial, Lennon's political performances, protest
anthems and talk-show appearances with Yippies and Black Panthers
were shining examples of a star manipulating his own myth and
expertly exploiting the fame-obsessed media. And because this was
Lennon -- unlike so many pop stars with their jeremiads today --
those views were always conveyed with an extra satiric wink or
understated semantic flourish.

Leaf and Scheinfeld have enlisted a crowded cast of commentators --
from George McGovern and Mario Cuomo to Bobby Seale and Angela Davis
- -- who recall Lennon's personal and artistic power, as well as the
threat that power posed to the enemy-obsessed Nixon. (As one observer
notes, Lennon's was "a frightening voice to people who want to hear
'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' over and over again.")

It's chilling to hear those FBI agents reminisce about pursuing
Lennon (not to mention Liddy actually blaming the student victims at
Kent State for daring to exercise their First Amendment rights in
front of a jittery National Guard). It's infuriating to hear how,
after Nixon was safely reinstalled, the FBI backed off only to have
the INS start hounding the singer out of the country, under the
watchful eye of Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman. And it's
moving to the point of tears to watch a romantic montage set to
Lennon's beatific call to un-arms, "Imagine."

That montage -- mostly composed of images of Lennon and Ono pursuing
one of the world's great love affairs -- provides a lyrical reminder
of what the world lost when Lennon was assassinated in 1980. Not just
the Beatle or the wily provocateur or the activist or even the famous
Mr. Mom, but a man who dared to grow and change in public, and
thereby to suggest that the public could grow and change, too. It was
that contagious audacity that made Lennon so threatening. All he was
saying was give peace a chance but, as this smart, deeply affecting
film reminds us, in some quarters that's saying way too much.

The U.S. vs. John Lennon (99 minutes, at Landmark's E Street and
Bethesda Row) is rated PG-13 for some strong profanity, violent
images and drug references.