McCain, Nixon and John Lennon

The man John McCain appointed to head his transition team, William E. Timmons, played a central role in the Nixon Administration's campaign to deport John Lennon in 1972.

Timmons is known today mostly as a lobbyist for the oil companies, but in 1972 he worked in the Nixon White House as Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. Strom Thurmond, the segregationist senator from South Carolina, sent a letter to Timmons in February, 1972, as the Nixon White House was gearing up for the President's re-election campaign. The letter informed Timmons that Lennon and his friends were "strong advocates" of a program to "dump Nixon," and that Lennon was planning "to hold rock concerts in various primary election states." The purpose of the concerts was political: "to stimulate 18-year-old registration" and to urge people to demonstrate against Nixon at the Republican National Convention. Thurmond's memo to Timmons concluded, "if Lennon's visa is terminated it would be a strategy counter-measure." [See the documents here.]

At the time--spring of 1972--the war in Vietnam was going strong, Lennon was living in New York City and had become a prominent antiwar voice, singing Give Peace a Chance and Imagine at antiwar rallies and concerts.

Timmons wrote back to Thurmond a few weeks later. The "Dear Strom" letter reported that "the Immigration and Naturalization Service has served notice" on Lennon "that he is to leave this country no later than March 15." It was signed by Timmons "with warm regards."

The information Thurmond sent to Timmons was correct--it came from the staff of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, of which Thurmond was a member. Lennon and his new friends Jerry Rubin and Rennie Davis, who four years earlier had organized the 1968 antiwar protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, were planning a concert tour to mobilize young people to vote in the upcoming election. Of course registering young people to vote was not a crime--but the Republicans were concerned about the "youth vote," since 1972 was going to be the first election in which 18-year-olds had the right to vote, and it was widely assumed young people were mostly antiwar and thus anti-Nixon.

Nixon's effort to deport Lennon never succeeded. In the end, Lennon stayed in the United States while Nixon left the White House, resigning in the Watergate affair. But Lennon did curtail his antiwar organizing during the 1972 campaign, on the advice of his immigration lawyer, Leon Wildes, who told him not to do anything to further antagonize the Nixon people.

Timmons left the White House shortly after Nixon's resignation and founded his own lobbying firm. In 2008 he was registered to represent the American Petroleum Institute, Visa USA, Anheuser-Busch and Freddie Mac. He's also worked with virtually every Republican presidential campaign, starting with Bob Dole.

McCain's selection of Timmons ties the candidate to Nixon's dirty tricks and enemies list. Nixon's campaign to deport John Lennon was an example of White House abuse of power--the use of the power of the president to punish those who criticized him or opposed his policies.

The Thurmond-Timmons documents were first published in Rolling Stone, July 31, 1975. The story of Nixon's effort to deport Lennon was told in the 2006 documentary The US vs. John Lennon and in the book Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files

Comments

[XME]

"the use of the power of the president to punish those who criticized him or opposed his policies"


We don't know much about Palin, but from what we've learned in the past few weeks, it seems that sentence could have been refering to her! Folks need to really think about that!

[MiddleRoadLiberal]

Irony: if Lennon would have been deported he would probably be alive today.

[martinchill]

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

[Pupadup4oBama]

THE most beautiful song ever written.
Perhaps one of these days they will be true.

[auramac]

This is unacceptable. The Devil lives in the Republican party. Wearing lipstick doesn't disguise the fact. How many more reasons do we need to know that we must not only vote For Obama/Biden, but against the Republicans. Take a good look, undecideds. Don't you want to be better than that?

[intp1]

Lennon eventually won his deportation case when it was leaked that the Nixon administration had directed the INS to proceed against him. His lawyer argued unreasonable pressure and interference.

[bwaynester]

shame. look it up. it rhymes with McC...............

[quickconnect48]

I agree, John Lennon was one of the greatest and I never knew that they tried to deport him. How, much more proof do we need about the Republican party? They have been trying to abuse there power for decades, and the Bush Administration has come closer than any of them. Cheney has also been involved in almost every Republican Administration since or before Nixon, Rumsfeld also. They seem to want either a Dictatorship, or Totalatarian (SP) sorry government. I am amazed that they haven't tried to shut down the grass roots movement of Obama.

[SEQUOIABISON]

To be associated with a man who signed the deportation letter to John Lennon is the epitome of dishonor.

How could anyone with a sense of justice and fair play try to deport one of the greatest and most humanitarian musical genius's of the twentieth century?

Obama/Biden

[Clavis]

This country has been having the same fight between the squares and the hippies since the 1950's. The squares know they don't have the ideas, the love or the future on their side, but they've got the money, and they'll be damned if they're going to let anyone else have any.

They might win, too. Which would suck.