The Lennons didn’t always help their case. Bob Dylan composed a hand-written note praising John and Yoko as enemies of “this mild dull taste of commercialism” forced on the culture by the “overpowering mass media.” Letters of support were signed by everyone from Fred Astaire and Dick Cavett to Saul Bellow and Stevie Wonder. Meanwhile, musicians and writers and other public figures urged the government to let him stay. The musician left for Los Angeles in 1973 and embarked on what he called his “long weekend” of drinking and drugs, ending with the couple reconciling in 1975. Lennon would say the pressure helped lead to the temporary breakup of his marriage. Their phone was tapped and their whereabouts closely followed. Edgar Hoover at times personally involved. Over the next two years, Lennon and Ono endured ongoing government harassment, with FBI director J. law at the time, non-residents faced deportation if “convicted of any law or regulation relating to the illicit possession” of narcotic drugs or marijuana. Officials cited a drug bust in London in 1968, when Lennon pleaded guilty to possession of “cannabis resin.” Under U.S. In March, the INS informed the British rock star that his visa would not be extended. Thurmond forwarded the memo to Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, whose deputy, Richard Kleindienst, contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service. (The government would also try to deport Ono, a Tokyo native, but she was granted permanent residency in 1973). Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina Republican and a member of a Senate subcommittee on internal security, aides recommended a “strategic countermeasure,” terminating Lennon’s visa. As government files later revealed, some Nixon supporters feared that Lennon could damage Nixon politically.
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