The “Haldeman Memo” About John Lennon

April 25, 1972

BY LIASON

Honorable H.R. Haldeman
Assistant to the President
The White House
Washington, D.C.

1 - Mr. A. Rosen
1 - Mr. T. E. Bishop
1 - Mr. E. S. Miller
1 - Mr. R. L. Shackelford
1 - Mr. T. J. Smith (Horner)
1 - Mr. R. L. Pence

Dear Mr. Haldeman:

John Winston Lennon is a British citizen and former member of the Beatles singing group. [REDACTED] Lennon has taken an interest in "extreme left-wing activities in Britain" and is known to be a sympathizer of Trotskyite communists in England.

Despite his apparent ineligibility for a United States visa due to a conviction in London in 1968 for possession of dangerous drugs, Lennon obtained a visa and entered the United States in 1971. During February, 1972, a confidential source, who has furnished reliable information in the past, advised that Lennon had contributed $75,000 to a newly organized New Left group formed to disrupt the Republican National Convention. The visas of Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, expired on February 29, 1972, and since that time Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has been attempting to deport them. During the Lennons' most recent deportation hearing at INS, New York, New York, on April 18, 1972, their attorney stated that Lennon felt he was being deported due to his outspoken remarks concerning United States policy in Southeast Asia. The attorney request a delay in order that character witnesses could testify for Lennon, and then he read into the court record that Lennon had been appointed to the President's Council for Drug Abuse (National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse) and to the faculty of New York University, New York, New York.