Gimme Some Truth The John Lennon FBI Files

"Lennon himself isn't the main focus here. Instead, Rosenbaum and Marmalefsky's long struggle to get the withheld files released is made an object lesson in the tenacity of government secrecy, which Wiener convincingly depicts as a bureaucratic habit so ingrained that the FBI (or any other government agency) treats the public's right to know--FOIA or no FOIA--as a nuisance to be circumvented whenever possible. That's true even when the materials being protected are trivial, as these turn out to be. Although you can't blame Wiener for presenting them with a flourish after his 14-year quest, even the (mostly) unredacted versions of the Lennon files are, by and large, niggling stuff--reports on the singer's associations and public appearances that often make the FBI appear less up to speed on his whereabouts, activities and attitudes than the average Beatles fan. You can't see why the agents didn't just subscribe to Rolling Stone and have done with it, unless their boss's subscription to Women's Wear Daily had busted the periodicals budget."Wiener, Jon is the author of 'Gimme Some Truth The John Lennon FBI Files', published 2000 under ISBN 9780520222465 and ISBN 0520222466.