	id AA19299; Mon, 5 Dec 94 15:41:06 CST
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3 Num. 12


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 3  Num. 12
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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Who Killed John Lennon?
by Fenton Bresler
[Excerpts]
 
"Laurel and Hardy, that's John and Yoko. And we stand a better 
chance under that guise because all the serious people like 
Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi got shot."
                             -- John Lennon
 
"Listen, if anything happens to Yoko and me, it was not an 
accident."                   -- John Lennon
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
Bresler begins by questioning the "lone nut" theory. Since 1835, 
15 men and 2 women have attacked "nationally prominent political 
leaders in sixteen separate incidents." Of those 17, only 3 have 
been ruled insane by law. Mark David Chapman was never found to 
be legally insane. "The 'lone nut' theory simply does not stand 
up as an all-embracing explanation covering all -- or even most 
-- instances of American political assassination."
 
Bresler offers the possibility that "Lennon, the politically most 
active rock star of his generation... was shot dead outside his 
own home by a killer who was merely a tool, a human gun used and 
controlled by others to destroy a uniquely powerful radical 
figure who was likely to prove a rallying point for mass 
opposition to the policies soon to be implemented... by the new 
United States government headed by Ronald Reagan."
 
Bresler quotes the late radio journalist Mae Brussell, who broke 
the Watergate story 2 months before the Woodward-Bernstein 
expose'. Brussell had no doubts: "It was a conspiracy. Reagan had 
just won the election. They knew what kind of president he was 
going to be. There was only one man who could bring out a million 
people on demonstration in protest at his policies -- and that 
was Lennon."
 
Bresler speculates that Chapman was a "Manchurian Candidate," 
brainwashed and pre-programmed to kill on command. When the 
moment had arrived, Chapman received his signal and performed his 
task.
 
               -+- The CIA and Mind Control -+-
 
In April 1950, the CIA began work on PROJECT BLUEBIRD, the 
agency's fledgling attempt at mind control. "Within two years 
this had progressed into the substantially enlarged PROJECT 
ARTICHOKE. According to a later CIA internal memorandum, PROJECT 
ARTICHOKE was intended to 'exploit operational lines, scientific 
methods and knowledge that can be utilized in altering the 
attitudes, beliefs, thought processes and behaviour patterns of 
agent personnel. This will include the application of tested 
psychiatric and psychological techniques including the use of 
hypnosis in conjunction with drugs.' In turn, only one year 
later, in April 1953, PROJECT ARTICHOKE became MKULTRA, the 
generic name for a series of on-going investigations by the 
agency's Technical Services Staff."
 
Some might object that pre-programming a subject to be a "killer 
on command" violates the common wisdom that one cannot be 
hypnotised to do something that is contray to one's individual 
morals. Yet not all "experts" are in agreement on this. For 
example Milton Kline, a New York psychologist and former 
president of the American Society for Clinical and Experimental 
Hypnosis believes it is *not* impossible to create a "Manchurian 
Candidate." According to Kline, "It cannot be done by everyone. 
It cannot be done consistently, but it can be done."
 
"There seems little doubt that sophisticated techniques have now 
reached the stage where, if murder is desired, a killer, once 
programmed and 'on hold', can be triggered into action."
 
                  -+- Sirhan Sirhan -+-
 
Bresler suggests that Sirhan Sirhan, the supposed lone assassin 
of Robert F. Kennedy, was a pre-programmed killer. Seven years 
after the RFK assassination, Sirhan was interviewed by 
psychiatrists. These recorded interviews were analyzed with the 
help of a Psychological Stress Evaluator (PSE), a device which 
measures micro-tremors in the voice. Based on the PSE, former 
high-ranking intelligence officer Charles McQuiston stated: "I'm 
convinced that Sirhan wasn't aware of what he was doing. He was 
in a hypnotic trance when he pulled the trigger... Everything in 
the PSE charts tells me that someone else was involved in the 
assassination -- and that Sirhan was programmed through hypnosis 
to kill RFK. What we have here is a real live 'Manchurian 
Candidate.'"
 
After examining Sirhan's PSE charts, Dr. John W. Heisse, Jr., 
president of the International Society of Stress Analysis, agreed 
with McQuiston: "Sirhan kept repeating certain phrases. This 
clearly revealed he had been programmed to put himself into a 
trance."
 
                -+- Government Surveillance -+-
 
During a December, 1971 rally at the University of Michigan (Ann 
Arbor), undercover FBI agents recorded remarks made by Lennon and 
others. This is only one case of many, all pointing to a pattern 
of consistent governmental spying upon Lennon. Under the Freedom 
of Information Act, Bresler obtained U.S. government files on 
Lennon. The files show that Lennon was under constant government 
surveillance, especially during the years 1971-1972.
 
For example, in an April 10, 1972 memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover 
to the FBI's New York office, Hoover orders his agents to 
"...promptly initiate discrete efforts to locate subject [Lennon] 
and remain aware of his activities and movements. Handle 
inquiries only through established sources... Careful attention 
should be given to reports that subject is heavy narcotics user 
and any information developed in this regard should be furnished 
to narcotics authorities and immediately furnished to bureau in 
form suitable for dissemination."
 
"Lennon knew from early in 1972 that he was under constant 
surveillance, being followed in the streets and with his 
telephone tapped." The ex-Beatle was aware of the surveillance by 
secret police agencies and so stated on several occasions. For 
example, in December 1975 he told one interviewer, "We knew we 
were being wire-tapped... there was a helluva lot of guys coming 
in to fix the phones."
 
                 -+- "Moral Turpitude" -+-
 
One of the methods used by the U.S. government to harass Lennon 
was the threat of deportation. The government had extra leverage 
in its efforts due to a previous conviction against Lennon which 
charged him with "moral turpitude." On October 18, 1968, in 
Britain, Lennon and Ono had been arrested and charged with 
possession of 1.5 ounces of marijuana. Two weeks before the bust, 
Lennon had been warned that the police were out to get him 
because he was a "loudmouth." As a precaution, he had (as he put 
it) "cleaned the house out [of drugs]." Nevertheless, marijuana 
was found in the house by the police. According to Lennon, he had 
been set up. His opinion is backed up by the fact that the 
arresting officer was later sentenced to two years in prison for 
planting evidence in other cases.
 
In order that Ono would not be charged, Lennon "copped a plea". 
Charges against Yoko Ono were dropped and Lennon was fined and 
found guilty of "an offence of moral turpitude."
 
At the time of their arrest, Yoko Ono was pregnant and almost 
suffered a miscarriage. Although she was immediately 
hospitalized, a month later she lost the baby. "On being told the 
end of their child's unborn life was near, Lennon had a tape 
recorder brought into the hospital room and, with a stethoscope 
microphone, he recorded his second son's failing heartbeats 
before he died."
 
                -+- Political Activism -+-
 
Examples of Lennon's political activism are seen in songs such as 
"Give Peace a Chance," "Power to the People," and "Working Class 
Hero." In an interview published in *Rolling Stone* (and later as 
a book entitled *Lennon Remembers*), Lennon called the song 
"Working Class Hero" a "...song for the revolution... It's for 
the people like me who are working class."
 
In the interview, Lennon further states that "...the people who 
are in control and in power, and the class system and the whole 
bullshit bourgeois scene is exactly the same except that there 
are a lot of middle-class kids with long hair walking around in 
trendy clothes... The same bastards are in control, the same 
people are runnin' everything... They're doing exactly the same 
things, selling arms to South Africa, killing blacks on the 
street, people are living in fucking poverty with rats crawling 
all over them. It's the same. It just makes you puke."
 
"With Lennon, rock had become revolutionary -- and for real. He 
and Yoko took part in demonstrations, they campaigned for a 
public inquiry into the case of James Hanratty, convicted of 
murder and hanged in the early 1960s... they marched for the IRA 
[Irish Republican Army] and they called for help for striking 
shipbuilders."
 
               -+- The Invisible Assassins -+-
 
Bresler interviewed Arthur O'Connor, the lieutenant who was 
commanding officer of the twentieth precinct of the New York 
police that dealt with Lennon's murder. He quotes O'Connor as 
saying, "As far as you are trying to build up some kind of 
conspiracy, I would support you in that line. Like I said 
originally over the phone, if this gentleman [Chapman] wanted to 
get away with it, he could have got away with it. There was the 
subway across the road and no one around to stop him."
 
Instead, once Chapman had accomplished his task, he calmly sat 
and waited for police to come.
 
"Why one method rather than the other, the amateur as against the 
professional? Because that way you avoid any awkward questions. 
If Lennon had been gunned down by a professional killer, the 
whole world would have known: such swift expert assassinations 
carry their own individual hallmark. It would have been obvious 
what had happened and, with Lennon's history of anti-government 
radical political activity, there would have been [an in-depth 
investigation]."
 
"But if you program an amateur to do the job, a so-called 'nut', 
very few questions are asked."
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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