OTTAWA - The suspicions of a Delaware radio station manager prompted RCMP spies to share information with their American counterparts about Beatle John Lennon's plans for a peace festival near Toronto.
Declassified records show the Mounties sent confidential correspondence to the Federal Bureau of Investigation concerning efforts by Lennon and wife Yoko Ono to assemble a star-studded lineup of performers for the July 1970 event at Mosport Park.
"The Mosport Peace Festival was initiated by John Lennon (of Beatle fame) and his wife, while visiting Canada during December 1969," says the April 1970 letter to a liaison at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa from the RCMP's J.E.M. Barrette, director of security and intelligence.
The RCMP correspondence, portions of which remain secret, found its way into what would soon become an extensive FBI file on Lennon.
In the months before the Beatles formally parted ways in 1970, Lennon devoted much of his energy to promoting global harmony.
Ritchie Yorke, a Globe and Mail music writer who left his job to work for John and Yoko's peace campaign, recalls helping persuade broadcasters to air the messages.
"We tried to spread the word about that around (to) American radio stations, and quite a few responded very positively to it."
Not Edward Marzoa, manager of WJWL-AM in Georgetown, Delaware.
When approached by the Canadians associated with the Peace Station Network, he asked listeners whether his station should air their five-minute peace-oriented programs.
"The response was overwhelmingly against such programming," says Marzoa's March 1970 note to the RCMP.
"The purpose of this letter is not to solicit any program recommendation from your organization. It is rather, to ascertain if the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has any information which may shed some light on the Peace Station Network," Marzoa wrote.
"I would like to know who the officers are; what their purposes are; how they are financed; and why the Canadian base. I have my suspicions."
The RCMP dispatched a polite reply to Marzoa, advising him to contact the FBI, "as government policy requires us to liaise with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in matters related to enquiries of the nature."
The Mounties were indeed aware of what Marzoa was on about.
RCMP Security Service records recently obtained by The Canadian Press from Library and Archives Canada reveal the Mounties' security branch was actively monitoring plans for the Mosport peace festival.
The RCMP advised U.S. officials the radio programming was intended to help promote the planned Mosport event. The Mounties noted the venue had been vetoed by the Ontario Municipal Board and "at the present time it is not certain whether the 'festival' will proceed at some other location."
The ambitious musical event collapsed under the weight of organizational disputes.
Lennon's rabble-rousing activism of the early 1970s drew the attention of the FBI, which like the RCMP spied on numerous left-wing individuals and groups suspected of subversion.
A memo to the FBI director, noting enclosure of the RCMP correspondence, carries the subject line, "New Left - Foreign influence - Canada."
The FBI records were released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act in response to a request from California history professor Jon Wiener, who waged a long legal fight for disclosure. Some material in the FBI file remains classified.
Wiener's book, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files, chronicles his efforts to obtain the pages. But the RCMP entries have attracted almost no attention.
Notations on the RCMP correspondence were withheld from release, evidently following consultation between the FBI and CSIS, the successor of the RCMP Security Service.
On two pages sent by the RCMP to the FBI there are handwritten notes: "The deletions in this document were made at the request of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service."
CSIS spokesman Giovanni Cotroneo said Monday that Canadian authorities have a say as to whether a foreign agency such as the FBI may release information that originated with the RCMP. "In terms of commenting specifically on any deletions, I wouldn't be in a position to do that."
