Imagine This: Beatles’ John Lennon Loved Ronald Reagan, Was a Closet Conservative
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on June 30, 2011
Beatles' John Lennon was a closet Republican who loved Ronald Reagan
And we thought we knew everything there was to know about the Beatles. Apparently not.
According to an assistant of the late John Lennon’s, it appears that Lennon had evolved over the years and was a closet conservative who adored Ronald Reagan. Lennon was even embarrassed by his naiveté when he was a groovy radical liberal icon in the 1960s.
Imagine that.
From Atlantic Wire, John Lennon Was a Reagan Democrat?:
Fred Seaman was John Lennon’s personal assistant from 1979 until his death in December 1980. Since then, he’s written a book about the late Beatle, appeared on television programs where he was billed as “an expert on Lennon’s childhood and adultlife” and been sued by Yoko Ono for violating his confidentiality agreement and failing to return the photographs, journals and letters he took out of Lennon’s Manhattan apartment building during his two years working for the musician. Now he’s claiming the man who wrote “Mean Mr. Mustard” was a closet Republican and big fan of the Gipper.
From Toronto Sun, Lennon was a closet Republican: Assistant:
John Lennon was a closet Republican, who felt a little embarrassed by his former radicalism, at the time of his death – according to the tragic Beatles star’s last personal assistant.
Fred Seaman worked alongside the music legend from 1979 to Lennon’s death at the end of 1980 and he reveals the star was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self.
In new documentary Beatles Stories, Seaman tells filmmaker Seth Swirsky Lennon wasn’t the peace-loving militant fans thought he was while he was his assistant.
He says, “John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter.
“He’d met Reagan back, I think, in the 70s at some sporting event… Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe, to go after the young (peace) demonstrators in Berkeley, so I think that John maybe forgot about that… He did express support for Reagan, which shocked me.
“I also saw John embark in some really brutal arguments with my uncle, who’s an old-time communist… He enjoyed really provoking my uncle… Maybe he was being provocative… but it was pretty obvious to me he had moved away from his earlier radicalism.
“He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he’d been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy’s naivete.”
From PJ Tatler, Re: Lennon’s Reagan Revolution:
I love this John Lennon story, though I wish he’d had the courage to come out of the closet. His assassin may have robbed us of more than a great musician. But am I crazy — I’ve always seen two major Beatles songs as very strong conservative statements, and counter-counter-cultural ones at that. “Taxman” is an obvious rip on the grasping leviathan state. “Declare the pennies on your eyes” hits estate taxes, while “You’re working for no one but me” speaks for itself. The entire song could describe the Club for Growth’s reason to exist. It’s even bipartisan, so the Tea Party could use it as a platform. And “Revolution,” arguably the gutsiest rock song of the 1960s, slams hippies for being wild-eyed dopes who don’t really understand what they’re demanding. The song even slams idolization of Mao — 12 years before the Chinese Communist Party officially blamed Mao for the brutalities of the Cultural Revolution, and when the left was enamored with him.
From Mail Online, Working class hero? John Lennon ‘was closet conservative and fan of Reagan’:
He is still revered around the world as a peace-loving working class hero.
But by the time he died, John Lennon was a closet conservative embarrassed by his radical past, according to his former personal assistant.
Fred Seaman claims that the former Beatle was a fan of Ronald Reagan, who went on to become America’s Republican president in 1981 and forged a close political alliance with Margaret Thatcher.
‘John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on [Democrat] Jimmy Carter,’ he says in a documentary film.
Seaman worked for Lennon during the year leading up to the star’s death in December 1980 aged 40.
On a related story, Holland has just erected a statue of the late Ronald Reagan, honoring him for his role in ending communism in that country and helping to end the Cold War. The statue now stands in Freedom Square, Budapest’s Szabadsag square — very fitting, and as B. Daniel Blatt at GayPatriot notes, “I believe that statue is life-size, given that the Gipper was larger than life.”
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Wonder why Seaman has come out with this now, 31 years later. His credibility is questionable, in light of paying Yoko $70,000 and serving 5 years probation for theft.
Lennon may or may not have been a closet conservative, but his last public actions before he was gunned down seem to indicate a more liberal bent:
From theNation.com:
What exactly were Lennon’s political views at the end of 1980? Late that November, Lennon spoke out on behalf of striking workers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. (The story is told in my book Come Together: John Lennon in His Time.) The strike was against Japan Foods Corporation, a subsidiary of the Japanese multinational Kikkoman, best known for its soy sauce. The US workers, primarily Japanese, were members of the Teamsters. In LA and San Francisco, they went on strike for higher wages. The shop steward of the LA local, Shinya Ono, persuaded John and Yoko to make a public statement addressed to the striking workers:
“We are with you in spirit.… In this beautiful country where democracy is the very foundation of its constitution, it is sad that we have to still fight for equal rights and equal pay for the citizens. Boycott it must be, if it is the only way to bring justice and restore the dignity of the constitution for the sake of all citizens of the US and their children.
“Peace and love, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York City, December, 1980.”
That was Lennon’s last written political statement. It doesn’t seem to be the work of a “closet Republican
Also from the Nation, this interesting interview from 2010 on CNN with Lennon biographer Jon Weiner:
http://www.thenation.com/video/156849/jon-wiener-john-lennons-political-legacy
Besides, I wasn’t real crazy about Jimmy Carter either and definitely not Tricky Dick. I think I voted for Pat Paulson, or maybe Ralph Nader. It was the first year I could vote and was very disappointed in the choices.
I liked Carter in my youth, and voted for him. Also voted for Bill Clinton once. And yet I’m a conservative. Go figure.