Mae was kind enough to share some of her thoughts on
the murder of John Lennon last December 8, 1980 in New
York City. She is just starting her 11th year of
broadcasting on radio KLRB, Carmel, CA.
Tom Davis
---
Tom: What would be the motive to kill John Lennon on
December 8, 1980? Lennon had been in seclusion for
many years and had not yet released his new album.
Mae: Both the date of Lennon's murder, and the careful
selection of this particular victim are very
important. Six weeks after Lennon's death, Ronald
Reagan would become President. Reagan and his
soon-to-be appointed cabinet were prepared to build up
the Pentagon war machine and increase the potential
for war against the USSR. The first strike would fall
on small countries like El Salvador and Guatemala.
Lennon, alone, was the only man (even without his
fellow Beatles) who had the ability to draw out one
million anti-war protestors in any given city within
24 hours, if he opposed those war policies.
John Lennon was a spiritual force. He was a giant,
like Gandhi, a man who wrote about peace and brotherly
love. He taught an entire generation to think for
themselves and to challenge authority. Lennon and the
Beatles' songs shout out the inequalities life and the
messages of change. Change is a threat to the longtime
status quo that Reagan's team exemplified.
On my weekly radio broadcast of December 7, 1980,
I stated that "the old assassination teams are coming
back into power." The very people responsible for
covering up the murders of President John F. Kennedy,
Senator Robert Kennedy, Reverend Martin Luther King,
for Watergate and Koreagate, and the kidnapping and
murder of Howard Hughes, and for hundreds of other
deaths, had only six weeks before they would again be
removing or silencing those voices of opposition to
their policies.
Lennon was coming out once more. His album was
cut. He was preparing to be part of the world, a world
which was a worse place since the time he had
withdrawn with his family. It was a sure bet Lennon
would react and become a social activist again. That
was the threat. Lennon realized that there was danger
coming back into public view. He took that dangerous
chance, and we all lost!
Tom: The common assumption is that Mark David Chapman,
arrested the moment he killed John Lennon, was acting
out his personal love-hate relationship with Lennon.
Why do you have to look for a larger conspiracy than
the conflicts in Chapman's own head?
Mae: Single crimes of passion are easy to explain and
easy to solve. When someone is gunned down who is
controversial, has political enemies, is hated by
wealthy and well-organized religious movements, and is
an open opponent of government policies at home and
abroad, that kind of murder requires much more inquiry
into the background of the assassin. The conclusions
about the murder motive may turn out to be simple.
Yet, in every political assassination since 1963,
there were always more unanswered questions that led
to a broader supposition of intention to kill by a
group of people rather than one single individual.
Tom: What is the first clue you look for if you are
suspicious of a larger conspiracy to assassinate,
whether it is John Lennon, President John F. Kennedy,
or the recent attempts on President Reagan and Pope
John Paul II?
Mae: There are necessary connecting links in every
assassination conspiracy. If any link of that chain
falls apart and becomes exposed, the parts of the
larger plot are more visible. When every element of
that chain holds together and is present in the
evidence and testimony regarding any particular
murder, there has to be a larger conspiracy. (See
accompanying diagram)
The most important link in that chain is the
selected decoy or patsy. Whoever is arrested at the
scene of the crime, to the exclusion of other
suspicious persons, becomes the "assassin." This
single person must serve a purpose, namely, to divert
all attention away from those people who have armed
him and located him at the scene of the crime.
Letters and diaries are always present and easily
located to support the predetermined cover story. They
provide a "motive", and are the glue that cements (we
are told) the "loner" to his single purpose.
In preparation for his "act", the decoy or patsy
is moved across countries or overseas, traveling and
staying at safe houses. He has no friends, no jobs, no
means of support while at the same time staying at
fancy hotels, spending lots of money, getting phone
messages, and meeting lots of people. Very few people
have the money to spend years in transit like these
patsies, whose chances of being in selected locations
at the precise moment their victim is murdered are
minute and impossible without assistance.
Tom: Who was Mark David Chapman? What was there in his
background that made you suspicious that he had been
selected for a "decoy" or "patsy" by other persons who
wanted Lennon dead?
Mae: Chapman came from a conservative military family
who had moved from Fort Worth, Texas to Florida. He
had become a "Jesus Freak" at the time Lennon and the
Beatles were getting death threats during the anti-war
period. Joining this movement while supposedly loving
and admiring Lennon was a gross contradiction, for the
religious fundamentalists were furious that Lennon
considered himself better known and loved than Jesus.
DeKalb County, Georgia, just to the east of
Atlanta, figures prominently in Chapman's life as it
had some years earlier in that of Martin Luther King.
In 1977 in a court affidavit, Robert Byron Watson,
former employee of Magellon's Art Gallery, Atlanta,
named several citizens as having planned and bragged
about the "future murder of Reverend Martin Luther
King." King's death came just one week after the plans
were discussed. These same people also talked about
murdering Senator Robert Kennedy.
Chapman attended DeKalb Junior College in the area
where these kinds of plans were laid and such
political anger was being vented. From DeKalb County,
Chapman was sent to Beirut, Lebanon. He was handed the
funds both ways. Beirut was the center for George
Habash and CIA assassination teams also identified in
the Watson testimony before the House Select Committee
on Assassinations in 1977-78.
On March 31, 1981, United Press International
exposed the connection of "military training in a
guerrilla camp" in Beirut, Lebanon to "worldwide Nazi
ties."
After six months in Lebanon, Chapman went to Fort
Chaffee, Arkansas to work with Vietnam refugees
recently arrived from Southeast Asia. Members of the
CIA were with him at this military base.
William Colby's Vietnam Phoenix program, staffed
with agents who intensely hated the anti-war, social
activists like John Lennon, had both the intent and
the means to move persons like Chapman to their
training camps and then to specific places planned as
sites for future assassinations. Colby came back to
the U.S. to become Director of the C.I.A. at a time
(1973) when "Operation Chaos" was in full swing
against the hippies, rock musicians, and anti-war
protestors. Many of them were killed or otherwise
neutralized.
From Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, Chapman moved to
Lookout Mountain, Tennessee to attend Presbyterian
College.
Martin Luther King, a victim of plans made in
DeKalb County, Georgia, was murdered in Memphis,
Tennessee. Senator Howard Baker from Tennessee and CIA
Director William Colby were making deals to cover up
Watergate crimes in 1974-75, year before Chapman moved
to Tennessee.
According to news reports, Chapman "fled"
Tennessee to Hawaii in 1976. His earliest arrest
records indicated he had committed crimes in Florida,
but the authorities later blamed these crimes on
another person, excusing the mix-up as a "computer
mistake." Many patsies and decoys have earlier arrest
records that are used to keep them silent and actively
cooperative for fear of going to jail. Was there any
connection between the Florida identification and the
reason for Chapman's flight to Hawaii?
Hawaii has been the scene of many clandestine
operations. Many CIA Vietnamese and members of the
Special Forces, now safely removed from Vietnam, were
assembled in Hawaii. The Nugan Hand Bank, an
Australian conduit for CIA "black money", actually
assassination funds, kept a branch in Hawaii. Herbert
Mullen, convicted of mass murders in California,
appeared perfectly normal until he was sent to a
military hospital in Hawaii. It was in Maui that he
went through his "religious thinking" and evolved as a
killer. Ed Sanders, author of The Family, a book about
the Manson Family, obtained documents regarding a
mysterious trip Mullen took to Hawaii before he later
became a programmed killer.
The years from 1976 to 1978 in Chapman's biography
are still vague and murky: two years of limited
employment and "mental treatment." Allegedly, he was
in the hospital for a mental breakdown. On the other
hand, if there were any evidence of mental
instability, would not his permit application to buy
the murder weapon have been denied?
There were many years, months, days when Chapman
could have been mentally programmed to become like the
"Manchurian Candidate," specifically to murder John
Lennon, if and when he re-entered public life. Lennon
was not threat until the U.S. was getting close to
another war.
Subsequently, Chapman took a long "vacation",
including a trip around the world. During this voyage
he made a trip to Switzerland to meet a pal from
DeKalb County, Georgia, the same man who earlier had
arranged the original trip to Lebanon. The journey
culminated in London with a rare visit to a live
Lennon concert.
Chapman's wife, who worked for a travel agency,
"arranged his itinerary". The source of the money for
his fare, hotels, food, concerts, has never been
identified, although Pacific Holding Ltd., a "tourism"
company formed by the CIA and Special Forces, may be
implicated. Both groups had funds to hire
assassination teams.
When Chapman left his job in Hawaii, October 23,
1980, he flew to Atlanta, GA. From Georgia, he went to
New York City with the intention of killing John
Lennon, but was apparently able to resist the "master
inside himself", a conflict he describes, and returned
to Hawaii. Before long, however, Hawaii was again
behind him, and Chapman arrived in New York on
December 5, 1980 with the specific plan to kill John
Lennon, which he did three days later.
Tom: What you are talking about is only
circumstantial. There is no proof that the CIA or any
government agency manipulated Chapman for their
purposes. When does the proof of a conspiracy ever
become apparent?
Mae: The burden of proof of conspiracy is put upon the
private investigator. The common denominator in all
these cases are those links in the conspiracy chain
(see diagram) which show the relevant questions to be
asked: Were there other persons along with Chapman
shooting at Lennon to make sure he died? Who fled the
scene in a hurry, never sought again by law
enforcement agencies? Why did the New York police
adamantly refuse to accept pictures of Chapman taken
autographing an album earlier in the evening of the
murder? Why were they donated to a newspaper after the
police refused to accept them? When Chapman's wife was
called by the New York Police, why did they instruct
her, "Don't release any picture of him."? How could
Miami Police issue an erroneous description of a
criminal record having the same last name, date of
birth, race, and approximate height as the slaying
suspect? Can we ever see the picture of the Florida
suspect? If Chapman was treated for mental illness in
Hawaii, how did he procure the weapon in Hawaii? How
did Chapman transport the gun from the Island to the
Mainland? (This question was dismissed by the Federal
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents, who
said, "No investigation was in progress.")
Money was never a problem for this wanderer. He
and his wife lived in a $400 a month apartment and
were able to support his hobby of collecting expensive
works of art. Owning original Norman Rockwell
lithographs worth $7,500, and traveling around the
world aren't impossible, if there is some kind of
occupation that provides the money for these luxuries.
If Chapman wrote "John Lennon" on his job work
sheet on October 23, 1980, it would seem impossible
for someone not to notice this message until the day
after Lennon was murdered. Employment log sheets are
usually added up regularly to determine the hours
worked and amount of pay checks. It is more probable
that Chapman wrote this name at that time so that his
cover story, his defense after the murder, would be
his mental identification with John Lennon.
Chapman's intention to find Lennon, as just
another adoring Beatle fan, must be separated from the
question of who transported him from Hawaii to Georgia
to New York, back to Hawaii, and back again to New
York, with lots of cash, and with the sole purpose of
killing Lennon.
Jimmy Breslin, New York columnist, was impressed
that Mark David Chapman could be such a "good shot"
with "no military background at all." But Chapman had
been trained to shoot. He had learned to become a
security guard in Georgia before his trips to Lebanon
and to the many countries where he could have been
instructed in killing. What about Ft. Chaffee? Why not
shooting practice in Tennessee? What about military
bases in Hawaii? What gives Breslin and the New York
Daily News the right to make such statements without
an inkling of Chapman's background?
Like all the other "loner" drifters, Chapman
stayed at expensive hotels. His last evening before
killing Lennon was spent at the Sheraton Centre Hotel
in New York. He was carrying more than $2,000 in cash
along with his credit cards. Where did he get these
cards, and on what basis was the money earned and
saved to establish credit to qualify for these cards?
Tom: You apparently believe there was a government
conspiracy to assassinate and silence John Lennon
which was conducted by the same people who murdered
other political figures and musicians in the past
eighteen years?
Mae: Absolutely! The federal government has maintained
active programs to eliminate rock musicians and
disrupt rock concerts. Senator Frank Church's
Committee hearings in 1975 and the FBI
Cointel-Programs clearly document the intent to break
up any gatherings of the "new left". Nothing brought
anti-war demonstrators together with political
messages more effectively than music festivals.
There is hard evidence the CIA assigned agents to
"investigate the music industry." After the murders of
Tim Buckley, Jim Croce, and Mama Cass Elliot, more
information surfaced about earlier mysterious deaths
of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and Janis Joplin.
Listed below, but not updated this past year, are some
of the rock musicians who have died since the Huston
Plan and the FBI Cointel-Program were activated. If
these people had been taking any kinds of drugs, there
is the distinct possibility that specific poisons were
added to their drugs, enough to be fatal, to make it
appear that they had died from a simple "overdose".
The murder of John Lennon is the tragic finale to
an entire era, the reminder that once an artist
becomes as popular and as political as he was, his
enemies will be waiting to make sure his messages
never appear again to awaken the slumbering youth.
