The John Lennon FBI files

"UNABLE TO MAKE A NARCOTICS CASE"
The urgent coded teletype sent to Acting Director Gray on May 18 by the New York FBI continues with a report on the previous day's immigration hearings (HQ-18 page 2). Exactly why this would be sent in code is a mystery - the same information had been reported widely in the day's newspapers and TV news shows.

The last four lines were withheld for fourteen years as confidential source information and released only in the 1997 settlement: they report that "New York police department . . . has been unable to make a narcotics case on the Lennons." This came after the FBI had been trying to orchestrate a drug bust to expedite Lennon's deportation at a time when, as this page reports, "appeals could go on for years."