The Unexplained - Howard Hughes - Edition 687 - John Lennon Special

Dec. 19, 2022 - The Unexplained - Howard Hughes

52:08

Edition 687 - John Lennon Special

On the 42nd anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in New York a conversation with Jay Bergen - Lennon's lawyer - and Lennon author/expert and Jude Southerland Kessler...

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	Across the UK, across continental North America, and around the world on the internet, by webcast and by podcast, my name is Howard Hughes, and this is The Unexplained.
	Well, I hope that as things go at the moment, everything is okay with you.
	It's been rather cold here in snowy London for a little while, but they're telling us it will improve.
	And that's about the top and bottom of the weather report I think I want to give you this time.
	It's just been a little too cold.
	And my feet at the moment are like little blocks of ice, like little frozen French fries.
	Hopefully, things will improve.
	Maybe that was too, I don't know, too clear a description, but they are.
	The toes are just icy as I record this.
	I'm sure it'll be good for me in the long run.
	Who knows?
	I don't think I'll have to go out for a walk after I've recorded this.
	Anyway, thank you very much to Madam, my webmaster, for his work on the website, theunexplained.tv, and for getting these shows out to you.
	Thank you to you for being part of this.
	For your continued stream of emails with ideas for shows and comments upon them.
	Gratefully received.
	You can always contact me by going to the website theunexplained.tv, following the email link, and sending me a message from there.
	If your email requires a response, please put response needed or response required here so I know that that is what you want.
	And if you've been waiting for a response, you haven't had one, please give me a nudge and a reminder.
	And thank you very much for all of your involvement in this show.
	Something different on this edition of The Unexplained.
	A few days ago, as I record these words, we had the 42nd anniversary of the assassination of John Winston Lennon, the driving force, along with Paul McCartney of the Beatles and George Harrison.
	I mean, in their own way, they were bright shining stars, and so too was Ringo Starr.
	So they were all special, but there was something about John, in my personal opinion, that was different.
	He had an energy about him.
	He had an honesty and light about him that few human beings had, in my opinion.
	And I'm speaking here as a fully paid-up scouser.
	I was born in Liverpool.
	I remain proud of my home city.
	And I remain totally proud of those four young men who, around the time I came into this world, went out into it and conquered it.
	So that Liverpool was a place where even today, if I go to America, I'll say I'm from Liverpool, and people will say, oh, the Beatles.
	That's the difference that it made.
	So John Lennon was cruelly taken from our lives by a man called Mark David Chapman, who is still behind bars for that crime outside the Dakota building where John lived with Yoko Ono in New York.
	December the 8th, if you were in the United States, 1980, December the 9th, because of the time difference over here in the UK.
	And I spoke on my TV show with two people about John and about the strange case of Mark David Chapman and what might have motivated him to do such a terrible thing all those years ago, for which he is still, in my opinion, rightly behind bars and he should rot there.
	But that's my personal opinion.
	You might think differently.
	The two people I'm speaking with are Jude Sutherland Kessler, who's written a number of books about John and is very illuminating, as you will hear, and a man who was John's lawyer in a particularly celebrated and famous legal case, but knew John for quite a while.
	Jay Bergen.
	They're both on this conversation, and we will talk about Mark David Chapman, and we will talk a lot about John.
	And I think on this anniversary, for a lot of us, it's a conversation that's worth having, okay?
	It's not specifically about ghosts or bigfoot or aliens or any of the stuff we talk about here on the unexplained so often.
	It is just simply about some terrible events that people are still trying to come to terms with.
	And that perhaps if you're of a similar vintage to me, if you were born at a particular time, those events will have impacted you as they impacted me.
	And as you will hear on this conversation from my TV show, I was actually part of that day in a way that I have never talked about before now.
	So that's what we're going to do on this edition.
	Thank you very much for being part of my show.
	As we come to the end of 2022 and look forward to 2023, Jude Sutherland Kessler and Jay Bergen, the guests on the subject, John Lennon.
	Friday was an important anniversary for an awful lot of us.
	42 years, count them, since the UK woke up to the news of the death of John Winston Lennon, murdered outside his New York apartment.
	The Dakota building, which became infamous, famous, by a deranged fan, Mark David Chapman.
	They say that he was perhaps the first celebrity stalker and the consequences of his actions and what went on in his mind that the world have had to live with or has had to live with for the last 42 years.
	Now, tonight I'm going to tell you an untold story.
	And it's one that I haven't told for what is perhaps a tangential and strange reason.
	I don't know.
	You know, working in the media, as I've been lucky enough to do all of my life, you know, I started when I was a kid.
	You know, the media can be, certain segments of it, not all of it, can be a little ageist.
	So if you get to the age of 45 and you go north at 45, then some opportunities may not present themselves to you for that reason.
	So I haven't told this story partly for that reason over the years.
	But I've now reached an age and a stage in my life where I really don't care.
	And, you know, this is me, and I am the age I am, and I've done what I've done.
	And, you know, some of it I'm proud of.
	So I can tell you tonight that I was part of that day.
	It was December the 9th, 1980.
	And the events that we're going to talk about occurred on the night, because of the time difference, transatlantic between New York and the United Kingdom, on December the 8th, a Monday.
	We know this as being something that unfolded for us on the Tuesday morning here.
	Now, I started my broadcasting life, the reason I'm telling you this, at the age of 16.
	I made my first broadcast at Radio City in Liverpool then.
	And when John Lennon was assassinated, I was a boy trainee at Radio City in Liverpool.
	I know it's a long time ago.
	It's hard to believe.
	Radio City was and remains the region's biggest radio station.
	On that day, I was due to go in and read the news during the daytime.
	The news editor thought it would be good for me as a trainee to read on the peak shifts.
	And he thought that I, at that time, I don't think I did.
	He thought I had a good voice for reading the news.
	So they put me on then.
	Now, on that day, I can remember getting up early.
	I was living with my parents, and I told my mum, mum, I can't believe this.
	John Lennon's been shot dead.
	This is going to be a huge day, but what terrible news for Liverpool?
	What terrible news for the world.
	And I was fully expecting to go into work that day and be taken off the air because I was just the boy trainee.
	And the news editor at the time, Roger, who was a fantastic journalist, a bit of a tough guy, but the highest standards which have impacted me all of my career.
	And I'm very grateful for the training that I got there.
	He said, no, you can stay on air.
	So through that day, December the 9th, 1980, from, I think, late morning until about 4 p.m., I read the news to Liverpool about one of its most famous sons being shot dead in New York.
	And I will never forget that day.
	And just a couple of recollections before we get to the two guests in this hour.
	We're going to talk about Mark David Chapman and John Lennon and how we look back on those events of 42 years ago.
	But I remember some things about that day.
	A lot of things I don't remember vividly, but some things I do.
	I can remember sitting in the newsroom, and in those days we had typewriters, and I can remember those typewriters clacking at ferocious speed as people banged out copy and reaction from people in Liverpool, but also the phone never stopping.
	And even I, I was the boy trainee, I had to take calls from radio stations all over the world, Australia and America, everywhere, wanted to know what was the reaction to the death of John Lennon.
	So we told them.
	And then at one point, TV news crews came in, a reporter from ITN called Norman Rees, I remember his name, was standing in the middle of the newsroom and somewhere maybe that footage of me with hair somewhat darker than this and quite a bit thinner than this, sitting there in the corner of the newsroom.
	So Liverpool became the focus of the world on December the 9th, 1980.
	And untold up to now, at a very, very early stage of my life and my career, I was part of it.
	So tonight, we're going to remember the happenings of December 1980 and peer into the minds of John Lennon, the victim, and the killer, Mark David Chapman.
	And to start it, and just to get you in the mood for the conversation that we're about to have, here are some sounds and images that might stir just a few memories for you.
	And I can remember in the period after John Lennon's death, that song was so poignant in so many ways because he was somebody who took his life, who arguably was a jealous guy.
	He was a guy who felt that John Lennon was maybe a little too famous.
	You know, he was a fan, but a fan whose image of John Lennon got corrupted, and that caused him to behave in a terrible way that changed history for everybody.
	Just to give you the facts before we get to the two guests we're going to talk about.
	So these are the facts.
	We know when it happened, December the 8th in New York, December 9th in the United Kingdom.
	John Lennon shot and fatally wounded in the archway of the Dakota building where he lived for eight years in New York City with Yoko Ono.
	The killer was Mark David Chapman, an American Beatle fan incensed by Lennon's lavish lifestyle, we are told, and his 1966 comment that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
	There were other motivators, including his reading of a book that was widely referred to called Catcher in the Rye.
	That book, he said, and in a later interview with Larry King from CNN, an astonishing interview, if you ever see this on YouTube, from Attica Prison, he actually gave an interview with Mark David Chapman to Larry King.
	You know, he said that he was using that book, Catcher in the Rye, almost as a playbook.
	Astonishing events.
	And as I said, Mark David Chapman has gone down in history as effectively the first celebrity stalker with the consequences that we saw.
	Two guests, I'm very pleased to welcome both of them here, acclaimed John Lennon expert and author, Jude Sutherland Kessler, and Jay Bergen, who was John Lennon's lawyer.
	Both with us tonight, and I think we're going to see them on either sides of the screen right now.
	So both Jude and Jay, thank you for making time for me.
	Good evening.
	Thank you so much.
	We love being here, but boy, it's hard to come on and be a smiling guest after all of that.
	I think you made me cry.
	Well, 42 years, it's imprinted on my life.
	And, you know, I was pleased that I was able to tell the story of how I was in Liverpool on the city's biggest radio station that day.
	I was, you know, only a kid.
	My memories of it are kind of foggy, apart from one or two standout points, but I remember that I was there that day, and it made an impact on me.
	Jay Bergen, you knew John Lennon because you were his lawyer.
	Talk to me about that.
	Well, I was John's lawyer in 1975 until the end of 76, into 77, involving where I was representing him in the dispute with the notorious Morris Levy.
	And that had to do with the Roots album, the bootleg version of John Lennon rock and roll.
	And I met John on February 3rd, 1975 in Capital's offices.
	And to kind of shorten it, it wasn't long after that that Morris Levy released the Roots album and started selling it on TV.
	Capital rushed into production rock and roll.
	And after rock and roll came out, Levy stopped advertising Roots.
	And about two weeks later, Chuck filed the first of two lawsuits against John, Capital Records, EMI Records, Harold Sider, who was John's business advisor, and Apple Records.
	And we were off to the races at that point.
	Right.
	So your association was a professional association.
	You were brought in as a lawyer, but I know that you're a rock and roll guy Yourself, yes, I was from my early days in high school.
	And I remember growing up and listening to all of the songs that were on the rock and roll album, either in high school or when I was in college.
	You know, the roots of the Beatles and their early work that was real raw, a little bit of blues, a lot of rock and roll are quite amazing.
	And if you're watching this right now at home and you haven't heard any of that material, give it a try.
	It's the early Beatles material and they do it pretty damn well.
	Jude.
	Those are the songs that John grew up listening to, and that's why he wanted to record them, Chuck.
	And that is part of all our history because all of us in Liverpool had relatives who were in the merchant navy.
	And often going across to America, they would bring back rock and roll records that the rest of the nation, this nation, hadn't heard.
	And they're what influenced the Beatles and all of those groups in the 1960s.
	Stay where you are, Jay.
	You're going to be with us for this hour.
	Jude, coming to you, how do I describe you?
	It seems to me that reading about you, and I mean this in a nice way, the word super fan is what comes to mind.
	Is that how you would see yourself?
	Yes, I've been a lifelong fan since I was nine years old before the Beatles actually were on Ed Sullivan and knew that I wanted to write a book.
	I thought it was going to be one volume, not nine, as it's turned out to be, about someone who changed the world, write it with all the documentation and footnotes and research, but write it as a narrative.
	And I thought, well, who do I know, really know that I could write about?
	And I thought, well, I know John Lennon better than anyone in the world.
	And of course, as you know, when you start researching someone, I knew nothing, nothing.
	It took years.
	This is my 36th year of research.
	Seven trips to Liverpool to interview everyone from the Cavern Club compare, Bob Wooler, to Alan Williams, our first manager, Helen Anderson, John's best friend in art college, Julia Baird, his sister, to put it together.
	So yes, I think Superfan describes it well, whereas someone said at the Fest for Beatles fans, hey, Lennon Chick.
	Seven trips to Liverpool, as you will have discovered, and I was brought up there.
	I mean, when I came into this world, the Beatles were starting their journey, right?
	And so it was very much a part of my young years, and I remember it vividly.
	And I had an older sister who was seven years, still seven years older than me, Beryl.
	You know, she was much more involved in it all than I was.
	But what you will have learned, Jude, I think in Liverpool is that pretty much everybody had some kind of Beatles connection.
	They did.
	They did.
	I've been interviewing people.
	I sat down to interview June Furlong, the life model at Liverpool College of Art, whom John really admired.
	And the people at the table said next to us said, do you mind if we come over and join you?
	Because we went to the cavern club all the time.
	So I incorporated their stories into the book too.
	And I'm sure that you were aware of what was going on across town in the city center while you were on air because they were having the largest memoriam for John in the world.
	And they asked the Merseyside bands to write songs about John.
	And there was a competition and Much Miss Mann ended up winning that competition in Liverpool.
	But it went on for days, for days.
	If Liverpool could have had a president or a prime minister, certainly when I was growing up, when I was a kid, I think John Lennon would have been the prime candidate for that job because he was very much, I mean, he had a song called A Working Class Hero is something to be.
	But for us, all of us, you know, although he went to art school and that was slightly middle class, for an awful lot of us in Liverpool who came from the wrong side of the tracks, this guy was our idol.
	That's right.
	The spokesman for an era.
	And I mean, not just in music.
	We think of him as a Beatle, but we have to remember that he won the Foyles Literary Award for the single best book in 1963-64, which was his very first book that he ever wrote.
	And he followed it up with two others.
	He was a famous artist, single-line drawings, which Stu Sutcliffe, who was also his mate at Liverpool College of Art, encouraged him to do.
	He was a peace activist and made a huge impact on the world through his peace movement.
	He did so much more than just be in the Beatles.
	And for me, his solo career is his real catalog.
	I mean, I love the Beatles.
	I adore the Beatles.
	But John's solo career with songs like, you know, Give Peace a Chance and Power to the People and Instant Karma, Shivering Inside, Beautiful Boy, Woman, that can just go on and on.
	His strength lies in his solo career, too.
	And all of that was cut short by Mark David Chapman, who we will talk about in the next segment of our conversation, but is very much the focus of our recollections of 42 years ago and that terrible event in New York.
	Jude, you never met John Lennon, and yet talking to you now, it sounds like you do know him intimately, very well.
	Well, you know, when you've lived eight days a week, as it were, with someone for the last 36 years, and I've been a fan since I was nine, I've spent hours and hours and hours, the better part of my life, researching his life.
	You can see the books behind me, but it's really the interviews that I've done and the people that I've sat down with and who have shared stories, just talking to John's sister, Julia, about the true story behind why John was reared by his aunt and uncle instead of the one that was put out for years, you know, that Julia just turned her back on him and walked away, which isn't true.
	She was forced to do that by her father, Pop Stanley.
	And we didn't know this story for ages.
	But the story keeps changing and morphing as we learn more and more.
	And Jay's book has given us a wealth of information that I thought we would never get.
	I thought we were finished getting new John Lennon stories.
	I mean, that was over with.
	And now we have this wealth of brand new information.
	We keep learning.
	Well, being a fully paid up scouser, that's a liver puddling to any of our international viewers.
	You know, there are a zillion John Lennon and Beatle connections that I could talk with you about, and we wouldn't have time to do that.
	But fascinating it would be.
	Jay, you did know John Lennon, and I heard you talking on a podcast interview today that I was listening as I was researching this, talking about the procedure.
	I say procedure very pointedly about this because you were almost auditioned to work for John Lennon.
	And it wasn't John who did that, was it?
	It was Yoko who auditioned you to come and represent John in that lawsuit.
	You were invited to that very Dakota building.
	Well, as I said, I thought I was already had been kind of hired because this was later in March.
	And John called me one day and asked me, can you come up to Dakota tomorrow, Jay, to meet Yoko?
	And I said, fine.
	Should I bring anything?
	And John said, no, no, just come up.
	She wants to meet you.
	And I said, fine.
	I'd never been in the Dakota.
	I walked into the living room and sat down.
	And Yoko came in a few minutes later and sat on the couch across from me.
	And she had obviously read the two complaints.
	She was very bright, asked me a lot of questions, also questioned me about my background, what my history was as a trial lawyer, where I went to law school and things like that.
	And I think it lasted an hour, a little bit more than an hour.
	John was not there.
	I didn't see John at all.
	And at the end of the hour or so, she stood up and said, well, thank you very much for coming.
	And I appreciate that very much.
	And I left.
	Now, this may sound a little or very naive, but it was years later when I really kind of focused on the fact that if she hadn't liked me and she hadn't thought that I was the person to represent John, I would have been replaced.
	And after that, even though Yoko came every day to the trial for 20 days in 1976, she never interfered.
	She never opined about anything.
	She and John were there every day.
	They'd come to the office in the morning, pick me up, off we'd go to court.
	Right.
	And ultimately, of course, you won that case.
	And you were auditioned effectively by Yoko, who was acting in a capacity I never really associated with her, and that is sort of business manager, which is fascinating in itself.
	Where was John at in those years?
	Because I think of John as being in the Beatles.
	Beatles are touring the world, releasing albums, doing stuff.
	Beatles break up to the shock and horror of the world.
	Beatles have solo careers and they go pretty well.
	Even for Ringo, Ringo found his way too.
	And then John found the United States, and he found activism.
	He became a focus for so many things.
	And in the period that you would have known him, he was partly that, but I think he was also becoming something else.
	He was becoming a more mature individual.
	How did you find him at this time?
	Well, I met him, as I said, on February 3rd, 1975.
	And that was when he really dropped out of the music business, got back with Yoko.
	Yoko got pregnant, and they were looking forward to the birth of a child, which turned out to be Sean, in October of 1975, about three months before the trial started.
	But John, at that point, was not involved in any activism at all.
	He wasn't involved in the music business.
	He was really kind of chilled out and very happy.
	I never heard John, when I was with him, use any bad language.
	He never smoked when I was with him.
	Not that that would have bothered me.
	I think he'd gone through that horrible period of the lost weekend, and he got through that, got back to Yoko.
	We never discussed that.
	We never discussed anything about the Beatles.
	I never asked him what was that like to be in the Beatles.
	We never discussed that.
	And we all, what he wanted to really focus on, Howard, was the case.
	He did not want to settle with Morris Levy.
	He wanted to really be ready for the case and play it out to the end.
	I mean, so he was, he was not John Lennon, the icon.
	He was just John Lennon.
	The guy.
	A New Yorker.
	Right.
	A person.
	And that's the picture that we get of him in that period.
	Jay Bergen, Jude Sutherland, we're talking about John Lennon.
	We're going to get into the awful events of December 1980 coming next here on The Unexplained.
	December the 9th, 1980 in the United Kingdom, December the 8th in New York City.
	The murder of John Winston Lennon.
	One of the most famous icons of music.
	One of the most famous characters the world had ever known up to that point.
	With the explosion in media, John Lennon rode that tide from the 1960s.
	And as we've been hearing with our two guests talking about him and his life and death, Jude Sutherland Kessler, author and John Lennon expert, Jay Bergen, who was John Lennon's lawyer for a period.
	John Lennon was becoming something else at the point at which he left us.
	It was a very interesting transitional phase, it seems to me, that he was in.
	And Jude, let's put this to you.
	I remember being aware of John Lennon in that period, and it seemed to me that in the mid-70s, he was an activist, and I think there were those in America who were against him.
	There's no doubt that there were people in America in high places who were very much against him.
	But by the time we got to 1980, John was in the Dakota building where he lived, as we said, for eight years.
	And he was just comfortable, as Jay said before we took some commercials there.
	He was becoming comfortable in his own skin.
	He was ready for the next phase of his life.
	Have I got that right?
	I agree.
	John was always categorized, almost cartooned.
	When he was with the Beatles, they set him up to be the satirical or the wry beetle.
	And so the fact is that John back in that period was very sweet and kind and good to a lot of people and went out of his way to do great things for people, but didn't make a big deal out of it.
	Then when he left the Beatles and he went away with May Pang for this time to Los Angeles, which Was actually one of the most productive times of his career, and she was very inspiring and very good for him.
	He's categorized as being on a lost, and John's the one who used the term lost weekend.
	Now, as we approach him at the end of the 1970s, he's portrayed as a househusband when, in truth, John was writing music all through the 70s.
	If you read the excellent book, John Lennon 1980 by Dr. Kenneth Womack, Womack points out that there wasn't a moment through any of John's Selu career when he wasn't writing and rewriting songs.
	Watching the Wheels took eight years to write, for example.
	And when he puts out Double Fantasy, some of those songs have been written for months and months and months and months and months.
	John is productive.
	He's happy.
	He has rediscovered his faith.
	He is looking forward to the future.
	He says, weren't the 70s a drag?
	But as long as there's hope, let's move on.
	And I think he was very positive, very upbeat.
	But he did have his problems in the United States, didn't he?
	I mean, he had his problems remaining in the United States.
	There were people who did not like him.
	There were people who used elements of his past against him.
	It wasn't, although New Yorkers, it seemed to me, ordinary New Yorkers loved the guy because he adapted completely.
	Again, another factor about Liverpool, I don't know if you found this, but Liverpool looks a bit like New York.
	It's in a similar kind of, you know, the gridiron street design and stuff like that.
	And because of the maritime heritage, it's very similar.
	So he fitted right in there.
	But not everybody loved him, did they?
	No, he was on Nixon's enemies list.
	I mean, you can read the FBI account.
	It's 800 pages.
	A great deal of it's redacted, of course.
	But there was an FBI agent stationed outside his home at the Dakota.
	And John went down and met him and said, look, you're not going to find anything out about me by standing down here.
	Why don't you come upstairs and let's talk?
	And they became really close friends.
	And in fact, there was a play on Broadway for about a year from the FBI agent's perspective of John.
	He certainly was not liked or trusted by the powers that be, but New Yorkers loved him.
	I think to me, the city that most resembles Liverpool is Philly.
	In fact, they were designed by the same designer.
	You have the tower clock in both cities.
	It looks very much the same.
	It has a heavy Irish influence, very much like Liverpool.
	But New York to him, you know, he said, if I had lived in Roman days, I would have lived in Rome.
	And New York is the center of the world, and that's where I want to be.
	And I think he fit in beautifully.
	But he was not without enemies.
	I mean, he even made enemies in England as well because of his work for Irish independence.
	When he marched ahead of 5,000 people on the offices of BOAC, he didn't make any friends.
	So he wasn't afraid to stand for what he stood for.
	Yes, he was a fiery activist in his day, both sides of the Atlantic.
	And you know, both of you really, but Jude, you know that there are many people who have theorized about why there may have been people in the United States, certainly, who would have wanted to see him gone.
	And a lot of people have had their say about that, whether it was some kind of conspiracy, whether there was some sinister element at work here.
	Yeah, there's a great book called Who Killed John Lennon by Fenton Brusseler.
	Bressler was coming to the United States to prosecute the case.
	And by the time he got here, Mark Chapman had said, no contest, I did it, turned himself in.
	And that ended all discussion.
	But the book, he investigated it anyway.
	And the book is very insightful.
	The murder of John Lennon, and I'm going to say that out of respect to those people in the Beatles world who firmly believe you should never say his name.
	I disagree with that calmly.
	I'm not angry that they think that way, but I think that the man's name should be said as often as possible and let's know who did this terrible thing.
	But most Beatles fans won't speak his name because they don't want to give him publicity.
	Well, I totally understand that.
	Yeah, but they, I understand it too.
	They know that he worked at YMCA in Atlanta and was sent to the Middle East to be trained in military tactics.
	He learned how to go down on one knee and fire precisely and well.
	There were a lot of things that went on that he didn't understand.
	He didn't know why he kept coming to New York.
	This was his second trip to New York.
	He came three or four weeks before, couldn't do it and went home.
	Yeah, because he was living, and we have to say that he was living in Hawaii at that time.
	Right, exactly.
	Exactly.
	So there is a very complex and complicated story, and I don't think we yet know what happened, but someday we will.
	Well, I think there are aspects to this that are strange, but we'll get into those.
	Jay, was John then concerned about it when you knew him?
	Was he concerned about his security?
	We just talked about how comfortable he was living in the Dakota building, how he fitted right in in New York.
	And it's, you know, I love New York.
	I find it really easy to function in New York.
	I can quite understand how John found it that way.
	Was he concerned at all?
	No.
	I mean, we walked around the city.
	I mean, one of the reasons, Howard, that I wrote the book, you know, Lennon, the Mobster, and the Lawyer, The Untold Story, was because that case and the trial and everything had kind of flown under the radar.
	And, you know, when John's deposition was taken one day, for example, by Morris Levy's lawyers, when we had the lunch break, I took him into Grand Central Station.
	He'd never been there before.
	We went to the Oyster Bar for lunch.
	The next day, when the deposition ended right before lunch, we went wound up in the Bull and Bear at the Waldorf Astoria, and he'd never been there before.
	So people, you know, when we went into Grand Central Station, he walked around and people didn't pay any attention to him.
	Now, there were times when we were walking up Fifth Avenue one day before that day when four or five people were in back of us.
	John suddenly stopped.
	I didn't realize he was being followed.
	He turned around and walked back and said, you've been following me.
	What do you want?
	And he asked them very politely, what do you want?
	And they said an autograph.
	He gave the autographs and we left.
	So, I mean, one of the things in the book is really shows, I think, that John was just trying to be a normal person.
	We'd walk home through Central Park over to the Dakota.
	And, you know, I don't think any of the big rock stars had bodyguards in those days.
	I mean, he didn't have a bodyguard.
	I mean, that day we were walking to the Waldorf Astoria, a woman stopped in front of us and said, oh, you're John, you're George Harrison.
	And he said, yes, I am.
	Thank you.
	You can imagine him doing that.
	And I tell that story in the book.
	And I'll tell you right now, Howard, if she had asked for an autograph, he would have signed George Harrison.
	And I'm certain of that, too.
	I mean, look, the guy that you were up against in that lawsuit, he was famous, reputed for his mafia connections.
	Was John concerned about that?
	About getting involved with some people who might be able to do him realistic harm?
	Well, instead of being famous, he was really infamous because he was tied to the Genovese crime family and he had a terrible reputation in the music business for stealing royalties.
	But John and I never discussed again whether there was any danger from Morris Levy.
	John thought that Morris was kind of a character.
	You know, he talked kind of like this because he had polyps in his throat and he talked about himself a lot.
	That also never came up.
	And I didn't think about it and he didn't think about it.
	And we just went about the case.
	Every day they were in court and John was not worried.
	He was worried about the case, but he wasn't worried about the court.
	He never gave any thought to that.
	So he wouldn't have been in any way prepared for what ultimately happened.
	Jude, back to you.
	The terrible events of December the 8th in New York outside the Dakota building.
	I've stood on that spot on a freezing cold day, which must have been very much like that December day, I guess, because New York is cold at that time of year.
	And I tried to catch the vibe of being there.
	It was probably six years after those events, and I stood exactly in that place that we just saw in the previous bit of, well, the previous still shot there.
	It became an infamous location.
	Mark David Chapman had come from Hawaii.
	He was, we're told, a fan of John Lennon.
	But again, we're told, we read, we understand that there was something about John Lennon's behavior that had irked him, that had rankled him, that he didn't like, and that he wanted to make John Lennon pay for.
	And that's what brought him from Hawaii to the Dakota building, as you say, twice.
	He went there once, couldn't do what he'd planned to do.
	So he went back there and methodically thought the thing out in the circumstances he was in.
	What do we know?
	What do you know from what you've written about John Lennon, about Mark David Chapman?
	What put him there on that day at that time?
	The only thing that I know now, and I will know much more later, because right now my research is being done on 6566 and I move forward chronologically, but I've read enough to know that Mark David Chapman was a suggestible and confused young man.
	And he seemed to be, I think, a prime target for something that needed to be done.
	You have pointed out very, you know, Morris Levy, the mafia, certainly weren't happy with him.
	United States government certainly wasn't happy with him.
	Powers that be, you know, in England weren't happy with him.
	John never understood throughout his life that you can't just say what you want to say without recrimination.
	John spoke out.
	One of the main reasons that I like John Lennon is that he would tell you what he thought about you.
	He didn't talk behind your back.
	He didn't act polite and then say something different.
	He was who he was.
	And he never understood that that came with a cost.
	And so he had made enough enemies that I think it came back to bite him eventually.
	But we'll know more about that in the years to come.
	I do not think it was a random lunatic guy doing something without cause.
	I mean, if you, and I think in 1996 or so, 97, Mark David Chapman, astonishingly, and I watched it again today, did an interview with Larry King on CNN, who was a master interviewer.
	And this was a huge challenge for any interviewer to talk to this guy from the prison.
	You know, Mark David Chapman is still in prison to this day, rightly, in my view.
	I hope he never gets parole.
	I hope he rots in prison.
	That's my view about that.
	But that interview was done.
	And I don't know about you, if you ever get to see that interview talking to my viewer here.
	The matter-of-fact way that Mark David Chapman talks about what he did, about how he went there, and he got Lennon to sign an album for him, and Lennon was clearly aware of him so that when he returned later in the day, Chapman was able to execute his plan and fire five shots into his back after shouting Mr. Lennon, famous words.
	And apparently the bullets included dum-dum bullets, which are bullets designed to do the maximum destruction, maximum injury.
	I mean, there is...
	I don't think that entirely comes out of the interview, not from what I saw.
	The way that he did this, there is no passion involved in that thing.
	It was almost like a mechanical act.
	And it gives some support, maybe, to those conspiracy theorists who say that perhaps he was some kind of Manchurian candidate, somebody who'd somehow been programmed to do this thing.
	And then, as he described it himself in the interview, when it was done, when Lennon was lying on the ground, on the sidewalk, bleeding, suddenly woke up and was aware of what he'd done.
	It's a very strange set of occurrences, isn't it?
	It is.
	And I mean, this isn't the first time in history that this has happened.
	If you go back to the Lincoln assassination, you find out that the man, the guard, who was supposed to stand guard in Ford Theater at the door of Lincoln's private box was gone.
	He was not there when John Wilkes Booth fired.
	The guard had gone across the street to the pub to have a drink and was gone for several hours.
	If you go through history, it's very complex.
	We would like to make it easy.
	We would like to make it one, two, three, this is the answer, but it hardly ever is.
	And I think the truth of what happened that day is yet to unfold.
	Just we've only got seconds before we have to take commercials again.
	Jude, do you say that advisedly from things that you've been told, or do you say that from where I'm coming from with all of this, from my gut?
	I come from research.
	I come from a careful reading of Fenton Bressler's book and no one, he was the official attorney to prosecute the case, and he gave his time to investigate it and from other interviews that I've done that I'm not ready to reveal yet.
	But the story is more complex than it seems.
	All right.
	John Lennon, December the 8th or December the 9th, depending on the side of the Atlantic you were on, you heard why I was involved in this story because I read the news to Liverpool that day as a boy trainee at Radio City, and I never mentioned it.
	In all these years, people who know me in this business, I never talked about that day.
	But I was there, and we'd never seen anything like it.
	And Liverpool had never seen anything like it.
	There was an outpouring of emotion on that day that I think few things could have caused.
	And John Lennon was somebody who united an awful lot of people in Liverpool.
	Suddenly we were without him.
	That's one thing I can remember.
	Jay Bergen, John Lennon's lawyer, when you heard that John Lennon had been shot, and you heard that it was the word I think that was used pretty quickly by the media, both sides of the Atlantic, was deranged fan.
	Can you remember what you thought?
	Well, I was asleep in New Jersey when I got a call from a friend in the Midwest telling me that John Lennon had been shot and was dead.
	And he said, turn on the TV.
	And I did.
	And I watched a few minutes and then went back into bed.
	And, you know, I didn't know who had done it.
	There was nothing on the news at that point.
	I know that the first thing I did after I got back into bed was I called Jimmy Iovine, who was a very close friend of John's, who was in a studio with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers recording Hard Promises.
	And when I told Jimmy that John had been shot, they were very close.
	And he just said, oh my God, and hung up the phone.
	But the next day, it was just a shock.
	And to me, it didn't make any difference who had killed him.
	It was just the fact that he was dead.
	And I did not pay a lot of attention to what went on with Mark David Chapman after that because I was still trying to, you know, kind of come to grips with the fact that John wasn't with us anymore and wouldn't be with us anymore.
	And one of the photos you showed right at the beginning, Howard, was that sign that somebody held up in the street that night after the large crowd gathered and stayed through the night was why?
	And that's the question, isn't it?
	I think that's the question that all of us keep asking.
	And it really doesn't make any difference who did it.
	It's just it didn't make any sense.
	It was Jude Sutherland Kessler.
	That question, why, I don't think Mark David Chapman, and there I am using that man's name again, but I don't think he's ever adequately answered that, has he?
	No, I don't think he knows the answer to it.
	He was, when he realized what had happened, he was horrified and he wouldn't move and he just waited for them to arrest him and take him away.
	So I don't think he knows the answer.
	But I am so glad that you've pointed out that it actually this happened on the 9th in Liverpool in the UK, because it is a fitting close to the story of a magical man who was born on the 9th, died on the 9th, came home to 9 Newcastle Road.
	One of the first songs he wrote was the one after 909.
	He always said that the 9th held special power for him.
	And I think for someone who gave us what is the soundtrack of our lives, who gave us so many quotes that we use all the time from either, and some of them were Alan Owens and some of them were Mark Beams from HELP, but we repeat Beatles quotes constantly.
	We dress as they taught us to dress.
	We believe in women's rights because from the very beginning, they sang songs as if they were women, understanding women, speaking out about female empowerment and women is the end of the world.
	They taught us so much and they changed our lives so much that it's fitting that his life end, as he said, I have a magic star with me looking over my shoulder.
	And he, you know, we'll never be without John.
	He's been gone longer than he was here, and yet he's still very much with us.
	You know, I hadn't actually cottoned onto that actual fact.
	Of course, he left us aged 40, and it's been 42 years now since we lost him.
	So, you know, he's been away for longer than he was here, and that's an impactful fact.
	You said that you did some interviews, Jude, that may shed some further light on Mark David Chapman and how all of this happened.
	And I know that you say that you cannot tell me exactly who they were with.
	What sorts of people were they with?
	Were they people who were involved in authority?
	Or are they people who were around at that time?
	People who were close associates of John.
	Okay.
	And you're saying, I mean, I'm not asking you to tell me what it is because you don't want to, and I understand, I respect that.
	But they actually have insights into this that would surprise us when we get to that.
	Yeah, I really think everybody should start by reading Who Killed John Lennon.
	I think that's a good starting place.
	And there's some other books that I won't recommend because I don't want to get anyone in trouble.
	But the evidence is out there if we are willing to have open minds and look at it.
	This is more than it appeared to be.
	And I think the play on Broadway about the FBI agent that got to know John, I think looking at the FBI file and the recommendations that were made, John was considered dangerous.
	And I think that anytime someone stands up for what is right and boldly speaks their mind, they're considered dangerous to the people who oppose them.
	And John did that.
	In certain segments of America, that's a difficult thing.
	Or the world.
	Well, being from Liverpool, I know that people, and my early working experience proved that, you know, people said what they thought.
	You know, they did not hide things.
	They wouldn't say things behind your back.
	They'd say it to you.
	And then it would be over.
	That's the way that Liverpool people, I think, still are.
	That's what I love about my city.
	And John epitomized and represented that.
	Now, there's one aspect of this that everybody talked about at the time and fewer people talk about today.
	And it came up in that Larry King interview.
	That's the fact that Mark David Chapman said that he was influenced and carried with him J.D. Salinger's book, Catcher in the Rye.
	Now, this is a book that, in broad terms, is about angst and alienation, something that he apparently felt and related to.
	But there are those, and I'm sure you will have heard this, Jude, who say that Catcher in the Rye contained words that could be used as cue or trigger words for somebody.
	I mean, I'm not saying that this is how it happened, but there are those who say it's how it might have happened that could be used as cue or trigger words quite easily by phone or however, to trigger a response, a reaction, an action from an operative, that person being Mark David Chapman.
	You've clearly heard these things over the years.
	What do you make of that?
	Are you with that?
	I have my master's in English and taught English on the college level for many years.
	I've taught Catcher in the Rye.
	I never saw anything in Catcher in the Rye that had anything to do with the assassination of John Lennon.
	And I've taught it to classes many, many, many times.
	So that's my answer.
	Okay.
	So there are a lot of unanswered questions.
	And from what we've said in this conversation, and from what comes out in that interview with Larry King, I'm sorry I keep referencing that, but it was a brilliant interview, wonderfully executed by Larry King, who is, you know, a great loss to the world of interviewing.
	You know, he was there for nearly an hour talking from Attica Prison.
	And yet, there were glaring things that were unsaid.
	Anybody watching that, I think, and it's only a personal opinion, would come away with the impression that there's something missing here, something that maybe he doesn't know at this length of time.
	And that's the fascination, and that's why people are still asking that question, Jay, that you asked.
	Why?
	Because we don't know the answer to that, and he doesn't appear to know it either.
	No, I guess he doesn't.
	And I don't think we'll ever really find that out because I don't think he's ever going to get out of prison.
	He tries every year, doesn't he?
	He tries for parole every year.
	Every time he comes up for parole, there's a lot of opposition to it.
	And there's no reason to parole him.
	I mean, it's not that he's ever said, I'm sorry, or this was all a mistake, or whatever.
	He's there.
	He's an Attica.
	And that ain't an easy place to be in prison.
	And one final thing, I know he was in a, I think still is in a secure part of that prison.
	For both of you, really, it was interesting that Larry King brought out something from him that I hadn't heard before.
	I went over that interview again.
	That the CIA had been using Mark Chapman for profiling or for tools to help profile stalkers.
	That's interesting, isn't it?
	The CIA had actually been into Attica and had conversations with him.
	Either of you, really.
	Yeah, it's very complex.
	It's very complex.
	And I think, you know, I don't think that we have a lot of the stories in history and their totality yet.
	I don't know if we ever will, but we know much more about once that happened 75 years ago, 150 years ago, than we do about the ones that happened 42 years ago.
	And I think as time goes by, all shall be revealed.
	We'll see.
	I'd love to talk with you again about that, Jude.
	Thank you.
	Last word I'm going to leave to Jay Bergen.
	We've only got 30 seconds.
	You knew John Lennon.
	You met him.
	How would you sum him up in a few words, if you could?
	He was just a nice person, a great personality, terrific sense of humor.
	It came out during the testimony, which is in my book.
	He testified at length about how he made records, and he was the best witness I ever had.
	And he was just another guy in New York that I knew during those two years.
	And that is how we shall remember him when his life was tragically cut short.
	Jude Sutherland Kessler, Jay Bergen, we've been talking about John Lennon and the sad loss to this world.
	And speaking as a Scouser, we feel that to this day.
	Well, a very different conversation about a very special person who's been away from us for longer now than he was with us.
	But boy, did he leave an impact that many of us will never forget.
	Jude Sutherland Kessler, you heard, author, and also John Lennon's lawyer, Jay Bergen.
	I hope you enjoyed this different edition of The Unexplained.
	More great guests in the pipeline here at the home of The Unexplained.
	So until we meet again, my name is Howard Hughes.
	This has been The Unexplained Online.
	And please, whatever you do in this freezing cold weather.
	Stay warm, stay safe, stay calm, stay in touch.
	Thank you very much.
	Take care.

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