John and Yoko in repose

Museum shows historic photos that Life Magazine rejected

By FRITZ MAYER

BETHEL, NY — “The newspapers said, ‘Say what you doing in bed?’ I said, ‘We’re only trying to get us some peace.’” That line, from the song “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” was actually a reference to the first bed-in the couple held in a hotel room in Amsterdam in March 1969.

Earlier in the month, John Lennon had married Yoko Ono, and the couple decided to use what they knew would be the huge press frenzy surrounding their union to make a case for peace. In 1969, the Vietnam War was raging, and Lennon had been speaking out against it as he was gradually moving away from his role as a member of the Beatles.

Lennon and Ono had planned a second bed-in to take place in New York City, but because of a conviction for possession of marijuana the previous year, Lennon was not allowed into the United States at the time. So, the couple went to a hotel in Montreal in late May instead.

The editors at Life Magazine were sufficiently intrigued that they sent photographer Gerry Deiter to the hotel to chronicle the event. Deiter was there for the entire eight days, and many of his pictures from the event are now on display in the Special Events Gallery at the Museum at Bethel Woods.

By most accounts, the days in Queen Elizabeth Hotel’s suite 1742 were hectic and the place was packed with admirers, associates and hangers on. The iconic song “Give Peace a Chance” was recorded in the suite, and the couple entertained various high-profile visitors during their stay.

In one photo, Tommy Smothers, whose television show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour had just been canceled because of a controversial bit about the Vietnam War, appears at one side of the bed, while a grinning Dr. Timothy Leary, who advised people at the time to “turn on, tune in, drop out,” is stationed near the foot.

The bed-in was likely one event that caught the attention of President Richard Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and, ultimately, led Hoover to set up a surveillance of Lennon during the run up to the presidential election in 1972.

When FBI documents on Lennon were later released after a lengthy legal battle, they showed fairly clearly that the man once known as one of the four “mop tops” was never a threat to the country’s security.

Museum at Bethel Woods Director Wade Lawrence said that Dieter was the only photographer or reporter to be in the suite the entire time and had access to “the couple’s private moments and also their very public moments.”

He said, “Life Magazine decided not to publish the photographs, so they were put in a drawer somewhere and only a few of them were ever published, so the public is getting to see most of them for the first time.”

Lawrence said he hasn’t heard a good reason why Life decided not to print the pictures, but he said, ironically, Life instead published a special issue about the war in Vietnam.

The exhibit runs through September 7.