Was John Lennon's Murderer A CIA Hitman?

But his deep suspicion is that Chapman did not act alone — any more, he says, than Lee Harvey Oswald did in the murder of JFK in Dallas or Sirhan Sirhan in Bobby Kennedy’s death. He even doubts if Chapman fired the fatal shots.

‘The bullets slapped into Lennon’s body so closely together that pathologists later had trouble marking out the different entry points. If all of these shots came from Chapman, it was a miraculous piece of shooting.

‘In fact, if any of them came from him it was miraculous because Chapman was standing on Lennon’s right and, as the autopsy report and death certificate later made clear, all Lennon’s wounds were in the left side of his body.’

There had to be another shooter involved, Strongman insists. He suggests that a CIA plant who worked at the Dakota building was the real killer. What increases his suspicion is the cursory nature of the police investigation after Chapman’s arrest.

‘His bizarre post-killing calm was not questioned, his behaviour was not checked with a drugs test, his “programmed” state [a word used about him by more than one police officer] was not investigated, his previous movements were not thoroughly looked into.

‘Put simply, the authorities’ investigation, or lack or it, into the assassination was shockingly slack and beggars belief.’

It had to be, he concludes, that the FBI were conspiring with the CIA to cover up the reality — that shadowy figures in the American establishment ordered Lennon’s assassination.

But why was Lennon on their hit list? He had, it seems, rattled the cages of America’s powerful Right wing, first with his opposition to the Vietnam War and then with his campaign of pacifism.

It is here that those of us who lived through the period must pause for breath. Lennon was a mad and maddening genius, a showman and a show-off. But he was a dreamer, not a doer.

He wrote songs, he played the guitar, he had some funny ideas. He made us laugh. He was irreverent.