Leon Wildes, the lawyer who successfully kept John Lennon being deported from the U.S. in the 1970s, is writing a book on the case. It will have a foreward by Yoko Ono. But he recalled it and his famous clients in a lengthy article in the December 2010 issue of the Jewish Standard.
Wildes said he didn't know who John and Yoko Ono were before Allen Klein introduced them. The immediate reason for keeping them in the U.S. was to help Yoko locate her daughter, Kyoko, who had been spirited away by her ex-husband Tony Cox, but a drug conviction was the reason the government wanted him out of the country. But Lennon told Wildes the drugs were planted by British police. Wildes was confident, though, that finding Yoko's daughter would enable him to get the deportation order overturned.
In the article, Wildes talks about setbacks in the process, but finally on Oct. 9, 1975, his birthday, Lennon was not only given a green card to stay in the U.S., but it was the day his son Sean was born.
Asked why they had stuck with him for the five-year case, Lennon told him, "Leon, you are the only lawyer I can understand, the only lawyer that Yoko loves, and the best immigration lawyer in the world. But do you know why we stuck with you all these years? Because Yoko’s Tarot card reader said stick with Leon. He will win the case for you.”
You can read the complete magazine story at Yoko's Imagine Peace website. Judging from it, the book should be quite interesting.
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