• October 13, 1975
• Vol. 4
• No. 15

A Truce Is Called in Lennon's Deportation Fight So He Can Comfort the Pregnant Yoko

Having celebrated our fourth anniversary, we are not prepared to sleep in separate beds." This cozy declaration was issued in 1973 by ex-Beatle John Lennon and his Japanese wife, Yoko Ono. They had a real problem: Yoko had been granted permanent resident status in the U.S., but Lennon, then 33, who had once pleaded guilty to possession of hashish, had been deemed "deportable" by the U.S. government.

Their troubles were compounded by an 18-month separation which followed soon after, but John and Yoko patched things up early this year. Connubial vows were taken seriously again, and Lennon had an important announcement late last month: "Yoko's pregnant with baby; John's pregnant with hope." Suitably impressed, the Immigration and Naturalization Service temporarily suspended a three-year effort to give Lennon the heave-ho. "It would have been unconscionable to deport him now," said INS spokesman Oswald Kramer. "Yoko Ono has had a difficult pregnancy."

To guard against any unnecessary hard days' nights (Yoko, 42, has had many miscarriages), the couple have shut off their phones and suspended their business operations at their co-op apartment on New York's West Side. "Yoko has a great apprehension about birth—any disturbance could be emotionally traumatic," says their attorney, Leon Wildes. "She has had a complicated obstetrical history and will require a Caesarean."

Yoko has a 12-year-old daughter, Kyoko, by a former marriage. But she cannot find the girl. "Her American father is in hiding at a hippie commune," said Wildes, "and he has the daughter with him." The search for Yoko's daughter was the reason for the couple's desire to remain in the U.S. Mrs. Lennon, an artist-musician, has legal custody of Kyoko, provided she brings her up in the United States. Lennon has a son, Julian, 12, by a former marriage, who lives in London.

Alas, the birth of John and Yoko's baby is no guarantee that Lennon will be allowed to remain permanently. "This does not affect the legal basis for deportation," said Kramer. "After the baby is born a decision will be made."

Despite his buffeting by officials, the British-born Lennon seems to have developed a remarkable devotion to the U.S. Told by doctors that Yoko's new baby would be a boy, Lennon promptly decided to make his future offspring's billing this: George Washington United States of America Citizen Lennon.

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