Beatles: John Caused Split

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/31/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Once and for all, the blame for the final 1970 breakup of the Beatles rests squarely on the shoulders of John Lennon. In the new book, "The Beatles Anthology," published with the cooperation of the surviving members of the Fab Four, the record is set straight on several subjects, including sex and drugs. (They enjoyed both.) The volume, which took six years to assemble, is to be published in the U.S. and the U.K. in October, though excerpts ran over the weekend in Britain's Sunday Telegraph. The book also reveals that tensions between the survivors -- Paul McCartney, 57, George Harrison, 57, and Ringo Starr, 59 (Lennon was killed in 1980) -- have barely eased in 30 years. "Paul has a way of using stuff," Harrison says in the book. "I mean, even now, if he's going to do a tour he'll conveniently tell the press that we're all getting back together or something."