High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Jon Wiener is an American historian and journalist based in Los Angeles. He is notable for waging a successful 25-year legal battle to win the release of the FBI`s files on John Lennon. Wiener played a key role in efforts to expose the surveillance as well as the behind-the-scenes battling between the government and the former Beatle, and is a recognized expert on the FBI-versus-Lennon controversy. A professor of United States history at the University of California, Irvine, he is also a contributing editor to the left-leaning political weekly magazine The Nation and host of a weekly radio program in Los Angeles. In addition to being an advocate for liberal causes and transparency in government, he wrote two books about Lennon, and has described Lennon`s song "Imagine" as being a "hymn to idealism" with relevance today. He has been criticized by reporters for having a left-oriented bias in his books, sometimes leading to a revisionism regarding Lennon`s political orientation. Wiener is notable as a close friend and interviewer of Gore Vidal, and recently published a book of interviews with the late celebrity which spanned many years.