The Beatles

by Bob Spitz

  Astrid—Stu’s girl, his wife. Their German muse. Astrid Kirchherr—soon to be Mrs. Gibson Kemp, having become engaged to Ringo’s young replacement in Rory Storm’s band. And, of course, she looked absolutely ravishing, just as they remembered her.

  It was hard for the Beatles to tear themselves away from her. She was someone from their past whom they’d loved and who’d never tried to capitalize on or abuse their friendship—a rarity, it seemed, these days. Moreover, she’d brought John a sheaf of letters that he’d written to Stuart Sutcliffe in 1961 and 1962—“the best present I’ve had in years,” he told Astrid, meaning it—and the effect of holding them again made his hands tremble. Occasions like these were too few and far between on their round-the-world odyssey as the Beatles. They helped remind these four boys every now and then that they were real people, with real needs.

  Signs of strain showed at their press conference just before the Hamburg shows. In place of their trademark Scouse wit, the Beatles snapped and snarled at the German media, who fired a barrage of unusually inane questions at them. “What kind of questions are these?” John fumed after a reporter commented on Ringo’s complexion. “Come on, are there any members of the press here?” Later, while Paul attempted to respond to a question about his dreams during sleep, John interrupted: “What do you think we are? What do you dream of? Fuckin’ hell!” All these infantile questions—“Do you wear long pants in the wintertime?” or “Do you polish your MBE medal?”—he could bear no longer. If the press was going to act like idiots, he’d respond as he pleased. No one said he had to behave like a trained seal—and he wouldn’t. Not John Lennon.

  No, he’d had it with the media and their “soft questions.” And he’d had it with Brian’s restrictions about saying what was on his mind. They might have been okay for one of Larry Parnes’s teenage attractions, they may have once even served a purpose for the struggling young Beatles, but John was twenty-five years old and had a mind of his own. If Paul wanted to play by the rules, that was his prerogative. John had decided that he wasn’t going to keep his mouth shut.

  In fact, he’d already started speaking his mind. In March the London Evening Standard published an interview he’d done with Maureen Cleave, in which John had said:

  “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that. I’m right and will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now. I don’t know which will go first—rock ’n roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

  The article was picked up on April 13 by the San Francisco Chronicle but didn’t merit an editorial response. After all, no one put much stock in anything that a rock star said.

  In April, during a typically banal interview with Disc, John and the reporter did the usual dance for half an hour, waltzing around a dozen polite questions about the Beatles’ upcoming recording session and touring, when John suddenly turned the conversation toward politics and the elections later that week. “The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn’t represent the people. It controls them.” Uh-oh, the reporter thought. Topics like these, he knew, were strictly off-limits. But John persisted. “All they seem to want to do—the people who run the country—is keep themselves in power and stop us [from] knowing what’s going on.” John railed against “the system” and chastised people for not knowing “the difference between political propaganda and the truth.”

  Clearly John was feeling his oats. He had cut himself loose from the limiting orbit of Beatlemania. And, for the time being at least, he was flying solo.

  [IV]

  Flying was part of the Beatles’ job description, and on June 27 they were back in the air, flying from Heathrow this time, en route to Tokyo. No one was looking forward to what John described as “a forty-seven hour flight.” And though it was an exaggeration, he wasn’t too far off the mark. Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, the pilots sent back word of a fierce storm raging in the China Sea, necessitating their being grounded in Anchorage, Alaska, until the danger passed.

  Nearly twenty hours later the Beatles landed at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport in the middle of the night to find that the storm may have passed—but not the danger. Inside the well-lit terminal—long after the last passengers had straggled off to their planes—the exhausted touring party was diverted once more, into a VIP lounge this time, by a plainclothes police commissioner who warned them about threats issued by a cult of Japanese students determined to staunch the plague of Western culture. “As far as these hooligans were concerned,” recalls Vic Lewis, “allowing the Beatles inside the Budokan, where no Westerner had ever set foot, was offensive, an insult to the great warriors of Japan. If they played there, it was said, they would not leave Tokyo alive.”

  There was beginning to be an air of ritual about these episodes. George Harrison had been forewarned about going to Germany. It was the same thing: “You won’t live beyond the next month.” And a steady stream of letters flowed into NEMS brandishing similar threats. “Don’t ever set foot in B——, or else.” “Ringo’s a dead man.” Clear-eyed observers saw these threats for what they were: the saber rattling of delusional crackpots. “We always had to deal with these nuts,” says Peter Brown. “There was no alternative. I don’t think we took it that seriously.” But the Japanese authorities did.

  As a result, the Beatles were herded through Customs and into two decrepit limousines surrounded by an armed motorcycle escort for the solemn drive into Tokyo. Fans lined the highway on either side, waving furiously at the motorcade, but no one was permitted beyond a reasonable point. Security was even tighter at the Tokyo Hilton, which “was turned into an armed camp.” The Beatles’ quarters, a rambling warren of rooms in the Presidential Suite, only pushed them deeper into despair. “All the other bedrooms adjoining them and on the floors below were allocated for the police—just in case,” says Vic Lewis. “Aside from going to the gigs, no one was permitted to leave their rooms.”

  “We were locked up in the hotel for a long time,” recalled Paul, “with various merchants coming around and showing us ivory and various gifts.” Shopping binges consumed much of the Beatles’ uneventful stay in Tokyo. During the morning hours, their suite resembled a veritable bazaar, with wares laid out splendidly on downy tufts of black velvet and brocade. Everything they could wish for was available: pearls, beads, jewels, jade, netsuke, snuff boxes, watches, fans, alabaster, lacquered objects, kites, gold jewelry, incense holders. The Beatles, lounging in ceremonial silk kimonos, picked through yards of expensive items, selecting presents for their families and themselves. They were also presented with geishas to amuse them. “They spent ten minutes with the girls,” Vic Lewis recalls, “then told us, ‘Get rid of them.’ ”

  The Beatles were irritable and growing increasingly restless. “It was their first time in the Far East,” says Peter Brown, “and they’d been looking forward to going out. They resented being cooped up like zoo animals. It was more difficult than usual.” Especially with Brian and Brown in a suite at the opposite end of the floor, entertaining American and Japanese boys they’d picked up at the pool and in various bars. On several occasions Paul and Mal disguised themselves and tried to leave the hotel, as did John and Neil, but each time they were thwarted by security. Finally, says Brown, a government functionary came to remind Brian that millions of yen were being spent on army and police protection and that it was “dishonorable” for the Beatles not to cooperate, which triggered a promise that “it wouldn’t happen again.”

  The concert, by contrast, was almost an intrusion. The Beatles grudgingly put on their new stage outfits—“yellow shirts and natty bottle-green suits,” according to Paul—and proceeded to the Budokan, which was “like a military maneuver.” Everything had been timed to the second: how and when they departed, where they sat in each vehicle. A convoy of bulletproof cars spirited them from the hotel, past the Dau, which was opposite the Hilton, and onto the d
eserted motorway—deserted at rush hour. “The drive was absolutely eerie,” recalls Vic Lewis. “We had to go under about twenty bridges, which is where all the police stood, with guns.” Fans were kept in penlike structures at specific points along the route and under armed guard. Throughout the trip the Beatles were mostly silent, gazing out at the scenery, trying to get a feeling for where they were. Everything looked so different—and strange. It was unlike anything they’d experienced over the years.

  The concerts were just as remarkable, with none of the hysteria or even screaming that was the hallmark of Beatlemania. “The audience was very subdued,” Ringo recalled. The unsuspecting Beatles found they could actually hear themselves play! “There were one or two screamers,” according to an account, “but for the most part the teenaged boys and girls sat politely in their seats and applauded enthusiastically after each number.” The politeness was due in no small part to the cultural ethos of Japan, as well as the three thousand cops stationed conspicuously in the arena—one for every three kids who’d bought a ticket to the show.

  Afterward, marijuana was consumed; Revolver once again set the appropriate mood, as a single bulb cast a soft spell across the suite. Numbed by the dope and the music, the Beatles took out brushes and paper and, like a clan of art school kids, painted. Thirty years later Bob Whitaker, who photographed them, would recall the wonder and satisfaction the Beatles shared as they painted together until well after three in the morning. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said. “I’d never seen them calmer, happier, more contented with themselves than at this time.”

  It began to unravel, however, the moment they touched down in Manila.

  On the afternoon of Sunday, July 3, 1966, the Beatles deplaned to startling news: “You’re being put onto a boat.” Vic Lewis had arranged for the Cathay Pacific aircraft to unload its passengers at a remote end of the runway and then return empty to the gate while the Beatles made a clean getaway. As the Beatles attempted to reclaim their briefcases, an armed guard waved them rudely away. “Leave those bags there! Get in this car!” he demanded, herding them toward a limo that had edged around the plane. The Beatles glanced meaningfully at Neil, who eyed the isolated luggage with trepidation. “Those little briefcases had the marijuana in them,” he recalled. Normally, they were regarded as “diplomatic bags” and waved through Customs without inspection, but from the get-go there was nothing normal about this arrival. As the Beatles, separated from their crew, reluctantly got in the car and pulled away, George looked out the back window and felt his heart sink. “Our bags were on the runway,” he recalled, “and I was thinking, ‘This is it—we’re going to get busted.’ ”

  That would have been too easy.

  The boat, a large, luxurious vessel, belonged to a local newspaper magnate. It was hot and humid—pushing a hundred degrees. There were more than a dozen short, squat cops on deck, grinning like gargoyles. And, perhaps worse, for the first time in the Beatles’ career, neither Neil, Mal, nor Brian was at their side to direct and guide them through the process. “We were all sweating and frightened,” recalled George, who collapsed next to his bandmates in one of the woven beach chairs along the starboard rail.

  Brian showed up two hours later. Livid, he placed a call to Vic Lewis at the Manila Hotel. “You fucking idiot!” Brian raged. “What is this dirty place? We’re on a boat stuck miles away, nobody can get anything.” Lewis tried to defuse the situation. Everything they could possibly want was on that yacht, even a nice little collection of prostitutes. According to Tony Barrow, the Beatles manager throttled the phone and screamed: “We’re not staying one minute longer on this bloody boat. The boys are fed up. There’s absolutely nothing to do, and we want to come ashore at once.” When Lewis reminded him that their hotel suite was presently occupied by General Douglas MacArthur, Brian snapped: “I don’t care! Pull your weight and get us in.”

  Security was tight, as always; a quarter of Manila’s police force “had been detailed for Beatles duty between the Sunday afternoon of [their] arrival and the Tuesday of [their] scheduled departure.” In between, there were two shows at the local stadium with an expected sellout of more than eighty thousand fans. Meanwhile, a note attached to the itinerary indicated that they were to “call in on” First Lady Imelda Marcos at eleven o’clock on Monday morning, “before proceeding on from the Malacanang Palace to the stadium for the first concert.”

  Tony Barrow thinks it was “unlikely” that Brian Epstein noticed the appointment, although Peter Brown has a distinct recollection that an invitation to the palace came while they were still in Japan, to which Brian responded, “Regret,” meaning: decline it. Certainly everyone had missed the story in the Manila Sunday Times about the impending palace visit.

  President Marcos, the First Lady, and the three young Beatles fans in the family have been invited as guests of honor at the concerts. The Beatles plan to personally follow up the invitation during a courtesy call on Mrs. Imelda Marcos at Malacanang Palace tomorrow [Monday] morning at eleven o’clock.

  Even if they had seen it, it wouldn’t have made much difference. “Since the British embassy fiasco, the policy was never to go to those things,” says Peter Brown.

  Early the next morning Vic Lewis and Tony Barrow were awakened by sharp raps on the door of their suite. Two grim-looking men, a general and a commander of the Philippine army, both in crisply starched full-dress uniforms, saluted and introduced themselves as the official reception committee from the palace. They’d come to make final arrangements for the Beatles’ visit, they explained, which had been expanded to include a luncheon hosted by the First Lady to which two hundred children had been invited.

  Lewis, still in his pajamas, seemed baffled by this information. He apologized and explained that there must have been a misunderstanding. No one had told him anything about a presidential visit. Besides, he said, the Beatles were otherwise engaged, although he promised, out of courtesy to Mrs. Marcos, to inform Brian Epstein of their request. “This is not a request,” they insisted.

  Lewis jumped into clothes and located Brian in the hotel coffee shop, where he was having breakfast with Peter Brown. “We’ll do nothing of the sort,” he coolly informed Vic. “We’re not going to go.” Lewis begged him to reconsider and implied that he might run it by the boys himself. A deep crimson pool tided into Brian’s cheeks. “Don’t you dare go over my head to the boys. I’m telling you we’re not going.”

  “Well,” Lewis responded portentously, “I can assure you we’re going to have a lot of trouble if you don’t.”

  The trouble started, as Vic predicted it would, later that morning. First, Brian took an agitated call from the British ambassador to the Philippines, urging him to keep the palace appointment “in the interest of diplomacy.” Brian remained adamant. Moreover, he refused to wake the Beatles to tell them they had to go to a party. “It’s just not feasible,” he said, washing his hands of the matter.

  Unbeknownst to him, Paul and Neil had already gone out earlier that morning to take pictures in and around the city. The rest of the Beatles slept until about one o’clock, had their breakfast, and played a rousing if fairly standard afternoon show to an enthusiastic audience of 35,000 Filipinos under a blistering sun. As always, there was no cultural barrier when it came to Beatlemania. Back at the hotel before the evening show, Tony Barrow and Peter Brown gathered in Brian’s suite to have drinks and watch coverage of the concert on the evening news. Every channel featured scenes depicting delirious local teenagers swooning over the Beatles. But on Channel 5, one of the country’s major networks, an extended report ran footage from the palace in which friends of the First Family and their children filed into the grand reception room earlier that day. “The children began to arrive at ten,” said the accompanying voice-over. “They waited until after two…. At noon, the First Lady decided properly and wisely not to wait any longer. ‘The children have all the time in the world, but we are busy,’ she said. The place cards for the
Beatles at the lunch table were removed.” The spin they put on it implied that the Beatles in all their rudeness had insulted President and Mrs. Marcos.

  Brian faced Peter Brown, wearing a look of feline infallibility. “Well, we were fucking right not to do that,” he said. But Tony Barrow, who understood the implications, shook his head grimly. This wasn’t Los Angeles or even France, where the government shrugged off such proper nonsense. A misunderstanding like this, he thought, could flare up into a touchy international incident. To run damage control, he persuaded Brian to issue a hastily written apology and arranged for a Channel 5 remote crew to tape an interview in the hotel suite. Brian, for his part, was contrite. In his most gracious, upper-crust voice, he professed complete ignorance about the invitation and praised the Marcoses, but when it was broadcast an hour later, Brian’s appearance was obliterated by static interference. “That’s when we started to get very nervous,” recalls Peter Brown.