Jon Wiener

Wiener was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Gladys (née Aronsohn) and Dr. Daniel Wiener.{{Cite web |title=Gladys Aronsohn (Wiener) Spratt |publisher=Duluth News Tribune |date=July 12, 2009 |url=http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/content/gladys-aronsohn-wiener-spratt-1 |access-date=October 21, 2018 |archive-date=April 9, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190409185324/https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/content/gladys-aronsohn-wiener-spratt-1 |url-status=dead }} He graduated from Central High School and then attended Princeton University where he founded a chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society to protest the Vietnam War.{{cite web |author=Anna Windemuth |date=November 18, 2016 |url=https://whyy.org/articles/princeton-university-students-call-for-undocumented-immigrant-sanctuary-in-wave-of-campus-protests-after-trumps-election/ |title=Princeton students stage sanctuary campus walk-out |quote=... Wiener is the host and producer of "Start Making Sense,"... professor emeritus of history at UC Irvine. ... A member of Princeton's class of 1966, Jon Wiener founded the Princeton chapter of Students for a Democratic Society to protest the Vietnam War when he was a student ... he thinks the sanctuary movement is a great cause ... }} He received a bachelor's degree from Princeton in 1966, and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard, where he worked with Barrington Moore, Jr. and Michael Walzer, and also wrote for the underground paper The Old Mole.

At the University of California, Irvine, Wiener taught history courses on American politics and the Cold War. His scholarly works have been published in The American Historical Review, The Journal of American History, Radical History Review,{{cite news |title=The Scholar Squirrels and the National Security State: An Interview with Gore Vidal -- Jon Wiener |newspaper=Radical History Review |quote=Non-Thematic Issue -- Issues 44 |date=Spring 1989 |url=http://chnm.gmu.edu/rhr/tocs/44.htm |access-date=June 2, 2012}} and Past & Present. He led students on visits to the Nixon Library.{{cite news |first=Adam |last=Nagourney |title=Watergate Becomes Sore Point at Nixon Library |work=The New York Times |date=August 6, 2010 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/us/politics/07nixon.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}}{{cite news |author=William M. Welch |title=Nixon library now tells full Watergate story |work=USA Today |date=April 1, 2011 |url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-04-01-nixonlibrary01_ST_N.htm |access-date=May 21, 2012}}{{cite news |first=Adam |last=Nagourney |title=What's a Presidential Library to Do? |work=The New York Times |date=September 12, 2011 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13libraries.html?pagewanted=all |access-date=May 21, 2012}}

File:Historian Jon Wiener (right) with film director and comedian John Waters after the political podcast Start Making Sense.jpg, an American film director, screenwriter, author, actor, stand-up comedian, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, in 2010.]]

Since 1984, Wiener has been a contributing editor for The Nation magazine, where he has written about diverse topics including campus issues, intellectual controversies, and southern California politics. His writing has also appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, and the Los Angeles Times.{{cite news |first=Matt |last=Welch |title=In fact, on Dec. 7, 1951, Pearl Harbor wasn't remembered |newspaper=Reason Magazine |quote=Writing in the L.A. Times, Jon Wiener compares two 10-year anniversaries. |date=September 9, 2011 |url=http://reason.com/blog/2011/09/09/in-fact-on-dec-7-1951-pearl-ha |access-date=June 2, 2012}}{{cite news |first=Jon |last=Wiener |title=When art and politics collided in L.A.: The Tower of Protest, being rebuilt as part of Pacific Standard Time, incited passion and vandalism for a few months in 1966. |work=Los Angeles Times |date=January 25, 2012 |url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2012-jan-25-la-oe-wiener-tower-of-protest-20120125-story.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}}{{cite news |author=Jon Wiener (book reviewer) |title=Survival During a Dark Time (book review title) A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered, By Ruth Kluger (book and author being reviewed) |work=Los Angeles Times |date=January 13, 2002 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jan-13-bk-wiener13-story.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}} Wiener hosted a weekly podcast for The Nation, “Start Making Sense,” and a weekly radio program for Los Angeles radio station KPFK 90.7 FM.

In his journalism, Wiener, writing in the Los Angeles Times at the beginning of 2020, correctly predicted that 2020 would be "The Worst Year of Trump’s Life."{{Cite web|date=2020-01-01|title=Opinion: 2020 will be the worst year of Trump's life|url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-01/opinion-2020-will-be-the-worst-year-of-trumps-life|access-date=2020-11-16|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}} He interviewed Chinese dissident artist Ai Wei Wei about the international refugee crisis—the subject of Ai's film "Human Flow."{{Cite news|last=Wiener|first=Jon|date=2017-10-13|title=Ai Weiwei on the Refugee Crisis: 'People Have Been Forced Into a State of Movement'|journal=The Nation|language=en-US|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/ai-weiwei-on-the-refugee-crisis-people-have-been-forced-into-a-state-of-movement/|access-date=2020-11-16|issn=0027-8378}} He interviewed Georgia's voting rights organizer Stacey Abrams about her work.{{Cite news|last=Wiener|first=Jon|date=2019-04-05|title=Stacey Abrams: 'Open That Door'|journal=The Nation|language=en-US|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/stacey-abrams-open-that-door/|access-date=2020-11-16|issn=0027-8378}} And he spoke with the award-winning novelist Margaret Atwood about “the shocking relevance of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”{{Cite news|last=Wiener|first=Jon|date=2017-04-28|title=Margaret Atwood: The Shocking Relevance of 'The Handmaid's Tale'|journal=The Nation|language=en-US|url=https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/margaret-atwood-the-shocking-relevance-of-the-handmaids-tale/|access-date=2020-11-16|issn=0027-8378}} He also has written on historical topics – on the 50th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, he wrote about the "forgotten hero" who "stopped the My Lai massacre," quoting from his interview for KPFK with army helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson.{{Cite web|date=2018-03-16|title=Op-Ed: A forgotten hero stopped the My Lai massacre 50 years ago today|url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-wiener-my-lai-hugh-thompson-20180316-story.html|access-date=2020-11-16|website=Los Angeles Times|language=en-US}} And he wrote for the New York Times Book Review about how the sixties are remembered in America.{{Cite news|last=Wiener|first=Jon|date=2016-06-08|title='Witness to the Revolution,' by Clara Bingham|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/books/review/witness-to-the-revolution-by-clara-bingham.html|access-date=2020-11-16|issn=0362-4331}} While Wiener is perhaps best known for his battling to expose the FBI's surveillance of John Lennon, he also was instrumental in getting the FBI to release documents about its surveillance of comedian Groucho Marx.{{cite news |first=Dinitia |last=Smith |title=Would Groucho Have Joined a Party That Would Have Him as a Member? |work=The New York Times |date=September 14, 1998 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/14/arts/would-groucho-have-joined-a-party-that-would-have-him-as-a-member.html?src=pm&gwh=F55A86051B669895D904AF0585FDF8EA |access-date=May 21, 2012}}{{cite news |author=Tribune News Services |title=Groucho Marx Was On Fbi's Watch List |work=Chicago Tribune |date=September 14, 1998 |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1998/09/14/groucho-marx-was-on-fbis-watch-list/ |access-date=May 21, 2012}}

File:Hoover-JEdgar-LOC.jpg sent a memo to Nixon's chief of staff describing Lennon as a sympathizer of Trotskyist communists in England.]]

File:John Lennon performing Give Peace a Chance 1969.jpg in 1969.]]

The legal battle between Wiener and the United States government was waged over two and a half decades, and has been examined by other historians.{{Cite book |last=Friedman (editor) |first=John S. |author2=James Carroll |title=The Secret Histories: Hidden Truths That Challenged the Past and Changed the World |publisher=MacMillan |edition=First |date=October 2005 |location=New York |pages=252–254 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wERx-0P2HPsC&q=lennon+wiener+%22fourteen+years%22&pg=PA252 |isbn=0-312-42517-1}} In the late sixties, many young Americans became opposed to the Vietnam War, and John Lennon became an antiwar advocate who made then-president Richard Nixon nervous about his reelection prospects in 1972. The consensus view is that Nixon asked the FBI to begin surveillance of Lennon, possibly after Lennon went to New York on a visa and met up with radical anti-war activists. Government surveillance of Lennon had been extensive, although there was no documentary evidence of wiretapping, and lasted about 11 months.{{cite news |author=JONATHAN LEVI (book reviewer) |title=The U.S. Campaign Against John Lennon (title of book review) GIMME SOME TRUTH, The John Lennon-FBI Files; by Jon Wiener (title and author of book) |work=Los Angeles Times |date=December 30, 1999 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-30-cl-48758-story.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}}

File:Lie In 15 -- John rehearses Give Peace A Chance.jpg

The Immigration and Naturalization Service, acting on a suggestion from Senator Strom Thurmond, and probably at the behest of Richard Nixon, ordered Lennon to be deported in the spring of 1972. According to Wiener's account, the key issue for the Nixon administration was that Lennon had been talking to anti-war leaders about a "tour that would combine rock music with anti-war organizing and voter registration," possibly as a way to court first-time eighteen-year-old voters, who were believed to have a tendency to vote for the Democratic party.{{cite news |author=Robert Scheer (interviewer) Jon Wiener (interviewee) |title=Jon Wiener on John Lennon (interview) |newspaper=truthdig |date=Sep 12, 2006 |url=http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060912_jon_wiener_john_lennon_d/ |access-date=June 2, 2012}}{{cite news |last=Wiener |first=Jon |title=He didn't have to do it. That's one reason he's still admired |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/dec/19/comment.film |access-date=31 May 2012 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=December 18, 2006}}{{cite news |first=Jon |last=Wiener |title=He didn't have to do it. That's one reason he's still admired: The FBI campaign against John Lennon shows how far the state can go to deal with stars who refuse to toe the line |work=The Guardian |date=18 December 2006 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/dec/19/comment.film |access-date=May 21, 2012}}

File:Pat Nixon speaking at Republican National Convention.jpg addressed the crowd. Nixon was reelected in November 1972.]]

Reporter Adam Cohen writing in 2006 in The New York Times agreed that the FBI surveillance of Lennon had been motivated not only by antiwar concerns but by concerns of a political nature.{{cite news |first=Adam |last=Cohen |title=While Nixon Campaigned, the F.B.I. Watched John Lennon |work=The New York Times |date=September 21, 2006 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/opinion/21thu4.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}} According to Cohen, what was most revealing was that the timing of these events suggested there was an underlying political motivation behind the surveillance and deportation proceedings. Numerous friends, including folk singer Bob Dylan,{{cite news |first=Jon |last=Wiener |title=Bob Dylan's Defense of John Lennon |newspaper=Common Dreams |date=October 9, 2010 |quote=(Dylan's request around 1972) |url=http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/09-1 |access-date=June 2, 2012}} wrote letters to the Immigration and Naturalization Service advocating that Lennon should be allowed to stay. On December 8, 1972, after Nixon's reelection in November, the FBI closed its investigation of Lennon, partially because Lennon has shown "inactivity in Revolutionary Activities."{{cite news |author=FBI |title=Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files |newspaper=University of California Press, Berkeley |quote=FBI document; Figure HQ-32; page 305 in Wiener's book -- date of FBI memorandum: October 24, 1972 ... verbatim from document: "... Inasmuch as there is no indication that the subject ever appeared in Miami Beach during either of the national political conventions in July and August, 1972, no further investigation is being conducted by Miami." |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-520-22246-5 |url-access= registration |url=https://archive.org/details/gimmesometruthjo00wien}} According to Wiener, the FBI had succeeded in "neutralizing" Lennon's opposition to Nixon's reelection. John Lennon was murdered in December 1980.

File:Lennon FBI Files Before NY-19p1.jpg

File:Lennon FBI Files after ny19p1.jpg

In 1981, while conducting research for a book about John Lennon, Wiener learned of the FBI surveillance, and that there were either 281 or 400 pages of files on the ex-Beatle. Wiener requested the release of the FBI's files on Lennon by citing the Freedom of Information Act. The FBI refused to release two-thirds or 199 pages{{cite news |first=Jon |last=Wiener |title=Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files |newspaper=University of California Press, Berkeley |quote=see page 13 of Wiener's book, first paragraph: "... they withheld 199 ..." |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-520-22246-5 |url-access= registration |url=https://archive.org/details/gimmesometruthjo00wien}} of the files on the grounds that they contained "national security" information. The pages that were released were heavily blacked out with magic marker, or redacted.{{cite news |last=Margolick |first=David |title=Seeing F.B.I. Files on Lennon: A Hard Day's Night |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/06/news/seeing-fbi-files-on-lennon-a-hard-day-s-night.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm |access-date=31 May 2012 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 6, 1981}}

In 1983, Wiener sued the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act with assistance from the ACLU of Southern California,{{cite news |last=Weinstein |first=Henry |title=FBI to release last of its John Lennon files |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-dec-20-me-lennon20-story.html |access-date=31 May 2012 |newspaper=The Los Angeles Times |date=December 20, 2006}}{{cite news |first=Henry |last=Weinstein |title=FBI to Release Last of Its John Lennon Files: The U.S. had said such an act could stir military retaliation. The papers, withheld 25 years, don't seem to bear that out. |newspaper=Common Dreams |date=December 20, 2006 |url=http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1220-07.htm |access-date=June 2, 2012}} including attorneys Dan Marmalefsky of Morrison & Foerster and Mark Rosenbaum of the ACLU. In response, the FBI turned over some documents, but withheld others claiming they contained "national security information provided by a foreign government under an explicit promise of confidentiality" and added that releasing the documents could lead to "military retaliation against the United States."

Wiener chronicled much of his frustration with getting documents in his 1984 book Come Together including many "Orwellian moments" during the "tortoise-like progress" of the lawyers. While Wiener lost many of the early "skirmishes", a turning point came in 1991 when the 9th Circuit appeals court ruled in his favor, and declared that the FBI had failed to provide "adequate grounds" to keep the data secret.{{cite court |litigants=Wiener v. F.B.I. |vol=943 |reporter=F.2d |opinion=972 |court=9th Cir. |date=1991-07-12 |url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7189886552569743506}}{{cite news |first=Henry |last=Weinstein |title=FBI to release last of its John Lennon files: The U.S. had said such an act could stir military retaliation. The papers, withheld 25 years, don't seem to bear that out. |work=Los Angeles Times |date=December 20, 2006 |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-dec-20-me-lennon20-story.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}} As a result, the FBI had to keep filing affidavits which had "sufficient detail" which allowed Wiener to keep advocating for their release, and for judges to "intelligently judge" the contest, according to several reports. Then-Justice Department lawyer John Roberts, who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, appealed the decision, but the Supreme Court declined to review it.

The case of Wiener v FBI escalated over many years.{{cite news |first=Richard |last=Harrington |title=Missing Peace: John Lennon's Legal Battles With the U.S. |newspaper=Washington Post |date=October 1, 2006 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/29/AR2006092900225.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}} A settlement with the FBI was reached in 1997 before the case could be heard before the Supreme Court, and most documents except ten were released to Wiener as part of the agreement. According to Wiener, the government paid $204,000 in court costs and attorney fees. The justice department lawyers retained ten documents under the national security proviso of the FOIA. In 2006, the final eight or ten documents of Lennon's file were released.{{cite news |title=FBI releases final file on John Lennon |url=https://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-20-fbi-lennon_x.htm |access-date=31 May 2012 |newspaper=USA Today |date=December 21, 2006}} According to Wiener, the ten pages revealed there had been contacts between Lennon and leftist and anti-war groups in London in the early 1970s but that there had been no signs that government officials saw Lennon as a serious threat, and only regarded solicitation of funds for a "left-wing bookshop and reading room in London" but that Lennon did not provide any funds for this purpose. Wiener wrote:

{{quote|I doubt that Tony Blair's government will launch a military strike on the U.S. in retaliation for the release of these documents ... Today, we can see that the national security claims that the FBI has been making for 25 years were absurd from the beginning.|Jon Wiener, 2006, in USA Today}}

File:Amazona leucocephala -in tree-4cp.jpg

Wiener expressed amazement that so much of the information had been withheld:

{{quote|One of the items here is a report from an undercover agent on a meeting of anti-war radicals in the East Village ... The undercover agent reports — this is to J. Edgar Hoover — that at this loft in the East Village, there is a parrot, and whenever the conversation gets heated, the parrot shouts, "Right on!" Now, it's kind of mildly interesting, but why does J. Edgar Hoover need to know this? Why should this be classified "confidential"?|Jon Wiener, in 2000, in an interview{{cite news |author=FBI |title=Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files |newspaper=University of California Press, Berkeley |quote=FBI document; Figure NY-88 page 5 after settlement, of FBI documents; page 251 in Wiener's book -- date of FBI document: March 5, 1972 ... verbatim quote: "Linda's parrot interjects Right On whenever the conversation gets rousing ... |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-520-22246-5 |url-access= registration |url=https://archive.org/details/gimmesometruthjo00wien}}}}

Wiener wrote about his legal battles in his book, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files, published by the University of California Press in 2000.{{cite book |isbn=9780520222465 |title=Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files|url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/gimmesometruthjo00wien |last1=Wiener |first1=Jon |year=1999|publisher=University of California Press }} The book includes copies of 100 key documents from the Lennon file, including "lengthy reports by confidential informants detailing the daily lives of anti-war activists, memos to the White House, transcripts of TV shows on which Lennon appeared, and a proposal that Lennon be arrested by local police on drug charges."{{cite news |author=FBI |title=Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files |newspaper=University of California Press, Berkeley |quote=FBI document; Figure HQ-24 page 1; page 289 in Wiener's book -- date of FBI "AirTel" document: July 27, 1972 ... verbatim quote: "... with regards to subject being arrested if at all possible on possession of narcotics charge." |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-520-22246-5 |url-access= registration |url=https://archive.org/details/gimmesometruthjo00wien}} He also wrote about the case and its significance for The Guardian, The Nation, the L.A. Times, and The New Republic.

Wiener's work provided the basis for the 2006 documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon.{{cite web |title=The U.S. vs. John Lennon |website=IMDb |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478049/}} Wiener served as a historical consultant to the production and also appears in the film.{{cite news |last=Cohen |first=Adam |title=While Nixon Campaigned, the F.B.I. Watched John Lennon |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/21/opinion/21thu4.html |access-date=31 May 2012 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=September 21, 2006}} He also appears in the documentary LENNONYC, which aired on the PBS show "American Masters" in 2010.{{cite web |title=LENNONYC |website=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-lennon/john-lennon-in-new-york/1551 |access-date=31 May 2012}} He was interviewed about the Lennon FBI Files by Terry Gross on the NPR program "Fresh Air." ACLU attorney Mark Rosenbaum said that the Wiener v FBI case revealed "government paranoia at a pathological level and an attempt to shield executive branch abuse of civil liberties under the rubric of national security."{{cite news |author=TOM ZELLER JR. |title=Has Stephen Colbert Been Hiding John Lennon's F.B.I. Legacy? |work=The New York Times |date=December 20, 2006 |url=http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/has-stephen-colbert-been-hiding-john-lennons-fbi-legacy/ |access-date=May 21, 2012}}

Wiener is the author of seven books. In addition to his co-authored 2020 book Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, Wiener also wrote Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Power in the Ivory Tower.{{cite book |isbn=9781565848849 |title=Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud and Power in the Ivory Tower |url=https://archive.org/details/historiansintrou00wien |last1=Wiener |first1=Jon |year=2005|publisher=New Press }} he examined various academic scandals and concluded that media spectacles end careers only when powerful, usually right-leaning external groups demand punishment.{{Cite magazine |last=Leonard |first=John |author-link=John Leonard (critic) |date=January 2005 |title=New Books |magazine=Harper's |publisher=Harper's Foundation |volume=310 |issue=1856 |page=90 |url=https://harpers.org/archive/2005/01/new-books-114/ |access-date=December 14, 2018}}{{subscription required}} He also edited and wrote the introduction to Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven which included an abridged transcript of the 1968 Chicago Conspiracy trial; in that trial, Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger and others faced charges stemming from anti-war demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention, and witnesses included Timothy Leary, Norman Mailer, Arlo Guthrie, and Allen Ginsberg; the book includes an afterword by defendant Tom Hayden and drawings by Jules Feiffer.{{cite book |isbn=9781565848337 |title=Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Eight |last1=Wiener |first1=Jon |year=2006|publisher=The New Press }} Wiener's earlier book How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey across America, based on his visits to Cold War monuments, museums, and memorials, emphasizes popular skepticism about America's victory.{{cite book |isbn=9780520271418 |title=How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey across America |last1=Wiener |first1=Jon |date=October 15, 2012|publisher=University of California Press }}

Reactions by critics to Wiener's writings has been varied.{{cite news |last=Hilburn |first=Robert |title=Nonfiction |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-05-26-bk-6170-story.html|access-date=31 May 2012|newspaper=The Los Angeles Times|date=May 26, 1985}}{{cite news |last=Harris |first=John |title=Who'd be a Lennonist? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/dec/21/whodbealennonist |newspaper=The Guardian |date=December 21, 2006}}{{cite news |last=Gillette |first=Felix |title=In the Tower With the Tenure-Benders |url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/in-the-tower-with-the-tenure-benders/9033/ |newspaper=New York Sun |date=February 10, 2005}}{{cite news |last=Holden |first=Steven |title=Review of Come Together |newspaper=New York Times Book Review |date=November 25, 1984}} Kirkus Reviews called Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties "a richly detailed portrait of a city that seethed with rebellious energy."{{Cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mike-davis/set-the-night-on-fire-davis/|title=SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE | Kirkus Reviews|via=www.kirkusreviews.com}} The reviewer for the Los Angeles Times described it as "a dense, detailed read" that was “authoritative and impressive.”{{Cite web |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-04-13/the-60s-movements-for-justice-in-los-angeles |title=Review: How L.A.'s '60s movements fought for justice — and sometimes even achieved it |date=2020-04-13 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US|access-date=2020-04-28}} The LA Review of Books called it "a monumental history of rebellion and resistance."{{Cite web |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/set-night-fire/ |title=Set the Night on Fire |last1=Davis |first1=Mike |last2=Wiener |first2=Jon |website=Los Angeles Review of Books|date=April 14, 2020 |access-date=2020-04-28}} Some reviewers found problems with the book – Publishers Weekly said it was an "overstuffed and often disjointed account" but declared that "Davis and Wiener write with passion and deep knowledge,” and concluded that the book was “an indispensable portrait of an unexplored chapter in history."{{Cite web |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-78478-022-7 |title=Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties |website=www.publishersweekly.com|access-date=2020-04-28}} On April 22, 2020, in The Guardian{{'}}s Book of the Day, Ben Ehrenreich called it "a vital primer in resistance, a gift to the future from the past."{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/22/set-the-night-on-fire-by-mike-davis-and-jon-wiener-review-la-in-the-sixties |title=Set the Night on Fire by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener review – the real LA in the 1960s |last=Ehrenreich |first=Ben |website=The Guardian|date=April 22, 2020 }} 

Among his earlier books, the New York Times Book Review wrote that Wiener's book Come Together: John Lennon in His Time "stands out as one of the few books that don't want to deify, dish the dirt about or otherwise exploit the slain former Beatle." A second review of this book criticized Wiener's perspective for being "tunnel-visioned".{{cite news |last=Hilburn |first=Robert |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-05-26-bk-6170-story.html |title=Nonfiction |date=May 26, 1985 |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=May 21, 2012}} He has been criticized by Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic.{{cite news |first=Andrew |last=Sullivan |title=The Daily Dish |newspaper=The Atlantic |date=October 28, 2002 |url=http://sullivanarchives.theatlantic.com/index.php.dish_inc-archives.2002_10_01_dish_archive.html |access-date=June 2, 2012 |archive-date=January 30, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130193341/http://sullivanarchives.theatlantic.com/index.php.dish_inc-archives.2002_10_01_dish_archive.html |url-status=dead }} Wiener's Gimme Some Truth received positive reviews in The Washington Post, London Independent, and the Christian Science Monitor. A review of Wiener's book Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower criticized Wiener for having a left-leaning bias.{{cite news |last=Gillette |first=Felix |url=http://www.nysun.com/arts/in-the-tower-with-the-tenure-benders/9033/ |title=In the Tower With the Tenure-Benders (title of review) Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower by Jon Wiener (title and author of book being reviewed) |date=February 10, 2005 |work=The New York Sun |access-date=May 21, 2012}} One reviewer described Wiener's Gimme Some Truth book as "sobering".{{cite news |author=J.F.K. |title=Media Jones: Pacifism Rocks! |newspaper=Mother Jones |date=November 1999 |url=https://www.motherjones.com/media/1999/11/media-jones |access-date=June 2, 2012}}

• Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties, by Jon Wiener and Mike Davis, Verso (publisher), April 14, 2020, {{ISBN|978-1784780227}}
• I Told You So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics—interviews with Gore Vidal{{cite news |first=Martin |last=Chilton |title=I Told You So, Gore Vidal Talks Politics: review -- A new book of four interviews with Gore Vidal highlight his controversial views on Lincoln and Roosevelt - and include a witty tale of taking the mickey out of President Kennedy. |newspaper=The Telegraph |date=19 Nov 2012 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9684058/I-Told-You-So-Gore-Vidal-Talks-Politics-review.html |access-date=December 23, 2012}}{{cite news |first=Michael |last=Kammen |title=I Told You So: Gore Vidal Talks Politics. Interviews with Jon Wiener |newspaper=Los Angeles Review of Books |quote=... Jon Wiener, Professor of History at UC Irvine and contributing editor at The Nation, knew Vidal for more than a quarter century; he interviewed him several times ... |date=November 6, 2012 |url=http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1148&fulltext=1&media |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130415093916/http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=1148&fulltext=1&media |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 15, 2013 |access-date=December 23, 2012 }}
• How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey across America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. {{ISBN|9780520271418}}.
• Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven. Edited with an introduction by Jon Wiener; afterword by Tom Hayden; drawings by Jules Feiffer. New York: The New Press, 2006. {{ISBN|9781565848337}}
• Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower . New York: The New Press, 2005. {{ISBN|9781565848849}}{{cite news |title=Jon Wiener |work=Slate Magazine |date=May 21, 2012 |url=http://www.slate.com/authors.jon_wiener.html |access-date=May 21, 2012}}
• Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. {{ISBN|9780520222465}} {{cite news |first=Jon |last=Wiener |title=Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files |work=NPR |quote=... This book is about: Archives, Lennon, John, Singers, United States |url=https://www.npr.org/books/titles/138003205/gimme-some-truth-the-john-lennon-fbi-files |access-date=May 21, 2012}}
• Professors, Politics and Pop. London and New York: Verso Books, 1991. {{ISBN|9780860916727}}
• Come Together: John Lennon in his Time New York: Random House, 1984. {{ISBN|9780252061318}}
• Social Origins of the New South: Alabama, 1865-1885. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978. {{ISBN|9780807108888}}
• "The Footnote Fetish." Telos 31 (Spring 1977). New York: Telos Press.

• John Lennon
• Give Peace a Chance
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• Sean O'Hagan in The Guardian{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/26/set-the-night-on-fire-la-in-the-sixties-mike-davis-jon-wiener-review- |title=Set the Night on Fire by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener – review |website=TheGuardian.com |date=April 26, 2020 }}
• Kevin McCaighy in Socialist Review{{Cite web |url=https://socialistreview.org.uk/455/set-night-fire |title=Set the Night on Fire |access-date=April 27, 2020 |archive-date=July 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730135321/http://socialistreview.org.uk/455/set-night-fire |url-status=dead }}

{{reflist}}

• [http://www.JonWiener.com/ Jon Wiener website: On the radio and in print]
• [http://www.thenation.com/authors/jon-wiener Biography] at The Nation
• [http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=2512 Faculty website] at University of California, Irvine
• {{C-SPAN|1014340}}
• [http://www.lennonfbifiles.com/ The John Lennon FBI files website]
• [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6082349 "Probing the FBI's Files on John Lennon"] Fresh Air with Terry Gross: interview with Jon Wiener
• [https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936164085/author-says-the-chicago-7-trial-reflected-all-the-conflicts-in-america "Author Says The Chicago 7 Trial Reflected 'All The Conflicts In America'"] Fresh Air with Terry Gross: interview with Jon Wiener

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiener, Jon}}

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