A historian has won his battle for the last of the FBI's files on John Lennon to be released.

Jon Wiener has campaigned for the secret documents to be made public for 25 years. They demonstrate the level of the US Government's interest in the ex-Beatle and detail his links to left-wing and anti-war groups during the early 1970s.

The information, compiled from phone tapping and surveillance, speaks about an interview the singer did with political magazine Red Mole and his support for Cambodia against US bombings.

However, they show that Lennon was reluctant to sign up to any specific politics. He "apparently resisted the attempts of any particular group to secure any hold over him," they say.

Wiener has been told since 1981 that releasing the files would cause other countries to retaliate against the US, but a federal judge recently ruled they must be revealed.

Mr Wiener told the LA Times: "I doubt that Tony Blair's government will launch a military strike on the US 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."