He continues, “We’re public personalities,” and—referring to another celebrity couple that happens to be celebrating a first anniversary that same October 20—“I’d enjoy reading Jackie and Onassis’s album.”

*  *  *

The chorus of “Give Peace a Chance” echoes through Washington, DC. On November 15, activist Pete Seeger leads 250,000 demonstrators through Lennon’s lyrics in protest of the mounting death toll in the Vietnam War, in which American casualties surpass forty thousand.

John and Yoko are heartened that their message is making a difference, pledging, “We’ll keep promoting peace in the way we do which, whichever way you look at it, is our way, because we’re artists and not politicians.”

John’s unbothered when he and Yoko are mocked for their activism. “Laurel and Hardy, that’s John and Yoko,” he comments. Better not to be taken too seriously anyway, “because all the serious people like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi get shot.”

Ten days later, John has his chauffeur drive the psychedelic Rolls to Buckingham Palace to return the MBE medal awarded him by the queen in 1965, along with a note stating it was being done in protest of the British government’s support of America in the Vietnam War “and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts.” He explains his decision in a live interview on BBC TV. “Really shouldn’t have taken it,” he says of the MBE medal. “Felt I had sold out. I must get rid of it, I kept saying, I must get rid of it. So I did. Wanted to get rid of it by 1970 anyway.”

John and Yoko create an international ad campaign around the slogan “War is over! If you want it.” The message, appearing in newspapers and on billboards, is signed “Happy Christmas, John and Yoko.” Though some people find the message too facile—American antiwar activist John Sinclair sneers, “You are going to sound awfully fucking stupid trying to tell the heroic Vietnamese people that ‘the war is over if you want it’ while they are being burned and bombed and blown out of their pitiful little huts and fields”—John explains that it’s not about ignoring reality but about taking action. “You’ve got the power,” he says. “All we have to do is remember that: we’ve all got the power. That’s why we said ‘war is over if you want it.’…Don’t believe that jazz that there’s nothing you can do, ‘just turn on and drop out, man.’ You’ve got to turn on and drop in. Or they’re going to drop all over you.”

The Daily Mail names John Clown of the Year for his actions. But on December 30, ATV in England airs an hourlong special featuring three men, each chosen as a Man of the Decade: American president John F. Kennedy, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh—and British rock star John Lennon.