John Lennon was shot and killed in 1980 just after the election of Ronald Reagan, and it's this pairing of events that symbolized the end of the political Left. Maybe? I just made that up, but it seems like one of those things people would say. But what if John Lennon was a secret Ronald Reagan lover in the end? That's what Lennon's last personal assistant is claiming.

Fred Seaman, who worked for Lennon from 1979 until his death the following year, claims in a new Beatles documentary that Lennon "was a Ronald Reagan fan who enjoyed arguing with left-wing radicals who reminded him of his former self." It's not implausible; many lefties from the '60s hung up their hats during the crises of the '70s, only to reemerge as rabid right-wing monsters.

Seaman explains:

He says, "John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on (Democrat) Jimmy Carter.

"He'd met Reagan back, I think, in the 70s at some sporting event... Reagan was the guy who had ordered the National Guard, I believe, to go after the young (peace) demonstrators in Berkeley, so I think that John maybe forgot about that... He did express support for Reagan, which shocked me.

"I also saw John embark in some really brutal arguments with my uncle, who's an old-time communist... He enjoyed really provoking my uncle... Maybe he was being provocative... but it was pretty obvious to me he had moved away from his earlier radicalism.

"He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he'd been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy's naivete."

It's known that Lennon was embarrassed with some of the material from his "radical chic" days near the end. But Ronald Reagan! Maybe Lennon was just aggressively lying for the sole purpose of irritating the people around him, which was all he ever did, out of sadness.

[Image via AP]