During the Vietnam War, in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held two week-long Bed-Ins for Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal, which were their non-violent ways of protesting wars and promoting peace. The idea is derived from a ‘sit-in,’ in which a group of protesters remains seated in front of an establishment until they are evicted, arrested, or their demands are met.
Knowing their March 20, 1969 marriage would be a huge press event, John and Yoko decided to use the publicity to promote world peace. They spent their honeymoon in the presidential suite (Room 702 at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel for a week between March 25 and 31, inviting the world’s press into their hotel room every day between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. After their other stunts, such as the nude cover of the ‘Two Virgins’ album, the press were expecting them to be having sex, but instead the couple were sitting in bed—in John’s words ‘like angels’—talking about peace with signs over their bed reading ‘Hair Peace’ and ‘Bed Peace.’
After seven days, they flew to Vienna, Austria, where they held a Bagism press conference. Bagism is a term which was created by Lennon and Ono as part of their extensive peace campaign in the late 1960s. The intent of bagism was to satirize prejudice and stereotyping by literally wearing a bag over one’s entire body. During April 1969, John and Yoko sent acorns to the heads of state in various countries around the world in hopes that they would plant them as a symbol of peace. For eight months, the couple was not granted a single visit with any world leader. Their marriage (‘You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain’), the first Bed-In (‘Talking in our beds for a week’), the Vienna press conference (‘Made a lightning trip to Vienna…The newspapers said…’), and the acorns (‘Fifty acorns tied in a sack’) were all mentioned in the song ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko,’ which was released by The Beatles in May of 1969.
Due to John and Yoko’s very public image, the Amsterdam Bed-In was greeted by fans, and received a great deal of press coverage. Following the event, when asked if he thought the Bed-In had been successful, John became rather frustrated. He insisted that the failure of the press to take the couple seriously was part of what he and Yoko wanted: ‘It’s part of our policy not to be taken seriously. Our opposition, whoever they may be, in all manifest forms, don’t know how to handle humor. And we are humorous.’
Their second Bed-In was planned to take place in New York, but John was not allowed into the country because of his 1968 cannabis conviction. Instead they held the event in the Bahamas at the Sheraton Oceanus Hotel, flying there on May 24, 1969, but after spending one night in the heat, they decided to move to Montreal. They flew to Montreal on May 26 where they stayed in Rooms 1738, 1740, 1742 and 1744 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. During their seven day stay, they invited Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers, Dick Gregory, Murray the K, Al Capp, and others, and all but Capp sang on the peace anthem ‘Give Peace a Chance,’ recorded by André Perry in the hotel room on June 1. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation conducted interviews from the hotel room.
The Daily Omnivore 
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