Q192 Summary

Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. Music of Jonestown radio station J-SOUL reviewed by Adrian Whicker. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.

To read the Tape Transcript, click here.
Listen to MP3 (Side A, Pt. 1; Side A, Pt. 2; Side B, Pt. 1; Side B, Pt. 2)
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FBI Catalogue           Jones Speaking

FBI preliminary tape identification note: Labeled in part “15-Aug”

Date cues on tape:     Context puts the date of tape at August 1, 1978

People named:

Bible verses cited: None

Summary:

Jim Jones reads the news for August 1, 1978.

This reading is different from most from the period, in that Jones does not single out a major news story or feature article to serve as the text upon which he would base many of his questions at the next Peoples Rally. While some news items are emphasized more than others – there is, for example, more news about their adopted home of Guyana than most news tapes include – this tape does not have a central theme.

What is similar to other tapes is the rhetoric Jones uses. The US is consistently capitalist, imperialist, racist and/or fascist. The CIA is behind a number of the world’s ills, such as manipulating the weather, which has resulted in excessive rain for them and excessive heat and drought conditions in such places as Texas and Japan; planting agents in newsrooms to influence news coverage and to monitor journalists; plotting against Black Panther leader Huey Newton; torturing children and bombing villages, before in Vietnam and now in Rhodesia; and crippling air travel in the Caribbean by blowing planes out of the sky.

Jones also leans upon his lifelong anxiety about the inevitability of nuclear war, raising the issue four times, and at one point reporting that the Soviet Union recently said, “World War III was already actually in progress because of the imperialists allowing situations in the Near East and in Africa and in Southeast Asia to get totally out of control.”

Jones makes a point of praising Guyana on several occasions, declaring it to have “the brightest future of all.” One reason is the government’s nationalization of important industries, “so that the people own all of the means of production and the means of distribution.” Another is its small population and its agricultural opportunities: “Less people on more fertile soil than any nation on earth. That’s why I picked it,” he adds.

And the country appreciates them, he says, noting that Jonestown had received an invitation to send its entertainers to perform in Georgetown in a few days. They will decline the invitation, because they need to work so they can get more people to freedom.

In other news items relating to Guyana, Jones reports:

• A medical conference in Trinidad seeks to train doctors to be sensitive to the needs of Caribbean populations;
• An educational conference in Georgetown presents courses on Marxist-Leninist principles for teachers and public servants;
• Guyana is starting its own pharmaceutical production center;
• The nation already has free medical care, and is now moving towards free telephone service for all;
• The owner of a Guyana small business is fined a modest amount for cheating his customers, while a richer one is sent to jail for the same crime.

In other news:

• The House Select Committee on Assassinations may attempt to link the murders of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King to socialists;
• Chicanos in LA storm a gathering of the Ku Klux Klan;
• A woman sues NBC after her daughter was raped in the same manner as was depicted in a TV movie;
• Gangs are increasing their hold on American cities, forcing young people into lives of drugs and crime;
• Doctors protest cloning and test-tube babies;
• Astrology diverts people from social issues and concerns over the environment;
• The US lifts its arms ban to Rhodesia, which proceeds to bomb three villages;
• Art thieves steal 22 pieces from a museum in Munich;
• The independence movement in Quebec calls for similar liberation in Africa;
• A man rams his car into Queen Elizabeth’s limousine during her visit to Canada;
• The USSR has completed its postwar construction.

The news portion tape ends with a reading of a thank you note from a Jonestown resident to Dad for providing such excellent health care for all of them.

Following the newscast is a program of R&B/funk music, with Gregory Watkins in his persona of J.J. Tumbles, acting as the DJ for the impromptu Jonestown radio station, J-SOUL.

FBI Summary:

Date of transcription: 6/13/79

In connection with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into the assassination of U.S. Congressman LEO J. RYAN at Port Kaituma, Guyana, South America, on November 18, 1978, a tape recording was obtained. This tape recording was located in Jonestown, Guyana, South America, and was turned over to U.S. Officials in Guyana and subsequently transported to the United States.

On May 30, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B69-18. This tape was found to contain the following:

A JIM JONES monologue on current world events including political statements on international hunger problems and self-ingratiating remarks on Jonestown’s available medical care. He stated that Dr. MARK LANE feels the USA is facing the inevitable state of facism [fascism].

Differences with FBI Summary:

Given the fact that the context of the date for this tape is different than that listed on the preliminary note and that the FBI summary mentions Mark Lane – who is not named in this transcript – it could be that this is a mislabeled tape.

Tape originally posted June 2021.