Letters to Dad (Part 1)

Dad –

I would like to go back and get Liz Forman and Lester Kingsolving [Kinsolving]. McElvane agreed with me one time that I would be capable of assassination and maybe get by with it. After it was done I would commit self-immolation at an appropriate location.

Ibo

(Bob Davis)

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Dear Dad

I am again willing to go & get our enemies. I will make sure that each time I get one, I will be ready to blow myself up. They also would look like accidents. Starting with Tim [Stoen].

Al Tschetter

 

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Strategy

I feel it would be most effective and demoralizing to our enemies if one of the key traitors would disappear totally and without a trace. This could be accomplished with a few people, a rented van, and some rugs like the “Tupamaros” did in the film we saw. Just come up behind, blackjack him, wrap him in a rug and drive off.

Another approach along the same line would be to get an ambulance, some white uniforms and either blackjack him or manhandle him into a straight jacket [straitjacket] and give him a quick sedative. People who witness the pick up are less likely to question or interfere if they think we’re just picking up another “loony.”

I am willing to volunteer to assassinate as many traitors as possible by rifle or poison or any other means and to commit revolutionary suicide before apprehension. I feel with a little training I would stand a good chance to get one or two before removing myself. If I could get to a conference of traitors I could detonate myself in their midst and get rid of more.

Thank you Dad

Peter W. [Wotherspoon]

 

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April 13 [1978]

Dad,

Here is my plan to get Grace or the Myrtles [Elmer and Deanna Mertle]. Let about 4 people seem as if they were run out of the Temple and here is the way one of the people could call from the Port of Spain say we need help to get to Miami and tell them to send plane fare for 4 people, tell them we are willing to talk about [illegible] here. But it will have to be in the work for about 3 months here and in Georgetown, and you and the people say we had stole some money and our passport. Dad, there is much more I have in my head I would pass on to the office and not to the whole family because some of the things that happen here seem to get back there.

Ruby Carroll

 

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To Dad:

Tim Stone [Stoen] is the #1 cause of this. I believe if a number of our security (four or six) but first, delay the conference since the meeting is tomorrow and get another date for this conference. Get our security to pinpoint Tim Stone at the conference or before the conference and use him for bargaining power or hold him as a ace card to determine our maneuvers to protect our cause of what we stand for. I know this is kidnapping but right now we are at a do or die matter. We have to stop this madness of all these lies and holding up our shipments to protect our name of Peoples Temple.

There has been too many leaks of information going back to the states. 2 weeks before I came over I overheard people talking about tape unites where going to take from the people. Whatever we work out to determine our strategy we have to secure our information with security and the people. There has been too many right on the head statements that get back to the states. Example, other people besides you knowing you’re ready to go and the day you might be leaving. So I hope we will be able to keep this under control.

I also Dad would like to join the security (SATT) team.

Thank you, Dad

Oliver Morgan

 

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Dad,

I am a senior and I am willing to go and fight for this cause, and also do my husband in. My life has no purpose but live for socialism, and I am willing to give up my life so socialism will live on.

Gertrude Nailor

 

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Dear Dad:

RE: what option I would choose if the fascists took over

The jungle because in the jungle, first of all we would have some protection in the jungle. In the jungle we should make our “stand” and fight; personally I would choose to commit revolutionary suicide, after which I would first do what I could to help the seniors, how it fire on as many fascists as I could, even, if I only got one! More so I only know that one will die, before I would commit revolutionary suicide!

Anyway, I think that the jungle is the place to make our stand, because if we made our stand, say here in Jonestown, sure we would do good the first battle, but it would be a waste to stay here because many and all children would have to commit revolutionary suicide. More so in the jungle with you go to Venezuela, and have our peoples go to Russia, because in Russia we would be able to send people to fight in Rhodesia or go to Ethiopia and help fight in Somalia.

I apologize Dad for last night, because I did not speak on the “option” of making a stand to fight. I will from now on listen like hell, whatever news you give! I do apologize for last night, because to me that is just a guilt-speaking on miscellaneous hearsay!

Suggestion: that I would go to Los Angeles and “snuff” out Tim Stoen! To snuff Stoen being a handicap, I don’t think no one would even say anything, more so I could do like “The Day of the Jackal” only to kill Stoen and take revolutionary suicide;

 

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Orde Dennis

Put me with somebody who knows these people and we could get them. We could blow them up, we can kill them. I have died too many times and I don’t mind dying. Gabriel was dying in my arms when I came into the church, and you healed him. You can burn them, blow them up. After you kill them that can be buried and nobody will ever know what happened to them. You can choke and strangle them, make them look like they had heart attacks. It has to be people you can trust. We might not get all of them, but one or two.

 

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Make it look just like were having a party, and then when the news people and them come up, have someone there at the party to whip their asses good.

 

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Dad, I would like to be in the group that goes back to take care of our enemies whether it is in the near or distant future.

Carolyn Thomas

 

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I already said I would go back and do away with Tim Stoen, Myrtles, and as many others as I could get. I will do so now if need be at any time.

Nat Swaney

 

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Now it is necessary to do something to protect the people up there from the enemies there and we can’t continue to wait for our people to come here. I thought of volunteering to go back and take some of them with me, but thought that you might think that I was up to something. Anyhow, I can easily get in with them, as my patterns of negativity etc. are well known and Tim Stoen was here. I could act disgruntled etc. This is a very difficult job though, you would have to get involved, but not too involved. You would have to say negative things, but nothing the press could use, assuming always that they carry tape recorders. I would have to contact them and play hard to get and let them recruit me themselves. This would take time, but if I play the right they might hold off other operations and concentrate on me, if they thought they could get me to do something for them.

Perhaps if I was back there halfway in and halfway out, like if [I] demanded to go back but didn’t fully want to leave and had somebody in the church beat me up, make bruises etc. that those outside could see.

Mickey T. [Touchette] used to always try to get me to fuck her in Santa Rosa. I could let her think that she had a hold on me. I’m good at playing stupid and calculating people. Most of the college student traitors would underestimate me and Tim thinks I [am] crazy and unstable. If I can get them together in strategy session, having been there since Tim left etc., I would prefer potassium cyanide and hydrochloric acid to a bomb, it could be made to look like a final act of conscience or guilt and suicide if there were no contact prior with the church they could pin it on you, especially if I went to see a shrink up their end showed some paranoid tendencies, but not enough to get committed. Even if I could string them along for a while I could set them up individually or even get shot to death in bed with Tim Stoen, and frame Grace as the killer. Many things are possible. I wouldn’t get caught up in their shit, I hate the states, and Chris [Lewis] was a personal friend.

Jeff C. [Carey]