This tape was transcribed by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
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Part I
Man 1: So, uh, (clears throat) what’s Bob Davis, just getting sloppy or–
Man 2: Huh?
Man 1: Bob Davis. Is he getting sloppy, or what’s his story?
Man 2: (unintelligible sentences) he didn’t do that growth and tumors, and Saturday, he had growth and tumors mentioned about four times in one testimony.
Man 1: And he’s aware that that’s (unintelligible)
Man 2: Yeah, he’s aware. I just don’t know where his mind is (unintelligible )
Man 3: He is out of his mind. (pause) (unintelligible)
(silence for several minutes)
Part II (90-second story on letter from Symbionese Liberation Army to KPFA)
Van Amberg: –the new letter, but there had been a lot of doubts about it, that there was. NewsScene Jim Vargas has been there working on it all day for us. He’s in the East Bay right now. We’ll get the latest on the situation. Jim? What is the situation on the letter?
Jim Vargas: Van, just a little while ago, I was told that KPFA radio did not receive any communication today from the Symbionese Liberation Army, although since mid-morning, about two dozen newsmen have gathered in front of uh, the Berkeley radio station’s offices under the presumption that something had been received. It’s possible that a letter approximating an SLA-type communiqué came in today’s mail. KPFA isn’t saying. At any rate, if there was such a similar letter, it proved to be false. A KPFA spokesman told me uh, a little while also that they had received hundreds of letters, mostly sympathizing with the Hearst family, some with donations, just like other TV and radio stations have. Everything has been forwarded to Hillsborough.
Newscaster: All right, Jim, we do know that there had been crank letters. As a matter of fact, uh, we received one here at NewsScene, that the uh, San Francisco Police Department were able to break and find the man responsible for it, so as of this moment, no new letter from the Symbionese Liberation Army. Thank you, Jim.
Standing by right now at the Hearst home in Burlingame is NewsScene’s John Lester. We understand the Hearsts have just arrived there, and John has a late report on that. John?
Lester: Van–
(tape edit)
Woman: –three. Testing, testing, testing.
Part III (5-minute story on psychological profiling of Patty Hearst, unrelated to Peoples Temple)
Newscaster: –Monterey, and Tideman (phonetic) had these comments on the original Patty Hearst tape. Listen.
Patricia Hearst: Mom, Dad. I’m okay. (tape edit) I’m– I had a few scrapes and stuff, but uh, (unintelligible word) washed them up and they’re doing okay, and I caught a cold, but they’re giving me pills for that.
Newscaster: Okay, what do you think of that, Tommy?
Tom Tideman: Well, I mean, more of– other than the mom and dad, I’m okay, I’m more interested in the fact that she says that she has received some medication, uh, given some pills for it. Uh– I would say that she does not have a cold. The medication given is probably for the uh, scrapes and bruises she had received originally. Maybe she caught a slight infection, she’s taking an antibiotic.
Newscaster: What does the cold (unintelligible word)?
Tideman: I uh– It’s– Yes, as I said, (unintelligible word) to say, but I– probably that pertains to the uh, circumstances under which she was kept, possibly in unheated room or a cold place, a barn, warehouse, something like that.
Newscaster: She might be trying to say something.
Tideman: Uh, it could very well be.
Newscaster: Um-hmm.
Tideman: Uh, she’s not lying, but she’s not telling the truth. (Pause)
Newscaster: But she is deceiving?
Tideman: She is uh, deceiving, absolutely.
Patricia: I’m not being starved or beaten or (pause) unnecessarily frightened.
Tideman: Our indications (unintelligible) there, as she said, she’s not being starved. She’s certainly not being (unintelligible word) in the manner in which she’s accustomed. She’s hurting, uh, but nothing stark per se. Uh, no, there– she’s not being beaten, there’s no indication that uh, she’s been physically abused. (Pause) Frightened? Sure, she’s frightened, but this is a– a normal thing.
Newscaster: Okay.
Patricia: Uh, I heard some press reports (unintelligible) are okay, that no one was really hurt, and, I also know that the SLA members here are very upset about press distortions, that–
Tideman: I wonder, uh, we got a reaction there. The SLA is certainly disturbed, not over press distortions. I have no idea what the disturbed (unintelligible word), it’s not press distortions
Newscaster: So she again is– is– is not telling the truth.
Tideman: She’s not telling the truth at all. Not on that.
Newscaster: Okay.
Patricia: What’s been happening, it had nothing to do with the August Seventh Movement (unintelligible)–
Tideman: All right, let’s stop it right there. The August Seventh Movement–
Unknown man: Pretty good.
Newscaster: Very, very good. I would say uh–
Unknown man: (unintelligible) She doesn’t believe that to be true.
Tideman: She believes that they do have nothing to do with that August Seventh program. It’s a non-stress statement.
(End of recorded segment)
Newscaster: And so it went. (unintelligible) said several other statements, uh, including the statement that uh, they were responsible for shooting down a helicopter was not true, and that uh, she seemed to be trying to communicate certain clues. But she was not terrified, but she was coping with the situation of her captors uh, rather well. Uh, he said a number of other statements are clearly false or misleading, but he feels it’s not in– in her best interest for our– our– us to discuss those uh, publicly at this time. We’d like to make clear at this point that Mr. Tideman’s [phonetic] uh, comments are entirely his own opinions, and that we had no reason to either believe or disbelieve uh, the accuracy or the effectiveness of this psychological stress evaluator. I’ve done a little background, uh, and– and find that it’s in rather common use with the FBI and law enforcement agencies all over the country, and uh, it’s one of those new electronic tools that you either– you either trust implicitly or you throw up and say, we just don’t know. And– and uh, according to the people who make it, uh, uh, the uh, uh, electronic outfit back in Springfield, Virginia, I believe, uh, they say that it’s 99 percent uh, positive, if the person really knows tapes or has had to evaluate it. Mr. Tideman took a ten-month course from them, uh, spent ten months learning how to interpret the graphs, so he should know.
Newscaster 2: Okay, well, he made some uh, statements in there that interest me. He says uh, a non-stress statement uh, they’re looking for something like you’d look on a polygraph, it is a– a lie detector for a piece of tape that was recorded and uh, as I understand it, they say this is uh, more infallible than uh, the lie detector test given on a person because there aren’t the stress points all over the body.
Newscaster: He said that’s the whole point. He said that the uh– there is no way that the person can deceive this machine. Uh– He said, for example, I had a brown shirt on. He said if you say – and I did – (stumbles over words) and he showed me how. I say– He said, what color is your shirt? And I said brown. And he said, you see? That’s wrong. He said, that’s an untruthful answer, because it’s not brown, it’s brown-and- white.
Newscaster 2: It’s a check. Right.
(two men talk over each other)
Newscaster: It’s that close and uh– So a lot of people do have faith in the machine, and uh, a lot of people are doing things with it, and we wanted to show you that there were some things said, again as Jerry [Jensen] said, that– that could not be stated now, uh, from the tapes that he found, but they will go into the hands of the proper authorities.
Newscaster 2: Um-hmm.
Part IV: (4-minute segment)
Newscaster: The brother of one of the Hearst kidnapping suspects will talk to the mother of the other, and we’ll listen to Patricia Hearst tape as it goes through the psychological stress evaluator. The full story next, right here, on Channel Seven NewsScene.
(News intro)
(Unrelated stories, although two on alleged Patty Hearst kidnappers, cut off)
Part V: (60-second story on Peoples Temple offer to serve as hostages)
Newscaster: –(unintelligible word) quickly to get this story together. Earlier this week, the Peoples Temple Christian Church of California donated two thousand dollars to the Hearst family. We were there the night that they did it. Tonight, the members of the multi-racial congregation are now offering themselves as hostages, if and when the SLA demands to leave the country.
(Several people applaud in room at recording end)
Newscaster: Their leader is the Reverend Jim Jones, and he talked about it to us.
Jones: We’re offering to be hostages, if it would serve the purpose to this group. We had done it privately last week to the Hearsts, but somehow it leaked out. We feel that uh, if an interracial group that has great concern for social justice would be willing to serve as hostages, particularly probably when it comes to the time that they’ll want uh, as most revolutionary groups, to be uh, released from the country, we would be glad to serve in that capacity.
Newscaster: Reverend Jones also told us that the Peoples Temple Christian Church hopes that by speaking out like they’re doing, they’ll influence the SLA now to release Patricia Hearst.
Lots more coming up on NewsScene. Frank Sinatra’s going to take one more–
(tape cut off)
Part VI: (5-minute story on distribution of food as part of Hearst kidnapping negotiations)
(End of tape)
Tape originally posted January 2013