Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
To read the Tape Transcript, click here. To listen to MP3, click here.
To return to the Tape Index, click here.
FBI Catalogue Jones Speaking
FBI preliminary tape identification note: Labeled in part “News 10/29/78”
Date cues on tape: News items consistent with tape box label
People named:
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
James Schlesinger, U.S. Energy Secretary
Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister
Todor Zhivkov, President of Bulgaria (by reference)
Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister
Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt
Jomo Kenyatta, president of Kenya
Charles Mugane Njonjo, Kenya Attorney General
Daniel arap Moi, successor to Jomo Kenyatta (by reference)
Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania
Mustafa Ould Salek, Mauritania head of state (by reference)
Agostinho Neto, President of Angola
Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of Ethiopia
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, President of France
Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, father of Nobel Peace Prize
Vernetta Christian
Bible verses cited: None
Summary:
(Note: This tape was transcribed by Shannon Howard. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)
Jim Jones reads the news during a time of apparently great personal distress. Whether he is ill, is fatigued, or is drugged, his reading speed is slow and deliberate, and even then is often halting or disjointed. He struggles with simple words, sometimes repeating a phrase, and gets lost in the text on at least one occasion. “Where was I at this time?” he asks himself after a pause.
There are a few occasions that his voice strengthens and becomes more self-assured, however, usually when he is making spontaneous editorial comments about a news item he has just read. In addition, the last few minutes of the tape – when he returns to the microphone to issue instructions about cleaning up Jonestown in anticipation of the arrival of guests – his tone is consistently steady.
The news items include:
• The increasing cost of living in the US and President Carter’s call for a cap on wage increases
• Plots to kills leaders of Kenya are thwarted
• The WHO announces the eradication of smallpox
• Attempts to settle ongoing conflicts in the Western Sahara
• Angolan rebels prevent the opening of a railroad
• Anwar Sadat and Menachim Begin awarded Nobel Peace Prize “today”
• Uganda-Tanzanian border dispute Trouble spots in Iran, Nicaragua, and Houston, Texas
FBI Summary:
Date of transcription: 6/12/79
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 24, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B68-18. This tape was found to contain the following:
JIM JONES providing a monologue on current world events.
This tape was reviewed and nothing was contained thereon which was considered to be of evidentiary nature or beneficial to the investigation of the murder of Congressman RYAN.
Differences with FBI Summary:
The summary is accurate and meets the FBI’s purposes.
Tape originally posted March 2009