Q215 Summary

Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.

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FBI Catalogue           Jones Speaking

FBI preliminary tape identification note: Labeled in part “Oct 21 News”

Date cues on tape:     Tape contents consistent with label

People named:

Public figures/National and international names:
President Jimmy Carter
Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State
Adolf Hitler
Andrei Gromyko, Foreign Minister of Soviet Union
(first name unknown) Mostov, Yugoslav representative to UN
Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of United Nations

Agostinho Neto, President of Angola
Ian Smith, Prime Minister of Rhodesia

Anastasio Somoza, Nicaraguan President
Carlos Andres Perez, president of Venezuela

Rashleigh Jackson, Guyana Foreign Minister
Frank Campbell, Guyana Ambassador to Cuba

Jonestown residents:
Richard Tropp

 

Bible verses cited:      None

Summary:

(Note: This tape was transcribed by Vicki Perry. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)

Jim Jones reads the news of  12 October 1978.

Jones begins by reading a statement made by Guyana’s Foreign Minister to the United Nations, then continues with the news. The stories include:

• Guyana provides milk to its nursery school children
• Bulgarian/Nigerian communiqué blasts Rhodesia and South Africa
• South Africa may acquire nuclear weapons
• Coffee harvest in Ethiopia
• Anniversary of young Communist league in USSR
• Rhodesian attacks on refugee camps
• Elections in Namibia
• Production of the neutron bomb
• SALT talks

 

The news on the relatively short tape comes from Soviet and Eastern European sources, but most of the commentary is Jones’. His small comments and asides, sprinkled throughout the stories, are quite familiar to the Jonestown community. He refers to West Germany as  “the inheritor of Hitler’s Third Reich,” he points out that bombs dropped on refugee camps by Rhodesian planes are paid for “by our tax dollars in USA,” he describes NATO’s membership as the “US and her imperialist western allies,” and he blasts neutron weapons for their ability to extinguish life while leaving property intact, “for the capitalist to pick up so it’ll be useable to them, the rich ruling class elite.”

Only once does he pause before offering an editorial comment, suggesting that the story is relatively new. After reading about South Africa’s potential to acquire nuclear weapons, he says, “That would be little hope for peace in that troubled continent, if that’s the case.”

The tape was partially re-recorded over a dub from a San Francisco classical radio program,  and the music plays on a separate track throughout the newscast.

FBI Summary:

Date of transcription: 6/11/79

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 28, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B70-1. This tape was found to contain the following:

A monologue by JIM JONES concerning current events.

Differences with FBI Summary:

The summary is accurate and meets the FBI’s purposes.

Tape originally posted April 2008