Q315 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 “9/20/78”

Date cues on tape:     Tape contents consistent with label

People named:

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 the day. Among the items he covers:

He devotes the greatest amount of time to a lengthy article in a Guyana newspaper about a new Arab socialist democracy in Western Sahara, which includes a brief history of the region and of the struggle for liberation. The account includes much editorializing, although it is hard to tell whether that comes from quotes from African sources, from the newspaper, or from Jones himself.

More apparent are the editorial asides Jones makes about other items, especially when he draws familiar parallels or repeats familiar lessons. In his first reference to strikes by public safety workers, for example, he declares, “This is an encouraging sign when the law enforcement, which are always willing to do the dirty work of the oppressor, are beginning to realize that they’re being used.” He then adds his belief which is as apocalyptic and it is well known: “But it’s too late, because the buttons of the nuclear bombs are in control of the madmen of capitalism.” He follows a later story related to another strike by police officers with a prediction that, “You’ll soon see the army in the streets and the concentration camps set up, and they’ll just as soon put the police in the concentration camps as they will black, Asians and Indians.”

Some news items give Jones an opportunity to remind the people of Jonestown why they have the rules and prohibitions that they do. In the course of his tribute to Steven Biko – and his blistering attack both on the Union of South Africa’s apartheid policies and the U.S.’ support of it – he berates people for buying sandwiches or a piece of candy, and for going to the movies. When they do, he says, they “paid taxes that went into . the tax fund that helped to torture this brave-looking young man.” When they don’t work hard to produce in Jonestown, they reduce the community’s ability to assist black liberation struggles around the world. “[B]ut some of you are so lazy and have no black pride at all.. [Y]ou do nothing to try to make conditions better. you set on your duff and do nothing.” There is only one conclusion he can draw: “You are as bad as the killers of Steve Biko.”

More than any other message Jones has for the taped newscast is how much better life in Jonestown is than life in the States and – by extension – how foolish anyone would be to want to return. After reading the story of police brutality in Philadelphia, he exclaims, “This is horror. We should be so grateful that we’re in a place of peace where our little children can’t grow up to be in gangs and drugs and be beaten by thugs and end up in jail as all black youth do now by seventeen.” Similarly, after the report of ineffective protests against the administration of that city’s mayor, he cries, “That’s your USA. That’s your USA that you glorify.”

The tape ends with an exhortation to study the news, to understand what it means, and, most importantly, “to stand up for Peoples Temple and this great new community which can protect you from all harm.”

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 June 1, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B93-57. This tape was found to contain the following:

Reverend JIM JONES presenting news of world events to the People’s Temple members at Jonestown.

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 May 2009