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: [None]
Date cues on tape: mid-June 1977 (Numerous references to events between June 16 and 26)
Public figures/National and international names:
Part 2:
Adolf Hitler
Guy Wright, newspaper reporter for San Francisco Examiner
Part 2:
Johnny Moss Brown
Teri Buford
Gene Chaikin
Carolyn Layton
Mike Prokes
Harriet Sarah Tropp
Richard Tropp
Guy Young
Part 1:
Summary:
(Note: This tape was transcribed by Vicki Perry. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)
This short tape has two segments. The first is a undated, non-contextual fragment of a Jones sermon, the balance of which was recorded over for the second part.
The second part consists of a series of announcements which Jim Jones records for use in upcoming gatherings of Temple members which he will not attend. He states at the beginning that it is to go out to his leadership group, but – at least for the moment – not over the PA system.
The announcements exhort Temple members to distribute pamphlets and newspapers – undoubtedly the Temple’s periodic broadsheet, Peoples Forum – throughout the Bay Area and Los Angeles, in order to counteract “the evil intentions of those monopoly forces that own the press.” Even though the announcements are recorded well in advance of upcoming events, Jones presents several as interruptions to ongoing services, as the result of a revelation he has received.
FBI Summary:
Date of transcription: 6/18/79
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 3, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B93-92. This tape was found to contain the following:
Reverend JIM JONES exhorting his People’s Temple members to work harder and to get the newspaper out. This was apparently at the PT in Redwood Valley during June.
Differences with FBI Summary:
Other than the likelihood that the tape was recorded in San Francisco rather than Redwood Valley, the summary is accurate and meets the FBI’s purposes.
Tape originally posted March 2010