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. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1, Pt. 2).
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FBI Catalogue Jones Speaking
FBI preliminary tape identification note: Labeled in part “6-7-78 News”
Date cues on tape: Contents consistent with tape label
People named:
Part 1
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
Joseph Califano, Secretary of U.S. Dep’t of Health, Education & Welfare
Harold Brown, Secretary of Defense
Gen. Alexander Haig, commander of NATO forces in Europe
Richard Nixon, former U.S. President
Arthur F. Burns, economist
Herbert Stein, economist
Geoffrey Moore, Commissioner of Labor Statistics under Nixon
James Callaghan, Prime Minister of Great Britain
Margaret Thatcher, leader of Conservative Party in Great Britain
Mobutu Sese Seko, president of Zaire
Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda
Joshua Nkomo, leader of Zimbabwean Patriotic Front in Rhodesia
Kenneth David Kaunda, president of Zambia
Hassan II, King of Morocco
Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt
Léopold Sédar Senghor, president of Senegal (by reference)
William R. Tolbert, Jr., president of Liberia (by reference)
Karl Marx, German economist, father of communism
Josef Stalin, former Soviet dictator
Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister
Alexander Ginzburg, Soviet dissident
Huang Hua, Foreign Minister of China
Suharto, president of Indonesia
Takeo Fukuda, Prime Minister of Japan (by reference)
Ptolemy Reid, Deputy Prime Minister of Guyana
Evelle Younger, attorney general of California
Ed Davis, former chief of police for L.A., defeated candidate for governor
Jerry Brown, governor of California
Edmund “Pat” Brown, former governor of California
Howard Jarvis, co-author of Proposition 13
Part 3
Sen. John Stennis (D-Mississippi)
Ptolemy Reid, Deputy Prime Minister of Guyana
Part 4
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
Adolf Hitler
Vladimir Ilich Lenin, father of Russian Revolution
Mao Tse-Tung, leader of People’s Republic of China
Aldo Moro, former Prime Minister of Italy
James Callaghan, Prime Minister of Great Britain
Guyana Minister of Foreign Affairs (by reference) [likely former minister Fred Wills, could be Rashleigh E. Jackson]
Part 3
Tim Stoen
Temple members not in Jonestown:
Part 1
Guy Young
Jonestown residents:
Part 3
Eugene Smith
Ollie Smith
Martin Luther Smith (by reference)
Bible verses cited: None
Summary:
(Note: This tape was transcribed by Jennifer Gibbons. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)
This tape consists of three distinct parts, with a burst of audio and slowed tape in between parts 1 and 2. The last two substantive parts follow a lengthy period of silence on side 2.
In Part I, Jim Jones reads the news and offers commentary. Among the news items he covers:
• The race for governor in California, especially in light of passage of Prop 13;
• Disarmament talks and, elsewhere, SALT talks between the US and USSR
• The dispute between USSR and Japan over an island chain;
• African liberation movements, and capitalism’s attempts to defeat them, including use of Japanese troops;
• The potential of the British Labor government falling to Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party;
• The Soviet Union offer of protection of Vietnam against China;
• The CIA’s “blank check” – without oversight – to resume its activities
• The trial of a Soviet dissident;
• Egyptian demands that Israel abide by peace agreements
As with most news tapes, Jones is apparently using Soviet and eastern bloc services for the information he presents to the people of Jonestown. The tilt of the coverage and the language used in the press reports is both anti-Western (U.S., Europe, NATO) and anti-China. The descriptions of the West as imperialist, monopoly, capitalistic, and fascist are familiar; less so are the characterizations of the Soviet Union’s other adversary as “the renegade mainland Chinese [with] imperialist designs… China obviously has some conscience but a very imperialistic foreign policy, and a very dangerous one.”
Similarly, as in other tapes, it is difficult to tell when the editorial commentary appears in the reading or from Jones’ own spontaneous opinion. One that does appear to be his own, though – since it is bracketed by the same sentence – occurs when he quotes an article in the Morgan Guarantee Survey and describes Morgan as “one of the rich families like DuPont, Rockefeller, I.G. Farben that made all the gas ovens to destroy Jews, blacks, and browns, that control imperialism in its final stages as it moves into a fascist mentality through the Trilateral Commission.”
Part 2 consists of two short segments of slowed tape which are barely understandable. In the second, Jones informs the adult population of Jonestown that their egg allotment will have to drop to two or three a week in order to continue giving younger children the eggs they need.
In Part 3, Jim Jones welcomes newcomers to Jonestown. He tells them of the miracles that happen every day, thanks to “the presence of one dimension of socialism confined only to this body,” and adds that the people will be well fed and well taken care of.
He does emphasize the increased security which all have to endure. He warns against bringing in or sending out messages, and ask that “there be no anarchy.” The newcomers will have a couple of days off, but then “you’ll be briefed why we have our rules, ask any question you want, bring any criticism about anything to our face, but no criticism behind our backs.”
Part 4 is a segment of an article on the dangers of revisionism to the overall goal of revolution and victory of the proletariat. Most of the language does seem to come from the article, but the quote of Mao Tse-Tung that “all change must come out of the barrel of the gun” is one that Jones often cites on his own.
This segment of the tape continues on Tape 197.
FBI Summary:
Date of transcription: 6/25/79
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 5, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B100-20. This tape was found to contain the following:
JIM JONES reading news, commentary and announcements followed by announcements from MARCELINE JONES and JIM JONES greeting new arrivals.
Differences with FBI Summary:
The two snippets of a woman speaking in Part 3 of this tape are too short to identify Marceline Jones. Otherwise, the summary is accurate and meets the FBI’s purposes.
Tape originally posted June 2010