Q734 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: One Tracs 90/ “Peoples Ralley”

Date cues on tape:    April 10, 1978 (Barbara Walker in box, noted in April 10 entry of Edith Roller Journal)

People named:

Bible verses cited:      None

Summary:

(Note: This tape was transcribed by Richmond Arquette. It was also reviewed by Don Beck, who identified several additional voices. The editors gratefully acknowledge their invaluable assistance.)

(This tape follows immediately after Q 600. Our thanks to Matthew Carey for dating this tape.)

This tape consists of two parts: a short segment of Tom Grubbs speaking with Barbara Walker, who has been placed in an isolation box for disciplinary reasons; and a late night meeting in Jonestown during which both praises and – more notably – disciplinary notices are read and acted upon. The violence contained here also make this one of the most difficult tapes in the Jonestown oeuvre.

In the first, short portion, Barbara Walker – who was accused of harassing and threatening several Jonestown residents – denies that she is hostile. The recording of her voice is muffled, though, as it is recorded with her in the box. Tom Grubbs, who not only constructed and operated the sensory deprivation box but also made this portion of the recording, says that she can emerge when she’s ready to admit her problem. Until then, as Jim Jones says in the second portion of the tape, she is to be kept in a “no capacity” status, a reference to periodic uses of the isolation box and/or incapacitating drugs used on trouble-makers and dissidents. Grubbs does apologize, however, for the kids who threw dirt clods at the box, and says “it’s really unfair and unthoughtful.”

The second part of the tape is of a much longer meeting during which Jim Jones describes crimes and unacceptable social behavior against the community. In several cases, unidentified people mete out physical punishment against the perpetrators for those transgressions:

The crowd is as angry as Jones throughout the meeting, and even though the leader does not personally participate in the physical aspects of the punishments, he condones it, especially that of the “child molester,” orders it once or twice – “Well, I guess he needs a little more” – and even directs how the beating should be administered (“Hit him in the balls. Hit him in the balls! Hit him!”).

There are no alternatives for the transgressors but to accept the punishment. As one of the early beatings of Baisy takes place, Jones points out that Jonestown doesn’t have to worry about being called to account for this treatment. Not only does the Temple’s lawyer Charles Garry think this technique was “wonderful,” Jones says, but “Guyana will back us up in it.” In a way, as he and another man tell Baisy, the young man is lucky he is where he is, because in Georgetown, they would “[h]ang you until you’re dead.” Moreover, there is no statute of limitations on rape. “In other words,” Jones adds, “anytime he wants to act up, somebody can report him, and he can be hung.” In case Baisy didn’t understand the implications of that, Jones’ lieutenant spells it out for him: “So that means if you think about leaving, you ain’t going nowhere.”

But Jones also uses the punishments to question – and correct – people’s motivations for the acts they commit. In response to a question from Jones’ lieutenant, Baisy says he committed the rape because he is a homosexual, and in the context of the question, it seems like the right answer. But Jones presses him – “wouldn’t it be much, much nicer to be an open homosexual than to bother little children?” – and then adds, “It’s never the homosexuals who molest children. It’s the so-called heterosexuals.”

The leader’s confrontation with Willie Malone is more taunting, perhaps because of the young man’s insult of Marceline, the mother of the movement. Jones asks Malone if he’s willing to die that night and – more specifically – if he’s willing to reach into a box containing a poisonous frog, one touch of which would result in death. Malone replies that he doesn’t want to die, but he’s not afraid to. As with Baisy, the answer seems to be correct in the context of what Jones has said on other nights. But Jones criticizes Malone’s bravado. “You’re not afraid to die? Then you’re not standing for anything. I’d be ashamed to die if I were you.” And what would this “punk” – Jones’ word – prove by picking up the frog? “Is the fucking frog a capitalist? … You think that being brave is an end in itself. It means not shit worth nothing unless it’s connected with socialism. And you haven’t got it connected with socialism. It’s just Willie Malone, against the world. Gangland Willie.”

Emerging from this atmosphere of anger, confrontation, humiliation, and brutality – by Jim Jones, by his leadership group, and by the crowd as a whole, which threatens at times to dissolve into mob violence – is a sense of intimidation, a word that several residents use both in making accusations and in justify their behaviors. Jones seemingly exploits the mood of the evening on several occasions, as he reminds people to report on each other. “Don’t talk about sell-out, it’s not sell-out,” he says near the end of the meeting. “It is proper to tell, in a communist society, what is wrong, whatever your motivation.”

FBI Summary:

Date of transcription: 3/21/79

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 March 5, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B62 #51. This tape was found to contain the following:

Side A contains numerous individuals at a gathering. Appears to be recorded at Guyana, South America, in their “Public Forum” lead by J. JONES.

Side B contains more of same “Public Forum”.

This tape was reviewed, and nothing was contained thereon which was considered to be of evidentiary nature or beneficial to the investigation of Congressman RYAN.

Differences with FBI Summary:

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

Tape originally posted March 2010