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 Identified Individuals Speaking
FBI preliminary tape identification note: None
Date cues on tape: Late 1976, early 1976
People named:
Public figures/National and international names:
- U.S. Senator John Stennis (D-Miss.)
Bible verses cited: None
Summary:
(Note: This tape was transcribed by Nicole Bissett. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)
In November 1976, members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco caught two men eavesdropping from a parked car on a lecture by Unita Blackwell Wright, the mayor of Mississippi and a civil rights activist. They tracked one of the men down and found that Thomas Dawsey was an electronics expert from Kessler Air Force Base near Biloxi, Mississippi who worked for a “communications team” under the direction of U.S. Senator John Stennis.
As part of the search for information on the two spies, an unknown female Temple member calling herself Raydi/Radi Holsom (phonetic) talked on the phone to Margarite Esposito, the teenage daughter of a man on an electronics team associated with Kessler AFB. Posing as a mother looking to engage the teenager as a babysitter, the mother probed for information about the father and his work with the military. It is unknown who the father was or what his role in the eavesdropping incident was, although the caller does determine that Mr. Esposito worked on repairing and trouble-shooting electronic communication equipment.
FBI Summary:
Date of transcription: 6/21/79
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.
A recording of a telephone conversation between a female using the name RADI HOLSOM (phonetic) and MARGARIETTE ESPOSITO (phonetic) where HOLSOM attempts to solicit information about ESPOSITO’s father.
Differences with FBI Summary:
The summary is accurate and meets the FBI’s purposes.
Tape originally posted July 2011