This document lists Jonestown residents who reportedly served on the Peoples Temple planning commission, which evolved into the governing council of Jonestown. This research document is original to this site. Please credit this website for any use of this material.
There are 37 names on this list. Much of the information for this list comes from statements which surviving Temple members gave to the FBI in November and December 1978, either before the members left Guyana or immediately upon their return to the United States. The names of the people giving the statements were blacked out.
Everyone was asked to give a general statement, but agents also had a specific list of questions – Who was on the Planning Commission? Who was on security? What do you know about the fate of these 30-40 individuals? – which they asked everyone.
We recognize that any attempt to define the membership of so amorphous and fluid a group is by definition subjective, especially if the list were to include PC members who either left the governing body – or even the Temple itself – before the migrations to Guyana, or who remained in San Francisco or Los Angeles, and never lived in Jonestown. There are some reports that the number of people on the Planning Commission at any given moment was as high as 75, and we do not dispute this number.
Even with these caveats, we recognize that several others who died in Guyana (or survived the deaths) may have been on the governing council. For that reason, we welcome corrections to this list. Please contact Fielding McGehee with any corrections you may have.
The chart below lists the 37 names in alphabetical order, followed by the sex and race of each person, as well as the source of the information. (The gender breakdown of this Planning Commission list is 25 females and twelve males, while the racial breakdown is 31 whites and six blacks.) The FBI documents were released to this website in response to McGehee v. FBI. The other source – Raven – refers to the book by Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs.
Planning Commission Members. (pdf)