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Government Contests FOIA Suit for FBI Records
A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed against the FBI over its
handling of materials related to Peoples Temple has moved ahead with preliminary
legal skirmishes, including two competing motions for summary judgment.
There have been no substantive judicial decisions in the case through the
end of October. The suit resulted from the agency's inability or unwillingness
to review its Jonestown documents and to determine if the exemptions to
disclosure claimed in the early 1990s are still valid.
In 1998 and 1999, the editors of the jonestown report made several
requests under the Freedom of Information Act for limited numbers of documents
in FBI files on Peoples Temple and Jonestown. The FBI responded that there
were more than 48,000 documents -- i.e., the entire Jonestown file -- related
to the initial requests. It later incorporated all the requests into one,
since the agency's response would have been the same for each.
The agency eventually released three CDs containing its entire Jonestown
file. However, the CDs had neither an index, nor a guide on how to find
individual documents. Moreover, since the documents were scanned onto the
CDs through an imaging program instead of a word program, there was no access
to people or subjects through word searches. The documents also retained
the deletions made when the agency initially catalogued the records about
ten years ago.
With that in mind, the requesters challenged the privacy, national security
and law enforcement exemptions claimed by the FBI. In a letter asking for
review of the blacked-out names, for example, the requesters noted that
numerous principals have died in the intervening years, and asserted that
those individuals could no longer enjoy the privilege of privacy.
Within two months, the agency rejected the appeals and affirmed the claims
of exemption. In so doing, the requesters later wrote, the FBI failed to
meet its responsibility under the law: either it made a good faith review
of the documents, using an index which it denies it has; or, more likely,
it decided that the documents are as cumbersome to review as they are to
read, and dismissed the appeals without considering their merits. The suit
is currently pending before U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. (McGehee
et al. v. Department of Justice, Civil Action #01-1872).
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Larry Layton Released
from Federal Prison
After spending 18 years in Guyana jails and U.S. federal prisons, Larry
Layton, the only man convicted on criminal charges arising from the events
of November 18, 1978, was released earlier this year. Larry's parole came
two years earlier than his previously-scheduled release date of April 2004.
The early release culminated a six-year campaign during which members of
his family worked with a core of supporters, first to petition then-President
Clinton to commute Larry's sentence, then to convince the Parole Commission
to modify its earlier decision on a release date.
Three witnesses appeared on Larry's behalf before a parole hearing at the
federal prison at Lompoc, California, including attorney Frank Bell and
Loren Buddress, the former Chief Probation Office for the Northern District
of California. But it was the testimony of Vern Gosney, one of Larry's shooting
victims at the Port Kaituma airstrip, who traveled from Hawaii for the sole
purpose of attending the hearing and who delivered the most impassioned
plea for Larry's release, that apparently made the difference.
The parole examiner said he was "deeply troubled" that Larry had remained
in prison for so long -- well in excess of the five years recommended by
the sentencing judge -- and noted Larry's exemplary behavior while in federal
custody.
Larry shot and wounded two people at the Port Kaituma airstrip on 18 November
1978, and he attempted to shoot a third. The shootings took place on one
of the airplanes which were to take the party of Congressman Leo Ryan to
Georgetown after his visit to Jonestown. Extradited to the U.S. after a
Guyana jury found him not guilty of murder, Larry was tried twice on four
charges related to the shootings, including Conspiracy to Kill a Congressman.
The first trial ended in a hung jury. A second jury convicted Larry, although
four jurors took what the trial judge called an "unprecedented" step of
asking for leniency in Larry's sentencing. Nevertheless, in 1991, a parole
board ruled that Larry would have to serve 20 years, and set his release
date for 2006. That date was later moved back to April 2004, after the board
credited him for his time in the Georgetown jail.
In 1996, the family and friends of Larry launched a campaign for a presidential
commutation. The petition for commutation filed with the Pardon Attorney
in 1997 included 87 letters of support from former members of Peoples Temple,
relatives of people who died in Jonestown, former prisoners and prison officials
who knew Larry, scholars of religious studies and new religious movements,
and members of the clergy. In the weeks leading up to the White House decision
on the petition, a number of former congressmen and religious leaders --
including Rev. Philip Wogaman, President and Mrs. Clinton's pastor in Washington,
D.C. -- made additional pleas for commutation of Larry's sentence. The campaign
succeeded in making it to the Oval Office, and seemed to be viable up until
20 January 2001, President Clinton's last day in office, but Larry's name
did not appear on the final list of pardons and commutations.
Initially discouraged, Larry's family pressed ahead with the petition for
early release, collecting another 50 letters in support, including letters
from former Temple members and critics, numerous religious leaders, and
a former congressman. The letters were presented during the hearing which
resulted in a recommendation for Larry's release.
Larry now lives and works in Northern California.
-
Theater Project Collects Voices
"Moving, compelling, challenging" is how David Dower, artistic director
of Z Space, describes the transcripts of interviews being conducted for
the theater studio's commissioned new play about Peoples Temple. "The diversity
of experiences with the Temple, the directions people's lives have taken
in the years since, and the questions these stories raise about our own
lives now are all very powerful source material for what should make an
indelible evening in the theater."
The Z Space Studio's development of a play based on contemporary interviews
and historical materials continues, as the writers crisscross the country
to listen to people tell their stories about their involvement with Peoples
Temple. This fall, San Francisco is the home for a month-long workshop with
writers Leigh Fondakowski, Greg Pierotti, Steve Wangh, and Margo Hall to
begin the process of putting the play together and to research materials
available at the California Historical Society.
The ensemble of writers and performers plans to continue interviews through
the end of the year, and new voices are joining the process each week. "We
are heartened by the level of support from the community of former members,
families, and others whose lives were touched by the Temple," says lead
writer Fondakowski. "We are hearing from people who, to this point, have
spoken very little or not at all of their experiences, as well as from people
who have become familiar voices through the years."
The text of the play will ultimately be drawn verbatim from these source
materials, a process which led to the successful productions of The Laramie
Project, I Think I Like Girls, and Unquestioned Integrity: The Hill/Thomas
Hearings, which used the transcripts of the congressional hearings as its
source. Margo Hall, a member of this ensemble, won awards and accolades
for her portrayal of Anita Hill in the world premiere at San Francisco's
Magic Theatre.
For information about workshop performances open to the public during 2003,
contact the Z Space at
www.zspace.org.
If you would like to talk about participating in the interviews to tell
your own stories, call David Dower at 415-626-0453.
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Film Documents Aftermath
The legacy of Jonestown is the subject of a documentary film currently in
production. "After Jonestown" will tell the stories of selected
individuals and families associated with Jonestown, focusing on their lives
since 1978. The filmmakers are aiming for national PBS broadcast and distribution
via film festivals, hopefully coinciding with the 25th anniversary in 2003.
The film will ask questions such as, Where are survivors/relatives now,
and how has the experience of Jonestown affected them over time? How do
they grieve? What has happened with their political convictions and religious
faith? What are their memories and dreams of Jonestown and its people, and
how do they deal with them? What about their lives do they choose to reveal,
to whom, and why? What questions of race define the story of Jonestown and
its legacy? What issues remain unresolved?
The film's producers are looking to speak with former Peoples Temple members,
Jonestown survivors, family members and others directly associated with
Jonestown. If you'd like to share your storyeven off-camera and just for
backgroundplease call one of the producers today to set up a phone or in-person
conversation. The producers invite all associated with Jonestown to call
or write, and are especially interested in hearing from African Americans.
They're happy to provide more information and answer any questions you may
have about the film.
Please contact producer Paul VanDeCarr at 415-355-1327 or producer Pam Harris
415-370-4169 (collect calls accepted). E-mail them at
AfterJonestown@yahoo.com,
or visit
www.geocities.com/AfterJonestown.
Their mailing address is P.O. Box 14056, San Francisco, CA 94104. The crew
also includes director of photography Rick Butler (whose credits include
"The Fillmore"), sound recordist Wellington Jon Bowler ("Paul
Robeson: Here I Stand"), and editor Kim Roberts ("Daughter from
Danang"). --
Paul VanDeCarr
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Research Project Explors
Jones-Milk Connection, by Michael Bellefountaine
November 2002 will see the release of A Lavender Look at the Temple,
an in-depth research report that explores the relationship between the gay
and lesbian community of San Francisco in the 1970's and Peoples Temple.
Although the Temple's approach to the issue of homosexuality was often contradictory,
this project considers the Temple's well documented public support for gay
and lesbian teachers, as well as its consistent opposition to discrimination
and violence towards gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered folks.
Using a number of articles from Bay Area gay newspapers, "A Lavender
Look at the Temple" interprets how the gay community viewed the progressive
works of Peoples Temple before the tragedy in Jonestown in November 1978.
"A Lavender Look" also examines the personal and political relationships
between San Francisco's first elected gay official, slain supervisor Harvey
Milk, and Peoples Temple.
The project analyzes and interprets a number of letters, some which Milk
wrote to Jim Jones, and others Milk wrote to various elected officials on
behalf of Peoples Temple. These letters were recently discovered at the
California Historical Society. Through interviews with former Milk staffers
and contemporary letters from other prominent gays and lesbians, the reader
is introduced to a detailed account of the complex relationship and mutual
support shared by Jim Jones and Harvey Milk. Additionally the project critically
analyzes the accounts of the Milk/Temple relationship that have appeared
in print to date. In reviewing Milk's relationship with the Temple, the
project also briefly explores the roles of Jewish people in Peoples Temple.
Though "A Lavender Look" is detailed and well researched, it lacks
a first-hand account of a gay or lesbian Temple member, giving it the feel
of an outsider's perspective. Hopefully surviving gay and lesbian members
who realize the importance of their Peoples Temple experience will feel
enough support to come forward with their stories. Additionally it is hoped
that future research will focus not only on the internal roles of Temple
members known to have identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, but also on
the often ignored experiences of religious gay and lesbian African Americans.
For more information, please contact project coordinator Michael Bellefountaine
at (415) 864-6686 or ACTUPSF@hotmail.com
.
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Resources Improve at California Historical Society, by
Denice Stephenson
Sometimes people ask me what I am still doing there on the lower level of
the California Historical Society, immersed in one of the 150 cartons of
paper that make up the Peoples Temple Archive and related collections. "I'm
figuring out the related part," is what I want to say, but I usually reply,
"I'm processing the papers, getting them in order."
The "related collections" that I am working on are MS 3801, papers that
were gathered in Guyana after Jonestown and turned over to the FBI; MS 3802,
the papers from the Moore family; MS 3803, the materials that John R. Hall
used for his book, Gone from the Promised Land; and MS 4062, a collection
of correspondence and news clippings from the family of Ross E. Case, who
was an associate minister in the Temple in the 1960's.
After surveying the files and making a plan for what order to put them in
-- if they are not already in order -- I write summaries about each collection
in formats that are accessible to researchers from all walks of life: scholars,
students, journalists, and relatives. In the "big" collection (130 cartons!),
also known as MS 3800, The Peoples Temple Archives, there are some smaller
projects in the works, like cataloguing the Peoples Temple newspaper, the
Peoples Forum, and revising the 1985 finding guide.
This summer, in addition to working with the manuscript files, I started
working with the photographs in the collection. My goal for the months ahead
is to get the paperwork finished, so I can spend more time with the photographs.
More than 3,000 passport and membership photographs are currently being
indexed at CHS. It's true that "Every picture tells a story," and the pictures
in these files tell a lot of stories. The photographs share with us the
faces of the people we've lost and people who are part of this unique history.
With 2003 bringing us the 25th anniversary of Jonestown, this processing
work is a timely project for the renewed interest in the archives. It is
an honor to be able to do it.
(Ed. Note: Ms. Stephenson continues her volunteer work to organize the
CHS collections on Peoples Temple.)
-
Report from the California
Historical Society, by Tanya Hollis
New staff, new hours, and new plans highlight this year's report from
the California Historical Society. Mary Morganti, Director of Research Collections,
joined the CHS staff in an office right off the main room of the North Baker
Research Library. She is advising on the processing and cataloguing work
on the Peoples Temple Archive and related collections to make the finding
aids accessible on the internet.
Thanks to generous funding from a Library Services and Technology Act grant
from the California State Library, the CHS Library has also expanded its
hours to four days a week and has eliminated admission fees.
Plans to recognize the 25th anniversary of Jonestown in the next year center
around an exhibit of materials from the Peoples Temple collections in conjunction
with the San Francisco History Center of the San Francisco Public Library
on the sixth floor at the Main Library.
The CHS Library supports scholarly and family-related research in the Peoples
Temple Archive and related collections. Researchers over the past year have
displayed a wide range of interests in the collection, from the roles of
politicians in the Temple's history to investigations into the organization's
finances. Researchers have indicated they are working on scholarly articles,
documentary films, and plays.
The North Baker Research Library is open to the public Wednesday through
Saturday from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. Our email is reference@calhist.org. You
can also call us at 415-357-1848 ext. 20 to schedule your visit. Although
it is not required to make an appointment ahead of time, we can have materials
ready for you to start looking through if you contact us before your visit.
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Many Questions Find Answers in Guyana: Observations
by Jim Hougan
(Ed. Note: In the 2001 edition of the jonestown report,
we published a commentary on the disappearance of U.S. government records
related to Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Whether through destruction of
seemingly-outdated records, or through attaching internal agency reference
numbers which requesters have no way of learning, thousands of pages are
no longer accessible. Our article elicited this response from Jim Hougan,
a writer and documentarian who has extensively researched Jonestown's connection
with U.S. intelligence agencies.)
When I read the last issue of the jonestown report, I was struck by how
many official records have been expunged or "lost" -- and I use the quotation
marks intentionally. It is astonishing to me that so many, and such important,
records can have gone missing. To the records once held by the U.S. government
that have disappeared, though, you should add all of Guyana's official records
of the Jonestown affair which went up in flames in a sort of Reichstag fire
that imposed institutional amnesia on the country. To this loss, one must
also add the trove of video and documentary materials that the FBI confiscated,
and then returned to the State Department -- which claims to have lost them.
Clearly, an effort has been made -- is being made -- to conceal some aspect
or aspects of the story. That may sound paranoid to some, but it's also
indisputable: Guyanese officials were convicted of arson in the fire that
destroyed Temple records. So it isn't a question, really, of whether or
not an effort has been made to suppress certain aspects of the story. We
can establish that. The question is: how extensive have these efforts been?
Who is involved? Is it just the Guyanese, or are there others who have acted
to conceal the truth? And what, in particular, are they seeking to conceal?
It is possible (even likely) that the Guyanese were trying to eliminate
evidence of bribes paid by the Peoples Temple to various government officials.
It is also possible that there is more involved.
A coherent effort should be made somehow to acquire and protect the records
in Georgetown which remain intact. I'm thinking particularly of the notes
and files of the late Doctor Leslie Mootoo relating to the post-mortem examinations
he conducted on numerous -- albeit by no means all -- of the Jonestown dead.
As it now stands, Mootoo's account of what he learned at Jonestown is known
only through contemporaneous newspaper stories. It would be much better
to have a draft of the speech or speeches that he gave on the matter before
groups of forensic scientists. I am one of those who is convinced that Dr.
Mootoo's evidence is the best evidence of what happened at Jonestown. While
his examinations were necessarily "cursory," they were also the most timely
and extensive. No one else conducted anything like the number of examinations
that Mootoo did, and no one else seems to have conducted more thorough examinations.
The exception to this might seem to be the relatively few autopsies that
were carried out in the U.S. In all, there were seven of these, and in every
case the "manner of death" was undetermined, while the "cause of death"
could only be inferred in most of the cases. The one exception was Jim Jones
himself. It was established that his death was caused by a gunshot wound
to the temple. Annie Moore was also a gunshot victim, but doctors were unable
to determine if the wound was suffered before or after she'd been poisoned.
Lethal levels of cyanide were found in her muscle tissue. Accordingly, Annie's
death was attributed to two causes: cyanide poisoning and a bullet wound.
That the cause of death could only be inferred in six of the seven autopsies
was due to two circumstances: first, cyanide breaks down rather quickly;
second, the autopsied bodies had been embalmed prior to examination in the
U.S. That means that the forensic pathologists in the U.S. relied on military
and newspaper accounts of the scene at Jonestown, concluding on the basis
of circumstantial evidence that the victims had died of cyanide poisoning.
Which they certainly did.
The problem is, of course, the inferences should have been based upon the
findings of the medical doctor on the scene, not the observations of untrained
reporters and military officers. Indeed, Dr. Mootoo's findings should be
considered -- and in my opinion, deservedly are -- more authoritative than
even the autopsies. And Mootoo, of course, is significant for his conclusion
that most of the people at Jonestown were murdered with cyanide, that is,
they were poisoned by others or forced to poison themselves.
Clearly, this is a pivotal issue in our understanding of Jonestown. Unless
and until the matter is cleared up, the affair will necessarily remain an
enigma. The prevailing point of view -- which deliberately belittles the
evidence presented by Dr. Mootoo -- would seem to be that 900 fanatics killed
themselves and their children because they were ordered to do so by a charismatic
personality. To me, that's like saying the Jews "committed suicide" at Auschwitz
because they went "willingly" (which is to say, under their own locomotion)
to the gas-chambers.
Having said that, I of course concede that some, and perhaps many, did in
fact "commit suicide" at Jonestown. But I suspect that even more were coerced
into their deaths. According to Tim Carter and Stanley Clayton, among others,
the cordon of armed guards around Jonestown was facing inward during the
White Night episode. In other words, they were keeping people in, not out.
Why this has not been more widely acknowledged is a mystery. I suspect it
has to do with the many, and very different, equities that various people
and institutions have in the event. For whatever reason, and despite so
much evidence to the contrary, most of the media continue to insist that
members of the Peoples Temple committed collective suicide -- and collective
murder of their loved ones -- for no other reason than that the boss told
them to. It's a strange paradigm that demeans the many who seem to have
resisted (as evidenced by the needle-marks in the backs of their shoulders)
-- and one can only wonder whose interests that paradigm serves.
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Peoples Temple and Black
Religious Studies
Indiana University Press is publishing a book in 2003 which reconsiders
Peoples Temple as a black religious organization, rather than as a new religious
movement. Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America, edited by
Anthony B. Pinn of Macalester College, Mary R. Sawyer of Iowa State University,
and Rebecca Moore of San Diego State University, gathers together a series
of essays which looks at the group from the perspective of black religious
studies.
Scholars generally identify Peoples Temple as a cult, and compare it to
other new religious movements with little regard for its unique racial composition.
This new book examines the Temple as a black religious group, and takes
into account issues of race and racism, politics, and the historical and
cultural milieu of its development.
"We reject the premise that African American members of Peoples Temple had
no agency," writes Mary R. Sawyer in the Introduction to the volume. "We
reject the adequacy of the conventional categories of cult and sect for
describing this movement." On the contrary, the book seeks to re-evaluate
the African American influences and values within the Temple.
The book includes three important essays by black scholars writing in 1979
and 1980, and then presents current analyses of the Temple's political involvement,
its interaction with San Francisco's black establishment, its worship style
and language, and other issues.
There were a number of similarities Peoples Temple shared with other forms
of black religion, including a concern with "exodus and exile as paradigms
of transformation," according to Anthony B. Pinn, another of the co-editors.
He notes the dangers inherent in labeling black religious movements -- from
those led by Nat Turner and Denmark Vessey to that led by Jim Jones -- as
odd, and removed from their historical contexts.
The book is scheduled to be published in time for the 25th anniversary of
the deaths in Jonestown.
-
Reviews of Tapes Yield
Differeing Conclusions
The audiotapes recorded by Peoples Temple -- which offer primary source
documentation of the group's years in Indiana and California, as well as
its time in Jonestown -- are available through the "Alternative Considerations"
website and by writing the editors of this report. We can provide copies
of all tapes which have been transcribed at http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/tapes/transcripts.html
.
In addition, we can duplicate untranscribed tapes which are denoted on the
website at http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/tapes/fbi.html
with the asterisk ("*") symbol. For those
tapes, the only descriptions we have are the summaries written by FBI agents
in 1979 and 1980. We can vouch neither for the accuracy of the summaries
nor the quality of the recording of those tapes which we have not transcribed.
For copies of tapes, contact us through fieldingmcgehee@yahoo.com
, or write to Fielding McGehee, 3553 Eugene
Place, San Diego, CA 92116. Tapes are $2 each, postage included. Contact
us about rates for bulk orders. While most people who order tapes limit
their request to Q 042, the so-called "Death Tape," a number of other people
have asked for tapes covering a larger spectrum of Peoples Temple life.
We invited several of them to write about what they were looking for when
they made their requests, what they heard that either confirmed or contradicted
their opinions, and what conclusions they drew. Three of their responses
follow.
Lessons of Jonestown Remain Elusive, by Brad Elliott
I discovered the "Alternative Considerations" website after looking
for Jonestown on the search engine Google. What attracted me to the site
initially was the listing of the numerous tapes acquired by the FBI after
the Jonestown tragedy. I decided to see if I could purchase copies of some
of the tapes listed.
The biggest challenge was trying to determine what tapes to request. There
were transcripts available online for a number of the tapes, but for most
of them, I had to rely on notes that the FBI had made while listening and
cataloging the hundreds of tapes they acquired. I was interested most in
recordings made in Jonestown. I felt that they represented one of the few
things that remained untainted by time. This is of course presuming the
FBI didn't delete, edit or doctor any of the tapes that they released via
the Freedom of Information Act. I was also looking for tapes that hadn't
been made available to the public until just a few years ago. I was overwhelmed
by the amount of material available that fit these criteria.
My knowledge of Jonestown was based on what I had been told and/or saw on
the news as an eleven-year-old child. Later I would hear Jim Jones sampled
by music groups, and in hindsight the recordings tended to just reinforce
what I already knew: Jim Jones said and did crazy things and supposedly
brainwashed over 900 people into killing themselves. I wanted the tapes
to give me a parallax viewpoint to some of the preconceived ideas I had
about Jonestown. I wanted the tapes to prove or disprove what I had been
told and thought all along. I was truly fascinated by the chance to have
in my hands recordings from Jonestown that few people in the general public
had ever heard. In hindsight, I wanted to be surprised or shocked by the
recordings. I wanted to hear the odd, inane, and crazy things that Jim Jones
and Peoples Temple said and did. I found all of that, and more.
The tapes didn't necessary change my viewpoint, but they made me realize
that everything wasn't so black and white. It was more like a grey scale
of good and bad. A few of the tapes I received were recorded before the
move to Jonestown. They helped me to better understand what sort of ideals
the Temple was built on. I was surprised to hear a lot of references to
socialism, communism, and the evils of capitalism. In the early recordings,
Jones's teachings seem a lot more logical than after the move to Jonestown.
He tends to sound more like an overworked dictator than a leader.
On one Jonestown tape, Jones asks people to explain what they would like
to do to their relatives back in the States. Numerous people speak of torturing
and killing their family members, and other enemies of the Temple. After
each person explains their own special brand of torture and murder, the
entire congregation and Jim Jones starts laughing and cheering. Jones laughs
so hard at times he sounds like a hyena. If the Devil had a laugh, this
is what it would sound like.
The quality and length of the tapes varies, but most of the recordings that
I heard fall within the fair to good category. Pre-Jonestown tapes will
give you a better understanding of what the Temple was all about, while
the Jonestown tapes cover many facets of life, from the mundane to the disturbing.
Tapes Demonstrate Power of Cults, by James Pickup
As an amateur researcher into cults, I have long been aware of the tragedy
at Jonestown in Guyana, and knew that there were extensive recordings of
Jonestown meetings and sermons, but I didn't know how to obtain them until
I did a Google search on the Internet on the subject of "Jonestown" and
found the Father Cares radio special by James Reston, Jr.. This link led
me to Rebecca Moore's website, where I found the listing of tape transcripts.
Jonestown was of particular interest to me because I viewed it as one of
the most severe cult situations of the past century. I felt that the cultic
manifestations -- those manifestations that recur again and again within
all cults -- were at their most extreme in Jonestown . As an example: All
cults manifest a controlled milieu. Members tend to be separated from external
influences and sealed within an environment where all information, social
fellowship and activities are directed at maintaining the cult's "orthodoxy."
Orthodox behavior and, eventually, orthodoxy of thinking result. Certainly
the appearance of orthodoxy becomes necessary. Those with doubts keep their
thoughts to themselves.
In Jonestown this controlled milieu was as extreme as it can get. A sealed
compound, in the jungle, with armed guards, far from civilization. Truly,
once inside Jonestown, escape must have been nigh on impossible, and dissent
inconceivable. The tapes I obtained proved of great interest to me.
The most apparent thing in these tapes is the organizational structure that
was in place for controlling the behavior and modifying the thinking of
the membership. To a large degree, Jim Jones assumes the position of moderator
in community meetings, taking a central course in "debates" and appearing
reasonable. Many of the tapes are "cathartic." Members are constantly singled
out and accused of unorthodox behaviour and thought. It is not Jones who
does the accusing, rather it is other members. Each member of the group
acts as a regulator on every other member.
This is a classic cult manifestation which George Orwell demonstrates at
length in his cult novel 1984. Members spying on each other, squealing on
each other, public accusation, public confession, public humiliation to
regulate thinking, all these cultic manifestations are here, in most extreme
form. One is prompted to think it must have been most similar to Chinese
Communist "thought reform" schools.
Jim Jones is a most extreme example of how a man with good intentions can
go sadly astray. Surely, living in Jonestown must have been living in a
hell on earth.
Jonestown Residents Found A Home, by Christopher Stephens
Jonestown is one of my strongest news-related memories. I was twelve,
living in Central California, when I heard the first reports of U.S. Congressman
Leo Ryan's death. I followed the story to its end and into a few of the
books that appeared on the subject. My interest was innocent and fairly
ghoulish; the second part is still true today.
I arrived at the Jonestown website on a whim. In the late 70s and early
80s, the NPR documentary, "Father Cares," which I had taped on
its original air date, was a frequent late-night listening choice. Soothing
is the only word for it. But I often wondered what came before and after
the short passages excerpted in the program.
Hearing the tapes in their entirety both adds and detracts from their power.
One gets a better sense of Jim Jones' methods and how he used them to devastating
effect. At the same time, one wearies of the more drawn-out sections and
bristles at the accusatory rants.
A dozen hours of Jonestown hasn't made me any more comprehending of the
religious experience than I was 25 years ago: I still believe that faith
is a mistake. Yet, I am more forgiving and have come to think that a person's
life is theirs to live in any way they see fit, and that death is one of
the choices available to us.
It is clear from the tapes that Jim Jones' followers were better with him
than they were without him. That's not to say that he always treated them
in a kind manner, or that they weren't subjected to things they shouldn't
have been. At the same time, they found in him the things they were missing
from their lives: a sense of belonging, security, and love. These things,
even if only in small quantities, can have more importance than a life lived
long. Isn't this one of the lessons of Jonestown?
-
November 19 Tape Adds Perplexing Postscript:
A Commentary by Fielding McGehee, III
Over the years, the Peoples Temple audiotape which has been the subject
of greatest interest -- from researchers, documentarians and curiosity-seekers
-- is the FBI-designated Q 042, better known as "the death tape." While
some casual listeners and conspiracists question elements of the tape's
authenticity, there is little debate about the voices on the recording and
the circumstances under which it was made. Shattered by the departure of
members of two of the oldest and most prominent Peoples Temple families
earlier in the afternoon of November 18, Jim Jones reminds the people of
Jonestown of what brought them to this place, and why they must leave now
by committing "revolutionary suicide."
Even so, the death tape is part of a whole, a period (perhaps an exclamation
point would be a better description) to the life of Peoples Temple. Most
of the other 971 tapes recovered from Jonestown document the history of
the group; they give lessons, either instructional or institutional; they
include loyalty oaths and statements that could be used against people who
defected; they provide entertainment in the form of music or comedy. In
that sense, the death tape is part of the continuum, a final message of
resistance, defiance and political outrage directed to the world outside.
Much more mysterious -- indeed, at this point, unexplained -- is tape Q
875, found along with the hundreds of others at Jonestown. There was apparently
nothing special about the location of the tape, or any differences in appearance
to distinguish it from the others, or anything else. It was just there.
As opposed to all the other tapes, though, this is the only tape made after
the deaths.
Q 875 consists of four broadcast news stories recorded off the air on November
19, 1978, all concerning the deaths of Congressman Leo Ryan and members
of his party "last night" at the Port Kaituma airstrip in Guyana. Two of
the broadcasts are of Guyanese origin, and two are American, including an
ABC broadcast. The first newscast includes "unconfirmed reports reaching
Georgetown" of mass suicide at Jonestown. Later broadcasts said that Temple
attorneys Charles Garry and Mark Lane are safe, although at the time there
was still "nothing [confirmed] about reports of mass suicide in the commune."
Throughout the broadcasts, there are unknown people moving about at the
recording end. Doors open and close, chairs squeak, voices murmur, voices
shush others, there is at least one electronic beep of some duration. More
importantly, the stories coming out of Guyana's Northwest District are the
only items on the tape. As a new story begins, someone tunes the radio to
another station -- ostensibly looking for more coverage? -- then turns the
recording equipment off.
Almost as important, the voices are American. Even though most of the conversation
is unintelligible, there are a couple of exceptions. When the ABC broadcast
cuts to the interview with Autumn Ryan, the congressman's mother, someone
says quietly, "Oh boy." During the third broadcast -- which was the last
on side one -- someone says "Shit" following word that there will be autopsies
done on the bodies at the airstrip. There is no way of knowing whether the
speaker was referring to the decision to perform the autopsies, or was upset
about something else unrelated.
There are many questions which the contents of tape raise but do not answer:
1) Who made the tape? Most of the people at Jonestown were dead. The few
known surviving members of the Jonestown community had left considerably
earlier -- some before the deaths actually started -- or were stunned by
what surrounded them when they returned after escaping to the bush. Yet
the people who made this tape were calm, competent and even methodical in
the recording. On the other hand, there were no confirmed reports of the
mass deaths when the recordings were made. That means it was much too early
for the known Guyanese military or American State Department personnel to
have arrived on the scene. Anyone representing a governmental agency on
the ground at that time was there one or two days earlier than any acknowledged
presence.
2) Where was the tape made? It seems to have been made in the Jonestown
radio room. The space is small with the echoes of an interior setting, there
are sounds of metallic and/or heavy objects being shifted, and there is
an electronic pulse near the end of the last segment. Moreover, the tape
is similar in tone to many of the other tapes made at that location. It
could have been made in the Temple's radio room in Georgetown -- and if
the recorded ABC broadcast was from a television instead of a radio, that
might be more likely -- but that adds an additional layer of questions about
transporting the tape to the Jonestown settlement.
3) What were people doing as they made the tape? The Guyana military personnel
who came into Jonestown on Monday found a contaminated crime scene. There
had been some looting -- attributed to Amerindians and Guyanese living in
the area -- and more looting followed. By the time American military personnel
arrived to clean up the bodies, some buildings had been ransacked, and paper
was strewn everywhere. Were the people who made the tape doing other things
at the same time, cloaking it under the mess of simultaneous vandalism?
4) Why did anyone bother to make a tape? As opposed to the other Jonestown
tapes, this serves no purpose for the Jonestown community. It is an obituary,
written in first person, by the deceased, after death. The motivation for
making the tape defies reasonable explanation.
5) And finally: Why did they leave the tape behind?
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FOIA Developments
Discovery of Temple Tax Numbers Renews IRS Request
Through the efforts of volunteer researcher Denice Stephenson at the
California Historical Society, the editors of the jonestown report have
obtained tax identification numbers for several corporate entities under
which Peoples Temple conducted its business. Armed with this new information,
we have asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to reopen a request for
information on the agency's decision to investigate the Temple's tax-exempt
status in 1978. Our request had been hung up for two years over the issue
of the identification numbers. In addition, we have used these identification
numbers as the basis for a broader FOI request that seeks all IRS records
related to Peoples Temple and its various corporate bodies. The same research
at CHS uncovered tax identification numbers for California state records,
and we have made a similar request for records on Peoples Temple from the
State Franchise Tax Board. All three requests are pending.
Commendation Records May Help Locate Military Files
More than two years after making our first FOI request to the U.S. Army
for records related to its recovery of bodies from Jonestown, the editors
of the jonestown report have unearthed the first documentation of the service's
role in the operation. In November 1978, acting in coordination with the
U.S. Air Force, the Army asked for volunteers for the Joint Humanitarian
Task Force to remove the bodies and prepare them for transport to the U.S.
Nevertheless, upwards of 20 Army offices to which our FOI requests were
referred could find no record of the operation.
Eventually, one FOI caseworker told us that the Army's Southern Command
record-keeping had been so shabby during that time period -- not just on
the humanitarian effort, but on all SOUTHCOM operations -- that a congressional
committee held hearings into the matter and publicly chastised the command.
In the meantime, one former Army sergeant who volunteered for the operation
wrote about his experiences. On behalf of Jeff Brailey, author of the book,
The Ghosts of November, we asked the National Personnel Records Center
for the former sergeant's military service records. Noting that the released
material included references to the commendations Sgt. Brailey earned during
the bodylift operation, we have returned to NPRC to ask for original orders
and other records related to the medals. That request, made early in October
2002, is still pending.
National Archives Releases One Document, Cites 30-Year Rule for Bulk
of Material
Responding to a request which the editors of the jonestown report made
under FOIA for records related to Peoples Temple and Jonestown, the National
Archives released a seven-page declassified memo from 1987 in which the
State Department detailed "Soviet efforts to discredit the US." Among the
campaigns "that are likely to have some play," the memo said, was publicity
for a Russian-language book -- entitled The Murder of Jonestown: A CIA
Crime -- which charges that the U.S. intelligence agency engineered
the deaths in Guyana. The reason for the CIA action was to prevent Temple
members from following through on their request to emigrate to the Soviet
Union, a charge which State feared would resonate in Eastern Europe.
Other than the memo, the National Archives said that it generally does not
receive records from agencies of the U.S. government until they are considered
"no longer necessary for the conduct of agency business." In general, the
Archives reported, that occurs when the records are 30 years old. The Archives
said it expected to receive State Department records on Jonestown eventually,
but that -- as with most records it houses -- they would be indexed according
to the originating agency's cataloguing systems. In addition, the Archives
said it would provide general information about its collections but did
not the capability to assist with additional research services.
Other Requests Also Pending:
A request to the Central Intelligence Agency for all agency records
related to Peoples Temple, Jonestown, and the Rev. James W. Jones. This
seemingly-sweeping request in reality asks the CIA for little more than
to reconsider its earlier decisions to withhold most of the records it located
immediately after the deaths in Jonestown.
A request to the Criminal Division of the Justice Department for
all government records related to the trials of Larry Layton. This request
ended up involving other divisions as well -- among them, the Office of
International Affairs, and Violent Crime and Terrorism division -- but an
agency spokesman reported that the materials have been gathered at one place
for review.
A request to the State Department for copies of all passports recovered
in Guyana following the deaths in Jonestown. State recently granted a fee
waiver on this request and has begun to process the material.
A second request to the State Department for all materials which
U.S. Embassy personnel removed from Jonestown and did not turn over immediately
to the FBI. As with the previous request, State recently granted a fee waiver
and has started its search for the records.
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Databank Explores Jonestown Population
An extensive demographic analysis confirms previous studies and reveals
new information about the make-up of Peoples Temple and Jonestown.
Compiled from government documents from the State Department and the FBI,
as well as from Temple membership records and census data maintained in
Jonestown, a computer database shows that two-thirds of those living in
Guyana were African American, with 24% white, 5% mixed race, and 3% other.
The analysis also graphically shows the predominance of children living
in Jonestown, with 365 children under the age of 20. This compares to a
corresponding "bump" in the number of people over the age of 60, which make
up 211 of the Temple population in Guyana.
What is most striking is the interconnection of family and kinship groups.
The data indicate a high degree of affectivity in Jonestown: in plain English,
almost everyone had some sort of relative present. This is in contrast to
other alternative religions coming out of the 1960s and 1970s, which attracted
unattached young white members.
Confirming previous analyses of Jonestown's residents, the study shows a
strong southern black presence in the geographical distribution of birthplaces,
with 345 people, or about one-third of Jonestown's population, coming from
nine southern or border states. An overwhelming percentage of this group
-- 93% -- were African American, and about half were 60 and older.
These statistics will appear in the forthcoming book Peoples Temple and
Black Religion in America, and were presented in part at the November
2002 meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Salt
Lake City.
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Large Caches of Documents Available through
FOIA
After many years of filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act
for documents which federal government agencies have on Peoples Temple and
Jonestown, the editors of the jonestown report have uncovered five major
collections of records. Those records include the following:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has released over 48,000 pages
of documents on three compact disks. The records, which are unindexed, includes
Peoples Temple documents which the FBI collected at Jonestown following
the mass deaths of November 1978, and the records of its investigation into
Ryan's assassination. You can request your own set of CD's from the FBI
through the following address: Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Section,
Office of Public and Congressional Affairs, FBI, Washington, DC 20535-0001.
You may get a faster response if your letter notes that the CD's have already
been released in response to FOIA Request #902718, filed by Rebecca Moore
and Fielding M. McGehee III. The cost of the set of CD's is approximately
$30.
The FBI also has more than 900 Peoples Temple audiotapes which it
recovered from Jonestown. All are currently available under FOIA. However,
the editors of the jonestown report have over 400 on hand, and will receive
the balance of the collection in coming years. You can review the FBI's
summaries of the tapes at
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/tapes/fbi.html. This link will also indicate
which tapes we have available for duplication, which we have transcribed
and summarized, and which were initially withheld from release, pending
the trials of Larry Layton. While the FBI will respond to FOIA requests
for individual tapes, you will receive faster service if you order the tapes
we have in our possession directly from us. Tapes are $2 each, including
shipping. Contact us about rates for bulk orders. Write Fielding McGehee,
3553 Eugene Place, San Diego, CA 92116.
The U.S. Air Force has released four rolls of microfilm related to
the military's participation in the airlift of bodies from Jonestown in
1978. As with the material from the FBI and State Department, there is no
index or guide to the materials, although most of it seems to be related
to military activities following the deaths -- such as the body identification
processes and airlifting -- rather than any military interest in Peoples
Temple prior to November 18, 1978. The microfilm may be obtained directly
from the Air Force Historical Research Agency/ISR, 600 Chennault Circle,
Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424. You may refer to FOIA request #00-0472 filed
by Rebecca Moore for faster service. The cost of the microfilm is $30 per
roll, or $120 for the entire set. The Air Force responded favorably to our
request for a fee waiver under the public interest provision of the FOIA.
The State Department has released approximately 5000 pages of agency
records on microfiche. As with the FBI's records, the microfiche pages are
unindexed, although there are four broad catalogue areas. The largest collection,
representing 50 of the 62 microfiche pages, includes raw agency records
such as cables between the U.S. and the American Embassy in Guyana and Peoples
Temple records gathered by State Department personnel. You can request any
or all of the microfiche records through the following address: Office of
IRM Programs and Services, Department of State, Room 1512, 2201 C St., N.W.,
Washington, DC 20520-1512. You may get a faster response if your letter
notes that the records have already been released in response to FOIA Request
#199804155, filed by Fielding M. McGehee III.
The Federal Communications Commission released approximately 25 audiotapes
to the editors of the jonestown report. The tapes include ham radio transmissions
between Temple members, primarily the radio traffic between California and
Guyana. This represents all the tapes in the FCC's possession, except for
four long tapes recorded at various speeds, and for which the cost of duplication
is prohibitive. Most were recorded off air by FCC engineers, and the quality
of the audio is sometimes poor. As with the tapes in the FBI's possession,
you will receive faster service if you order the FCC's tapes directly from
us. Tapes are $2 each, including shipping. Write Fielding McGehee, 3553
Eugene Place, San Diego, CA 92116.
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Speakers (in alphabetical order)
The following individuals have agreed to speak with researchers, scholars,
and members of the media about their experiences in Peoples Temple.
Please note: some of these email addresses may no longer be operational.
Tim Carter lived in Jonestown and escaped on the
final day:
starray999@yahoo.com
Laurie Efrein Kahalas, a long-time Temple member
and author of Snake Dance, maintains the website
jonestown.com:
ddkahalas@hotmail.com
Laura (Johnston) Kohl lived in Jonestown but
was in Georgetown on 18 November:
lkohl1920@hotmail.com
Bryan and Kristine (Johnson Tarver) Kravitz, long-time
Temple members, were living in San Francisco in 1978:
kbbsherdt@yahoo.com;
phone 650-345-2056
Jim Jones, Jr., adopted African American son of the
Rev. Jim Jones, grew up in Peoples Temple and lived in Jonestown, but was
in Georgetown on 18 November:
JONES_JAMES_W@Lilly.com
Deborah Layton, former member who left Jonestown
and encouraged Rep. Leo Ryan to investigate the community, is the author
of Seductive Poison:
seductivepoison.com;
peoplestemple.com; or
deborahlayton.com
Vera (Ingram) Washington was a member of Peoples
Temple for several years but left in 1973 because of conflicts she had with
the leadership of the group:
verabw@yahoo.com
The following scholars have agreed to talk with researchers, scholars, and
members of the media concerning their research into Peoples Temple and Jonestown.
John R. Hall, Department of Sociology, University
of California - Davis, Davis, CA 95616; e-mail
jrhall@ucdavis.edu
Massimo Introvigne, CESNUR - Center for Studies
on New Religions, Via Juvarra 20, Torino, Italy 10122; telephone 39-011-541905;
e-mail
cesnur@tin.it
Rebecca Moore, Department of Religious Studies,
San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 92182-8143;
telephone 619/594-6252; e-mail
remoore@mail.sdsu.edu
Catherine Wessinger, Department of Religious Studies, Loyola University,
6363 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118; telephone 504/865-3182;
e-mail
wessing@loyno.edu
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Obituaries
Cyrus Vance, who was Secretary of State under
President Jimmy Carter at the time of the deaths in Jonestown, died in January
2002 after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. He was 84. The State
Department -- both in Washington and through the American Embassy in Georgetown,
Guyana -- was involved in many negotiations between Jonestown residents
and relatives who expressed concern about their safety.
While many relatives and their congressional representatives directed pleas
for intervention to Mr. Vance, there is no indication that he himself knew
anything of Jonestown before November 18, 1978. Within 48 hours of the deaths
in Jonestown, however, Mr. Vance had asked the Guyana government for an
immediate burial of the bodies in a mass grave, citing health and cost as
the reasons for his request. The Guyana government balked at the idea, and
to facilitate removal of the bodies, waived its requirement that victims
of non-natural death receive autopsies. By Tuesday, November 21, both Mr.
Vance and Defense Secretary Harold Brown had agreed that the bodies should
be evacuated to the U.S. Nevertheless, according to U.S. government forensic
pathologists, the disruption caused by the initial request for the mass
grave and the haste to remove the bodies before Vance changed his mind,
resulted in inadequate -- even non-existent -- examination of the bodies
on the ground at Jonestown. Such examination might have answered many questions
about the nature and circumstances of the deaths, both military and civilian
pathologists have said.
The editors of the jonestown report have also learned of the following deaths:
Richard Cordell, who left Jonestown in the spring of 1978, died in
December 1983. His wife Barbara and three of their four children died in
Jonestown. His remaining son, Mark, survived his father's death.
Beverly Oliver, who, together with her husband Howard Oliver,
was active with the Concerned Relatives organization in an effort to remove
her sons, Bruce and Bill, from Jonestown, died recently. Bruce and Bill
died in Jonestown; Howard Oliver pre-deceased his wife.
Helen Swinney, a Jonestown survivor, died recently in South Carolina.
She was in her late 80's. Her husband and two children died in Jonestown.
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Study Reveals Lack of Social Security Fraud
Contrary to reports published after the deaths in Jonestown in November
1978, there was little (if any) fraud involving Social Security recipients
or benefits, according to a study recently completed by the editors of the
jonestown report.
In a letter of 26 April 1979 to the House Foreign Affairs Committee -- which
was reprinted in the committee's May 1979 report on The Assassination of
Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy -- a Social
Security Administration official said the agency had "identified 199 SSA
beneficiaries who were in Jonestown, Guyana at the time of the disaster."
Although the letter did not include the names, there was a listing printed
elsewhere in the report of 656 uncashed government checks which were recovered
from Jonestown. From that, we compiled an independent tally, which arrived
at an approximate number of 203 SSA beneficiaries.
Our analysis of these checks led to several conclusions:
1) The checks show how much the Social Security recipients -- especially
the seniors -- contributed to the day-to-day functioning of the Jonestown
community of which they were part. The amount of more than $36,000 which
the beneficiaries received in September 1978, for example, was not the same
every month, but it approximates what the Temple leadership knew it could
depend upon each month for the agricultural mission at Jonestown.
2) It shows the gravity of the threat the community perceived from Temple
antagonists, especially the Concerned Relatives, who had lobbied the Social
Security Administration -- as well as the Customs Service, the U.S. Postal
Service, the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms,
and the Internal Revenue Service -- to launch investigations of the Temple.
3) The study also revealed the absence of fraud regarding the legitimacy
of Social Security benefits, at least on the surface. Jonestown was apparently
complying with its obligations to notify the SSA of deaths in the community,
since the only uncashed check for Chlotile Butler, who had died of natural
causes earlier that year, dated from March. With one notable exception,
the identity of everyone else on the Embassy compilation is known. Only
the name of Clara Winters is unknown to us, and that may be due to the lack
of completion to our research into Peoples Temple dead and surviving members.
The complete study may be found online at
http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/FAQ/q_social.htm.
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History Channel to Air Jonestown Segment, 13 December
2002
From ancient history to pop culture, one week in time holds an amazing
wealth of history. The History Channel's "This Week In History" gathers
triumphs, tragedies, and trivia together into an hour-long program of fast-paced
news from the past.
In an upcoming episode of "This Week in History" the tragedy of Jonestown
is revisited by two members who were fortunate enough to survive. In this
ten-minute segment Tim Carter and Leslie (Wilson) Fortier tell their remarkable
stories of how they managed to escape Jonestown alive.
This episode of "This Week in History" will air De
cember 13, 2002 at 8pm EST (check your local listings for additional airings).
-- Pinball Productions