[Ed. note: In March 1979, four months after the deaths in Jonestown, Michael Prokes – Jonestown survivor, longtime Temple press contact and spokesperson, and former journalist ­– arranged a press conference in a Modesto, California motel room. Eight reporters attended. After reading a statement, Prokes excused himself, went into the bathroom, closed the door, turned on the faucet, and shot himself in the head.

In the days before his suicide, Prokes wrote notes to several people, enclosing a thirty-page statement he had written about Peoples Temple. One note went to San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, who reprinted the note he received:

“The ‘total dedication’ you once observed of me was not to Jim Jones – it was to an organization of people who had nothing left to lose. No matter what view one takes of the Temple, perhaps the most relevant truth is that it was filled with outcasts and the poor who were looking for something they could not find in our society.

“And sadly enough, there are millions more out there with all kinds of different, but desperate needs whose lives will end tragically, as happens every day. No matter how you cut it, you just can’t separate Jonestown from America, because the Peoples Temple was not born in a vacuum, and despite the attempt to isolate it, neither did it end in one.”

Prokes also sent a copy of his statement to Temple attorney Charles Garry. The text of a handwritten cover note dated March 13, 1979 follows:

“Charles–

“I just wanted to thank you and everyone there for all the help you’ve been to my friends.

“You’ve been a tremendous comfort when it was needed most.

“Please take care of yourself and thanks once again for your steadfast support.

“Very gratefully, Mike Prokes

“P.S. You may not agree with all my perceptions in the enclosed materials, but – for what it’s they’re worth – it’s an honest effort.”

Much of the first part of Prokes’ press statement spoke to the existence of a tape which captured the final hour of the Jonestown community. Despite his belief that the tape would never see the light of day, it was eventually released to the public, along with more than 900 other tapes recovered from the site of the mass deaths. This website includes various versions of the transcript of the so-called “death tape,” along with a summary and an analysis. That tape, together with transcriptions and summaries of other Jonestown tapes, may be found at http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/tapes/tapes.htm.

In addition to his unsigned statement to the press, Prokes attached several pages of transcripts from radio interviews following the deaths, as well as press releases which he most likely wrote during his tenure as Temple press contact. Several of these materials follow.]

---

Prokes’ Statement to the Press

Why did Jonestown end the way it did? I believe at least a good part of that answer can be found on the tape recording of the last hour of life in Jonestown. Unfortunately, the tape has never been played publicly and is being kept locked up by either the Attorney General’s office or the F.B.I. But I don’t find that surprising in light of what an American Embassy officer told me was on that tape. Last December at the Matthews Ridge Guest House (located about 40 miles from Jonestown), a young man attached to the American Embassy named Charles English (who is 27 years old and had spent one year in Foreign Service) described parts of the tape to myself, Tim Carter and two reporters whose names I can’t recall. Probably the most significant thing he said was that he thought the tape would never be played publicly because it would be an embarrassment to the United States. He said it reveals that the people of Jonestown were not coerced into taking their lives, but rather the deaths resulted basically from a collective decision based upon the perception that the community was doomed and there was no use to continue. English said that while he and a number of others were listening to the tape in Georgetown, U. S. Ambassador John Burke came into the room and also listened to it. When it was finished, Burke told those in the room, in no uncertain terms, that they had better not breathe a word of what they heard. He then took the tape into his personal custody.

Another official, the man who headed the Guyanese end of the investigation into Jonestown, corroborated what English said was on the tape. But he went even beyond what English said. Skip Roberts (Guyana’s Crime Chief) told me in a private conversation, the day before I left Guyana, that the tape showed solidarity of the people of Jonestown. He said he was deeply moved by what he heard. He said that if he were in Jonestown at the time of the deaths, he could see how he would have willingly died with the people, had he been part of the community. Moreover, he told me he believed there was some outside plan to destroy Jonestown.

This was no crackpot making wild statements, but Guyana’s number two law enforcement official, trained by academies in the U.S., who is highly respected and has a reputation for being incorruptible. But it’s doubtful that he can admit publicly the things he said to me in private. He may do it but it’s a touchy political issue. Guyana feels it can ill afford to offend or embarrass the U.S. while it has an outstanding I.M.F. loan and is seeking additional aid. (English of course would be risking his position to admit what he told us about the tape and Ambassador Burke.)

But if there is nothing to hide, then whoever has the tape should be willing to make it public. It seems to me that a recording of the last hour of life for over 900 people is extremely relevant and crucial for the public to hear. I have no doubt whatsoever that the recording was made intentionally. It was found on the tape machine in the pavilion, where meetings are were normally recorded and where it was in full view of scores of people. Jones asked that all meetings be recorded and I have no doubt that the last meeting was any exception because I believe he wanted to leave something that would prove why the people died. An article in Rolling Stone magazine said it concisely: It stated, “The mass suicides of history, Masada and Saipan, had occurred when a people were under siege and surrounded by enemies. Jones and the people of Jonestown were no exception: for months they had been harassed, persecuted, surrounded and besieged by shadow forces. When the final attack was imminent and undeniable, they chose to die.”

I believe the tape will corroborate this, and I am convinced that its contents have been deliberately misrepresented to the press. Why is it being kept locked up? Because its contents would help to reveal the truth about Jonestown, that’s why. The press should demand that the tape be made public. I’m not talking about a transcript, either, because the Embassy officer (Chas. English) said a transcript would not give an accurate portrayal of what was going on – there were too many overlapping voices. In order to be properly evaluated and understood, the entire 50 minutes of the original tape should be played to the press, unedited and uncensored. (The Guyanese were provided a copy of the tape by American officials, but it may not be the same one Skip Roberts heard.)

It would take a lot of pressure for that tape to be played because I believe, from the accounts I’ve been given, it would reveal too clearly something that the government does not want to admit, and cannot admit – that Jonestown represents a symbol of the massive institutional failure of this country to meet the needs of its own citizens. It’s no coincidence that most of the members of Peoples Temple were black, when you consider that most of the inhabitants of the huge slums and ghettoes in virtually every large city of America are black. They don’t like living in misery and if they could get out they would, but they aren’t being provided the opportunities they need to do so. That’s why so many blacks joined Peoples Temple – it provided the opportunity to escape the misery of their lives in the ghetto. Jim Jones jumped into the vacuum created by the failure of this system to meet the needs of its black people. He then met those needs that had been neglected and gave the credit to socialism. The U.S. intelligence apparatus would obviously feel duty-bound to stop him, particularly in light of their history and reputation for going after progressive political and civil rights organizations.

Beyond the satisfaction of their material needs, people found dignity and pride in the Temple that racism had previously denied them. But attempts to deny Temple members their new found freedom – and to us it was freedom – still persisted even after the move was made to another country. And that’s why so many chose to die in the end. It was a moral act of courage and commitment to their beliefs. They were saying, “We’re not going to take anymore. We’ll die by our own hand rather than be destroyed or broken-up by the long arm of the oppressor.”

What I’m saying is that the reason so many people died and took their children’s lives is because they believed their community – that they had built with their own hands – was under siege by the United States government, which I agree was the case. The State Dept. was well aware of the Temple’s negotiations to move to the Soviet Union in order to escape the threats to its security in Guyana. Undoubtedly the State Dept. and the CIA wanted to prevent a tremendous Soviet propaganda victory based upon nearly 1000 Americans moving to the Soviet Union in quest of the Human Rights they had been denied in the U.S. But to what lengths was the State Dept. prepared to go to discredit Jonestown? Would they sacrifice a congressman? Evidently. Otherwise, why did they allow Congressman Ryan to go to Jonestown when they were told in a legal affidavit that there [were] arms there and they knew the visit would be considered an act of provocation. Why did they allow it? Because the State Dept. wanted an incident. Well, they got it. I’m not even convinced that they got more than they bargained for, since the affidavit also told of suicide rehearsals – and warned the State Dept. that they should be taken seriously. Moreover, in a letter from Peoples Temple to the State Dept., it was stated that Temple members would rather die than be harassed from continent to continent. The State Dept. purposely called the bluff by sending Ryan; it was a deliberate act of provocation.

I believe in the basic rightness of the life and work that went on in Jonestown, and I can’t disassociate myself from the people who died, nor do I want to. They were beautiful people who cared about each other and who identified with all people who suffer oppression and persecution around the world. Jonestown functioned on a high level of ethical behaviour and human devotion that you had to see and experience in order to comprehend. The rights of the individual were respected and defended; sharing and concern for others was a requirement. These things were like a code of the community. The people weren’t brainwashed fanatics or cultists – the Temple was not a cult. It was a political organization that built its own socialist community. It might be fair to say they were fanatical in one sense: After moving 6000 miles to get away from racism and harassment, they weren’t going to be pushed around anymore. Maybe it sounds trite but they were saying basically the same thing as Patrick Henry, that is, “Let us have our freedom, or we will die.” But the State Dept. and C.I.A. couldn’t afford to let such a large group of socialists from the United States find freedom in another land. So they harassed us by sending their lackeys, through Tim Stoen, to Guyana and deliberately played upon the paranoia that existed in Jonestown, until they finally got what they wanted.

The truth about Jonestown is being covered up because our government agencies were involved in its destruction up to their necks. I am convinced of this because, among many other reasons, I was an informant when I first joined Peoples Temple. I didn’t remain one, however, because I came to realize that the Temple was probably the only hope for the many people it was helping off the streets, off of drugs, out of crime, and out of mental institutions, jails, and prisons. I learned to identify with these people until they became my brothers and sisters and then I understood what it meant to be black and old and poor in this society – the hell of living everyday in fear.

The people of Jonestown died – as one suicide note said – because they weren’t allowed to live in peace. They died because they didn’t want to be left with no choice but to come back to live in the rat-infested ghettoes of America. They died for all those who suffer oppression. I refuse to let my black brothers and sisters and others in Jonestown, die in vain.

[Ed. note: Mike Prokes had been a television newsman in Modesto who first contacted Peoples Temple in October 1972 to do a story – although some have described his intent as wanting to do an exposé – on Jim Jones. In an additional statement appended to the press release, Prokes described another role he initially assumed when he first entered the Temple: that of an informant for an unknown government agency.]

In October of 1972, I called Jim Jones’ house at the number listed in Redwood Valley to try to set up an interview with him for the news. I talked with a woman, a senior named Ester [Esther] Mueller, who Jones had taken in. I told her of my interest and she suggested I call the S.F. Temple where Jones was at that time. I called but was told to call back on the weekend. A few days later I received a call at my office from a man who asked if I would meet with him to discuss the Peoples Temple. I found the request very curious; I said o.k. and we met the next day in a Stockton restaurant. The man told me his name was Gary Jackson. I asked him what he did and he said that he worked for the government, but I couldn’t get him to be more specific. He asked what prompted my interest in Peoples Temple. I asked him how he knew that I was interested in the Temple. He paused for a few moments, then said something to the effect – “There are ways if you think about it.” The answer was obvious – Jim Jones’ phone was tapped. I told him that a series of articles in the S.F. Examiner prompted my interest. I said I wanted to look into some of the things the articles said about Jones and the Temple, and if I found them to be true, I was planning to do an exposé for our TV news program. Jackson (somehow I doubt that was his real name) said there was a lot more to the Temple than what the Examiner wrote. He said it was a revolutionary organization led by a dangerous man, bent on destroying our system of government. He talked to me a while longer, telling me various things Jones had supposedly said and done, then he made a proposal. He said if I could be successful at joining the Temple full-time as a staff member and report regularly on what was going on inside the organization, he would arrange for me to be paid $200 a week.

In thinking back upon it, I must have been checked-out and considered to be a good prospect since I had been a dedicated Christian churchgoer, attended college in conservative Orange County, good student with no involvement in any kind of organization or activity that could be considered “questionable.” I told the man that I found his offer intriguing, but that I first wanted to pay a visit to the Temple. He agreed, saying I wouldn’t be able to join on the first visit anyway. But he said I wouldn’t be able to get a good picture of the organization until I was inside it, because the public meetings were only so much posturing. I arranged to attend a service at which I heard Jones preach. Later, I got to talk with him privately. I was surprised to hear him speak so openly against the system in my presence, particularly so soon after the negative publicity about him. But I was fascinated by his ministry and I thought it would make great stuff for a book or screenplay, which I thought I might like to write. I talked with Jones for at least two hours. I asked him if he needed more staff. He said he could use as many as were willing to work voluntarily with the Temple providing only living expenses. I told him it was something I wanted to give serious thought to, and he said he would be thrilled to have me.

Jackson called me a couple of days later and I told him I was going to quit my job and accept his offer. I didn’t tell him I wanted to write a book about the Temple. Arrangements were made for me to be paid (the payments were left for me at various predesignated locations, always in the form of cash enclosed in plain white envelopes.) My reports were made verbally (from pay phones at which I was called) because it was too risky to write anything, as there was a lot of suspicion in the Temple (as one might imagine) of a reporter who quit his rather prestigious job as a bureau chief to join an organization that didn’t pay any salaries.

As time passed, I gradually began to feel conflict over my role as an informant, even though I wasn’t providing what one might call valuable or sensitive information. I was starting to identify with the problems and sufferings of the members. As I observed various one’s troubles being resolved by the Temple’s program, the conflict I was feeling turned to guilt. I had been watching Jones for sometime, as closely as possible without drawing attention to myself. His schedule was unbelievable. He was up at all hours, calling people on the phone, consulting, reading reports, and staying in touch with every phase of the organization. It was obvious he worked harder than anyone – but I questioned his motives. Personally, I didn’t like the man after the first few months I was in the Temple. But I recognized that it was for reasons that were subjective and which I didn’t want to affect my judgment of his character. One thing I was noticing was that he was almost always the first to notice someone’s need and point it out – a senior in a packed auditorium without a chair, for example, or inquiries into interest in someone’s health who lived alone. He was always dealing with needs and often ones that weren’t obvious to others. He seemed unusually sensitive. Every time I saw him he was expressing concern, or doing something for someone or asking that it be done. But he didn’t leave it at that. He was keen on following-up on whether the thing he had asked be done for someone, was actually carried out. Still, in view of all this, I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. I had to be sure about him.

One day I had taken some letters to his apartment in the S.F. Temple just as he was coming out the door. He was late for an appointment, so he told me to put the letter[s] on a table inside. He left and then I went out. I started back to my office and then changed my mind and went downstairs to get a drink from the water fountain. Down the hall I noticed Jones had stopped and watched for a moment as an elderly woman moved slowly up another staircase. Jones didn’t see me as he was facing the other way, and there was no one else around. Even though he was late for his appointment, he was going to take another five minutes to help that woman up the long flight of stairs (She could not have seen Jones as her back was to him.) He went up and began assisting her and then I intervened and told him to go ahead to his appointment. That act of kindness did it for me. I had become virtually convinced of Jones’ sincerity. I had finally seen him do something in private that I had suspected he only did in public or when others were around to see it. I became even more convinced of his basic integrity on subsequent occasions in which I observed his actions – for example, toward animals – when he was unaware that I (or anyone for that matter) was around.

But that first occasion was enough for me. I could no longer justify informing on Jones and his organization. During my next contact, I told Jackson what I thought of Jones and he desperately tried to convince me I was wrong. I told him I had to act according to what I had seen and experienced, and my conscience simply wouldn’t allow me to continue selling information that might be used against an organization I believed in. I told him that even though I didn’t particularly care for Jones and I didn’t agree with some ways in which his organization was run, I felt it was making tremendous achievements in terms of human rehabilitation and improvement in the quality of peoples lives and character. He asked me what I planned to do. I told him I was going to stay with the Temple and possibly write a book about it. He urged me not to tell Jones about him and I told him I saw no reason why I should do that unless I suspected someone else was taking my place.

[Ed. note: This attachment to Prokes’ statement is a transcript of a statement that Temple attorney Mark Lane made on KGO Radio in January 1979, two months after the deaths. At the time of Mr. Lane’s statement, the government’s investigations – both investigative and oversight – were just getting underway: the House Foreign Affairs Committee would issue its report four months later; the Treasury’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was investigating reports of an arsenal and gun-running in Jonestown; the Justice Department was contemplating, but had not filed any criminal indictments pending Guyana’s prosecution against Larry Layton, Charles Beikman, and Stephan Jones – and of those three, only Layton was tried in the U.S. – and the State Department was conducting its own probe into what its Embassy staff knew.

The affidavit made by Debby Blakey and referred to by Mark Lane was filed in May 1978, six months before the deaths. It was both a fundamental reason for Mr. Ryan’s trip to Guyana and an omen of what might happen if he went. The affidavit is elsewhere on this website.

The Prokes attachment follows.]

Mark Lane on KGO AM Program Wed., Jan. 31^st [1979].

There is a continuing operation by American intelligence to focus attention away from what really happened in Jonestown, away from their role in the murders of over 900 Americans in Jonestown, onto peripheral questions. And they are using their friends, what they refer to in the C.I.A. documents as our assets at CBS, our assets at the C.I.A., our assets at the New York Times, to prevent the facts from being known.

I begged Congressman Ryan not to go; I called his office in San Mateo and asked him not to go; I wrote a letter to him telling him that Jim Jones would see his visit as a provocation; I called Jim Scholar [Schollaert] of the House International Relations [Foreign Affairs] Committee and said that if Ryan went down there Jones would see it as a great provocation – could they at least put it off for several weeks. I told them that Jim Jones was very ill and under the circumstances he would see it as a provocation. Why did they go? In the face of those warnings, in the face of the fact that Debbie Blakey, a high-ranking official who defected from Peoples Temple in May of last year, went to Richard McCoy, then of the American Embassy, previously with Air Force intelligence for six years in the Office of Special Investigations of the U.S. Air Force, she went to him and said there are two or three hundred semi-automatic weapons in there, 25 pistols, a homemade bazooka, the lives of the people are in danger – they practice suicide. Now she told that to the State Dept.

Why did he go? Because he went to the State Dept. and Mr. McCoy of Air Force Intelligence, of the American Embassy, and then of the Guyana Desk in the State Dept., said it’s perfectly safe down there. He knew when he sent Ryan in there, he knew that Ryan might be killed. He knew of the mass suicide drill – that was discussed on radio broadcasts from Jonestown and the FCC during that entire year of 1977-78, those two years, had monitored the broadcasts from their Douglas Arizona Proving Station, about this there is no question, the FCC admits that, many people had told him that. What did he tell Congressman Ryan who raised the question. After all, I had begged him not to go. I said that it would be seen as a provocation. What did McCoy say to him? McCoy said, “Congressman Ryan, the only problems you may have down there, you will find the food and housing accommodations may not be up to your standards.[”] Why did the State Dept. send Mr. Ryan down there after I begged him not to go?”
[Ed. note: The following typed statement was also part of the package which Prokes sent to Temple attorney Charles Garry. A handwritten note by Guyanese journalist Mohammed Hamaludin – now a columnist with the Miami Herald – at the top of the page has been photocopied into illegibility, as is part of the first line which may tell where the transcript originated.]

(for broadcast 25/11/78 [November 25, 1978])

Peoples Temple

It will be a long time before the truth about the Peoples Temple mass suicides and murders is fully known.

What is certain at this time, at least according to the investigators, is that at least 775 men, women and children perished in a single night of horror in their remote jungle commune.

The Temple and its members were wrapped in a virtual blanket of secrecy, and the distant location of their agricultural settlement, Jonestown, strengthened their privacy.

But this secrecy has followed them into death and is providing fertile ground for speculation as to what led to the virtual liquidation of the organization in the most final way.

The grim adjectives that followed Jim Jones and his people in life follow them into death also, and establishment churches and political organizations compete to denounce them.

Often overlooked in the speculation is the history of persecution against which the organization protested for many years.

The situation had reached the stage over the past year or so where virtually all the Temple’s spare time, and even some that could not be spared, had to be dedicated to countering allegations from many directions.

The allegations, which the Temple saw as high-pressure harassment, persisted even after they were, from time to time, rejected not only by the organization but also by outsiders invited to see for themselves.

Peoples Temple was, indeed, a community of human beings virtually under siege for many long months.

Those who met some of the senior members, including the leader, Jim Jones, could not help feeling [that] they existed with a siege mentality and that they could not go on in that way forever.

Investigators are beginning to agree that the Jonestown deaths took place because the critical point had been reached with the visit by Congressman Leo Ryan and the American press, and it was triggered by an attempt to stab Mr. Ryan in the settlement.

After that, the organization apparently felt that there was no use going on, and a death plan was put into operation.

It appears that many of them killed themselves while others were forced to do so. The plan started with the babies and young children who were first killed, the investigators believe.

What causes the world to recoil is this bizarre act of defiance which the Temple staged as the final solution to its problem.

The Temple must have been living for some time with the knowledge that one day, the death plan would have had to be put into operation.

They would have known that, even as they lived, loved, reared children, and farmed on the commune.

This is a rather unique sort of theology. Most religions preach the celebration of life and the sanctity of life.

Peoples Temple apparently respected life but was prepared to end it all if necessary, as its last act of defiance against the persecution which it suffered as a non-conformist religious organization with a leftwing political ideology.

It would appear that, by dying, the Temple has proved its point.

The conscience of the world refused to stir when the Temple cried out against persecution.

Now, instead of searching itself [handwritten addition: “and its conscience”], the world is persecuting the Temple even in death [line crossed out], and some have begun fresh harassment of other groups which do not conform.

The world is still a very long way from the tolerance and understanding which even the establishment religions preach.

The self destruction of the Peoples Temple is hardly likely to change that.

But it will certainly stand as an eternal monument to it, and of man’s inhumanity to man.

The violence which the Peoples Temple did to itself should serve to remind the world that there are some people always willing to die for what they believe in.