Jonestown Audiotape
Primary Project : Summaries
Summary
prepared by Fielding
M. McGehee, III. If you
use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
Tape Number : Q 167
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Tape Number Q 167
FBI Catalogue Jones Speaking
FBI preliminary tape identification note: Labeled in part “News 10/29/78”
Date cues on tape: News items consistent with tape box label
People named:
Public figures/National and international names:
Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
James Schlesinger, U.S. Energy Secretary
Josef Stalin, former Soviet dictator
Andrei Gromyko, Soviet Foreign Minister
Todor Zhivkov, President of Bulgaria (by reference)
Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister
Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt
Jomo Kenyatta, president of Kenya
Charles Mugane Njonjo, Kenya Attorney General
Daniel arap Moi, successor to Jomo Kenyatta (by reference)
Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania
Mustapha Ould Salek, Mauritania head of state (by reference)
Agostinho Neto, President of Angola
Mengistu Haile Mariam, president of Ethiopia
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President of France
Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, father of Nobel Peace Prize
Jonestown residents:
Vernetta Christian
Bible verses cited: None
Summary:
(This tape was transcribed by Shannon Howard. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)
Jim Jones reads the news during a time of apparently great personal distress. Whether he is ill, is fatigued, or is drugged, his reading speed is slow and deliberate, and even then is often halting or disjointed. He struggles with simple words, sometimes repeating a phrase, and gets lost in the text on at least one occasion. “Where was I at this time?” he asks himself after a pause.
There are a few occasions that his voice strengthens and becomes more self-assured, however, usually when he is making spontaneous editorial comments about a news item he has just read. In addition, the last few minutes of the tape – when he returns to the microphone to issue instructions about cleaning up Jonestown in anticipation of the arrival of guests – his tone is consistently steady.
The news items include:
• A meeting between the Soviet Foreign Minister and the French President about US nuclear programs
• The increasing cost of living in the US and President Carter’s call for a cap on wage increases
• Plots to kills leaders of Kenya are thwarted
• The WHO announces the eradication of smallpox
• Attempts to settle ongoing conflicts in the Western Sahara
• Angolan rebels prevent the opening of a railroad
• Anwar Sadat and Menachim Begin awarded Nobel Peace Prize “today”
• Uganda-Tanzanian border dispute Trouble spots in Iran, Nicaragua, and Houston, Texas
FBI Summary:
JIM JONES providing a monologue on current world events.
Differences with FBI Summary:
The summary is accurate and meets the FBI’s purposes.