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Jonestown
Dismantling the
Disinformation
By LAURIE EFREIN KAHALAS © 1998
Do you know how or why close to
a thousand people died at Jonestown, Guyana on November
18, 1978? Has anyone ever told you a remotely coherent story?
In the following, Laurie Kahalas, a People's Temple survivor,
presents us with an account of the events from an insider's
perspective. Her new book, Snake Dance: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown,
is one of the most significant works on the subject published
in the past 20 years.
My name is Laurie Efrein
Kahalas, and I was with the Peoples Temple for eight-and-a-half
years. I was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when
tragedy struck, along with a tiny crew left back in the States for
organisational work. While others were wildly shredding documents,
I quietly saved them, squireling away documents and files for a
later, brighter day. There was nothing there that could
incriminate us (for indeed, we were not criminals at all, we were
humanitarians); and I realised I held in my hands the keys to some
day exculpate my friends. As if such a thing could be possible!
But I vowed to try.
I am here to humanise the events
at Jonestown, or as the Preface of Snake Dance: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown,
says: "To be fully human in the face of infamy." The world
spent so much time demonising Jim Jones, there was none left
to humanise the people of Jonestown, or to comprehend the
terror of their plight. 
What was the real story? Were
the elements human, political, circumstantial? Preventable, not
preventable? Were there demons, villains, heroes?
In fairness to researchers, it
has been next to impossible to research, in that
Jonestown was one of the worst cases of yellow journalism in
the entire history of the American media. It all began with the
power of the press.
All "research"
goes back to the "original sources," an unseemly amalgam of three
components: 1) Ex-member plants in the group; 2) their non-member
government-based handlers; and 3) the tiniest handful of aggrieved
ex-members who were used as pawns. Of the ex-member group who did
not have the earmarks of being government plants, most lost
relatives in the tragedy.
The horrendous mass death at
Jonestown burst onto the world press in November, 1978, complete
with gory details and fingers of blame. Although it was breaking
news, all the background, the analyses, the witnesses, the media
heroes, were ready-made for the press; nor was there any other
candidate for blame but Jim Jones. The people at Jonestown were
"brainwashed"; their defenders "apologists"; the only "credible
sources" were the people who had "exposed" Peoples Temple a year
and more prior to the tragedy.
We say we know the crushing
power of the press, but no one knows that in full measure until
you experience a Jonestown. So intense and widespread was the
deluge, that it never even occurred to those within the
press to question whether it may have been the very same people so
intent upon destroying the church’s reputation, who had
moved to destroy Jonestown physically.
The most notorious precursor of
such methods was the Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels, who
advised laying down a barrage of bad press to indoctrinate the
Germans into exterminating the Jews. "Repeat a lie often enough
and people will believe it." With Peoples Temple, it was rendered
all too easy, for the group had virtually relocated thousands of
miles away, leaving no viable voice to defend the
church.
At first, it seemed a great
shock, for the church had been "the toast of the town," for its
humanitarian service work. A mere six months before Jim Jones’
exodus to Guyana, a Testimonial Dinner featured plaques of
commendation from the Mayor of San Francisco, the City Council,
the State Senate, and accolades from the Lieutenant Governor, the
Police Commissioner, Assemblyman Willie Brown (now Mayor of San
Francisco) and many others. Yet in the very first smear, in New
West, a fledgling Murdoch publication, a 25-year record of
humanitarian service was merely held up, then dumped in the trash,
in favour of "What is going on behind closed doors"?
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| Jim Jones with
other community leaders at Jonestown |
Although Jonestown was the
church’s crown jewel accomplishment, an acclaimed breakaway from
the inner cities of the United States, with their racism,
unemployment, drugs, crimes, substandard housing and more, the
destroyers merely used people who had never even been to
Jonestown as "sources," and began with "Jonestown: Paradise or
Prison?" From that time forward, until the arrival of reporters at
the end, no reporter had ever visited Jonestown, yet horror
stories from the most suspect people were all the mainstream press
would print. By the time the reporters arrived, they had been so
manipulated to suspect the worst, they actually wrote that they
thought it "odd" that black and white, young and old, were singing
and swaying together, and that "I wondered if they had been
drugged or hypnotised"! Another reporter broke into a senior
women’s residence, saw bunk beds (for building individual cottages
was ongoing for a large exodus), and concluded "It looked like a
slave ship."
Who lay the groundwork for the
Congressman and the press to come to Jonestown? Who led
Congressman Ryan into what turned out to be a death trap? More
pointedly, who was it who set that trap for him, and how
can we be sure?
Jonestown Targeted by
Agent Provocateurs
It is time to examine the
"valiant crusaders" who "exposed" Peoples Temple in the press and
forced the investigatory visit to Jonestown.
Their leaders were a combination
of agency plants and provocateurs, as directed by their non-member
government handlers. A year-and-a-half smear campaign preceded the
tragedy, destroying an acclaimed church in absentia, during
which time the Murdoch and Hearst presses blacked out any
dissent.
Moreover, no one was who they
said they were, and their stated motives were "cover stories," not
fact. The story was not "courageous ex-members who dared to
step forward," but rather the tiniest handful of vindictive
ex-members with suspect personal motives, being used
by people with a far-right-wing political
agenda.
The leaders of the parade, Elmer
and Deanna Mertle (a/k/a Jeannie and Al Mills), were right-wing
extremists, veterans of the notorious John Birch
Society; and Timothy Stoen, veteran of clandestine spying missions
into East Berlin in the early sixties. The Mertles were murdered
in February 1980 in their home in Berkeley, California, by people
the police surmised "they knew," for there were no signs of forced
entry or burglary. The killings of these two, and their daughter
Daphene were done very professionally — dum-dum bullets,
"execution style," and leaving no traceable clues.
Most tellingly, they were
murdered a mere five days after announcing they no longer
wanted to speak out against Peoples Temple! Their murders
prevented them from posing a life-long liability... but for
whom?
Timothy Stoen, former top
attorney for the church, and founder of the "Concerned Relatives"
group, had no relatives in Jonestown, but aggressively
pushed his slander factory to bring Congressman Ryan to Jonestown
on false pretences. He deliberately and knowingly pressed a false
paternity claim to Jim Jones’ own child, repeatedly threatening to
send in mercenaries, as recorded in newspaper editorials and State
Department logs. A previous mercenary attack against the community
came within a few days after his attorneys had travelled to
Jonestown to serve legal papers, with the implicit threat:
"Release the child or else violence will ensue." To justify
ongoing threats of violence against defenceless families, Stoen
meanwhile persuaded Deborah Layton, an ex-member who swore to many
lies, to claim that she had personally seen "hundreds of guns,"
although both Guyanese and American authorities later discovered
all of thirty-nine — .22 calibre and none automatic. These
people were transparently defenceless.
Within two weeks of the tragedy,
Stoen bragged that he would "destroy Jonestown," and specifically
that he was "counting on Jim [Jones] to overreact." As
America viewed on screen through one of its major networks, ABC,
Congressman Ryan addressed the community of Jonestown saying, "I
hear many of you saying that this is the best thing that’s ever
happened to you!", leaving any motive for assassinating him quite
thin. It seems quite unbelievable that a Congressional visit
alone, much less a positive one, could possibly create such an
"overreaction." Stoen surely knew that his "concentration camp"
charges could not stick, so to what would Jim Jones "overreact"? A
mere visit? Or an assassination?
It was also Stoen who was later
exposed as the one who had continually tried to pushed a
non-violent church onto a terrorist course (called an "agent
provocateur"), it was Stoen who made all the threats against
Jonestown, and it was Stoen who led Congressman Ryan into
Jonestown on false pretenses. More tellingly even, Stoen had
secretly been a far-right-wing zealot all along, and Congressman
Leo Ryan was known to be the most vocal anti-CIA Congressman in
the entire United States Congress! We want to bear this in mind
when we ponder what is known about the assassination.
Stoen, who had been living
communally and was now visibly unemployed, spent huge sums of
money on lobbying in Washington, cross-continent travel, and it
was discovered that he had several secret bank accounts in foreign
countries where the church had done no banking at all.
Other key movers and shakers in
the ongoing campaign had never been members at all — not of
Peoples Temple, anyway. More like "membership" in the Treasury
Department, Interpol, and some deadringers for ties with both FBI
and CIA. Most notable were two shadowy characters by the names of
David Conn and Joseph Mazor.
David Conn admitted being
close friends with the Mertles all the years they were members,
and moreover, of "investigating" the church throughout that time.
He claimed he was concerned about "black people being ripped off."
(Note: In point of fact, Jim Jones was such a careful steward of
the people’s money, Tim Stoen never even made such a charge). Yet
he went to Native American leader Dennis Banks, and tried to
blackmail him into turning against Jim Jones, or be sent back to
his death in a South Dakota prison! So the cover story about
caring about minorities was definitely false! Moreover, Conn had
bragged to Banks about his ties to the US Treasury Department,
which works closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and
two other sources confirmed Conn as a Treasury Department
agent.
Joseph Mazor, who was
discovered to be a member of Interpol, housed adjacent to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, was an admitted
felon, who was mysteriously granted a State investigator’s license
fresh out of prison for passing bogus checks — just in time to
investigate Peoples Temple! He admitted orchestrating the smear
campaign against the church, stating that his employers were
outsiders, never members of the church, and he refused to reveal
their identities or the source of his funding. Mazor was later to
"claim credit for" the mercenary attack against Jonestown, and
travelled there to announce that the original plan of the attack
had been mass extermination. A community which was already
isolated and defenceless now feared the worst — and just weeks
before the Congressman arrived!
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| Pastor Jim Jones
preaching |
Influential &
Powerful Voice for the Oppressed
What were the motives behind the
smears in the press? Peoples Temple Christian Church performed all
the work of the church, caring for the poor, the needy, and the
disadvantaged. But we were also interracial. We were socialist.
Our leader had a powerful, influential voice. Although we had
become a political forum for every left-wing leader, advocate, or
cause of the day, we were gaining ground in the mainstream. We
were even planning to re-relocate to the then-Soviet Union during
the Cold War. We "had to be stopped."
Following the tragedy, Joseph
Mazor who, like the others, had never revealed any
political motivation for opposing the church, now stated
flatly, "It was considered that Jim Jones would become a major
political force in the Caribbean within five years." It was
patently clear that despite the church’s ongoing non-violence,
they feared a new Castro in the Caribbean. An American Castro,
with citizens free to enter and exit the States at will. Was it
possible for the CIA to not be interested in such an
international scenario?
And who else might the CIA have
an interest in wanting to "stop"? The CIA’s main gadfly at that
time was one Leo Ryan, the slain Congressman, who had passed the
Hughes/Ryan Bill of 1974, requiring the CIA to report all covert
operations to Congress. Indeed, both Jim Jones and Leo Ryan, both
threats to the CIA, wound up dead? "Coincidence"?
In any case, we were indeed
"stopped" from either any proliferation in the Caribbean, or a
move to the then-Soviet Union, in the most tragic manner possible.
Yet all the public was ever told was that Peoples Temple was a
bizarre violent cult with an insane leader. "Bizarre
murder/suicide ritual" was the mantra of the day. Politics was
never mentioned.
But it was more. If the story
had been exactly as told, it could be left alone. But it
never was. Cover-ups and disinformation were, of necessity,
rampant. This is, indeed, what has most complicated the
present-day task of telling what really happened at Jonestown. The
rumour mill has been so widespread, one has to contend with not
just facts, but an ingrained belief system, that has all
the earmarks of itself being a "cult." People who want to believe
that "Jim Jones was CIA," or "Jonestown was a secret CIA mind
control experiment," or "Jonestown was MK Ultra," have been more
daunting to contend with than people who have simply been
uninformed.
No one has ever considered that
the disinformation pervading the aftermath of the Jonestown
tragedy was perpetuated because Leo Ryan was so known to his aides
to be anti-CIA, that to ward off a direct investigation of the CIA
for assassinating Ryan, they have to concoct Jim Jones must have
been CIA! If even madness has method, here is the simple key to
the false and unverified barrage of accusations about Jonestown
being a secret CIA mind control experiment and the like. Just
blame Jim Jones and call it CIA. If the CIA really did it, no one
given that absolutely false clue could ever trace it to the
source. It was deliberately designed by dead-end specialists to
lead nowhere.
This is what has led to the
current approach of dismantling the disinformation. It has
not been possible to speak the truth without first dismantling the
fabric of lies spread to date, and clarifying why
those lies have been spread: their origin, their
rationale, their intended purpose. One must first strip away
disinformation before having any capacity to see.
Jonestown NOT a CIA
Experiment
I want to dismantle the most
rampant disinformation first: the absolute lie that "Jim Jones
was CIA." Jim Jones would have rather had his eyes gouged out.
It was both the measure of, and admittedly, the danger of
his character, that rather than do that, he would die. He
was the most mission-driven individual I have ever met in my
entire life.
Jonestown was NOT a mind
control experiment in the mould of "MK Ultra." I personally do not
doubt that the CIA might have been glad to use Jonestown as such
had they the chance. I am not attempting, understand, to exonerate
the CIA! Indeed, I see their footprints all over this disaster.
But the mind control experiment story is disinformation 100%.
Jonestown was a beautiful,
productive, thriving interracial community, acclaimed as a
"paradise," which was the happiest and most fulfilling life that
most of its largely-inner city residents had ever known. It was a
shining model of how inner city dwellers can thrive and excel on a
worldwide stage. It was described by visitors as "a paradise,"
"a superior society," "like coming to another planet," and " a
credit to humanity."
The media who were so eager to
smear Jonestown had not even visited! When Congressman Ryan
finally did visit, his commentary to the assemblage was that "I
hear many of you saying that this is the best thing that has ever
happened to you. What is being done here is of great significance,
even on a worldwide basis." Obviously, their was no motive for
Jonestown residents to assassinate someone who intended to bring
back a good report.
Events Leading Up to the
Tragedy
I want to approach the
catastrophe in two stages: first the assassination at the Port
Kaituma airstrip, then the deaths at Jonestown.
First, the reader must realise
that this matter was never brought to a court of law. Members of
the Jonestown community were convicted of the assassination in the
press, naming Jim Jones as the mastermind who "ordered" the
assassination. This was accomplished not only with no
incriminating evidence, but with considerable exculpatory
evidence that was never considered. These were the many
factors:
There were no forensics done on
the Congressman; no match-up of bullets against
guns. Indeed, the assassination was reportedly done
with dum-dum bullets, which explode upon impact, rendering them
untraceable, and which were beyond the technical capabilities of
anyone at Jonestown to manufacture.
The so-called "eyewitness
identifications" were bogus — made by (according to the
Congressional investigators) Jim Cobb, a man who was not only
suing us for millions of dollars at the time, but who did not even
know many of the alleged attackers (they had joined the church
after he left), admitted being "on the other side of the plane
when the shooting started," and then fled for his own life in the
other direction! He never even had the shooters in his line of
vision!
There were virtually no
autopsies done — all of seven, and of even those, the
bodies were embalmed before being shipped back to the
medical team in the United States! An American doctor lamented
that they had not even verified poisoning in a single case! That
it would have been very simple — just a little blood or urine, but
that with all the hundreds of bodies, it was not done on a single
one. Shipments of the dead were nearly not accepted because there
had been no death certificates prepared. No one even went to
collect the bodies until they had been laying out three days in
the tropical sun.
A key piece of evidence did
emerge unexpectedly: an on-site film of the assassination had been
taken by Bob Brown, an NBC photojournalist who was then himself
shot. I first saw this film at the first anniversary of the
tragedy in 1979. I was alarmed to see a sophisticated military
formation, identified for me as "a squad diamond", not at all
within the capability of Peoples Temple. The killings looked very
professional, and indeed, Bob Flick, a reporter on site, described
the killings as "calm, silent, brutal, methodical" and that the
attack had been "carefully planned and mercilessly executed."
At the time, I went to the
Congressional investigating committee to demand they blow up the
film to confirm that it was not anyone from Jonestown who killed
the Congressman. They refused, deliberately botched my transcript,
and when I tried to mail the information to the 34 Congressmen on
the committee in Washington, only two of my return mailing
receipts came back stamped!
I had neither the clout nor the
connections to obtain the film at the time, but now at the
twentieth anniversary, it has resurfaced, as have other pieces of
evidence perhaps considered less dangerous by this late date. I
currently have a source in possession of the film, and confirming
military opinion that this was a "diamond formation," and a
thoroughly professional "hit."
Yet the bias in the United
States press continues to the degree that snippets of that film
have been played on several television stations, and no one even
commented that the shooters were all dressed alike — in Army
uniforms! Perhaps the truth, flagrant as it is, may yet
surface through the simple channels of common sense.
Next is that the assassins did
not arrive on the Temple truck. They barrelled on in a
second vehicle, as all eyewitnesses confirmed. They
were somehow able to rapidly and skilfully disarm the Guyanese
police on site before opening fire on the Congressman and his
party.
What of the charge that "Jim
Jones ordered the assassination"? What was released publicly of
"the final tape" made at Jonestown, however severely spliced and
abbreviated it was, is unequivocal on that point again and again.
Indeed, the identity of the killers was completely unknown to
Jim Jones:
1) "I didn’t order the
shooting";
2) "I don’t know who shot the
Congressman.";
3) "I can’t control these people
[who did].";
4) "I waited against all
evidence... I tried to prevent all this from
happening.";
5) "I wish I could call it
back.";
6) "I never wanted to kill
anybody.";
7) "How many are dead?... Oh,
God Almighty, God help them..."
A letter written to Congress and
the President months earlier, had predicted exactly what would
happen:
"All that has been done is to
get people to believe in society... Our people had been so
alienated. All that they can see in this is a set-up, a classic
scenario: first muddy our name... whip up attacks in the press,
and then: by the time you reach the classic ending, the frame-ups,
the ‘kill,’ no one even cares. ...And they think that the press
has already done its job with slander and smears, and so no-one
will care about the frame-ups..."
Yet when the moment of truth was
upon the people of Jonestown, the chaos and confusion was so
thick, that panic about an invading force had taken over.
Tragically, contingencies had been discussed long since, following
the mercenary attack in September, 1977. This was a community that
was geographically trapped, militarily defenceless, and so remote
and isolated, it did not even have a phone to alert the world or
call in help. The great majority of residents had vowed to never
be forced back to the inner cities of the United States. The
previous military attack had happened in broad daylight, when they
were peaceably going about their daily business. Now it was the
wake of the assassination of a Congressman, heading towards the
middle of the night. How much greater the peril! Thus, when Jim
Jones told his assembled community that forces would be closing in
for a slaughter, it seemed all too real.
Moreover, Port Kaituma, the
location of the airstrip assassination, was seven miles from
Jonestown, so no one reported the men in Army
uniforms had assassinated the Congressman! But even had they
known, that would have heightened the danger, not diminished it.
In my book, Snake Dance: Unravelling the Mysteries
of Jonestown, I lay out all the possible post-assassination
scenarios whose perpetrators must at all cost cover up. Although
I was horrified at the suicides, I am still haunted to this
day, what might have happened had they simply waited out the
night. Life is precious, and any life that could have been
saved would be precious, whatever the overall carnage. But
carnage there would have been. There would have to
have been carnage to cover their tracks and eliminate anyone
with an alibi, differing version, or questions about a frame.
As for the people of Jonestown,
they would have been thrilled to survive and live on. They took
their own lives not because they were drugged or
brainwashed or robots. They genuinely and legitimately feared a
slaughter from outside forces.
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Jonestown, November
1978 |
I know what happened will be
controversial forever; and I wept, especially over the loss of
children, more times over more years than I can easily admit. But
I loved these people, and what has bruised my heart along with the
deaths, is the injustice of what happened, that the truth was
never told, and that no one has ever spoken on their behalf. They
were a role model for how inner city dwellers could thrive and
excel on a worldwide stage. They were brave, wonderful pioneers,
who deserve far better than to be labelled as "brainwashed,"
"robots," or even "psychopaths."
Moreover, who will ever dare
another Jonestown? Who will break away in self-empowerment and
overcome the many social problems which beset minorities in the
United States? More than those people were killed. They killed off
a hope.
Many people do not care that a
thousand people, largely minority and poor, died in some remote
jungle. Yet in pressing this matter in the States, I have to
assume that people care that the assassination of a United States
Congressman was a frame-up, blamed on the wrong people, done to
provoke mass death, and that there are many ways this can be
proven. We do have an unfortunate record in tracking down the
truth about assassinations. Witness John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther
King, Malcom X, Bobby Kennedy, and others. But life has put me
here, and I take it as a commitment, even an honour, that I can
speak for my fallen friends. I have never doubted that it is the
right thing to do.
These were people who lived with
good cause. From radiant health to beautiful cottages, to a
wonderful community school, burgeoning medical facilities,
fabulous home-grown food, creative, fulfilling employment,
self-empowerment, freedom from all the scourges of poverty, drugs
and crime.... and most especially, to harmony between the races,
ages, genders, economic classes, the people of Jonestown had an
incredible life, a "future life" they treasured. Next to you or
me, most of us, and certainly society as a whole, they lived with
good, even valiant cause. That is much of why they were
put in that position — "that position" being their backs up
against the wall! Whether the world will ever comprehend how they
met their deaths, it is time to honour the example and sacrifice
of their lives.
As for me, I vowed not to live
my life as a victim over this, and I am not. I do not live in
shame. And in my heart, if not in the eyes of the world all these
years, my friends who died at Jonestown do not live on in shame
either. Jim Jones? I knew him when he was strong and vibrant,
before the deteriorations of illness. He was the most passionate,
committed champion for racial and economic equality that I have
ever seen or known. He was by nature a pacifist, and only slowly,
through extreme trials, did his mettle snap. Was he unbalanced? Of
course! How do you live under such threats, and the descent of
such a doom (not to mention terminal illness!), without extreme
reactions? I am brutally honest in my book about organisational
problems, my own conflicts, and Jim Jones’ overbearing, sometimes
ruthless personality. But I know he loved those people, and that
his very heart would burst rather than wilfully inflict that kind
of pain.
The final words on "the final
tape" were perhaps as redeeming for a community that was
unfailingly peace-loving, as they were tragic:
"They are not taking our
lives. We are not taking their lives. We are laying down our lives
in protest against conditions of an inhumane world. We are a
thousand people who don’t like the way the world
is."
I don’t much like the way the
world is either, though perhaps not in quite the same way, and
certainly not with the same remedy. It does not make me
want to die. It makes me want to live. To create a future where
such travesties as what was done to Jonestown never again happen.
Where it is not only accepted, but nurtured and encouraged, for
people to live together in peace — all races, all religions, all
ages, all backgrounds, in harmony and acceptance of one another.
Let us do it, and not have to face a slaughter for the
trying. I don’t want to see any more "Jonestowns of death." But I
would be thrilled to see more communities in this, our troubled
world, with that calibre of life. Let us, Humanity, learn
from experience. Finally. Please.
Snake Dance: Unravelling the
Mysteries of Jonestown
By Laurie Efrein Kahalas (410
pages; perfect bound).
SNAKE DANCE is at a
180-degree tilt from the official view. Although devastated by a
"suicide option" for a community with children, the author
courageously reveals the whole, startling truths, so as to prevent
future catastrophes. Laurie Kahalas relates to all aspects with
searing honesty: traumas, conflicts, cult, philosophical
perspective, historical context, the transformative powers of life
and death. Written as an autobiography, this book is gripping,
compelling, moving, touching, and heart-wrenchingly real.
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com.au
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