D-1-G-1 (1)
Deborah Touchette
May 1978
Wesley Curtain
Raul Blackman / [illegible word] son and friend
Mr. & Mrs. Moore
Deb T.
Terri Jones
[illegible name]
– Wesley Curtain’s father writes for
– They came over to the house unexpectedly and I invited them upstairs because the Moores had gone out to dinner, but when we got upstairs. Come back and were sitting in the living room
– Shortly after introductions they started asking a lot of pointed questions
– Raul asked how long were you in Jonestown?
– Mrs. Moore began by telling them of the beauty she had seen there.
– You’ve got them well programmed, Debbie, Raul said to me.
– I don’t know what you’re talking about, I said, I haven’t programmed anybody, she speaking from what she has experienced.
– She agreed that she was speaking for herself
– I will have to admit that I came with a lot of skepticism, Mrs. Moore said, of course I am a mother hen by nature. I like to have my children under my wing, but Mr. Moore is always telling me that I have to let go of my children sometime, and what’s important is their happiness.
– One of them asked if they were happy?
– She said yes, we would have to say that her daughters were very happy.
– Mrs. Moore went through every step of the farm, describing it in glowing terms, at times she had to shout to talk over the constant questions thrown at her by the two of them.
– At one point she got on her knees and came right up close to their faces so she could get her point in
– Mr. Moore also spoke of the happiness of their children and said he had a lot of respect for Cde. Jim Jones and what he is trying to do. He said although we don’t always agree with every thing, what he is doing is along the line of the way we brought our children up.
– What don’t you agree on? They asked
– Well, he said he felt Jim was too optimistic… (He used another word that had that meaning), and although the Lutheran [Methodist] Church in the US was more liberal than most churches, being that PT is a different denomination, we worship a little differently, but other than that, we basically have the same beliefs.
– Wesley or Raul asked if people could travel into Georgetown whenever they wanted to, let’s say they got tired and wanted to take a vacation
– I told him yes within reason, but that we knew when we came to Guyana the type of work and lifestyle we had to lead to develop a small community, and people Just travel back and forth all the time or production would go down
– Mr. Moore spoke up and said they had to have some form of discipline in that respect, that’s why they built the community to have
– after a series of cannonball questions and raised voices, Wesley said he appreciated speaking to the Moores, he hoped they didn’t think the two of them were rude, but they just wanted to ask a lot of questions because there was still an empty space or a blank
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D-1-G-1 (2)
spot in terms of the PT. They said they wanted to go up there sometime and see for their selves what is going on.
– I told him I was surprised for the whole of the evening because I thought we had gotten past that stage in the development of our friendship and I was surprised to hear him saying that.
– (Note: this was just after Olga left, and Wesley came to our home several times in the day and night, as well as called to locate Debbie, he said she had tried to get in contact with him and his father answered the phone, it was in the middle of the night)
– Terri agreed, she said that I had introduced her to them as friends and we didn’t say that about people easily
– Wesley made a remark that Karen had said she didn’t trust the press
– Mr. Moore said that was understandable in that we had received so much bad treatment by the press, naturally we would be suspicious of the press.
– I told Raul that they both should come in to J/town sometime and see first hand what’s going on. That would alleviate some of the questions they are always asking and they would have a better understanding.
– Raul & Wesley says you people have done a lot for the image of Peoples Temple in our minds.
– The next morning as we were saying goodbye to Mr. & Mrs. Moore, she turned to me and said, you know, I’m glad those two young men came by last night. They help me realize how much I needed to come to Guyana.
– I hope we convinced them don’t you?
– I told her I did, at least I hoped we did.
– During the course of the conversation the previous evening, she told both of them, that if they go, it shouldn’t just be for one day. It should be for a weekend at least. She said it took one whole day just to see the piggery…
– Tim suggested that since they were always looking for a story, this would make a good story and
– Wesley said this was the type of thing we should do on our radio program, it would help our image immensely.
– Mrs. Moore said I can just see you will be quoted as saying something and it will be taken out of context
– I forgot to mention that Mr. Moore had said that he felt our cooperative could be a model for the Third World, and that perhaps the Marxist-Leninist theory could work for Third World countries…
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D-1-G-1 (3)
[Editor’s note: This memo also appears here.]
NEWS PEOPLE visited two times (around the 20th or so of March, 1978)
– it was a hectic night last night, in fact both nights they drop by it was hectic/the first night Vincent Hines was visiting and one group were talking to him so we had to take them in the other part of the room
– the second night, Jonestown was on alert, we were supposed to make contact with Walter Rodney plus some of us to go to a lecture about USSR and someone was supposed to come to dinner Fitz the PM’s guard and he was here at the same time
– they asked a lot of questions and so the young people in both nights and others who were talking to them called for me because they didn’t know how to deal with them. I made a joke out of some of the things they said (like JJ has told us to do) and that strategy of J’s seemed to work the best as they stopped the probing
– another thing I did was to ask them questions, another thing JJ has advised and it was really funny, they got into a big argument about what socialism was and what they thought about it and we all calmly watched them without getting involved and when they left they apologized for being so talkative and not letting us talk, and we graciously thanked them for being so willing to speak up and said we enjoyed what they had to say
– the thing I made a joke of was they asked if we would marry people outside our group, and I said of course we would, “Who wants to marry me, we’ll start interviewing them.” He kept asking about this making various situations up, such as if someone wanted to marry one of us and yet didn’t want to live with us, could one of us marry them and still live with us and go visit the one they married. I laughed a lot and said “it sure sounds complicated, and the situation hasn’t arisen but I’m sure we could work something out.” I said “who are all these people who want to marry me. I didn’t know we were so sought after.” It got so ridiculous that they started laughing too. When they said the situation about one living in and one living out, I said, “you are sure making it complicated.” Then he said he liked to give me a talk at his work to the people he works with (he works in a liquor company doing a newspaper for them as well as being a writer that submits to newspapers). I said we should be glad to. He said, “now of course I don’t want you getting any of the people I work with to come and stay in Jonestown.” I see so this. “Oh, I thought you wanted to have people outside marry us and here you are the one that is holding out on me, and we are all ready to marry you people.” We all started to laugh and he started to hem and haw and say, “Well, it isn’t that, we just need the people to be in the company”
– she said the problem of marriage and come up with the National Service or some group where they had to live together in barracks and they didn’t quite know at first how to work it out, if the people wanted to marry
– she said we were controversial and he (they) wonder why there were so many rumors they had heard about us. I told him that every avant-garde movement had controversy and complained that the mental health movement in the US (which is now very widely accepted) was considered very radical when they tried to stop having people imprisoned for mental illness. I mentioned that this had happened through history, those that made changes or stood on principle, whether widely known or not, were not accepted at first, even though in the end they might be the navigators of widely accepted ideas or practices. I said that we had support from all the progresses in the US, that it was only reactionaries that didn’t like our stand on Marxism that gave us problems, and that here we had the wide support and kind help from governmental leaders and we were grateful to everyone who has helped us here. That people were generally very kind and friendly to us and that even when people at first had questions, like a couple of ministers, when they visited our project and saw for themselves what we were doing, they always were very supportive and even called us a model community. He said that we certainly aren’t trying to be a mystery (as he said some thought of us that way), and that’s why we had open houses, why we invited people to our project, to look at every inch of it etc.). He said that they had come to the open house expecting us to be mysterious and weird and instead found a sense of brotherhood and warmth, Guyanese and us mixing very warmly. I said (again joking a little) that we sure were sorry to disappoint them about the mystery but as he could see we are a very open and direct people, and just like
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D-1-G-1 (4)
KIRTON AND BLACKMOND (PRESS)
we were talking to them tonight in a relaxed manner, we tried to be very communicable with people, and it’s usually people that start rumors that really don’t want to communicate and straighten things out, because every time there have been people that have misunderstandings about us we have tried to communicate on a one-to-one basis so they can ask questions and work it out. We said we have gone to every means to work it out, with our radio show different questions people have asked us, the cultural show presenting our cooperative spirit etc.
– he said that we should have a meeting with the community, he called it a “symposium” and have Guyanese people ask us questions from the floor and answer them. I told him that we had been advised that this wouldn’t be a good idea, because the ones that spread the rumors aren’t interested in objective answers (we have been told) and thus would just come to harass us and try to start fights which we don’t want. We said it would be different if it was people that are objective and really want answers. I said that those who don’t like us, we have been told are against an interracial group that is so successful where there is no racism, sexism, ageism and that kind of people you can’t talk to.
– I said that we find you can really talk in more depth on a one-to-one basis and you have more time to explain things in depth that way and to have a real dialogue
– he said (they said) they understood but they did bring up the same subject the next night they came by and I answered the same way. Then [They] again stopped the questions and said they understood.
(I should have given this info first but I will now. The three that came were 17-year-old Rawle Blackmon who work for the National Newspapers, the Citizen and the Chronicle, I asked him to bring samples of his articles which he did the second night. There was some sports coverage and a very nice article about a woman who is very active – I think if I recall she is teaching at the university and she is for women’s liberation and he covered it, I told him, sympathetically in terms of indicating her goals for women and for herself. He also covered the speech of a politician, which he said he doesn’t like to do as it gives little room for creativity).
– I should Xerox samples of his work and send it to you, will try to do this, I should have thought of it this evening.
– Rawle isn’t that unsympathetic when talking to you. He doesn’t probe as much as the other guy Wesley Kirton and he doesn’t seem quite as sharp.
Wesley Kirton 20 years old works for the Guyana Liquor Corporation GLC/it does processing and canning as well. He is the PRO (Public Relations Officer). He also freelances and submits to UPI (which his father works for) and Guyana newspapers. Both he and Rawle say they would for sure let us read first any article they would write, although Rawle said that journalists don’t like to do this generally as it could hamper your style but considering the situation we have been through they would do so
– Laurie Kirton 22 years also came, he’s not in the press but is a graduate student in economics, works for the Small Industries Corp. which helps small businesses (govt project). He was friendly and nice but had some trouble with his so-called brother Westley who had a fierce thing going with Laurie (who is a man). Wesley confronted Laurie every time Laurie talk and made him (or tried to) make him look like a fool. When I asked what they thought of socialism (to fill them out), they had a huge argument and Wesley said that Capitalist countries actually help Guyana more than Socialist countries do (they didn’t mention, nor did we, that Capitalist countries have huge strings attached to their help etc.). I asked Wesley what he thought of the Guyanese system and he said that there is a difference between a socialist system and an underdeveloped country (which he is saying without going into detail) has difficulty being socialist because they don’t have many resources in which to provide for the needs of the people etc.
– Wesley said he’d get us on night ride (to advertise our cultural program) – it would be free
– also he would get us on Radio Demerara with Pat Cameron who is a very good friend of his/he calls her Aunt Pat and he wants to invite us over to talk to some friends
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D-1-G-1 (5)
[Handwritten page]
we are the best friend the US has in Guyana. Provide jobs & medical care – building goodwill & trying to submit relations between the 2 countries – but it’s getting difficult to keep our members from being alienated from the US. They are furious over not getting their checks – you can’t know how furious.
Lynetta
Postal Department ordered to stop all checks – attempt to cut us off. This is crazy. Anyway it won’t work. [marginal note: “not dependent upon a lot of old people’s checks. Ne self-sufficient before too long anyway.”] People have vested rights. Class-action demonstrate.
Mike Prokes
Ni JJ acct or participation in riots – we are not involved in politics. Interpol – government official told us – Trotskyites.
Mike Prokes
What’s behind your visit – we can verify people are alive by the local police. People apprehensive – we have a participatory democracy where everything is discussed & decided by the membership. And it was brought up in a meeting what are people heard others say, that you aided & encouraged people that are harassing us & some say you’re CIA. But Jim Jones personally likes you & fortunately that has made a difference because if our people decided not to see you – you simply wouldn’t get in. Our people have been through years of hell in the States, they would just as soon die as to put up with the type of harassment [words cut off] the US
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KIRTON AND BLACKMOND [Blackman] PRESS PG 3
and she’d be there. He invite some of us there
– he Wesley said after the first time he visited, his other brother, not the one that was with him had an arguement with him and said ’’would you chuck your job to go and stay at PT Jonestown?” Wesley said he said “If I went up to Jonestown and liked what I saw” – his brother said he was crazy for wanting or thinking of chucking his job for anything
– Wesley was very nasty to his other, so-called brother that came with him./ he’d interrupt him and ask him probing questions when the guy expressed an opinion/ later he said that they weren’t even real brothers and said something about that in a disparaging way
[Handwritten note upside-down at bottom of page: “Gaskin – Confused about Matthews Ridge conf[erence] date today & we’re sorry. Misread it”]
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