EE-1-G-21
Telegram addressed to Jann Gurvich, September 1977
EXTREMELY URGENT YOU CONTACT CARMEN BY TELEPHONE 4154430365 LOVE L
COL 4154430365
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EE-1-G-22
Telegram addressed to Jann Gurvich, September 1977
EXTREMELY URGENT YOU CONTACT ME BY TELEPHONE 4154430365 CALL IMMEDIATELY LOVE CARMEN
COL 4154430365
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EE-1-G-6
Letter to Jann Gurvich from mother’s doctor, October 1977
[Beryl D. Ames, M.D. letterhead]
October 5, 1977
Dear Jann:
Your mother was in the office today. I am very concerned about the sudden appearance of swelling (edema) of both ankles and legs. Since she also has some painful G.I. symptoms I am starting a series of tests this week. I am very suspicious of these findings and wanted you to know about this.
Sincerely,
/s/ Beryl D. Ames, M.D.
Beryl D. Ames, M.D.
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EE-1-G-7
Letter to Jann Gurvich from father, October 1977
[Gurvich System letterhead]
Miss Jann Gurvich
People’s Temple Agricultural Community
Mission Field (Jonestown)
Port Kaituma
North West District
GUYANA
Dear Jann:
I hope you received my cashier’s check, my letter, and book. I enclose a medical report concerning your mother which should bring some relief to you; however, please note the last line.
Please let me know you are receiving these communications. We all miss you.
Love,
/s/ Dad
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EE-1-G-8
[Envelope addressed to Jann Gurvich]
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EE-1-G-14
Postcard to Jann Gurvich from father
Dear Jann,
Happy Birthday – The area may be as remote as mission field – quite different – I’m going from here to Singapore and Bali – N. Orl. back on 5th Nov. – Maila pretty modern – Takes about 24 hours N.O. To Manila – 1 hour layover in Hawaii – Billy Eisenburg and Loretta wish you Happy Birthday – Love, Father
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EE-1-G-17
Letter to Jann Gurvich from aunt
[Mr. Sidney H. Lazard letterhead]
My dear little niece: –
I talked to Lou and found out you are living in Guyana. Is this a permanent domicile or a project of yours that will take a specific time? Please write to us as we get lonely without any word from you.
There are four of us in this home and each loves you in his own way. I think Elsie misses not hearing from you most of all – she did look forward to your phone calls. She is old & really needs you. Being old
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she expresses her feelings more than the younger members of the family. Sidney, Jr. always asks about you – he has always been proud of his cousin.
Sidney & I miss your companionship – it was mentally stimulating to have you with us. We seem to be disagreeing with each other more & more but we always agree on you. You have always been our favorite.
Do you have money? Do you have enough to buy stamps and medicines, clothes & other little important things.
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EE-1-G-19
Do please write to us. We are selfish – we need you.
The holidays won’t be the same without you or is there any chance we will see you.
All our love,
June
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EE-1-G-20
[Envelope addressed to Jann Gurvich]
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EE-1-G-47
Undated note from Jann Gurvich
Why I voted against Jair going on Learning Crew
from: Jann Gurvich
- You made some reference to people coming late to rally. If they do it one more time, Learning Crew. So when Jair came up, I thought he would be given one more chance. Clearly, I was moving to you and that is very presumptuous on my part. Jair will never ever make it without tight structure. My voting against it shows a lack of concern for my comrade and a dangerously permissive attitude.
- Jair has improved in school recently. He now comes in asking for paper to write stories on. He is still unrealistic about his capabilities but he is trying.
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EE-1-G-48
For this reason I thought in terms of permissiveness instead of structure. I thought in terms of bourgeois indulgence and not proletariat discipline.
I have not overcome class. It still shows. When people tell me I have really changed since I’ve been here. I think no, I have just adapted to a new environment.
This was shown tonight. If I had really changed as much as some give me credit for, I couldn’t have allowed permissiveness take the place of discipline.
Thank u for making me look at myself and see myself for the bourgeois adventurist I still am.
Jann
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EE-1-G-68
Undated note from Jann Gurvich
page 1 of 2
from: Jann Gurvich
re: feelings and beliefs on socialism
A Frenchman said that socialism aims for “the development of all men and the development of all of men”. There is nothing I could say that would better sum up my feelings. Development – opportunities for development – for all people regardless of social class, skin color, sex or religion and the chance to develop your intellectual faculties, manual labor skills, etc. in an integrated, unelitist way are to be provided under the socialist system.
In what are perhaps the last hours of life, I cannot talk about socialism without talking about myself. I cannot elaborate on the theory without going into how the practice of socialism could have molded my contemptuous life into something fine and beautiful. This has got to be a 2 fold analysis – an indictment of the class system which is so freely doled out privileges to me and an indictment of myself who never overcome the effect of privileges or understood the burden of oppression.
I had the best of education, prosperity, and opportunities based on the most arbitrary of criteria – color and class. Racism was instilled in me from – who knows where – I remember well the words “Do not go out at night without locking the car doors or you will be raped by a black man.” “The races should not inter-marry.” “I even believe that if you have blond hair and blue eyes you should marry a blond blue-eyed person.” These were my mother’s words. When I was a teenager, my father [“told me” crossed out] quoted to me the words of an Aryan supremicist, [Arthur] de Gobineau, from his book Essay on the Inequality
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of the Human Races. The book, as I remember it, said that whites and those from northern countries had created all the civilization and culture in the world. Those from equatorial climates were by nature inferior and without culture. It was only later that I learned that African chiefs had memorized the equivalent of 12 books of history and passed on learning to their tribes in this way instead of writing it down. Later I learned from the Sanskrit writings of lndia that writing was considered an inferior form of communicating, secondary to memorization.
I had only 1 relative in my immediate family of aunts, uncles and grandparents who was not a confirmed racist. I mention the words of my parents, etc to point out the environment I was raised in for over 18 years. This was my socialization process – I learned arrogance and race supremacy from my dad and hypocrisy and more racism from my mom.
But the failure, the most grievous error cannot be laid at the feet of my parents or the bourgeois – proletariat caste system. I alone can accept the responsibility of not having reformed my character. Once I met the greatest revolutionary and the most conscientious egalitarian that ever lived. Jim Jones could not have shown more compassion and patience than he has with me. Instead of taking great leaps forward to overcome the teaching of my parents, I have taken only baby steps. Several days ago I resolved to finally take Jim’s words to heart and marry a Black woman.
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EE-1-G-70
page 2 of 2
Finally I decided that the most important thing was developing the revolutionary consciousness of oppression and putting behind me notions of compatibility and individualistic choices based on egotistical need. Why did I wait so late to start a process that might have already borne fruit in terms of my being personally touched by the solidarity of Black and white together that Jim has always taught?
I really cannot think of any other way to talk about socialism that [than] to explain how my life would have been affected by it if I would have only allowed it.
I too have fear. But I go over in my mind how Victor Jara and Salvador Allende died. September 11, 1973 – the Chilean coup took 40,000 lives. What is my one life to that?
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EE-1-G-77
Test Results from Jann Gurvich, June 1978
page 1 of 3
Jann Gurvich
1. 4 enemies / Comm.
Revisionism – change thru peaceful, gradual, legal and democratic process. No D of P.
Trotskyism – export revolution before establishing it in your own country.
anarchism – no govt.
Social democracy e.g. in U.S. – welfare state capitalism. No particular pro-capitalist or pro-socialist sympathies.
2. Prop B – In Calif prop 13 passed which lops off $7,000,000 (or is it $7 billion) from welfare benefits – job programs and aid to the poor. Name of man who was proponent was Jarvis Gann. This is becoming a trend in US as New Jersey has passed the same thing it is becoming popular in rest of U.S. Shows impending fascism & goes hand in hand with SB1437.
3. Armed struggle & revisionist concept of business. [illegible] if terrorist act, when armed struggle cease & T [tyranny] begins.
Revisionists regard armed struggle as terrorism. Italian CP called Red Brigade “terrorists” Real terrorism is SLA or Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea.
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EE-1-G-78
4. 7 items SB 1437
1. No right to take the 5th amendment before grand jury
2. No marching outside courthouse within 200 feet while court is convened.
3. Cannot say that a US war is unjust to convince someone not to fight in armed services.
4. Being present at meeting that results in strike & damage to employer’s property.
5. More than 13 people at meeting on street that assumes treasonous acts against govt.
6. Striking which the govt terms is not a “bona fide labor dispute.”
5. What African country – cholera? Chad, Somalia
6. Nkomo to Carter – In his own words said “Kiss my fat Black ass” in response to Carter’s intimidation that he ought to cease Black guerrilla efforts in Africa. Nkomo was in Zambia supporting them.
7. How does sci fi, religion, occultism, mysticism oppress people
1. Create division
2. Takes away responsibility from humans and places it on external, supernatural forces.
3. Causes us not to think about class struggle.
4. Elevates science & supernatural into religion – in other words, their doctrine cannot be questioned or come under scrutiny.
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EE-1-G-79
8. How is country in movie Z like US (fascism, police false security, collaboration of pigs [illegible word], utter need to vanquish & silence all resistance leaders & dissidents, patriotism to monarchy = U.S. pres.
1. Fascistic suppression of civil liberties (right to dissent, etc.)
2. Police create false sense of security – promise to safeguard leaders, e.g. pigs in Chicago did this to Fred Hampton
3. Pigs collaborate with right wing – In Z, it was the CORU; in US pigs & KKK & neo-Nazi collaborate to send “aliens” back to Mexico
4. Utter need to vanquish & silence all resistance & dissent. In “Z” they killed the Deputy, in US killed Malcolm X, M.L. King, George & Jonathan Jackson, etc. etc.
5. Extreme patriotism of right wing & pigs. Notice pictures of king & queen in colonel’s office – in Guyana also, a Black civil servant had pictures of white former colonial rulers. In US, Carter, Nixon and other autocrats like Hitler inspire the right wing & the pigs.
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EE-1-G-80
9. Why didn’t pigs help deputy in Z? Why? Because of Marx’s theory of class struggle it was in the pigs’ interest to annihilate him. Even his peace marches were too much of a threat to the status quo. Pigs give their power and the expression of aggression – peace is the opposite of aggression. This complete piece & an attitude of disarmament would make the pigs functionally obsolescent! Pigs were collaborators with right-wing terrorists. They see themselves not as part of the proletariat but [illegible word] identity confusion because of guns they wear & power they wield – think they’re the bourgeoisie. Then pigs are co-opted into being most valiant & staunch supporters of fascism even though in actuality they are victims.
10. Mugabe & Nkomo lead Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) (the Black guerrilla movement for independence).
11. Why JC stopped SALT? Maybe because he’s not interested in nuclear nonproliferation. But he’s also concerned about buildup of Soviet military in Western Europe.
12. Explain conflict between Kampuchea & Vietnam. Kam is backed by imperialist China [illegible word] instigating trouble with USSR.
13. Esmeralda – Chilean torture ship which threw overboard many socialists & communists of the coup. Docked in SF with little or no protest.
14. JC’s demands of SU [Soviet Union]: Laser beam & antimissile missiles must be dismantled. This is prerequisite to successful nuclear nonproliferation. (How ridiculous! US isn’t going to give up neutron bomb & blast ball – how could they ask USSR to give up their main weapons?)
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EE-1-G-81
15. Which country threatened withdrawal from NATO? Why? Italy
16. China threatens war with Russia. So does Japan & also US (?) Maybe Kampuchea too.
17. What [to] do if pigs arrest you? 1. Keep quiet – no obligation to answer questions; 2. Call lawyer or call Jim Jones preferably.
18. Black US leader who is a revisionist – why is he a revisionist. It’s not Andy Young because he never professed socialism in the first place. Maybe Charles Diggs because he was stupid enough to return from Africa when he was charged with misusing campaign money. Revisionism shown because he obviously believed in peaceful, legal, democratic & gradual means to accomplish [illegible word] & change.
19. Sadat – Egypt
Begin – Israel
Castro – Cuba
Smith – Rhodesia
Vorster – South Africa
Brezhnev – USSR
20. What magazine was being read in beginning of Z? Look. The agent for the government was reading it waiting for the piece movement leaders to come out of talks with the government leader denying them a room.
21. Z = “He lives” or “He’s alive”
22. Johnny Harris – scheduled for gas chamber in Alabama. Member of the Atmore-Holman brothers. Letters withheld from him, legal mail withheld & destroyed, food dumped on floor, no relatives allowed to visit – all totally & outrageously inhumane treatment for a man on death row. Convicted of a felony while awaiting appeal decision on another felony. Violation of his constitutional rights because was sentenced to die when 1st conviction was on appeal.
23. Joan Little – Black woman inmate who was raped by white jailer in North (or South) Carolina. She murdered him with an ice pick and she was charged with second-degree murder or manslaughter. I forgot. Defended by lawyers from Julian Bond’s Southern Poverty
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Law Center. Turned in her boyfriend to the pigs when she was a fugitive in NY. I didn’t hear the news yesterday on Joan Little but I wouldn’t be surprised if she has been convicted. Unfortunately when she came to California, Elaine Brown of the Black Panthers caused her to turn against Angela Davis who had rallied much support for her. We supported her too.
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Undated Note to Jim Jones from Jann Gurvich
EE-2-f-1a – 1b
To Jim
Fr: Jann G. [Gurvich]
I want to sincerely apologize for the class tonight. I tried to do what you told me, show your leadership and revolutionary work. The class was structured in this way. I showed 4 common failures of revolutionary leaders: not having tight control of the military, nationalism, lack of familiarity with the people, in the problem of anti-authoritarianism (which I took from an essay of Engels). From this we discussed leadership and what was required of us as followers. The material was poorly presented and the main problem was that I was not really into it – I lacked commitment and understanding to give this topic a really powerful and effective presentation. This reflects on my low level of socialist consciousness and I really have to look at myself. The fact that I can discuss Marxism and politics but cannot adequately discuss you the leader shows elitism and intellectual detachment which is characteristic of a bourgeois intellectual. Again, I apologize. When I present this to the ones who did not hear it tonight, I will really think it through.
Thank you for all the encouragement you give me though I do not deserve it. Also, I want to let you know that I intend to go back to the fields as soon as I can arrange a part-time teaching schedule with the junior high.
Again, I apologize.
Jann Gurvich
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BB-31-a-212
Jann Gurvich Statements to Dad
What I’m Willing To Do
Before the experience on the front line, I could not have said what I say now, at least not with the level of conviction and commitment that I now feel. Yes, I would die. Yes, I would look upon dying as an accomplishment which I was unable to achieve in my lifetime – which is to be one with the people. I see myself as an uncaring intellectual who is doing far less then I could to overcome my upbringing & also have privilege. In dying that would be the ultimate overcoming of these handicaps. But I must point out one thing. Dying would be easier than living life, keeping uppermost in my mind a constant struggle to establish affinity and comradeship and love for the people. I have only recently begun to see what you mean, the dying is much easier than living.
In sum, I would be glad to die or glad to prostitute myself or do what it is necessary to serve the cause you stand for and are trying so patiently and so lovingly to teach us to stand for.
Your daughter,
Jann Gurvich
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BB-31-a-213
Jann Gurvich Letter to Dad on Tim Stoen
To Dad
From: Jann Gurvic
Re Strategy & What I’m Willing To Do
One of the best suggestions tonight was that we could scare [Tim] Stoen by an anonymous shot in the dark. The problem with that is the possibility of the pigs connecting us with that shot. Then you’ve got conspiracy charges against us conspiring to murder to harass to intimidate a witness (if there is a trial pending against us). The one big problem that I see with any act of reprisal against Stoen is the govt’s [illegible word] all of our [illegible word] comrades w/ some conspiracy charge and serving them with notice. Once served, that may change your capacity to leave the country.
I have a couple of blind spots in my analysis of Stoen. If he doesn’t go ahead and use all the information he got from PC meetings he attended and being on leadership in this organization, why doesn’t he use that in a suit and let the pigs pay him? I know of at least one conspiracy charge we’re guilty of – mail fraud (both a federal and Calif. offense). There must be others [illegible line]
I think if you don’t pay the $ we will need to know as to whether or not he will retaliate by trying to stop our people from getting over here. About a week after you tell him so, someone should schedule a flight and attempt to leave the US for Guyana.
I think a white, intellectual lawyer like Stoen is the type of person might cast himself in the role of calling your bluff & he may be that narcissistic: “Will Jim Jones really drew me in if I tried to stop his people?” We should remember that he could be at the stage of being intensely suicidal after all he’s done. That’s a possibility, and I’m sure also of the opinion that he is too scared to test or would be too naïve in his estimation of what we’d do to him if he tried to prevent the rest of the family from getting here.
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EE-1-S-67
Undated note from Jann Gurvich
to: Jim fr: Jann G. [Gurvich], [re] JOHNNY SPAIN
I want to apologize to you. I never knew until last night that you had offered Johnny a place here through Charles Garry. I didn’t know that you had done that and I am very appreciative.
I feel some personal guilt that he did not accept. If I had told him about you when I visited and wrote him, maybe he would’ve said yes when you made your offer. But I didn’t mention u because everything we ever said or wrote (except notes Charles passed between us during court) was monitored by the pigs. I wanted very much to tell him about you but I hesitated and now I regret it.
Yesterday, before you read the news, I had been thinking about Johnny, wondering if there were any way he could ever get here. I felt strongly that there is no one I ever knew that deserved to be with you more than Johnny. I do not understand fate. I do not understand how it is that I, priviledged all my life and white, should be able to know you and live here a free person while Johnny is tortured psychologically, emotionally, and sometimes physically in prison. It is 11 yrs now that he has been there.
I have nothing but admiration for him. I am only surprised that he was able to endure 29 long years of one tragedy after another. Born a Black child to a white mother ( he never knew his dad), he watched as his white racist step-father tried to beat him up when he was barely able to walk. From birth, he witnessed his mother taking the beatings meant for Johnny—his step-father wanted to beat him because he was Black. When his mother took him to town w/ his other brothers and sisters the people of Mississippi in 1949 pointed at Johnny and called him “a freak”. When it was time to go to school, the KKK called his mother and let her know that ‘that nigger ain’t going to school here’. So when he was 6 yrs old, his mother bid him good-bye for a lifetime. She put him on a train to L.A. where some Black relatives of his dad would take care of him. As Johnny relates it, he will never never forget what it was like to hold tightly to his mother as she had to tell her baby that he was only going for a short while and he would be back. Johnny knew then that he was being sent from his mother who was the only human being in the world that loved him. He had more pain in his first 6 yrs of life than anyone should ever have to experience for a lifetime.
At 17, he was convicted of killing a white cop (probably in a Black ghetto). In August, 1976, he was convicted (actually he was convicted of being George Jackson’s best friend) of 2 counts of Murder I and conspiracy trying to escape from San Quentin. When the Cal Dept of
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Corrections, the LAPD, the CIA, and then FBI set up George and got a total of 6 people killed on August 21, 1971, they had to pin it on someone. Johnny got the brunt of it.
He spent about 7 yrs in the Adjustment Center in San Quentin where he was isolated from other prisoners and had to be chained and escorted everytime he went to take a shower. He saw the light of day in the court yard for ½ hr daily and that was by court order. (It was in Johnny’s name and other of the San Quentin 6 brothers that a federal court finally ordered that neck chains could no longer be used. That was in 1974.) In order to get any work done in his cell, he had to wait ‘til 1.00 am when the screaming of other prisoners died down. This was every day. During the rest of the time, he had to keep the water in the small wash basin in his cell running constantly to drown out the pitiable sounds of men suffering in prison. He stuffed cotton in his ears too. I remember because once when I visited him, he had forgotten to take the cotton out and he removed it in front of me.
Last week I read excerpts from The Question by Henri Alleg which details the day to day torture he received at the hands of the Algerian govt during the time of the revolution. As I read, I thought I must read this and come to know what it is like so that when I am tortured I will know what to expect and I will have fixed strongly in my mind how other revolutionaries held out without ever giving in.
Today I have the example of Johnny Spain. It is harder I think to be tortured for 11 yrs than to take the electro shock and immersion for several months. Could I have held out like Johnny when all he’d have had to do was to give state’s evidence on 1 revolutionary brother? Johnny could have come out if he sold out brothers like many would have in his case. All I have for him is admiration.
What happened to Johnny affects me very intensely. Now, I do not want to smile. I don’t even want to talk. I just want to think about it. I know I cannot continue to be like this. The challenge and the difficulty is to translate grief into a plan of action. Take your pain and make it into revolutionary commitment. It is not something you can talk about, you can only do it.
There is 1 thing I want if it is possible. Can I write to him? If it would cause trouble for us or for him, I do not even want that.
Again, Dad, thank you from the depths of my heart for trying to free him.
/s/ Jann