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?