Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.
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Jones: (tape comes on in mid-sentence)— any light in here, folks. (Pause) We’ll have to have a flashlight or something, or— I’ll try. I’ll try. (Pause) Meanwhile the tests will go on as usual. Or news. We may not use as many phrases about, uh, capitalism or imperialism. We may. Depends upon how I feel. Whatever I see as a sense of the pulse. Sorry to have held you up so much tonight, but we have some important people there. The head of the Young Socialist Movement— and I was able to enlighten them — not indoctrinate them, but enlighten them — although there were many atheists in the circle, I was glad to see. Most of them nodded their head when I said we have atheists here. Lots of atheists. I told them about their churches, and so forth, but the people that were— one woman was very sweet, Comrade Jackson, a black woman that reminded me very much of the lady that sings “Never Made— “Never Met a Man Who Sings Like This Man Before,” or, or “Speaks Like This Man Before,” rather. Well, anyway, they were, uh— All departmental people from around Guyana. Important positions. One was the, uh, in the doctrine, in the, in the doctrine— they call it the doctrinaire aspect of the policy, indoctrination, politically socialism. They have to do it in all the schools. Heavy, heavy mandates come down, absolute indoctrination. So she was wondering, being that our bo— school, school was approved, she couldn’t get religion and socialism reconciled. So I had to call a senior, and uh, fortunately Jane came through, I don’t know whether she understood what I was talking about, but when asked somebody, Party, Party, I mean PNC, I’m not asking about no other kind of goddamn party, I said, which is our party? If I ask you that, you don’t— you don’t— if I come up with the person, you know it’s all right to answer the question, right? If I ask the question? Tha— that’s clear enough not to be confused? Anybody else asks you, you will test here in a little bit to see how. If they ask you about politics (coughs) or religion, say, we never judge people that way. Anybody wants to live cooperatively, is welcome to live here. You know. You understand what I’m saying? (Pause) (Tape distortion) So they’re all friendly, our guests, ostensibly are all friendly. Very praiseworthy. The author’s very praiseworthy in town. But they have little liberal kind of tendencies, even though he thinks we’re the best group, and came down here because he thinks there’s a profound conspiracy against us, like the days of Martin Luther King. And he is the one that’s hiding that lady that I told you about. How many remember the lady? Who’s a witness, or witness to the Martin Luther King murder. And said, um, impossible. Impossible. He was five foot tall, he was peppery-salted hair, graying, in his fifties, or late— late fifties. Whereas Oswald [Jones is referring to James Earl Ray] was five foot eleven, light-complexion — she also said he was dark skin — the other drunk said he was a nigger, showing that he, you know, he had to have dark skin. In the average redneck mind, any Chicano or black or Indian, they only just say “nigger“. That’s just the way they are. And he said he was a nigger, and she said he was dark-skin. And they considered her a profound witness up until she wouldn’t go along with them. She hadn’t seen a picture. She said, this is not the man — when they wanted to sign the extradition order, which is the only way they can bring somebody back from another country. Fortunately, this country doesn’t have any agreement. No matter what crime we’ve committed, this government doesn’t have to send anybody, ‘cause they don’t have such an agreement with anybody. Guyana makes no such agreements like that. And not up till this part. Extradition. That means, if you’ve committed a crime — like [Russell] Moton had in Philadelphia or something, and they want to dig up something— your past— they want to frame you, they can’t bring you back. You see what I’m saying? They can’t bring— can’t bring you to face it. But they could in England, and so, she said, that’s not the man. Man I saw, as I told you, was five— five foot five, so forth and so on. I’ve just given you a description. And they put her in the mental hospital, general hospital for weeks, put on her record, this woman’s not to be relieved— released until all the hearings revolving— or involving Martin Luther King’s death have been finished, and till the trials have been completed and appealed against James Earl Ray. How long did she stay in the mental hospital?
Crowd: Murmured response
Jones: Over. Nearly eleven. Then Mark Lane nearly got his ass busted, and would’ve had, hadn’t been strong people coming around in his defense, for contempt of court citing, which he took her out from Memphis, where they considered her a feeble-minded and a men— ah, not a, not a feeble-minded— but a mentally-handicapped person. But she’s so— nah, that’s very strange, they ought to decide that before they, they’d used her three or four weeks as a witness. She wasn’t in a men— mental hospital when they found her. The only thing in the record that says she’s mentally-ill, schizophrenic because she chooses to believe that she was a witness to Martin Luther King’s death. And they said she was a witness. And I’m not giving the man that’s coming, named Don Freed, I’m not giving you Don’s word, I’m not giving you Mark Lane’s word, I’m giving the word of the press reporter from the— he was the correspondent for the Memphis Press Senator, white man who ended up being a judge and the lawyer in, in the state of Tennessee, and he told this shit just like it is. And he said it’s a frame-up from the government on down. Now, uh, this youth, young socialist movement man, he wanted us to do all we could to get more security, he said we needed to get guns, he said the CIA will come in here and try to kill you. You— He kept talking (unintelligible) they’ll try to kill Jim Jones. We said we had had, he said, well, why aren’t you people doing more about it. He said, you’re not alert enough. He said, look up. He said, I’d look up, you can smile, look up at everybody that comes in here. He had a lot of sense, young and a— white, a white yu, kind of a— what do you call it, the—
Unintelligible response from one man
Jones: Guyana short. Uh, th— the shirt— white, what, what is it?
Unintelligible response from one man
Jones: Shirt jacket the same? Huh?
Unintelligible response from one man
Jones: Aubrey. So we need to be alert, and watch who comes and goes, and hears what gossip. He said, I— I can’t con— conceive that you’ve done this. It’s fantastic. Even the most religious one said it was ah, said it was so beautiful. People should be grateful for what they have here. She said she wished God’s blessing and prayers, but she said people should be grateful for what they have in you and this program.
Crowd: Clapping
Jones: The guy from the ministry of energy called it a socialist what? Socialist utopia. I had to talk to him a long time, it was important to get the understanding across to him, that’s why the delay. But if they can see that, how much more should we see it? He said, if you have managed to get this movement here without some CIA agent in it, he said, I’ll be mightily surprised. He said it takes a person of genius, and he said, you have that. He said, if you been able to get somebody here that’s not in the CIA, I’ll be mightily surprised.
Unintelligible response from one man
Jones: So, when you don’t report what you hear— When you hear gossip, report it— when you hear it and don’t report it, or you see somebody doing something strange or negative or violating rules and don’t report it, you may be helping a murderer. You may be helping someone that will later be a participant. You— I’m not saying— a lot of people do it, they’re decent people, they just don’t follow rules. But they’re going to have to. If they don’t, you may be— that person will slip up in many areas, if he is an agent, there’s such a person. They’ll slip up. And that’s why we should all make a watchful hi— keep a watchful eye for any kind of barrier where people try to draw people to themselves, those who would t— try many romances? See what I’m saying? Huh? Some little things you can tell, right? Having new buddies all the time? Changing buddies? Nosy? Asking you a lot of questions? I’m going to tell you, I’m sick of it now, I’ve told you the last time, don’t ask Rheaviana, Patricia, Jones, Tommy Johnson, and all those others, don’t ask them anymore about Venezuela. I’m giving you full warning. You know who you are. Don’t ask them more goddamned questions about it. Don’t ask them no questions. ‘Cause you make us all nervous— what we ought to do is turn you loose on the border, and we wouldn’t have no problem with you. If you want to go to Venezuela, you ought to just make application tonight, and we will get you on the path headed for Venezuela— Now that’s a— that’s a pretty good deal. We even take you to the boat port and they’ll uh, sally, sally you forth in a little canoe for the many miles— You have to go several hours to get into Venezuela, but then you get— you, you want to do it, put your application in, when the time is, we’ll let you go. ‘Cause if you get into Venezuela, I’m confident, you ain’t going to get back to USA alive.
Unintelligible response
Jones: You won’t get back to US alive. You think you can make it through there, don’t you, some of you. Hmm? You’re crazy bunch of mother-fuckers, if you do. Excuse me, we’re not supposed to do that. (Pause) You saw that young man, our precious son, lost. Well, he knew the jungle, cuts the trees every day. Couldn’t follow my voice even. All right, we’ve got to move on here. What in the movie A Parallax View gets the reporter interested in the assassination of the senator? (Pause) In The Parallax View. What caused the uh, reporter to get interested in the assassination of the senator?
Woman: When he realized that all the witnesses to the— to the, um, assassination were getting killed off or— or something?
Jones: Yes? That’s good— that’s good. That’s, that’s certainly true. The witnesses are being killed off. A woman witness says she’s afraid of her life, he is skeptical, but then she dies. Right, that’s what made him get, uh— good. All right. Next. What is the Parallax Corporation? What kind of business is it engaged in?
Woman: (unintelligible few words— Sounds like “Test, test” as if she’s testing the microphone) The way I saw it, I saw they was— they liked killing off people that were trying— you know, like were radicals or something like that.
Jones: That’s right. You don’t know exactly what it is, it’s just a— but it is a very powerful, had loads of money, it was obviously killing off anyone that di— disagreed with the government’s main line. Even in the end, was willing to kill off one of their right wing, to make the reporter look guilty. It was in the business of killing, that’s no question. Political leaders who are too independent, or liberal— certainly not any socialists in the United States, so it was aimed at them. You pass. (Pause) How does the Parallax— How does the reporter get into the Parallax Corporation?
2nd Woman: He um— (Pause) He tries to find out what kind of personality is— you know, there’s a certain type of personality with psychological defi— defi— deficiencies—
Jones: Umm-hmm.
2nd Woman: That—
Jones: Umm-hmm.
2nd Woman: They uh, compensate through this identification with this, you know—
Jones: What— where do you think he really screwed up, probably? If they didn’t know it from the beginning, where do you think he screwed up? You— you’re not going to pass it, it’s not required. I’ll tell you. They— He screwed up when they took— flashed through those pictures, he could not possibly assimilate the emotions that he should have evoked by those pictures. And right there, they had him. He could get a criminal to do his test. He could do that. The written test. When they flew— threw the flash pictures at him, he, he couldn’t fit the bill, unless he was the killer that was doing it. You understand what I’m saying? She passed. Next. (Pause) Who else gets killed during the course of the movie, and why?
3rd Woman: I don’t know. I didn’t see it.
Jones: Didn’t see it?
3rd Woman: When I was in the bakery, working when they had— when they showed it.
Jones: You were what?
3rd Woman: I was working when they showed it.
Jones: Where?
3rd Woman: In the bakery.
Jones: With clearance?
3rd Woman: (Pause) Yes, I guess it was.
Jones: I’d like to know about it. Parallax View? I gave clearance for people to be someplace?
Unintelligible response from one man
Jones: Yes it has, and that’s what gets me about some of these people. You, you come up and say, I— I— I— I was— didn’t see it, and I went through that beautiful movie, and you can imagine how much I don’t want to go through it three times. I been through that beautiful movie, interpreting that son-of-a-bitch for three times, that means that last, last night, I didn’t have a chance, though, some of the other people took time to see it. If you’da done it, we wouldn’t had that— had a required time to do it. So when I say I want something, why don’t you get your ass there the first night, huh? I don’t know about this. I don’t know about this. What I uh— There should be a supervisor to speak about this subject. (Pause) And this, people didn’t see Parallax View? (Peevish) What the hell’s going on? (Pause) (Unintelligible word). Wh— wh— Where are Ruby Carroll, Lavana James, (Unintelligible name — probably “Loretta Chavis”), Teri Smart, (unintelligible first name— sounds like “Leta”) Wilson, Carl (unintelligible last name— sounds like “Noon”) Georgianne Brady, Al Tschetter, Don Jackson, Jim Morrell [better known as Jim Bogue], Lorelle, Marie Rankin [also known as Marie Lawrence], Roosevelt Turner, Greg Watkins, (stumbles over words), Oh God. Loretta Cordell, Gertrude Nailor, Edith Delaney, Edie— Eddie Washington, Wanda Swinney, Eddie Stennis— Eddie Dennis, Darlene Ramey, Christine Young, Andrew (?) Young, Marshall Farris, Mary Ann Casanova, George Johnson, Dianne Casanova, Shabaka (?) Baker, Mom Dean, Hyacinth Thrash— Mom Dean’s uh, she’s ill — Vincent Lopez, Becky Flowers, Albert Touchette, Emmett Griffith Jr., Linda Arterberry, Chuckie Henderson, Diana Lundquist, Pat Grunnett, Selika Bordenave, Sandra Evans, Julius Evans, Vi— Viola Forks, Eva Pugh, uh, Eloise Sneed — Eva’s ill — Alma Thomas, Clara Johnson, (unintelligible name — “Guidry”?), Rosa Keaton, Steve Addison, Farene Douglas, Kay Rosas, Jewell Wilson, Willie Reed, Emma Genett— Emma K— Kennedy, Ophelia Rogers, Na— Nancy Clay, Jesus Christ Almighty.
(tape cuts off for unknown duration)
Young person: They— they was tortured to death and— by some mercenaries, be— and be— and they didn’t tell um, where their parent’s military unit was.
Jones: That’s right. Excellent. Two. What does the timing of the lifting the arms embargo on Rhodesia, the white racist regime of Ian Smith, show about the USA? (Pause) What does the timing of the lifting of the arms embargo — that means the stopping of shipment of arms, and the stopping of shipping money— USA had acted like they weren’t shipping it. However, we find out today that uh, Johannesburg Star says that US had shipped eleven and a half million dollars through one of six uh, thousand, several of the 6000 corporations that have interest in Rhodesia. That your tax dollars have shifted through the CIA — ‘cause there’s nobody looks overseas, the CIA. Nobody does it. President don’t even know what the CIA is doing. Nobody can. They’re responsible for only some things to the Se— head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Armed Services Committee. Who is that Senator in charge? You all ought to know that uh, like your beat of your heart.
Several replies.
Jones: Senator [John] Stennis. From Mississippi. Why should you know it? ‘Cause that’s where all our shit started. That’s where all of our shit started. We have to face that. I was trying to do what was right. That’s where our shit started. How do I know it? ‘Cause four days later, Deanna Mertle, and [private investigator Joe] Mazor, that criminal, and all the others, Grace [Stoen], you name them, Jim Cobb, the whole bunch of them, went and had money to hire a public relations firm by what name?
Several unintelligible replies
Jones: What? (Pause) It was not Eureka Research Associates. (Controlled patience) Goddamnit, I’ve said that was later, dear. That’s when we’ve caught that— I ain’t gonna say how we got that — [Tim] Stoen was trying to do an aerial map study of this. They may be a CIA front, Eureka Research, undoubtedly. But he was making an aerial surveillance on how to attack with mercenaries. ‘Cause we— Hmm?
Unintelligible response from one man
Jones: That’s been a long time ago, so don’t get worried, child. Some of you, (unintelligible, as Jim affects scared tone) with mercenaries. Anybody that does that, you ought to report them, when I don’t see it. What the hell you care about mercenaries, if you’re a socialist. What the hell you’re worried about your ass. It’s rotten, slow by slow, anyway.
Crowd: Laughter.
Jones: Shrinking up, too. (Pause) Okay, now, can you tell me— (To self) Now how I’d get the hell— did I get on that? Where in the hell am I— how in the hell I get on that?
Unintelligible responses
Jones: (Remembers) Oh, you need to know Senator Stennis, because what did he do? He violated every law of the goddamn book. He had two Air Force officers working for him, they’re supposed to be on duty at Kessler Air Force Base, they’re supposed to be involved in Administration. And Logistics. And they’re out there with a black satchel — Penny [Kerns] caught them. Some of you jump on her ass, but she chased their ass for blocks and got the driver’s license. Right?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: You know Penny’d be the one to do that. And— said, what you doing in there? One of them carrying a Bible. It wasn’t— I know this. It was obviously not to spy on Unita Bay— Blackwell Wright, the black mayor of Fayetteville [Mayersville]. She was there praising China, Communist China. You remember the day.
Unintelligible responses
Jones: Obviously they weren’t trying to spy— ’cause we know you can get phone taps. Donny and I one night, I know we went down, cut up one under the goddamn floor, right in our own church. Going to my room, went to the public address system, went— we cut the sonofabitch, coming from the church next door, the suckers next door, the church right there, we— we found out undoubtedly was involved in the conspiracy against us. Bunch of goddamned Baptists, freakouts. But what were they doing there? I’ll bet you— if I had my bet, they had explosions in there to blow us all to hell. That’s what I’ll bet you they had. Satchel that big? That thick? You don’t think you can’t blow— hell, they coulda blowed that church with the modern weapons they have, blowed that fuckin’ church to smithereens, taken care of her, and probably that was the trouble. They wanted to get us and her. You say, how do you know? I’m not guessing some of you people don’t know any shit, and you don’t want to know. I know, because we went to the District Attorney [Joseph Freitas], to get the goddamned license number checked, and he hum, hawed and griped all the way with— he did it, but we finally got it. And it led us to a U-rental and— I saw Sara [Tropp]— yeah, Sara was over there, she one of them— they went over there to that goddamn place, and that was a sonofabitch, getting the information out of them, to— we got the U-rental, we got the license number, but now who rented it? So after many things, which I’m not going to tell you, about all of it, we got the information. And on it was two goddamn U.S. Air Force officers. So what in the hell do they want in California? They were from Kessler Air Force Base — I don’t know where it’s outside of, I don’t know enough about that— Bi— Bilock— Biloxi, Mississippi. And— what— then I— oh, I thought, Mississippi, and this mayor’s here, she’s from Mississippi. I thought, whoa, we’re onto some shit now. Black mayor. So I— I uh— I thought I smelled a rat then, that they were trying to kill us. So we go through all kinds of shit, we had the dope, and we got somebody working on the other side, and they proved that they were working with Senator Stennis, ‘cause the little girl of one of them talked like a magpie, and the wife of another one talked like a magpie, and one of their cooks was black, and she talked just— she don’t like ‘em anyway. She told us everything we wanted to know. And they worshipped Senator Stennis. You ought to all have this in your brains. They worshipped him. It reminded me of, um— I don’t know when I’ve even seen anything like this. You think people worship me. (Amazed tone) Oh my God. Senator Stennis is gonna save America. Senator Stennis is getting rid of these black people. Senator Stennis— I mean some heaa-a-a-avy shit. Senator Stennis is gonna keep this country strong against communism. Senator Stennis, Senator Stennis, Senator Stennis, we love Senator Stennis. (Shouts question) How does the goddamn Senir— Senator interfere with the Air Force? The Air Force isn’t working for the Congress of the United States. He had no power to call them to do a damn thing. But they were doing it. And they got the money from him some way to do it. The Air Force— we got the congressman to write— and they’re all chickenshit. I remember— I haven’t got no use for ol’ [U.S. Rep. Ron] Dellums [D-California], he wouldn’t even write. He was scared. He’s chickenshit. He wouldn’t write. We got uh, we got two congressmen to write, and then one from New York, who was later charged with— Oh God, I feel bad about him, I wish we could help him. What was the name of that man?
Unintelligible responses
Jones: We gotta find him. We should offer our assistance to him. Uh, they— they got his ass, probably for a number of things. What was the man’s name? Does anybody remember the name, the guy that got charged with (struggles for words) approaching homosexually— boys on open street.
Unintelligible responses
Jones: Aw, [U.S. Rep. Charles] Diggs, no no, Diggs is 37 fe— felony. He’s a white man.
Unintelligible responses
Jones: Miller. Miller. Miller. We gotta find out, we gotta offer some assistance to that man, ‘cause he wrote, and he said I’m not satisfied with your answers — the U.S. Air Force was sending back the goddamndest letters every time — and Senator Stennis, nor the goddamn president would answer. (Pause) Nobody. And the Congress finally let— guy who sold out too, to some degree, there’s two brothers of us, he said, there’s nothing more I can do. (Pause) [U.S. Reps. John anmd Phil] Burton. Said there’s not a thing I can do. I went to the editor of the Chronicle, and he says (gusts out words) I— I can’t touch that. He said, you gone too far now, Jim Jones. He said, there’re some things you just can’t get involved with, and then he gives some bullshit — two people don’t want— believe in conspiracies anymore. I know my kind of bullshit. He said I was a victim of a conspiracy, I wasn’t even asking him about me, I wanted to know what the fuck they were doing there about that black woman— I wonder why I said that. (Pause) Now I remember that. Next words out of his mouth was, I wouldn’t even ask about the conspiracy on the occasion, what he said, wh— you are the vic— you are, you are victim of conspiracy. He said, I know you’ve got a conspiracy locally, and I don’t know how much further it goes. He’d had to get it through that sonofabitch [New West writer Marshall] Kilduff that wrote. So I don’t doubt that. But, uh, he— he, he wouldn’t touch it. Nobody would touch it. Then— in my timing, if my timing’s right, four days later, they hire a goddamn public relations firm. Now you think that’s a coincidence? (Pause) I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s coincidence. Too many goddamn operations show to me that somebody knows somebody, and got lots of money. And Senator Stennis is on the in with some pretty damn rich people.
Unintelligible responses
Jones: They drove to San Francisco, only there for two days. They meant to do something, but (stumbles over words) you don’t have to go through that trouble. They coulda walked in our meeting. Shit, they coulda just opened their collar. We let white folk in. Their very expertise — their good expertise — CIA can plan any kind of a game. They coulda walked right to the goddamn meeting, passed through our greeters, and said the right answers, and our greeters would set them up on the front row.
One woman: Right.
Jones: Don’t tell me. I’ve had it done.
Several voices: Right.
Jones: Later se— find out I was talking to a m— a member of the press, (unintelligible word) get by the question. So, uh— why were they there two days? It’s obvious there only one reason: to murder her. Her— and us. How are you going to murder her between two church walls? Put bombs in there and murder everybody that’s in there. Hmm?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Now do you all know that conspiracy theory? That it goes on from Mazor, who’s a private detective, and [California] Governor [Jerry] Brown gives him a license and won’t revoke it — it’s against the law for somebody who’s been in prison for a felony to have a license as a detective, and Governor Brown says, there’s nothing I can do about it. You remember all that? Mazor. Keep it in your brain. Ought to make you feel important. That’s why this young so— we gotta get this shit outta here, that’s author’s going to try to do that for us. He left the assassination hearings in Washington, which he thinks they’ll be a whitewash anyway, the Select Committee on Assassinations, just like I’ve been saying, he is a part of that. He wrote Rush To Judgment, Executive Action. How many heard what I said about Executive Action (stumbles over words) tonight? (Pause) (Sighs) Oh, shit. (Unintelligible name— Dawn?) is it on the blackboard? We’ll have to read that sometime tomorrow. Early. Hear? Or tonight, before you go on. Executive Action, it’s on tape, too, they’ll play it, but a lot of times, Po— uh, Teresa [Buford] can get it capsulized. (Stumbles for words) I don’t know. Who is— Teresa does all that on the board? 9Pause) I don’t keep— want naming one name, when there’re four or five involved, if there are. Who— who— who is this?
Unintelligible reply
Jones: She do it all?
Yeah.
Jones: Well, by God, uh, I’ll tell you, if you— some of the rest of you ought to get that chalk moving, ‘cause that’s some sonofabitching job, to cover all them chalkboards, one right after another, listening to the meeting, getting that shit down. Very few mistakes that I find. When I do, I— I’ll tell it publicly. ‘Cause I know I can deal with it that way, ‘cause she doesn’t got her ego up— caught up in it. And I haven’t caught an error in I don’t remember how long. I ma— I haven’t caught any error. Have you seen any error? Beautiful how they get that thing down. Also, um, Bea Orsot had some good news questions and she sent in for (unintelligible word), and she didn’t know she sent in for (same word), that’s where we’re going to end up. Because she got them all, in paragraph, she got it down. She got a substantive answer out of everything I said, and covered the news and— oh shit, if you want to do it, and get somebody to help you like that, they covered in six p— typewritten pages, I think she did. Long, they were big long things like this. But she covered ‘em. Those people are invaluable to us, because I do not believe I’m going to penetrate the sound barrier here. (Short laugh) I think I’m never going to penetrate it with some people. You know what I mean? They just don’t want to hear it, by God, and some a— do, and that’s why I give it to them, because there’s about three or four dozen that have asked me to do it. Repeatedly, say “Please,” and they want it this time or that time, but I can’t meet all of you, because half of you want it at night and half of you want it in the morning. So if you get it every other morning, you understand why the hell you’re getting it that way. What else can I do? Hmm?
Unintelligible responses
Jones: Okay, okay okay. So, Executive Action, and he wrote Rush To Judgment, along with Mark Lane, and Parallax View. Executive Action deals with the exact statistics, the exact statistics I just gave you. (Aside) I can’t hold that motherfucker. Just get it where I don’t—well, no, I don’t want a pillow under it now, not now, not now, I’ll just have to do without it, ‘cause I— it’s too distracting to me. So find some way they can hold the sonofabitch to my chest, I’ll put the heat there, but I cannot do everything. And (unintelligible name) Bea the other night, and then Irra [Johnson] thought of it, and put that p— pillow under there. And there’s something that bothers me, until you get your leader replaced, some of you people don’t think further than your damn nose about what he needs. And I’m not talking about (unintelligible name), he’s a very good worker here. But today, I— I’d walked till hell froze over before any of you’d give me water. And my vocal cords are so sore— I asked for water twice before I got water. I should not have to ask for water.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: The goddamn water. And then, a black woman go get it. I said don’t you give me no goddamn water. I don’t want no black — Shanda James going, I said, get that water out of her hand. You white people on that committee ought to have enough sense to grab that shit without me telling you that. What the hell do you think they’da thought of me if a black young woman would hold my water, and I take the damn water and drink. Hmm?
Unintelligible responses
Jones: You gotta watch appearances if you’re a socialist.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: They’d think uh— they’d think that she was in a server— servile, some servient, servant role. White people should do that for me. I shouldn’t have to tell them, but the goddamn water— I was dried out, and believe me, that’s one thing bothers me about this whole fuckin’ tour. I don’t— you guys are going to have to get together, because I don’t see those newsmen going through here without me present. And it’s not presumption. It’s just that I catch little things. Then when you’re there, you can catch little things for me. But I catch shit. Every one of you— I ain’t going to get into it tonight, ‘cause we aren’t going to have that uh, long of an (unintelligible word) about it, but I— I catch shit that you people should think about. You should create your mind to think about certain things, the things you want to get across. Why they wanted Diane to sing. Wasn’t because she is preferred as the best singer. I told what racists did to her face. I told how she preferred making diesel in generators, made a generator with her hands, and preferred that over her musical career. You understand? And I told them about Mar— Marthea [Hicks], told about Julius Evans, didn’t get as much chance, because— one thing, do remember, folks, when I am trying to talk, for Christ’s sakes, don’t have somebody up doing (makes silly singing noises). I can’t carry it on. You’re gonna have to learn to tone that shit down, because my voice— I just can’t— I said, I cannot counteract it. I don’t know what happens to my messengers. I set them up, I say, get it stopped. Get it stopped. Two times they come up, and it’s not stopped, and I see a singer in my face, when I’m asking— what’s more important, they see your talent in one show. It’s important that I or somebody educate these people to where we are. Because this one man was so relieved when he heard my views, he thought we were a bunch of CIA people. That’s obviously what was in his goddamn head, till I opened up all the conspiracy against black leaders and — something that you people don’t know to this day — he grasped it, he picked it up, he heard it. And now he— when he left here from being unfriendly, and I mean he was unfriendly to me. And from being unfriendly, he walked with me all the way down to the point, he said, look, I want to know about if they’re going to take care of your internal security. (Stumbles for words) He coulda been a spy doing that, but he wasn’t. I said, yes, it’d been taken care of, ‘cause they are licensing personal bodyguards with a very, very heavy piece of equipment. But you don’t need to talk about that. The government’s doing that for us. We don’t have weapons — and we don’t have, right now, we don’t have, at all. Right?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: We believe in nonviolence. Right?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: And the thing— I can’t remember it all. I wanted to point out about uh, the principal, the black principal, and the white principal. I got to know more of her che— achievements, your specialities, I said, what’ve you done, Clara, I want— so Clara showed me something that’s very beautiful. So I’ve know what uh, uh, Comrade [Tom] Grubbs does, but not all of it. You ought to have it out in typewritten form for me, so I can rehearse it just before I get in there. And if somebody — if I can’t — had best rehearse it, that certain things get through. How they want— marvelous way we use all of our scrap material. You don’t think of it, though. You describe the carriage, somebody described the carriage, and said we made this, uh, we made it right here. Very little we imported. We didn’t import shit. We didn’t import shit to make that carriage, they made it out of scraps.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: And that should be your position. You should think what the hell you’re saying. When you go in the tool-and-dye shop, uh, you— you need to think, you need to think that, the important thing to get across is black young men and women could never do that, and we have black young women and men— they never could break the unions in United States. You never could get in tool-and-dye. You never could get an electrical mastery license. You never could get the plumbing master’s license. They never had a chance. And you need to tell them about the man — they may have heard a little bit about healing, you need— you don’t have to say a word about healing. Just mention the older white man who felt rejected by his family, and uh, had nothing to live for — you follow what I’m saying?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: And given three weeks to live, by the doctor? And when he got turned on to these young people, he’s in perfect health and carries on a schedule that makes some young people look sick? Those are messages. You need to get a message going around each one. Etta Thompson. It’s not enough to just say Etta Thompson. She’s a senior. She worked (unintelligible, followed by cough). She was in the movement for struggle. She picketed. And you can’t go as far as you want to say, so I just use Martin Lee— Luther King to symbolize what she protests about, and how she picketed. Hear me now, hear me, goddamnit. Eh, some of you need to get this down, we need to profile what the hell needs to be said in every department. When you see an eyesore, you got to having a reason. “No, that just happened.” You know what I’m saying?
Crowd: Yes.
Jones: I don’t mean that way. There’s a way— you gotta let your mind deal with every situation. And those who are dealing with the PNC, they’re very interested, do we follow the government’s course on political indoctrination? And we do. Very well, there. We can— if we can read and write, when we get through, we— we’ll be good on politics. (Short laugh) You hear what I’m saying.
Crowd: Yes.
Jones: You need to point that out. You need to point out that a senior, or every child here, but for Christ’s sake, you hear party, children. When I say party, or someone comes up to you and says, what’s our party — wake up, Tyrone, quit playing — I mean, P-N-C. Now you ought to all know that like you know your back of your hand and the front of your hand. People’s National Congress. That’s where we won one woman that was very reserved. She was on the ruling party board of uh, what they call— oh shit, what did she call it? Indoc— uh, no.
Man in crowd talks too softly.
Jones: Yeah, I wish I’d remember what she said, was a word I’d never heard before. “Doctrinaire” was in it. (Pause) Which I didn’t— “Doctrinaire” means “dogmatism,” doesn’t it? It means you’re dogmatic about something. (Pause) Well, I called it— I said, any senior. Get me a senior. And fortunately, one was sitting there — I give thanks to whoever the young person was, ‘cause if I’da got — one of them was sittin’ right at the edge of that, uh, pavilion — oh, I said, oh Christ, don’t send me her. Don’t. Socialism, don’t let this be. Don’t let them pick her. And they went by her. They must have, because they started to look at— take her up, she was settin’ on her big fat ass, and she never know shit from Shinola, she don’t know what’s going on here, she’s brilliant, and she’s a pretty woman, and she wears long gowns down to her toes— Well, now.
Isolated laughter.
Jones: But she don’t know anything. She don’t know anything. So I said— they come in with Jane. I said, Jane, what about the party? Well, what party? Who?
Isolated laughter.
Jones: (Laughing) Whose party? Ha! I said, our party, Jane. Hahaha. Our party. She was sweet, though. She was sweet. I said, you’ll get it, Jane. You know. Our party. Huh. So she come up. People’s National Congress, she said it.
Woman’s voice too quiet.
Jones: Yeah, it’s Vanguard. Well, she said the Vanguard. She come back at you and said, what’s the von— Vanguard. (Clicks tongue) She— When she means that, that’s Guyanese for, which is really practicing socialism in— in this, in this country, and you would have to say, the People’s National Congress. Not the PPP. ‘Cause often the PNC will not knock the opposition, but they will call the Vanguard. You remember that? What’s the vanguard mean?
Responses unintelligible
Jones: On the lead. Taking the leadership. So it’s a black people (stumbles over words) party, for the most people. People’s National Congress. She didn’t say a word against the People’s Progressive Party. You shouldn’t be knocking them either. But you gotta know your party. You know what I’m saying?
Crowd: Yeah.
Jones: Wouldn’t hurt if someone asked you, why you’re PNC, say something like, I don’t like the PPP’s policy of apanjhat. Isn’t that a way to say it, or it is wrong?
Responses unintelligible
Jones: Apanjhat. You can’t remember the word, apanjhat, vote your own kind. Remember that?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: (under voice) They might try it. Thank you. (Normal tone) Apanjhat. Apanjhat. Let’s try it. Apanjhat. Apanjhat. Apanjhat. Apanjhat. Apanjhat. Now the way it sounds, to me, is the way I have to go with words. I don’t know what you do. A-p-a-n, jhat, j-h-a-t. That’s why I’d come out with uh— my— me— I have to get things by sound. And I never seen the damn meaning of words, so I can’t remember them anyway. Anybody got it, uh, any East Indian, it would help us. But if somebody asked me to spell, I couldn’t spell it for shit. I don’t know.
Responses unintelligible
Jones: Well, it’s apanjhat. That’s the mess— that’s the meaning, and whatever the hell we got there, that’s the phrase, and then, then, in the Hindi, it means, it means, vote your own kind. We know what the fuck it means. We just don’t know how to spell it, huh?
Responses unintelligible
Jones: I did? Well, my Christ, that’s the first time I ever heard English coincided with way it ought to be. Don’t usually work that way for me. Is this, is that spelled right?
Response unintelligible
Jones: That was just purely happenstance. A-p-a-n, apanjhat, j-, oh gosh, I can’t do it again, j-h-a-t. J-h-a-t, like “hat” on the end. Maybe you better write it down, folks. Apanjhat. Apanjhat. Ah— is it “apan” or “apon”?
Response unintelligible
Jones: That’s what I want to know. Is the emphasis on the “a”? Apanjhat?
Response unintelligible
Jones: “Pon.” Well, then, I wouldna spelled it the way I did. “Apan,” I’da spelled it, p-a, p-a-a, uh, p-a-h-a-n. Way I woulda done it. (Short laugh) (unintelligible). You know, I’m just talking about— I’m not talkin’ ‘bout correct. She said I happened to spell it correctly, that just happened, ‘cause I’ve never read it. A-p-a-n-j-h-a-t. Apanjhat. Vote your own kind. Vote your own kind. That’s what [Janet Rosenberg Jagan] the white wife of Dr. [Cheddi] Jagan of the opposition — what’s the up— opposition?
Crowd: PPP.
Jones: PPP. And if they ask you the Vanguard—
Crowd: PNC.
Jones: Or the avant garde? They’ll often say it that way. Avant garde. Is that French? I don’t know French.
Response unintelligible
Jones: Avanchi garde. Avanche. Avanti. I don’t know what garde is in Portuguese. I— I’ve forgotten. But anyway, avant garde is French, and it means, the people that’re in the front— leading. Leading socialism the best. You hear what I’m saying? What is that party? (Claps along with initials) The P-N-C. You get struck in that some way, I would tell ‘em— well, say, what uh, don’t you like about the PPP? Well, what I don’t like is when they appealed — from what I’ve studied of the history of both sides, they have— they appealed to race on one occasion. By apanjhat. Telling East Indians to vote their own kind. That’s a terribly backwards thing for a Marxist to do. Why even human genesis— geneticists know that we’re all one kind. Right?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: We’re all the human species. Homeo Sapiens. We’re all human beings. And vote your own kind is a backward, primitive thing. I don’t know how Jagan could have ever come to allowing his Marxism to tolerate to stoop to that level, the end justifies the means, by appealing to racism. There’s where you know the end has been corrupted. The just means— The end justifies the means is corrupted. Right? When it violazes— violates any human ethical principle, that any basic decency would know, that you know that somebody’s using that end to justify their own, their means, whether to justify their own end. Do you understand?
Response unintelligible
Jones: Some of you don’t know how to lie when it’s saving your ass. But you’d never lie if somebody came to your door and asked you where somebody was here, you’d talk like a goddamn crow.
Response unintelligible
Jones: And you can— you can tell all kinds of lies, though, about anything else. Stand up here. I didn’t do it. I never took that book. I’d— I wa— I was at work. Got 15 (unintelligible). I was— I did— I wasn’t late. Stand here and look at us, right in the teeth, and do it. (Pause) Bad business. You better— I’m telling you better learn to report everything you hear. ‘Cause you can tear us up. You better learn to quit lying, ‘cause you drain the movement of strength. The CIA is around anywhere. They’d like that done. So you watch those that are particularly violating every rule. Hmm? (Pause) Right?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Watch the looks on people’s faces. (Pause) Study them. Review them. (Pause) That’s why we just all have to work on smiling. I know that’ll make some people smile now.
Response unintelligible
Jones: ‘Cause you never smile. You know— and then you don’t have to go around with a weird smile, you just, just speak. “Hello.” Think of— show yourself friendly. (Pause) Okay, I’ve got to get on with this. Hell. I’m— Excuse me. What did NBC say about women in the Navy? I just asked you something else.
Response unintelligible
Jones: Okay. What in the movie— Oh shit. (Pause) I’m worse than (Pause) someone that had so many beans, they didn’t know to do. So many kids, they wanted something. I don’t know. (Pause) Well, it may be page two on your books, but it ain’t page two on my book. It ain’t so. It is not so. It is not so, but I remember what it was. Six Rhodesians and uh—
Response unintelligible
Jones: Well, where in the hell was the next question, then?
Response unintelligible
Jones: Oh, yes, yes. You’re right.
Response unintelligible
Jones: No, it won’t be any of that, it’ll be something about the goddamn Rhodesians, that I cannot find.
Response unintelligible
Jones: No, no, didn’t— I jumped out of that ca— category. I jumped out of it, because some of those people missed it in the bakery. I jumped out of Parallax View, ‘cause I thought I might flunk ‘em all. I don’t set up here, to (unintelligible word) anything but time. You understand? So I jumped out of Parallax View. I know I jumped out of Parallax View.
Response unintelligible
Jones: Well, what is worrying me is— here, I finally, I finally found it. What does the timing of the, of the lifting of the arms embargo and aid to Rhodesia — financially, even though it’s still being given, it was given all along, as was brought to light in the press today, by the Johannesburg Star. They closed them down that night, too. For printing it. What does the timing of the lifting of the arms embargo that was voted on by Congress — that means, House of Representatives and Senate in USA — what does it show? What does the timing— What does it— What does it show? Here, the Ian Smith government is— you know what’s happening to it. You know the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front, you know what their successes are, you know what— it’s obvious who’s on the right side of issues. What does it show? (Pause) What does the timing of the lifting of the arms embargo on Rhodesia show about the United States? What does it really show about USA? (Pause) You don’t understand what I’m saying?
Young woman: No, Dad.
Jones: Well, will someone help her, because I’m not, uh— it’s quite possible (stumbles over words)
Young woman: (Unintelligible) The United States (unintelligible) using to send arms to Rhodesia now, when the blacks—
Jones: Don’t get nervous up here. What the hell’s (unintelligible)
Young woman: Now they are but (unintelligible)
Jones: You understand that?
Response unintelligible
Jones: What does that show about the character, the nature of the United States? (Pause) You know who— you knew who runs Rho— Rhodesia?
Young woman: Yes.
Jones: Who is it?
Young woman: Ian Smith.
Jones: He’s white, isn’t he?
Young woman: Yes, Dad.
Jones: Right. He’s been an illegal government for ten years. Illegal, because there’s only — Uh, Comrade Grubbs will have to help me here — one out of—
Grubbs: Twenty.
Jones: —twenty that are white. One out of twenty that are white. The rest of them are black. Nineteen to one. A white man’s leading the government has no blacks involved with him. Only now two. Did have three Uncle Toms. The Bishop Misuela (?) can’t even stand it now, the head of the Methodist Church. What does that show when the government of the United States, when the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front is liberating people right and left, and withstood all the military might of the USA, 21,000 mercenaries hired to b— kill them, by the USA and England, and (Pause) 16,000 more, we learned today from Union of South Africa, and that’s what he has to do to maintain— only one little place he’s got is Salisbury, and he can hardly keep hold of that. They’re in— inside and outside the streets every day, fighting, right in the capital, close to his headquarters, on one occasion. Now what does that show about a country, a U— a country that would help a, a gov— a government like that?
Young woman: It shows, um, how they treated blacks in the US.
Jones: Yeah, how— more than how they treat ya. How they regard blacks. They’re openly racist, and don’t give a shit when the showdown comes, they’ll show that they openly don’t give a goddamn about anything in the— he’s conducting racial genocide over there. Murder of little children. Schools, villages. So, yes, it shows how he feels, and doesn’t care about black people. US government doesn’t care. Okay, next? (Pause) What happened in Cleveland, Ohio of interest lately that I just talked about uh, news tonight?
Young black man: A youn— young mayor uh, was accused of favoritism and uh, racism and uh— (Jones talks over him)
Jones: Yeah, that’s right. Nepotism, and uh, wouldn’t uh, fire bigots out of the police department, causing somebody that we used to know to even resign. He’d go along with most anything, he— to— had to be dirty before he’d go— keep him from going along with it. (Pause) Well, what’d they do about it? What’d they do about him?
Young black man: Um— (Pause) Lessee. Des— Despite all that, he, he still made the uh, he still got to be mayor over all that.
Jones: Oh, well, he had, he had been mayor. Youngest mayor in the hi— any city in United States. He’s in his late twenties. Yeah, I believe it’s late twenties. Very young. But he’s a racist. And he’s an opportunist. He gives jobs and favored treatment to various white members of the establishment ruling class. (Pause) You know how smart the establishment was? That’s how dumb we’ve been all these years. When they’d call the election? When they’d call the recall?
Unintelligible response
Jones: I’m talking to this young man. What day did they have the recall?
Unintelligible response
Jones: Sunday. And why? Because they knew they could depend on us, dumb asses, our dumb ass blacks and Indians, to be in the fuckin’ house of the Lord and not go and vote. ‘Cause nobody gonna bring it up. The— the polls were open just through, till afternoon. So everybody went to Sunday school — (fake black woman accent) “I have to go sing in the choir, I have to show off my gloves, and I have to get up there and pass my fat ass in front of all the good folk” — (goes to angry tone) so, in a cou— city that has 65% black, the dumb asses stayed at home and went to their goddamn, jackleg churches, and cost them the election. And the white man knew it. That’s why he gave them the religious (unintelligible word—notes?) over in Africa. He knew it, goddamnit, that’s the only thing that would subdue us. Only way he got those pricks to work with him, was send some of missionaries that would indoctrinate them that the black man slaves, and the fools believed it. Jesus was their savior. I mean, those slave-traders. Slave murderers. Religious. All of them were— many times were converted to believe that God willed black people to be slaves. The few that they’d get to hunt the slaves down, you remember, from Roots? You understand? I— You—you got enough to pass. (Becomes angry) But that— See how— Do you understand what I just said there, honey? Will you wake up, goddamnit?
Man in crowd: That’s right. Carl Stokes (Unintelligible)
Jones: Yeah, yeah. You know what’s the difference— it’s a different Stokes. (Pause) (Stumbles for words) It’s a different Stokes. We got the wrong Stokes.
Unintelligible response
Jones: No. Have to correct that news item. It’s not Carl Stokes.
Unintelligible response
Jones: Nope, he’s not the same one. He did all the shit work, and he’s got an NBC fat contract, or CBS, as a commentator. This man is another Tom. So it’s not the same one. Lewis, I think. Leous Stokes. Whatever he is, he’s right— they’re calling him rightwing. I’m not so sure he is black. Now (Struggles for words) ‘cause CBS called him black. But I’m not so sure. I’m not even sure he is black. Does anybody know Louis Stokes? I don’t— I never heard of Louis Stokes. Hah?
Unintelligible response
Jones: What about it, Bea? You know him?
Unintelligible response
Jones: He is black. Where’s he from, honey?
Unintelligible response about Carl vs. Louis Stokes.
Jones: Where’s he from? (Pause) I think he’s— I think it is— (unintelligible phrase). I don’t know what he is. I know he’s been acting like a right wing fanatic, and he’s just trying to tear in to Oswald’s [Ray’s] test— doc— shit. James Earl Ray, the framed-up— the guy that said he the fall guy— he tore into that guy after the marshals beat him up and took him back and he was in— even in coma a while. We had conflicting reports about it, but he was kept under lights, all of them agreed to that, for two days and two nights, floodlights, and he got— they put floodlight in there, and they didn’t even excuse that, the government admitted it happened, (Struggles for words) they didn’t even bother to give us an explanation, why you keep a man who’s getting ready for testimony under lights burning down on him for 48 straight hours. They’re weird. Well, Louis Stokes has been just tearing his testimony all to hell. Tearing into it. You won’t— He can’t get a word out of his mouth. And who’d he bring as a witness against him today? Terrible. I’m getting you ready for your next news, that’s why I’m doing this. ‘Cause you’ll have to know this tape next time, you see what I’m saying? I want every bit of it to count. Who did they get ready? They got the only witness against— (short laugh) Jesus Christ. James Earl Ray is a former police inspector who had been fired because he was involved in such ugly crimes that even the Memphis police could not support him any more. He’d gone to jail for police corruption. All kinds of felonies. And now’s involved in the underworld. And Mark Lane— the first time he lost his cool, he said, I refuse to hear any more he has to say. He just stomped out. I refuse to have anything— It’s obvious you’re managing this thing, it’s a— obvious you don’t want objective truth, when you come up with a witness that is as a— crooked as this man. And the former witness, you remember against Day— James Earl Ray. He was for him, originally. Remember, originally? He said in Atlanta, he was in Atlanta, Georgia at such-and-such a time? Putting his— Getting his linen, his, his laundry? That fucker got up and twisted his story today, turned his story clear around. They say, well, why are you doing it now? He said, well— why did you lie back then? There was no pressure on you then. Or if this was, there’d certainly be more pressure (Struggles for words) of any kind when you’re trying to testify on behalf of uh— of the person they want to pin. He was tested ba— testifying on behalf of James Earl Ray, back in the first trial. He said, I was orchestrated. They said, who by? Who orchestrated you? Well, it’s just that my, my, I— I— I won’t go any further. Someone orchestrated. What he was really saying, he was orchestrated this time. That’s what he was really saying, because they’re orchestrating him, to try to send James Earl back up there and forget about him and make him look like the lone assassin, if they don’t kill him off in the meantime. What they liked to’ve done was got him dead, but haven’t been able to do so.
Unintelligible response
Jones: Yeah, Larry— Larry Jones (Struggles for words) Louis Stokes is a, a formerly a newspaperman from New York. That sounds like it (unintelligible words), that’s right. (Pause) No doubt. (Pause) Orchestrated means that you do like a symphony, you make everybody do their songs, play their horn just right, everybody in their right place, and— and then somebody conducts and when he moves that stick, that violin moves, and he moves the stick over here, the cell moves, and you move the stick— you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Pulls the strings. Orchestrates it. Well, it’s a mess. (Struggles for words) Got tired of listening the goddamn news, ‘cause you— they’re— they’re gonna cover up any shit. If they don’t cover it up, it’ll be just like [Costa-Gavras political movie] Z, right?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Damn army will— If they ever arrest one of the generals for some of these crimes they did — you remember in Z? They arrested him, put— gonna put him in jail— Oh, you go too far then, honey, they’ll get your ass. (Pause) What is planned for Camp David? I want everybody to know this uh— it may not be so much news, but I want everybody to know on this tape tonight what the conspiracy is against us. And I only took you up to the early part of it. It’s gotten much dead— dirtier. What else is in it? What they’d come to, to [American Indian Movement leader] Dennis Banks? Six months? Six months before we ever had a newspaper slander? Said, if you will lie, and— and go along and attack Jim Jones and his movement, you won’t have any trouble with your extradition order, or, we can get the matters dropped in other states against you, that there’s— that’s pending against you. (Deliberate) If you don’t cooperate, you will be in lots of trouble. That’s what they said to him. One man by the name of [Albert] Kahn who was in our same denomination, who worked for who? (Breathless answer) Standard Oil. Mmm-hmm. What did Dennis Banks do? He told us. And he got a press conference, called a press conference — (Distracted) Will you wake up, for Christ’s sakes, folks, please do this. And you ask me to go to Georgetown, some of you young— younger people here, I— this outrageous. I— I’m not going send nobody to Georgetown, can’t stay awake during the meeting. (Pause) Now. What what what what what what? Dennis Banks stood up and said that, and gave a public news conference about it, and nobody carried shit about it, except the Examiner, and they just had a picture of— of— of the— of him in the picture, and what’d all the rest of it do? Rehash of all the old lies. Didn’t even want to admit there was a conspiracy.
Unintelligible response by one man
Jones: (Unintelligible) I know he’ll get it. He’ll get it, because he uh, see— Governor Brown’s on the hot seat. He’s no safer than the governor. And, the court stood back in Governor Brown’s lap. Said, unless governor orders the extradition, it’s not our duty to interfere with the executive branch that— the president is executive branch on the federal government, and the governor’s the executive branch on the state level, right? So he said, it’s not our duty. So you watch this. He gets closer to that Car— that, that showdown, election. What did Brown do last week? Call for law and order. Strict enforcement of laws, against the minorities. He said, we have had too many people crying racism. (Pause) Hmm. Isn’t that much? Can you imagine him saying that? I wouldna believed it, if I hadn’t heard his words on Voice of America, the— that sounded a bit t— too much for me, but he’s gone that far. So you think he’s gonna— when that election comes up, that the rightwing’s going to make hell over that. And you think he won’t? I think he will.
Unintelligible response by one man
Jones: And if he loses, you know the next governor who’s running against him. [California Attoney General] Evelle Younger? Heh.
Crowd reacts
Jones: Right wing. Openly right wing. Known racist. He’ll— First week, if Dennis hadn’t got his ass out of there, the first week, he will— the first week he comes to office, I’ll bet you, he moves against Dennis. That’d be my opinion. But everybody tells things are going cool for Dennis. Even, uh— everybody but him. All of our liberal friends think it’ll be just fine. We’ll see who’s right. (Changes subject) All right, now, what— where— where were we? What is planned for Camp David? (Pause) President [Jimmy] Carter’s retreat, his summer camp. [Former President Dwight] Eisenhower had it, we always heard that damn name, and they named it after Eisenhower. Camp David.
Young woman: Um.
Jones: Shift, please. (Pause) (Sigh). Shit. Fawn (?) giving help too much longer. Now what’s hap— what’s planned for Camp David?
Young woman: They, um, bringing back um, the, the camp, concentration camp—
Jones: No no no. No, uh, you, obviously you don’t know this stu— question, darling. You’ll have to take another class. Th— That’s all right. You’re a good person. Just need a class. That’s not— That’s not— it has nothing to do with the concentration camps. Thank you. Next. You may be seated.
Second woman: I believe there’s going to be a conference between [President] Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister [Menachem] Begin of Israel.
Jones: Yes—
Second woman: — and Carter.
Jones: Both dictators, in their way. What a— What a terrible thing did— What terrible thing did Begin do, that— most awesome thing (struggles for words) I suspect some of us’ll never really get off our little ass until somebody shoots one of us. What happened? Zionism played a bad game. They moved in Beirut in the middle of the Arab section, where all the principal Arab leaders — and they don’t like Arabs, period, right or left — and they blew up all their children and their wives, and you know what the hell they just caused? For the first time in history, all the Palestinians, right and left, all the Arabs, right and left, no matter how much differences they’ve got, they got one enemy that’s bigger than their differences. Zionism. Racism. So they’re calling a summit meeting. And that’s something I wish you could. You people gripe and complain, you’re never sorry— (erupts angrily) Don’t you have any enemies that are greater than any difference you have with somebody here in Peoples Temple?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: (Calls out) Don’t you have something worse back there to hate? Didn’t you come out of something worse?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Don’t you have some relatives you could hate?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: You hate their ways for what they’ve done?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Don’t you hate them for this terrible thing, they tried to frame [Jim] McElvane?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Don’t make it necessary, that one of our people be shot down (pause) before you get your act together.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: And some of you have greatness in this place. (Voice moderates) But I don’t believe we’ll ever see it, until somebody swoops in with a plane and bombs us. (Pause) That’s my— That’s my sad feeling. I think some people cannot live in an invec— in an intellectual environment, in a stimulating environment, in an environment of great opportunity, environment of lovely food and cosmopolitan living and the best air— I don’t believe they can stay revolutionary that way. (Pause) And I’m not going to hire no goddamn plane as a gimmick. You get what I’m saying?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: I ain’t starting no White Nights for gimmickry. ‘Cause I can’t take no White Night. If it’s a White Night, baby, we don’t even refer to that. Let’s forget that. It’s an Alpha— It’ll be an Omega, by God, before I call you, almost, ‘cause I’m sick of them. I’m sick of those goddamn things. That’s too much, hours and hours of worrying and pain and grief, so, I’m not going to create a situation which we have to discuss. But some of you forget too easily. They have shot at me, and missed me by just a few inches.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: They did try to invade us. They did come in with a massive conspiracy and stole everything we had in the supply, while we were guarding the— the houses, the next moment, they stole all of our shoes. White men led it. Just talking about it tonight, the head of the party, PNC. (Coughs) He’s never been heard, hide nor h— hair of since that time, when he was trying— coming in, trying to find out who John [Victor Stoen] was. Had kidnapping in mind, too, but we were w— were wise, but we’re getting soft. (Pause) Some of us are not watching.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Because we don’t have guns. We’re not watching. By God, you should watch. And not pray. Yeah, watch and pray.
Crowd: Laughter.
Jones: I mean prey like a fuckin’ fox. Just look for any shit you can find, because if somebody in here is an agent, and they make a contact, or tried to, like that one day, when the black sisters sighted this last person in— dressed in black. They got us diverted. (Pause) By God, it only take one contact that could get you killed.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Get your children killed. If we don’t cooperate and get our people out of there and quit wasting so much money, and causing some to have to stay back and feel that they have to, ‘cause they see the books, and one of them gets arrested, or one of them gets killed, how you gonna feel then? (Pause) Some of you wouldn’t feel anything. Lot of you, uh, it’d be just like me, it’d be close to it, it’d be pain terribly. Okay (sighs), uh, you answered that, yes. Carter’s going to try to get together with Begin and Sadat. Both of them, Sadat’s been a sell-out in the Arab world, they don’t like him, and now they— he says he won’t compromise, and neither will (sighs) uh, Begin, he won’t give back any of the conquered territories of West Jordan, West Bank that belongs to Jordan, or the Gaza Strip that he stole from Egypt, or the— Southern Lebanon that he keeps in the hands of rightwing Christians. What does Iraq say? (Pause) What’s Iraq got to say about all this these days? What’s happening to Iraq?
Young man: Iraq is being attacked, uh, all over, because of its stand. It wants— it’s trying to pressure the Arab nations to uh, change from using the U.S. dollar and use gold, and it also wants the Arab nations to refine their own oil.
Jones: That’s right.
Young man: And so, it’s become—
Jones: Make their own oil, instead of let— letting the big capitalists like Standard Oil, Shell and so forth, uh, rip off all the profits, because they got the equipment in USA or in US territory, where they refine the oil. That’s true.
Young man: The ambassador, um—
Jones: They also want him to do something else — you’ve already passed it in good color, um— want something else. I want to put it in for knowledge. They want the Arab nations to be— develop their own arms so they won’t be dependent upon USA when they have to fight their wars for their own freedom. And Iraq says— What does it say about Israel?
Young man: Um—
Jones: Well, don’t worry, you passed. Iraq said about Israel, that has no right to exist. It’s a religious state. It— no Muslim state has been allowed. Uh, the United Nations has given no approval to a Muslim state, or a Christian state, but they have some. No religious state. He wants a combination government made up of Arabs and Jews, and call it the new Palestine. So, he fell in trouble with USSR because USSR feels you gotta talk and negotiate, at least life has to be guaranteed to the Israelis, or they will start nuclear war. And USSR — the Soviet Union — is trying to avoid nuclear war. And China may be just as ideally trying it too, but they know, the longer you’d spare it, if it’s going to happen, the more people gonna be killed in the long run. I think someone wrote me, I can’t— I— I think it was Pauline Groot, you were questioning, you said you needed for mo— moral reasons to believe in China, you were very, uh, honest about that. You said, uh, something, I guess, you wanted for your own moral reasons that China— you, you, you just couldn’t face the fact that she would uh, operate from a plan to bring about Third World War.
Unintelligible response.
Jones: No, no. Well, they’re not bluffing it. They— they said it tonight. (Short laugh) They spoke to themselves on the news, and from the— from Romania. They said the prime minister [Hua Kuo-fenj] says nuclear war, and uh, everybody believes him. BBC believes him. They really believe it. BBC won’t say always they believe it’s gonna happen, they always say— everybody says it’ll happen, sooner or later. But he’s— the Chinese prime minister says it’ll happen within a year. He said it three or four times now. No, no, they’re not— they’re not kidding nobody. But why would they have to bluff, Paulie, why— why do you (struggles for words) what is it that you feel is immoral about uh, such a con— a consideration? (Pause) From your frame of reference.
Pauline: Um.
Jones: Shift, please. Wake up, please.
Pauline: (Speaks slowly) I— I’m having trouble putting the exact words behind it. It— (Pause)
Jones: We get a lot of helpful things in writing, I like to he— see you write. But uh, that point, I thought you were a little uh, idealistic, uh, too much too utopianistic.
Pauline: May very well be. Ah—
Jones: Don’t you believe nuclear war is de— bound to happen, from your point of view as a scientist? You’ve got a lot of scientific training.
Pauline: Uh, yes—
Jones: You may be seated.
Pauline: I’m— I believe it’s bound to happen, even for— for one thing, it’s the scientists that I grew up with that worked on that stuff are— I don’t know quite how to put it, but there— (Jones talks over her)
Jones: We don’t have a lot— We don’t have a lot— We don’t have— We don’t have a lot to talk—We don’t have a lot of time for dialogue. I just— I’m just trying to find out— So if you believe it’s going to happen, that there’s too many bombs and too many nationalists and too much fear and too much conniving and too much, uh, paranoia, distrust, then, would the Chinese not be right? (Pause) Would they not be m— Would they not be right to seek, to stop it from killing all of mankind. Unless you are a hedonist or something. Nihilist. Nihilistist, they don’t believe in anything, correct? Is that— Is that a correct analysis for nihilism?
Pauline: Um— Correct, yes.
Jones: Ah, I want to be sure. Getting up, up there in the days. (Pause) Is that all there is to nihilism? There’s more to that to nihilism— (unintelligible)
Unintelligible response
Jones: Accept no authorities, and believe in what?
Unintelligible response
Jones: No— no philosophy, no religion? Yeah.
Unintelligible response
Jones: A defeatist attitude. Yeah, it is. Well, I suppose a nihilist would believe he could never, (stumbles over words) they don’t believe in anything, they don’t believe anything will ever good come out of the human race. So the best thing for them, I guess, they— we just blow up the face of the— blow the whole damn world. Unless you were a nihilist, though— and with the scientific evidence that only USA is going to suffer the most tragically— I’m reading that from more radical and even more, uh— they consider the bomb a greater menace than some people there prepared to admit. USA says, of course, you know, they tell the people, they’ll survive and a bunch of bullshit. Most of the time in the press they do. But every now and then, like Secretary [Robert] McNamara — you remember when he was the head of the Secretary of Defense?
Unintelligible response
Jones: And now he’s the head of the World Bank? He said, there will be a nuclear war. And he said — that was what? Fifteen years ago? God, I don’t know. Time— Ten years ago? He said— in the first 20 minutes, 149 million US people will die. At that time, I think our population was around 200 million. And they still say it. I got some more statistics. I don’t remember them. They still say it. Now it’s two hundred and something. Two hundred million and seven, or 206 that will die in the first few minutes. So if (stumbles over words) if that’s bound to happen, uh, wouldn’t you, uh— I wouldn’t want you to feel immoral about that, Pauline. Um. The Soviet Union, I think, are being naive. I think they’re on the vanguard more— as much as you can know uh, between the, the lines. I think they are— uh—
End of side 1
Side 2
Jones: — sell them opium to their drug market. They were bla— they were white-marketing in opium.
Pauline: China didn’t want the capitalists selling opium in China. They tried to clean it up so their own Chinese people would not have to be addicted to the drug (Jones talks over last few words)
Jones: They didn’t want it— They didn’t want it anywhere. Some of the— some of the people were very, very uh, moralistic. They didn’t want the shit to go out. They didn’t want them to— more than the morality, they didn’t want them to have the exclusive right, as you say, to export (exploit?) it. And by God, from a little incident, I, uh— it’s one of those things that bought a whole war. Just some little some affront that a white man had because a Chinese spoke him back— spoke back to him, that caused the goddamn war, in which Ch— Ch— millions of Chinese um, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands were massacred. (Pause) Okay. Now do— do— do— what is your reason to have difficulty with China, saying well, shit, it’s gonna happen, it’s best that it happens before this which is a zone of peace— this is a declared zone of peace between the Soviet Union and the USA. They’ll never drop any nuclear bombs in this region. Now they’re making the Indian Ocean a zone of peace, all through the subcontinent of India. If anybody deserves it, it’s the Indians— Christ, they ought to deserve— they’ve been treated like a damn bunch of dogs, allowed every damn famine, when they’re not in a famine, they’re in torrential monsoon rains, I guess they (stumbles over words) should have some agreements. But what’s going to happen? India’s got the bomb. She hasn’t had much time to industrialize, but she’s got the bomb. Any nation that has any capacity at all to forge industrialization can make that bomb. (Pause) So. Now, why do you find that difficult? Morally.
Pauline: Um. (Pause) I get my emotions too tangled up in this, partly due to—
Jones: You recognize that— (Snapping fingers) Know it. Know it. One thing you can never do, is allow your emotions to get in the way of your socialist philosophy. Ah, you stop and think of those babies, the skin pull— falling off their skin, off their bone, and it’s so horrible, and people’s eyes blinded as we saw in the movies, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, till you open them, and there nothing but a mass of pus. (Pause) Then scorched through, you could tell just like somebody put a welding torch right on them.
Pauline: Um-hmm.
Jones: When you see that— wake up, darling on the front row, young lady— when you see that, I can know the terror of thinking of just the USA alone that’s going to die. Two hundred million? And what’s worse, what’s going to happen to the 40 million left alive, ‘cause they won’t have any way to fight radiation, there’s no underground shelters, which shows the superiority of socialism over capitalism, because socialist China and Russia and even socialist democracy in Sweden, uh, provide underground shelters. But don’t even let your emotions rule you, because what you have to face is like this: how would you like to see, as opposed to, what would presently be probably 400 million dead, or would you like to see four billion, four billion, (Slows speech for emphasis) slowly dying, that didn’t get the bomb directly. A whole globe, where there’d never be anything alive again. Now you may say, I wish it were that way, but you’re not a socialist if you do. Don’t you think children who are born — I’m not talking about the unborn — don’t you think children who are born and have been starved all their life have a right to life?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Been brought up in religious prejudices that they can’t lay down their life, wouldn’t know how to do it, wouldn’t have the means to do it, and some of them don’t even possess a knife to cut their food, they have to grub it out with their hands, steal it from garbage pails. Don’t you think they have a right to life? Do you think communism can work? Do you think socialism can work? Yes, in spite of all the hell here, if it can work here, baby, it can work anywhere.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Because we’ve got a goddamn bunch of spoiled Americans.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Come on, now.
Crowd: (Louder) Right.
Jones: Spoiled as hell. Pampered as hell. Most of them never knew what a depression was, never knew what police brutality was, or they forget it, they don’t want to be reminded— what? Never knew what work was, yes, thank you, sir, I— that’s bor— (laughs)
Crowd: Laughter.
Jones: (Lighter tone) Never knew what work was, and still don’t.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Never had a war on your land. If this bunch of shit can make a socialist community that’s decent and more than halfway decent, then anybody should be able to build socialism.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Right?
Crowd: (Louder) Right.
Jones: So the miracle is these seniors that are learning to read and write, when they were supposed to be handicapped — Marceline [Jones] told me herself — had so much corrosion in their blood vessels that there’s no way they could memorize. And I said we’ll see. I ain’t gone tell you who they are, ‘cause they’ve already memorized it. (Laughs) They can give you the Doctrine of Three Worlds. Fuck medicine. Fuck capitalist medicine, you know. We’ve done great miracles here.
Crowd: (Scattered) Right.
Jones: Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: You got a will to live, you can go through many a storm. We saw that in a simple-assed Hollywood movie the other night. The plague that killed something, some shit, and, uh, we— you got it, you can see it. I don’t know what the fuck it was. The Killer That Stalked New York, and it was some kind of— well, you see it. That woman had a mission, by God. And don’t tell me a mission won’t hold you together. (Sings out) Don’t tell me it won’t hold you together. It will. I got fever right now, and I’m here on a mission, I’m not sure very effective, but by God, (short laugh) if I knew I was dying for sure, oh, ho ho ho (Michael Jackson “Ow”). I keep saying this, ‘cause they don’t like this. They don’t like (unintelligible phrase). (unintelligible word) fucker’s immortal. They’re in— They’re eternally immortal. They come out of the divine mother virgin Mary, their daddy didn’t have anything to do with fucking, they’re going to live forever. Never can stand this, they never can stand this. Don’t want to die. But if you were going to die, what would you do? Everybody ought to have it worked out in their mind. (Speaks deliberately) What would you do? I got it all worked out. And if I was sick, like some of these people have been, lay in the last moment, people follow the rules, they wouldn’t have— we haven’t had but three [deaths in Jonestown]. Even my mother. You gotta follow all the rules, you want to live longer and healthy, keep alive and get resurrection. That should not be an end, but we should try to stay alive, be less complaining and follow all rules. Some good people— Some of the good people pass who were not complainers, but they— they would never attempt to uh, change some of their way. Smoking. You know what I mean. Let’s face it, Emmett [Griffith, Sr.] and Lyn— Lynetta [Jones] knew better. You understand what I’m saying?
Crowd: Yes.
Jones: But a lot of good people will die. That’s not the point. Good people die. The issue is, say, why is it that some of you have never faced it? I’ve wondered, though, why had— any time— ex—except my mother. She said, I wou— I wish you’d let me out of here, I said, Mother, you couldn’t get across, uh, couldn’t get across the Atlantic. She say, ohhh, yes I could. I said, she couldn’t, her legs were all swollen up. Said I— she said I personally, I personally like to kill that Tim Stoen. She says that critter don’t deserve to live another day. Said. if I’da got my mother loose in New York, she mighta made it, but I knew that— that high altitude, she wouldn’t have. Hmm?
Unintelligible comment.
Jones: She didn’t know much about the conspiracy now. But you watch. These people will— if they’d got down, were ready to die, you’ll never hear a word come out of their mouth. (Pause) Hah?
Crowd: (Scattered) Right.
Jones: You never hear a word come out of their mind about what they’re going to do, to help a cause. One of our other people saw they had cancer for sure, I know we did, the doctor did, (unintelligible word) rate was high, shakin’, he had some calculatin’ what he was going to do. And let me tell you, friends, I couldn’t— I had to take the chance that I could heal him, and I did. It dropped, but he looked like walking death. I was about tempted— he looked like walking death. I mean, he looked like walking death to me. And he felt like it, he couldn’t keep going at all so— (Cries out) So what would you do if you— I ain’t gone tell you. You ought to know. Every socialist ought to know. You ought to have a little plan. Hmm? I shouldn’t be (unintelligible word — pam? meaning hand?) feeding you. Have you thought about it right now? How many already got in your mind what you’d do if you died, would— knew you were dying? Ah, some people are honest. They haven’t got it out, but you ought to start thinking, right now, in your brain. You ought to have it in five minutes, while I’m talking here. Hmm? (Pause) Okay. Shift again. (Pause) What’s China’s— (mumbles question to himself) Okay, we got that. (Mumbles question to himself) Oh, shit, we’re back on that again, huh? (Pause) So all that group been through, that was in the bakery?
Voice off mike: No, Dad (rest of short sentence too soft)
Jones: Oh, Lord. Okay, (sighs), the Rosenbergs. Who were the Rosenbergs, and um, what happened to them?
Young woman: The Rosenbergs were um, uh, just normal people living in America, and they were framed— they were framed, um— (Pause), they were framed for um, be— um, getting the atomic information to the um, Russia.
Jones: Yes, that’s right. What— what background were they? What ethnic background?
Young woman: They were Jewish.
Jones: They were Jewish. They wanted to extract from them certain things. Okay, pass. (Pause) Good. How could they have avoided going to death? The Rosenbergs could have avoided going to death by t— two times, by doing something. They could have avoided a terrible death in the electric chair.
Young woman: They—
Jones: Sing Sing. For their children, it was a terrible death.
Young woman: They coulda went to prison.
Jones: (Shocked) Of course, you could go to prison. I mean, what could they have done as individuals, that beli— makes me not be a nihilist. ‘Cause people like that, you can’t get around. You can’t get around some people in Haymarket Affair. You can’t get around the Rosenbergs. You can’t get around Patrice Lumumba. You can’t get over, (Sings) too hi-i-i-gh, you got— can’t go over it, too lo-o-ow, you can’t get under it, too wi-i-i-ide, you can’t get round it, you gonna have to come through the socialist door. (Normal tone of voice) Why? Victor Jara (unintelligible name), sing your arm with his arms off. Yeah, children. Why? What could they have done? They were offered the most important message of the whole film. To me, to me, it showed me something profound.
Young woman: They coulda lied, but instead, they didn’t. They—
Jones: No nonononononono. They coulda done that. No no no no. Did you see the film?
Young woman: Yes, Dad.
Jones: Last night?
Young woman: Yes. Um.
Jones: (Unintelligible— “What was the point of it, darling?) I really thought I pointed that out. How many could hear my interpretations over the— over the uh, film? (Pause) Well, you’re— you’re bright. That’s why I know I, uh— you musta been tired or not listening. I’ll have to go on, because I— I can’t— if I start giving time for one another, we’ll be here all night. Go on. Next. (Pause) What could they have done to save themselves?
Young woman 2: Um. They could have um, gave up for what they believe in, they coulda just—
Jones: You don’t know either, do you?
Young woman 2: I heard it today, but I— I didn’t understand it.
Jones: Well, don’t get nervous. Just try. If they give up what they believe in, yes, but the other said as principally as that. As much. I haven’t figured out how many days you’ll have, I know we’re going to have two extra days of study for those who do not pass this c— this class. Maybe five. Depends upon our activities. (Pause) You don’t— You don’t know? You don’t remember any of it, honey? Joyce [Touchette], you don’t remember any of it?
Young woman 2: (Unintelligible fade in) I— I just forget.
Jones: Well, try to— try to (unintelligible word) might— Comrade Teacher— principals, Clara and uh, Grubbs should be able to tell us maybe a little memory drill. Honey, you’re going to have to begin back at a much uh, earlier level, you know, some things. But to me, that was the most touching thing about the whole movie. Co— But that again, I think, shows something about you, ‘cause you’re bright too. You— if you’re really socially sensitive, if you really feel for others, if you really have an empathy, putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes, (claps hands) it would have gripped you, and you’da got that, if you didn’t get anything else. If you’re young. Now a senior might have trouble. But I’ll bet you there’s some seniors that got it. (Pause). Yes. Okay, Joyce? Stand up and tell me what it was.
Joyce: (Unintelligible fade in)—they wasn’t accused. They was accused, but they wasn’t guilty.
Jones: That’s right, they were accused of uh, signing false uh—
Joyce: They was accused—
Jones: They— they refused to say, I’m guilty, and beg for the mercy of the court. Now there was another time, if they’da done something else — that’s good, she got that, put her down — what else? You know? It was another time. It was another time. They were offered some other thing, that’da got ‘em a much better deal than that. Only three people in this place know it? (Pause) Good Lord. (Pause) Good Lord. You do know it, don’t you? (Pause) What was it?
Unintelligible comment.
Jones: Al Simon back there, what was it? Shout it out.
Unintelligible comment.
Jones: What? (Pause) If you didn’t hear the question, how could you raise your hand that you got the answer? (Laughs) The question was— (Pause) Don’t, don’t— please don’t do this, folks. The question was— (Pause) (Sighs) I, I’m so damn feverish, I can’t even remember the question. The question was, there was another chance they were given to do something. If they’d done it, (struggles for words) for the government, it woulda helped uh, capitalism and to help anti-communism, they coulda done— another thing they were offered to do. (Pause) You remember now?
Replies too soft
Jones: No, no, that’s it— that’s it in substance, but that— that’s pretty good logic, but that’s not it exactly. Yes, uh, Reb [James Edwards], what?
Reply too soft
Jones: That’s right. And to help build Israel. To help build Israel. That that should be the only cause. And they refused to do that, too. And that would have gotten them— from what the insinuations was— were, that would have perhaps even gotten them free. To walk the streets. ‘Cause they were a national— They were national heroes and heroines. There’ve never been so many people out on the streets for anyone. Second only was Paul Robeson, but even Robeson never command the attention, the interest of the Rosenbergs. The eyes of the world were upon them. And I’m sure they’da baded them gladly, they got the eyes— at that time, in the early fifties, to look towards supporting Israel and say that the Soviets are really enemies of the Jews, and Communists are enemies of the Jews, and tell this soc— socialists, they ought to all get behind the Zionist struggle, and build a reli— religious state called Israel. Okay. Thank you, honey. (Pause) Next. Next question. What part did the following people play in the trial? David Greenglass and Harry Gold.
Woman: Uh, David Greenglass was Ethel Rosenberg’s sis— uh, brother, and he— he told her that Julius was the one who— he started this, um, get the plans for the Russians, and he had the uh, Jello boxtop that somebody was going to come and match with him, and he implicated that Julius and uh, Ethel had to do with it, and David Gold was um, (unintelligible phrase— at the end, he?) he was— he was crazy, and he— he—
Jones: Some people remember words like that. What was it? I— I— I wou— I remember the word. And when the psychiatrist called him something. Gold. Know what it was?
Reply too soft
Jones: Last word ending in “loco.”
Reply too soft
Jones: Pseudo-fantastico?
Reply too soft
Jones: Hmm? (Pause) Pseudo— (Pause) Oh, I know that. False. Pseudo means false.
Reply too soft
Jones: False fantastic talking. Fantastic nightmares. Wild dreams. All the time, he talked wild— of schemes. Even loved to g— And there’re some people, I don’t know what the psychological disease is, they— they’ll get publicity even if they go to the gas chamber. There’re people like that. They con— They confess to every crime. They confess all the time, out of a sense of guilt, the— What’s the label? What’s the— They’ll they’ll they’ll confess to any goddamn thing. He got it. He sure got jailed for it. (Pause) What?
Reply too soft
Jones: Yeah yeah, we— yeah, we know, I wanted to know if they had a mental— if they had a description. Those who cannot face what they have done in their life, or what life is, they have to develop some fantastic kind of phantasmagoria, some kind of hallucination. But uh, who are those that uh— is there a word for it? I’ve forgotten. There was. Psychological word for those who feel so guilty, that they’ll confess to things, even on a lunatic basis. They think they’re behind everything. I have a woman here in my mer— movement. When she first came in the movement, she was— she was responsible for everything. If I—Somebody got in my pulpit one time— No, not delusions of grandeur. Uh, (gusts) yeah— this woman never had delusions of grandeur, but she, uh— somebody preached on Adam. And that’s what I believe about mentally-disturbed people, I don’t uh, I— I believe anything’s curable. ‘Cause Esther [Mueller] was settin’ over there, and she’s been in responsible work, and done strategic work, and done highly sensitive work. She been with me for 20 years, but she was crazier than a March hare when she came. Her family was gonna put her in a mental hospital, and she was crazy. So some of you— and you— they oughtna look at uh— stand up, Esther. She knows herself together now, and can— she’s in her late seventies and does everything, but when she came 20 years ago, she was crazy, ‘cause somebody preached the doctrine on the fall of man, and she liked to bug my ass for an hour, she said, I’m responsible for Adam’s sin.
Crowd: General laughter.
Jones: I don’t know whether she thought then she was out in the fuckin’ garden, I don’t know, maybe she thought she was Eve. No, she didn’t. She just felt guilty, and something unexplainable— she’d take responsibility every time I preached a sermon. I’ve got some still. (Gusty breath) It’s always them. But for some of us, because they (Gusty breath) they’re guilty. They’re guilty of everything. Okay. Now, you give us a pretty good breakdown of Gold there, so give me something so I can— I’m nervous, ‘cause I don’t want to hold it up waitin’ on uh— I can do it. I can do it out here. Okay, you passed. Harry Gold. (Pause) What was revealed about the jury? Terrible things about that jury.
Younger girl: That, um, they picked— they picked no um, working class. They um, they didn’t pick no Jew, no— no Jew—
Jones: That’s good.
Younger girl: And um—
Jones: No working class?
Younger girl: No, no no.
Jones: You got enough to pass. (Pause) What else didn’t they do?
Younger girl: And um— (Pause)
Jones: They couldn’t read any progressive newspapers, or liberal newspapers.
Younger girl: And um—
Jones: Naturally, they couldn’t be socialist. (Pause) Well, you hit enough. They didn’t pick a—They wouldn’t let a Jew sit in the jury, they wouldn’t let anybody that was progressive, liberal even — not socialist — nobody be on there, and they had to— they— prosecutor could eliminate any juror he wanted to, based on what they read. If they read anything progressive or liberal— they wanted people who read the old guidelines, the Reader’s Digest, and U.S. News & World Report. (Pause) Yes. (Pause) And I hope that picked up. Prosecutor was allowed to know full files, yes, but the defense attorney was not. Yes.
Chaikin: I just wanted to say that they do that— they do that in all the major poli— political cases, they do it in all the major criminal cases, where they got blacks or minority, uh, the prosecution, the district attorneys, they’ve always got FBI profiles on all the prospective jurors. The defense attorneys don’t. It’s a standard way they have of putting people on ice.
Jones: That’s good.
Chaikin: Been going on for years in every state— major trial.
Jones: Very good point. Some of you think that you’re no different from the Rosenberg. What he’s saying is that that happens any time a person goes to trial for anything. The prosecution’s got the advantage to put you behind bars, because your attorney cannot know the background of the jurors. They can’t have— They’re— They don’t have available to them FBI files and computer files and police files, they don’t have that available. (Pause) All right, young lady, very good. (Unintelligible word) Next. Next. (Pause) (Sighs) Wish this temperature would go down. (Reads questions) Why do you think that all the demonstrations— No no no no. What were some of the holes in the government’s case against the Rosenbergs?
No reply.
Jones: Some of the holes. (Pause) In the government’s case against the Rosenbergs.
Young woman: I know it’s supposed to be there on the fifth. They weren’t really there. They were there on the sixth, and it was fourth. (Pause) Um.
Jones: I wish you people would do me one thing. I’ve asked it uh, for— over and again. You have to me— You must think I’m a walking computer, to give me these goddamn questions and I do not have answers for ‘em. But I happen to know the answers on the questions. I think it’s grossly unfair, and I hope I don’t have to say it again. I made a distress call to someone yesterday. I could capsulize it quickly, and I wouldn’t have to take up people’s time, trying to get it out of my memory. ‘S very important. Now. What is it— what— oh, I’ve mentioned it so many times, I’m sick of talking about it. Go ahead.
Man in crowd: The thing was—
Jones: Now wait wait wait. I want to hear her.
Young woman: There was uh— besides that, there was uh— a lot was um, depending upon a Jello package, which uh, (Jones talks over her) brother—
Jones: What’s the hole? What’s the hole?
Reply of man too soft.
Jones: A hole. I mean, like a hole in the— uh, like a hole in the fabric, where you can see through. The light of truth shining through, showing that uh— the prosecution, the government was lying. I mean, it— framing them. What— what were some of the holes? (Pause) How many know ‘em out there? (Sighs)
Replies too soft.
Jones: Tsk, tsk, tsk. Oh, Jesus, this is discouraging. (More emphatic) This is discouraging. (Pause) There’s equal amounts of seniors as there are youth. And one thing I’m going to say, some of you goddamn teenagers, preteen, you don’t know shit. (Pause) Just after that junior high level, ah, up to the end of the secondary, you don’t know shit. I don’t see a hand. You never wake up. Where in the fuck are you?
Replies too soft.
Jones: They had the Rosenbergs for 12 days, yes. Ought to be answers to the place. (Pause) You better correct that shit, or there won’t be no tomorrow for you. You want to hold on to your jive-ass romance and your jive-ass music, and all that shit, well you won’t be able to play that jive-ass music when radiation’s killing us off, or somebody else, mercenaries, ‘cause you lower your resistance — and that’s the way you lower it, by not learning socialism — something’s going to happen to you, someplace. (Pause) I— I’m ashamed, that some of these youth (stumbles for words) don’t make— you got the mind. Difficult for people, (unintelligible word) even middle years, it becomes difficult, but by God, when seniors can have four or five hands, and not see certain lay— age groups, it makes me very, very upset. You know any of the holes here. You’re a good worker. No reflection on your work, but I’m going to have to go with— (Jones and woman talking over each other)
Young woman: No, Dad, I’m (unintelligible word) thinking. I’m sorry I missed it.
Jones: Okay, I’ll just step on— What— You know some of the holes in the case.
Young woman: Um, all I can think of is more than like, um, they didn’t have no evidence against them.
Jones: Well, honey. They didn’t have any evidence. But what is it? Would you give me more than that, darling? What— what is the thing they didn’t have any evidence about? (Pause) (sighs) I— I’ll have to go to the next—
Young woman: Um—
Jones: I don’t like to do this, (unintelligible word), there’re not the best test, but we— why are we tested this way. We don’t have any paper. Didn’t get any on the shipment. That’s why we’re doing it. It’ll be in by Tuesday, for a test then, but none now. (Pause) What (unintelligible word), what is it?
New woman: Um— one thing, they didn’t have enough information about the atomic bomb, or something like that.
Jones: Yes? (Pause) It wasn’t about the atomic bomb in the first place. (Pause) It was about uh, (unintelligible word — land? Lem?). And it was a superficial drawing.
New woman: Yeah.
Jones: So that’s true.
New woman: Um—
Jones: Give me, uh— you— you barely skidded through. (Unintelligible word) —on by. Now, what more? You know anything more about it?
New woman: No.
Jones: Why? (Sudden outburst) I say, why? Don’t give me no shrug of shoulder. (Mike cuts off for several seconds) —you gone kill us. So don’t me no fuckin’ shoulder. I don’t mean you personally. So don’t you— don’t you come back at me like that. (Shouts) You should know, and you should feel ashamed that you don’t know. You’re young. Capable. Bright. You should know. (Pause) So don’t you be humble. Not me.
Reply of woman from crowd too soft.
Jones: (Upset) You goddamn better say something. What did you get out of the Rhode— (stumbles for word) Rosenberg case? (Shouts) What your hell is our future in? Where in the hell is our future? Whose hand is it in? Why are you doing, you killers of the office? You kill, because you won’t learn. (Pause)
Reply of woman from crowd too soft.
Young woman: No.
Crowd woman: Well, answer it, you can say something, there must have been something in the film that (fades out)—
Jones: (Low and upset) I’m feverish, child. I’m just feverish. Very high in fever. I don’t dislike you, I’d lay my life down for you. But this is a frustration. Intellectually, I’m not trying to tell you, I’m not frustrated by what I see. (Pause)
Man in crowd: And the thing about it, you’re a young (unintelligible)
Jones: (Talks over man) Oh, for— forget it.
Man in crowd: —confronting or not, you’re not Dad.
Jones: (Shouts) There never will, because there many of them as ignorant as Al Shit (unintelligible name), they’re so caught up in capitalism, they’re selling them out, and they’re murdering me.
Crowd: That’s right.
Reply of woman from crowd too soft.
Young woman: (Plaintive) I didn’t understand it.
Man: Well, when he explained to you—
Jones: (mike cuts back on him, with unintelligible word fragment) (shouts) — did you ask your neighbor, the person (unintelligible word) say, I didn’t understand it? Did you tell me one time? Did you raise your hand one time? Hell, no. (low voice) Don’t give me that shit.
Man: You were in socialism class, you were in socialism class yesterday, and everybody in socialism class discussed it.
Several voices interrupt.
Man: Who was the president? Who was the president? Who was the president during the time this— all this happened? What was the president’s name? What year? What— what—what— what Congressman was running around acting—
Jones: (Interrupts) Next. We can’t go— Next, we can’t go, give any more bay (?). We’ve been black and white, we’ve been equal with up here. Come on.
Crowd discussion too soft.
Jones: (Shouts) She shouldn’t be in a bakery. She should be at the very foot of learning in every department. She should be educating herself. She should not be in a bakery.
Crowd: Right.
Young man: One thing, they didn’t have no, no information. They didn’t—
Jones: (Interrupts) I didn’t tell him. I would not tell anybody to go into the bakery. They can—Somebody else can substitute. That child’s going back to school. She ought to send— spend some time. In school. I will not let ignoramuses grow up, and we let you out. And ignoramus doesn’t mean anything. That means you’re just not getting intell— the information, and you’re intelligent enough to get that information. But I’ll be goddamned if we’re going to let people quit school like, to have them ignore classes and don’t know one thing about Rosenbergs? Nuh-unh. Nuh-unh. No way. (Pause) Son, do you know any holes that were in the case?
Young man: Um. One thing they had, they had little pieces of information that didn’t hardly even fit together and um, like, um, they used little things like, they— they didn’t even know if the um, Rosen— the Rosenbergs didn’t really do it, like, they— they weren’t giving out no information in the, in the um, the um, the um, the courts tried to use it against them, they saying that they was using all— all kinds of little stuff, putting all kinds of little stuff together, trying to—
Jones: Okay, now, that— that’s good, now I’ll let you by, I let somebody else by that shouldn’t have got by with this, on this question, about as simply. (Unintelligible) I’ll let you by. (Unintelligible) And you said it much more articulately. Okay. But here is what. Major, a major thing in the course that Chaikin pointed out, then the fact that co— few co— in England, the scientist that was framed, by most reports today — that’s what press has admitted in, in England — he wasn’t even a spy. He wasn’t— he was a political scapegoat in England. And they tried to say that he had met with Harry Gold. And finally said, if you insist that I had met with Harry Gold, I guess it’ll just have to be Harry Gold, but I never met with him. So there could have been no conspiracy, ‘cause Fuchs is the one who supposed to gotten the heavy information, the spy information, with— went through Fuchs, Professor Fuchs, a scientist, a physicist in England who was being bla— whitemailed for homosexual reasons, they said, and then he in turn sent it on to Soviet Union. So if he didn’t know hi—the contact man — Harry Gold was the contact man between the Soviets and USA — if he— if Fuchs— the contact man— they built their case on Fuchs being the one that had taken the material, handed it over to him through Harry Gold, and Harry Gold had got it from Julius’ brother, David Greenglass, who sold out his own sister. Thought he was going to get off, and the goddamn judge surprised him, give him 15 years. That’s what all finks should take notice. They always call them government witness. What a lovely— don’t you ever fall for that word, “government wit— wink— witness,” that means fink. Anybody give state’s evidence against anybody in a criminal situation, as uh, Chaikin pointed out, where all— no black person, no poor white person can get a fair trial, because the prosecution has an advantage from the beginning? (Emphatic) I wouldn’t fink on nobody. That’s my cord— my cardinal gain. I wouldn’t. I had to see something big in the black community which I lived, they said such-and-such on dope, I said, who in the hell is supplying them? Who is the fuck is pushin’ it?
Voice in crowd too soft.
Jones: Yeah, where’d it come from? From Colombia, an Ambassador, USA, high up, shipping heroin that poison the youth mind, destroy it inch by inch. So I never would report anybody. I had a law. Goddamn, I had a law. Strictly, and I’d go to hell (stumbles for words) in a breadbasket, even if some of these people— most of the occasions, I risk my life ‘fore they were guilty as hell. Back there. I mean, they were guilty as hell. But I wouldn’t cooperate. I wouldn’t cooperate, because for one thing, I’m a loving and indulgent father, but the primary reason was that I did not feel that any poor white person or black person— or middle-class even— would get a fair shake in a court of law. You got it, you were damn lucky, that’s all. You had to be crazy like Chris [Lewis] to do it, even then. They’da they’da sent Chris away, I’ll bet you, with all the miracles I did, and the prophecy, but my prophecy musta been based purely and simply — not on the goddamn court, because it was one hell of a case— shit, Mae didn’t even have her shit together, she didn’t— she had mix-up on clothes she wore, there was contradictions in the testimony, our district— our public— (stumbles for words) we hired him the best attorney we could find, but you coulda shot holes through his goddamn case. I know what won it, when I packed that courtroom full of you starin’ at the fuckin’ jury.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Hmm?
Crowd: (Louder) Right.
Jones: Yes yes yes. You say that’s wrong, to stack that (stumbles for words). No, it wasn’t wrong. You got every fuckin’ right to go to the courtroom.
Crowd: That’s right.
Jones: You don’t have to smile, ain’t no law tells you on the outside, ages to smile. Nobody has any signs on the front of the jury room, smile when you come in here, you’re on Candid Camera. (Short laugh.) So I had — remember? Some of you were there — to pack that goddamn jury room. And they’d watch him. They look, them fuckin’ white boys, (Pause) and they thought, we better let this cat off, ‘cause that sonofabitch, if— if he gets in jail, we got 200 faces out there, I’m— it’s amazing, we made it as long as we did. I’m telling you, ‘cause people— high-ranking people wanted to get Chris out of the way. And I don’t mean just necessarily people who were opposed to socialism. There’s just a whole lot of folks didn’t like his dealings, and his dealings were rotten. Umm?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: The Black Liberation Army, he, he happened to shoot the guy he shot in a quarrel over his wife, shot her, shot— uh, shot him, and he died right there. What. He was the former head of the BLA. Top man of the Black Panthers. Shit. Chris had (stumbles over word)— Poison followed him like the plague. And the unfortunate problem is, I don’t talk any different about the dead than I do the living. He was always getting me in his shit. ‘Cause I was his dad. And I was tied up in his shit, and my legal staff, tied up in Chris’ shit, till I just didn’t know what in the hell I would do. That’s why I wanted him stay here. Not only that, I knew he was in danger, prophetically, but I wanted him to stay here, because he’s given me loads and loads of trouble through the years. I have been worried to death for this man. When he went through this town, he does— (stumbles for words) there is no sense, you see, to act a fool when you don’t need to. Ain’t no sense to that. On the airplane, he got— smart-ass somebody at Matthews Ridge at the airplane. Got into Georgetown, I’ll be a sonofabitch if he didn’t tear up three hotels, because he was drunk. And that— that— that— and he was connected with us. And I loved him. Loved him. Called every day on that radio, how’s he doing? Our code name. Please keep him in the church. He says, I will, I will, he gets on, talks, I’ll stay there, Dad, I will, I will. He goes out and gets himself set up in the Fillmore. But the reason he got set up was not for anything he was doing. It was because Deanna Mertle was terril— terribly afraid of him, for the one time in his life that he used threat of violence in a nice way. He lifted up her husband in the supermarket when she was trying to extort us, whitemail us, out of $35,000. He said, now listen, brother, I’ll take of you personally. And you too, bitch. He told her to shut up. Right in broad daylight. That shows how you can get killed in— in the— in the cities, and nobody pay any attention. In the broad daylight, he held her aaa— right up— he held old Mertle right up by the nap of his neck, said, I’ll— I’ll personally— ‘cause if it was one thing I could count on him— lot of people I’ve helped, I can’t even count on this, ‘cause Chris is not the only one given me a lot of trouble. Lot of people gonna have a lot of guilt on them when I die. I’m not talking about the socialist. I’m talking about people that rode me through courts, doing their own fuckin’ shit. And they’re not as near as humble as they ought to be. Not near as cooperative as they ought to be. ‘Cause they would— if they had been doing what they supposed to been doing, they’d never been in the trouble. And their fuckin’ arrogant personalities, every time you deal with them, still arrogant. And I’m not— so you won’t make any ah, judgments (stumbles for words), I wasn’t speaking of Ellihue [Dennis], for instance. He’s the last case. I thought you take uh, think it’d be Ellihue. I’m thinking of somebody else even. (Pause) But Ellihue should (unintelligible word— probably “probably”) be humble, I— goddammit, I knew he’d stole — I knew he’d done it. Didn’t make no damn difference. I knew he’d done it. I knew shit well he’d done it. But I said, they ain’t taking my children. That’s a commitment I made years ago, they’re not taking my children. And the system’s unfair, and I’m not going to let any black m— young man be throwed in there for ten years, whatever the hell he’da got over that shit. No way. Did it for a young white man too. Not only been black. I don’t know how he’s doing. I haven’t asked him questions. He ought to remind the whole congregation, I hope he’s written up an affidavit. He should. (Pause) Who am I talking about? Paul.
Crowd: Paul.
Jones: Paul McCann. ‘Cause his ass woulda been gone, boy. ‘Cause if he— he walked right into hornet’s nest, violating what I told him to do, would never have been there, his ass was in a hornet’s nest. ‘Cause white folk were saying he was guilty, said he’s the man. White folk don’t even care— that’s how much prejudice they got, they can’t even tell one hippie from another. They cannot tell— the white folks are so bigoted against the youth, they cannot even tell their own youth. He didn’t look that hippie-ish. But I’ll be goddamned if three people didn’t say, that he was the one that robbed that store at gunpoint. There ain’t no way of telling how many years he coulda got. Got 25, if they want to give it to him. So a— ten-to-fifteen? What is it? Ten-to-fifteen, or ten-to-25? I— I don’t like to throw numbers around, ‘cause I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Voice in crowd too soft.
Jones: He got three counts?
Voice in crowd too soft.
Jones: And burglary.
Voice in crowd too soft.
Jones: One-to-ten, at that time, for each one of them. For each— apiece. For each of three counts. He said that. (Pause) And I don’t know how in the hell— I don’t know. These people working. Lot of folk here give me shit that I’ve got out of jail. (Tired tone) Yes, yes yes. Some of your asses, you never think you’re responsible, but you bleed me every day with your damn notes, or you complain about the food, or you’re kickin’ about this and that, you con— constantly cause me to have problems on my bind (he means “mind”) and body, which I shouldn’t have. And I saved some of your homes, and I saved your asses too. Some of you. You don’t know how much I saved your asses.
Crowd: Right. (One woman: “So true.”)
Jones: People don’t like goodness. They have to— It makes uh, them have to be good. If you see goodness in somebody else, what’s it mean? Only one simple equation. You gotta be good too. And folk don’t want to be good by nature. Their animal instincts are opposed to being good. They want to be like a goddamn bunch of fightin’ wolves on a— on a p— in a pack. If they wanna— they wanna uh, live and rule. They want to dominate. Kill, not and be killed, but kill and not be killed. They want to ryob— they want to rob, they want to drain, they want to do every shittin’ thing they can. And that’s why, one of the basic premises of Mao— What was the basic premise of Mao? (Aside) Young man, you’ve already passed. (Returns to question) What was the basic premise of Mao? Mao Tse-Tung said there’s only one way a revolution can come. Do you know, Millie [Cunningham]? Whup! Hold it, now. How did Mao Tse-Tung say the only way you can bring a revolution and keep it?
Millie: Where you— onliest way I think you can keep it, by being peace and being honorable.
Jones: (Tired tone) Oh, shit, I ain’t— no— being at peace— (Sharply) Mao Tse-Tung said that?
Millie: Oh—
(Millie and Jones talk over each other)
Jones: No no no no—
Millie: Wait a minute— Oh—
Jones: —he’s the head of China. He’s the head of the Revolution of China.
Millie: No, I’m sorry.
Jones: He marched 6000 people (unintelligible) on the Long March.
Millie: I had my mind on something else.
Jones: Okay then, wha— wha— what’d he say? There only one way you can bring about a revolution for people.
Millie: Only way you can— only way you can bring it on, that by— is by killing.
Jones: Well, (unintelligible word) yes, that’s okay, I’m going to let you pass it, but what’d he say. He had a nice little phrase that everybody should know. “Change only comes—”
Millie: Oh—
Jones: (unintelligible due to overtalking) you got it. ” Change comes through—” (coughs)
Millie: “—through— by a barrel of gun.”
Jones: That’s right, senior. And that’s good. ‘Cause you by rights would have every reason to forget some things. “Change must come through the barrel of gun.” Said Mao Tse-Tung. This place would be a paradise tomorrow if every department had a supervisor with a submachine gun. There’d be no shit here. Right.
General hubbub. (Only understandable comment is “I don’t have one.”) (Laughter)
Jones: Everybody work? We wouldn’t have no trouble.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: But that’s a shame— But we have a right— we have the right to do certain things. The government suggesting we get armed so we will be able to enforce our laws. Umm-hmm.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Yes. Thank you, dear. You— you passed.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Took it. Need another one. Probably do. I took blood pressure pills all day yesterday. (Pause) Okay, now, where were we?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Why do you think— I, I gave the major hole. What’s some other holes in that Rosenberg case? Do it, please, for me. You’ll know them.
Voice too soft.
Jones: No no no no no, please. I’m talking to my— to my student there.
Voice too soft.
Young woman: Dad, I didn’t see the movie last night. I was cleared to work on the (Jones talks over her) project.
Jones: Oh, then you won’t know it. Then you won’t know it. Okay. (Unintelligible name) you were cleared.
Young woman: Um, I could get some background, I think it would be interesting knowing what was going on in America.
Jones: Well, I, uh, no. Let’s stick with what shit we got. What is the background? What’s going on there? How long’s that going to take? If you give ‘em more news than I’ve already given, we’ll have uh, they already, some of them, paralyzed.
Young woman: No, I was talking about, during that era and time for the Rosenbergs.
Jones: Okay. Quick. Very quickly.
Young woman: United States had not too many years ago lost, lost the war against Russia, the United States and its allies, and so they had not been able to kill communism by force, so they had to do it through a propaganda war, and it was called a Cold War. And that era, that time in history was taking place right when the Rosenbergs had been brought to trial, and it was like a focus point, and it was a scapegoating, it was a focus point—
Jones: (Interrupts) (Stumbles for words) That’s good enough. You’ve got it— not without getting it. (Pause) What happened then? They said— they never could admit that the Soviet Union was as bright as USA. No way. They couldn’t get the bomb, unless somebody stole the— the secret. So that’s USA. Capitalism is so superior to those bunch of animals living in socialism, that no socialist would have enough sense to make a bomb. ‘Cause America didn’t have any sense without a few Nazis that helped them early in the war. Okay. I mean, there a Nazi in that Chicago university where that first experiment took place. No, it wasn’t Brown, but I’ve forgotten his name. It was a Nazi involved in that goddamn thing in Chicago. University of Chicago where they first split the atom. Because he had— they had to do it in the scientific lab first.
Voice too soft.
Jones: What? I, uh, that almost rung a bell—
Voice too soft.
Jones: [Robert] Oppenheimer was not a Nazi. I mean Oppenheimer was a conservative, but not a Nazi. But they know he had German American Bund background anyway. So, they had to fa— have a fall guy, and uh, pressure was put on him, and the FBI, come up quick, get us a case, don’t take time, we gotta show that America’s justice system is effective, we gotta get some people to hate, we gotta show them how bad communists are, that all communists are capable of violence, that all communists make— would sell secrets, that all communists would do bad things. So you laid it, that’s good. That’s the foundation for the last hole, I think. All right.
Young woman: I’d like to say, it’s a very close parallel to what happened to us, when they tried to kill us by force through mercenaries that didn’t work, so they started, you know, a propaganda thing, they intensified it against us. It didn’t work, you know, physically killing us, so now they try to cut us off from all support. So, without a physical thing, they were trying to do it through propaganda, through the use of the media, through uh, that type of thing.
Jones: — lawsuits, and even criminal before they get through. You watch ‘em. You watch ‘em.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Yes, it— it was no secret. Another thing that was a strange uh, contradiction to me. They weren’t tried under the atomic treaty that was supposed to have been tried.
Voice too soft.
Jones: No no no no.
Voice too soft.
Jones: The Atomic Energy Act. Yes. Thank you. 1946, I believe. Forty— yeah, ‘46, forty— ‘45. ‘45, ‘45, I think you’re right.
Voice of male: We were allies with Russia, then, too.
Jones: Now that’s a dichotomy, maybe the lawyers can explain that. I didn’t— ‘Course, there’s another hole. That damn hotel receipt didn’t uh— it wasn’t the same, wasn’t the same, they did an investigation, another couple of authors did an investigation, the stamp on the back was different than the date on the front. So uh, that was bullshit, but it’s strange that we were still in— in alliance psychologically, that even if they could stretch the law, that we were in (struggles for words) total alliance with the Soviet Union. They were not our enemies, but our friends. So we— they told us, until they decided that the USSR, the Soviet Union, was getting too strong. They had not— naturally whip up the Cold War again, because they wanted Russia to be defeated and— when they set up Hitler’s Germany, and they didn’t get it done. So the trial of Rosenbergs was happening— I mean the uh, the supposed act that they did that made them a conspirator, or part of co— espionage was on the sixth day of June, fifth day of June, or something like that. (Pause) Third— third. No, there— there two contradictory days were the third and the fourth. But the war with Japan and, and Nazi Germany was not finished yet. The alliance between the Soviet Union and Na— and USA was still strong. You understand what I’m saying?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Okay. Okay. What did they do, then?
Voice too soft.
Jones: How did they legally do that shit? Charge them for espionage when they were, they were— even if they had done it?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Yeah, I ca— I can know the damn little dirty law that lets them play that shit.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Oh, it says “foreign power.” They ca— They cover their ass.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Ah, I thank you. USA never really— it knows it’ll never have an ally too long, ‘cause they’re trying to gobble her up, so they can say “foreign power.” That’s nice. (Pause) Their allies change so fast too, over their need for their crime they’re trying to commit at the time.
Voice too soft.
Jones: No no no no. Please. Nothing else. Thank you. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I uh, uh— nobody.
Voice too soft.
Jones: And where’s the rest of these people now? It’s outrageous.
Voice too soft.
Jones: (Unintelligible) Shift please. (Pause) To ah— on the P.A. system, to come to work. (Pause) Our guests are coming now. Our guests are going to be here. How should we say on the P.A. system, our ca— hollering for somebody. Don’t do like you did tonight with guests, somebody over here trying to show themselves to be highly loyal, showed yourself to being a damn fool, say, (goes into harsh mimicry) “Stop. Don’t you hear Dad talking?” (Normal tone) Stupid. The reason you knew what the hell was going on— I don’t know who it was, don’t even give a shit to know, don’t get up here and apologize for it. I just say it was stupid. (Struggles for words) You don’t do it ordinarily. Sometimes I think some of these people do act just for conscious trouble. Here they’re just down the dr— road. (Harsh mimicry) “Stop.” (Normal tone) I thought, oh, shit. (Harsh mimicry) “Don’t you know Dad talking? Be still.” (Pause) Well, you don’t shout at each other during guests. They won’t see socialism. They’ll be looking for every little flaw, ‘cause it requires something of them. And they all left. They all left highly impressed today. Why would you tell over the P.A. system for someone to come to work? Or call ‘em?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Do you not have any idea, son?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Oh w— w— w— wait, I didn’t call you. (Pause) And I—
Voices too soft. Laughter. General hubbub.
Jones: Hell, no, I haven’t got an answer here.
Crowd: Laughter. General hubbub.
Jones: Co— come on, come on, come on.
Young woman: Um.
Jones: (Pause) How would you say if you were going to be dispatching and something, say that, somebody to go to work?
Young woman: Don’t scream over the mike and uh, ask them please and everything.
Jones: That’s it. “Please, come to work.” Even if— out in the fields. Don’t scream over the mike. Be very low tone. (Pause) ‘Course some of you better get damn used— accustomed to walking to get who you want, ‘cause that sonofabitch ain’t gone be screamin’ all day and all night. (Pause) You— You know what I’m talkin’ about. There’s a way you can get on there. Somebody get on there this morning, very good person, and I— (Emphasizes each word) I had barely got my ass to sleep. The one fuckin’ time I was going to get me some s— some sleep. It took a hell of a l— lot of doing on them to get me some sleep. (Sighs) I ain’t going to say (unintelligible phrase). (Blows nose) You can’t get your own people in your own departments without gettin’ on there and screamin’, I’ll be goddamned, you ought to quit it, ‘cause I’m right under that damn megaphone. ‘Cause I know it can be controlled, because it was controlled afterwards. (Blows nose). Don’t act you’re carrying— taking a dick when you get that microphone in your hand. (Pause) Hmm? Don’t be on a power trip. Hear what I’m saying?
Voice too soft.
Jones: You ought to assign someone to make the announcements, so they use discretion. That’s a very good idea. Somebody ought to be right there. They ought to be right there on every shift. What?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Hmm? Huh-uh. Huh-uh.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Administrators come up with some names tonight, ‘cause it’s— that’s right, I mean, they won’t be able to, those two are meeting and greeting. We need more greeters. Haven’t got (stumbles for words) goddamn thing (unintelligible). Suitable— we got some people— we got— we just a wrong program, I— it dawned on me, I don’t know where in the hell it is, but I’m going to have to look at it. Some of this shit won’t work. It may work on paper, but it don’t work when you get the thing going.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Ruby Carroll? Yes, yes. We’ll put her up here for the first question. (Unintelligible name — sounds like “Matthew Stein”) assign Ruby Carroll to come up there. They right now? (Overdub? Louder Jones voice) —and reporters? And others, uh, you guys have to come up with some more. (Pause) 1:30 PM, you got [San Francisco Sun-Reporter publisher Carlton] Goodlett having lunch on (tape breakup) numbers. In the Medical Department, what black person do you think is the most politically knowledgeable? Hmm? All of you, (unintelligible word) stand up and tell, who do you think is the most black, uhh— the black that’s the most politically knowledgeable.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Anita? Well then, by God, if she’s the most politically savvy, she ought to be there with Joyce, right? I think she’s more politically savvy, maybe— I don’t think Joyce knows that much about uh, Marxist-Leninism. I— I doubt, because she’s very busy in the medical chart, uh, department.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Diane Louie? Excellent.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Well, they don’t have a lot of our practitioners on duty. Diane Louie’s also expertise— I don’t like seeing— not that others aren’t, but I, uh— Wanda’s in x-ray. I’d rather put Wanda and uh— (Pause) (unintelligible word) supervisors? Well, can’t they go on and do their goddamn work that day?
Voice too soft.
Jones: For an hour? Can’t they do that for an hour?
One voice: Yeah.
Jones: Okay, Wanda, and— Wanda and Nita and uh— (Pause) you want a guy’s who a good one? You don’t like Lo— oh, I don’t think Goodlett dislikes— uh, he, he, he, he does have those other problems, but I don’t think he dislikes—
Voice too soft.
Jones: Hmm? [Mike] Prokes said it. He only talks to women?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Okay, well, who can— who’s the males, then? Who’s some new—
Voices too soft.
Jones: Well, Prokes remem— Pr— Prokes is talking about something happenin’ someplace, when uh— but I feel obliged to make it two and two. So who uh— it can’t be Johnny [Moss Brown]. Johnny’s got to be out there. He knows how to conduct the tour. Uh, you— you ought to be able to conduct the tour too. But um— but dealing with the press, that’s something else, even though they’re friendly. Okay, uh, so, uh, no Prokes— What?
Voice too soft.
Jones: He been around Goodlett more than anybody.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Well, what’s the at— people feel about this.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Think he can get him to talk more freely, or talk more, that’s true. Okay, Prokes will be there with Anita and, and uh—
Voice too soft.
Jones: —and Hue Fortson— Hue Fortson and Prokes and uh, Anita? I think that’d be enough there, wouldn’t it?
Voice too soft.
Voice: What’s that?
Jones: Okay, put Joyce Parks in there. What’ve we got? Prokes? Joyce Parks? Anita? And Hue. I don’t know on that— Anita— Anita has— we can use Anita for other political knowledge. We better put uh, we better put um, Wanda there. Right? Didn’t you say you all thought she was the mo— most informed? Her and Diane Louie? Isn’t that what I heard? Or did I hear it?
Crowd: Noises of assent.
Jones: Unless you know (vote?) otherwise, I— you, uh— you’ve agreed with that. You— you fuckin’ people who won’t vote, you have just voted. So if— if somebody— hurt feelings come, you just voted, ‘cause you didn’t stand up to say something else, right? So everyone— anybody gets offended, and this shit always cause somebody offended, any nursing person didn’t stand up right now, you just voted with us, right?
Crowd: Right. That’s right.
Jones: You voted that Diane Louie and Wanda— and uh, Anita Darrell, uh, Anita Devress, was the two most politically informed in the medical department. Right?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: All right. Now let’s don’t see (mimicry) “I didn’t know nothing about the goddamn vote.” (Normal, but sharp, tone) You do, you son of a bitch, I just told you.
Crowd: Laughter.
Jones: Those who don’t vote are more upsetting to me than those who vote against me. Far, far more. Because I can tap what the hell, uh, something will stimulate me out of every negative vote. Maybe that they’re wrong. Maybe they’re biased. Maybe they hate my guts. But I can get something out of them. But you don’t get nothing out of Mr. In-Between. Fuck Mr. In-Between. I’ll talk your religious shit now. He said, I’ll have you hot or cold. The lukewarm, the in-between, I spew out of my mouth.
Crowd: Right.
Jones: Hmm?
Crowd: Right.
Jones: He’s a major fault we have here. (Pause) Okay, Ruby, I’ve got to give her a question, or two. People have gotta go fast, so. (Pause) What is US women’s lib up to now, liberation? They’re demanding uh, something—
Ruby: Uh, they’re de— demanding uh, the backing of Patty Hearst and getting her out of jail.
Jones: Yes, yes. Sickening. That’s all the cause they can get. Very well. Demanding the release of Patricia Hearst. That’s a fine thing for the women’s liberation movement to take up. (More strident tone) What about all the goddamn poor people and black people been framed? The bitch was caught with the machine gun.
One voice: That’s right.
Jones: Piss on ‘em. Piss on her. Piss on her and her goddamned daddy and her great-damned-daddy, too. You pass. (Unintelligible word)
Thank you.
Jones: What’s happening with Jame— oh shit, I told you about that. (Pause) What’s happening with Christina Onessis— Onesis— Onessis? Onassis Onassis. Orbassis. I don’t give a shit. O-n-a-s-s-i-s. That’s what I do anymore, I just spell it (laughs) and leave it up to you. (laughs)
Woman: She married— She—
Jones: You hear me on the radio, I just say, duh-duh-duh-duh, then ah, shit. I’m not— I never was very good at that. I know my faults. Least, some of them. (Pause) I may pronounce it one way one day (laughter in voice) and another the next day, so shit, I just— (unintelligible) and you can worry with it. (Laughs) (Calls out) Go ahead. Christine Onassis is— her— she did something that kinda— well, whatever. What is— What’d she do?
Woman: She was the heir— She’s the heir to her uh, dad’s estate, and— which is in millions of dollars, she married a— (Jones cuts her off)
Jones: The world’s richest man, second only to the Shah of Iran, and the Saud of Arabia.
Woman: She—
Jones: That’s rich.
Woman: That’s right.
Jones: That’s rich. What did she do? What did that bitch do, that sweet bitch? Oh, I love her.
Woman: (Laughs) She married a socialist and um—
Jones: She married more than a socialist, honey—
Woman: —from— from (Jones talks over her)
Jones: Hey, she married a— she married a communist labor organizer, and uh— where’d he work?
Voice too soft.
Jones: He’s a shipping dock worker. And what’d he do that you can do under socialist law?
Woman: He took on her name.
Jones: He took on her name.
Woman: Which makes him—
Jones: —make him the direct heir, and then they— all the capitalist press saying, “Oh, she left. She can’t stand the Soviet si—” That Voice of America just raising hell. She left only that one day, that shows you how bad conditions are in Moscow. She was going to Greece long enough to sign every fuckin’ over thing to him, and went back to her little apartment in Moscow. Ha ha!
Laughter. Applause
Jones: That’s so lovely. That just kills— That is the— that’s— I think that’s the best thing that ever happened to us in a long time, to see— the biggest richest man, used to hate communism, used to try to stop it with money, he’d do everything in his power. Real fascist that married President Kennedy’s former wife. And she didn’t get the goddamn money, I’m glad she didn’t get the fuckin’ money. She fought in the court with Christine, his daughter, but Christine’s the one that won. And by God, she got the— billions, not millions. Billions. In shipping and related industries, and unrelated industries. Newspapers, television, shit. And there’s a little communist— little communist dock worker that owns it, in Moscow. I’ll bet that almost caused the Pentagon to go mad.
Crowd: Laughter.
Jones: You’re— you’re free.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Yeah, Onassis, ah shit, he— he probably— he’s probably in hell screaming right now.
Crowd: Laughter.
Jones: It’s bad enough to go to hell, now they got a— I got to stand here and watch these sonabitches turn my money over to a communist. (Laughs)
Crowd: Laughter.
Jones: I hope he’s immortal somewhere. I hope that fucker’s looking. (Pause) He’ll probably wake up as a flea on one of their dogs over there in the apartment. So he has to watch every shittin’ thing they do.
Voice too soft.
Jones: Yeah, Sara said she’d like to see what Jackie Kennedy looks like right now. Their darling. (More serious) Okay, we got Goodlett taken care of, 10 a.m., uh, and he goes— shit, I don’t know what’s happening here. The reporters on tour? Who’s going to lead this tour? Who’s gone— who’s gone lead that tour? I’m going to have to lead that tour, it looks like.
Voice too soft.
Jones: I can’t— I can’t talk with Goodlett then. I’ll have to talk with Goodlett in the afternoon, I guess. ‘Cause you’re right, darling, there’s a problem. How— when in the hell am I going to talk with Goodlett? He come down here to see me. If I don’t give him some attention, going to be (stretches out word) trouble. You people going to have to get your shit together, though, making that tour. Who gonna (mike cuts off for end of sentence)—
2nd woman: Johnny can lead the tour.
Jones: Johnny can lead the tour.
Voice too soft.
Jones: (Unintelligible word)
Voice too soft.
Jones: Got to have somebody like Chaikin, ‘cause he’s attorney. But he loves uh— farming, and loves Guyana, black country, more. He knows knowledge of things. Don’t go further than you need— Jack Barron can also be knowledgeable, but he should not take the lead. On certain technical questions, he sums up very well. The agronomist, Russell [Moton], you are too soft-spoken, brother. I wish um, somebody would put a boot in your ass, so you uh— so you would talk, ‘cause you talk sense, but ah, when I said, you— you’re the agronomist, I could say, he’s the agronomist, you mumble. By God, you got— when you got 17 people, you gotta raise— project your voice. And you never sound like a fool, Russell. Maybe you’re afraid you’ll hurt the cause. You’d never sound like a fool. You always come off with professional polish. But you’re gonna have to bark it out here. I’m not calling you down on this, I’m just telling you what you’re gonna have to do. Hear what I’m saying? Okay. Then you gotta get ‘em to— uh, Grubbs and um, ah, Grubbs’ll have to brag on what ought to be, Grubbs brag on the black principal, and she brag on him. See what I’m saying. And be sure to point out that neither one of you are married. To each other, I mean. (Pause) You hear what I’m saying?
Crowd: Yes.
Jones: There’s a lot of things (unintelligible phrase) ‘cause you know what the hell you’re doing. And the herbs— Now, I don’t want to hear on the herbs about a bunch of goddamn weeds, that you don’t know shit from Shinola whether they would heal (struggles for words) that you don’t know what the hell they do. And you people talk like it’s law and gospel about some of this shit. John Harris? John Harris got poise. He— he has that poise, to report it. He does have it. John Harris would be good. And he’s— he’s a uh, he— he works in the, in chemistry. He works in chemistry ‘cause of Yuell there. He studies her animal. He’s had a lot of vet uh, hut uh, what is— hu, husbandry science?
Voice too soft.
Jones: Pathology, okay. But (tape turned off for moment) you had— you did your college work in pathology. That’s the thing. You don’t have to give me any details. But you do autopsies to determine what caused the death for our an— animals, we’ve cleared up a lo— lot of things. You work along with the agronomist and the medical doctor at times to study funguses and so forth. You hear what I’m saying? Who else going to be on that, uh, that tour?
Voice too soft.
Jones: I guess I’m gonna have to be there, to talk with uh— ‘cause a press conference comes with me at 1:30.
Voice too soft.
Jones: School people what?
Voice too soft.
Jones: No, they don’t have to be on that— no no no no no. I just mean— you ought— you ought to have their displays, and they— when they see people moving their way, you’re going to have to move over. You hear? Okay. I think it was funny— fuckin’ funny if people shut down your school and everything and uh, have all your teachers and your principals or somebody running around. I think— I think that somebody knows that’s something weird. Anybody else? Sara is administering, isn’t she?
Voice too soft.
Jones: And, uh— Carolyn?
Voice too soft.
Jones: What’s that? Lee’s there. Okay. I don’t know, there’s probably some others I missed. You— I’m not going over the list, though. I don’t have them all.
Voice too soft.
Jones: At 1:30, the reporters’ press conference. I want my attorney, Chaikin, standing by my side. Just in case, something needs to be said. ‘Cause you never know. You never know. You never know who’s in CIA, and what the fuck they’re up to. Lawyer, and, and Sara ought to be there, too, ‘cause— although we can’t uh, portray her as a lawyer— oh well, we can, can, but just say, this is my attorney. No, no, she’s a lawyer. She, she finished law school. She’s a lawyer. But uh, we, this is by my lawyer, I can’t say that the— she is my lawyer. And— when she practices, that’s different. Here she’s teaching, isn’t she, in, in farm management. I wouldn’t— unless you know all the ins and outs of the— I wouldn’t talk too much about your role as farm administrator if you don’t feel comfortable in that. Hear? I’d let Chaikin and um— I’d let Chaikin and uh, Johnny and uh— he said Harris, yes, but uh, the agronomist uh, should be Moton. They should take the initiative. People on the farm. So— also Jan Wilsey. An Amerindian. Gotta speak out. Hear? You gotta be around, so we can get people who want to talk about that road. Ought to have been someone there today. I can’t explain the damn thing. I did the best I could. They were fascinated. I told ‘em it’s rocks underneath the wood, we were going to make tiers and then later put (unintelligible word). I suppose that’s what we— what the hell we’re going to do. But things have a way of changing, depending upon what kind of obstacles you run into. So you, you— I need an engineer on the hand, you see. Some place in the tour. When I crossed that muddy field, to take them through that part, I want them there. I want— Who in the hell is going to be talking for tool and die, and bring in all the stuff I said? You heard what I said on the tape, didn’t you?
Voices in crowd: Yes.
Jones: Well, then, point it out. And see that Diane’s pointed out. And point out all the people that— that— that suffered under racism back there. That’s our reason for moving. Racism. You got a lot of people here. Say, there’ve been seniors that have served— they were whipped. You— they didn’t know slavery. They lived under slavery. You hear what I’m saying? One hundred and seven year old lived under it. People here have been beat on, like our man shot innocently by a police back there with his hat. Blackwell, isn’t it?
Voices in crowd: Gordon Lockett.
Jones: Huh?
Voices in crowd: Gordon Lockett.
Jones: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gordon Lockett. I know more about faith, because that’s what a person who loves has to dese— determine, to help people with what’s wrong with them rather than their name. It’s superficial to know their names and nothing about people, but we ought to be able to do both, but I don’t seem to handle it at 45, 46, 47, whatever the fuck it is, I don’t even know. So— he should be— what’s his name?
Voices in crowd: Gordon Lockett.
Jones: Oh, Gordon, Lockett, yes. Okay. Uh, you should refer to, here is a man, shot in cold blood by the police, tore away his leg. Bernice Thomas, beat up, the only thing that saved her was other prisoners stepping in, beaten by police. Innocent women had their homes broken into. People here who had to see their families lynched, like, uh, talking about a sister here, you can point out. Had to see their families lynched, and they wouldn’t dare look, or the same thing would happen to them. They made them walk by the tree while they hung on the tree. Being hung by the rope. You understand what I’m saying?
Voices too soft.
Jones: None of these stories (unintelligible) so you can in, so you can whip in the racist sentiment. That’s one thing they can understand. And then urban pressures, crime— you can’t walk to a bank, get your Social Security check cashed, you understand? All you got your own money, you understand what I’m saying about? And you could— you couldn’t— you didn’t need to go with peace. Did you go with peace anytime you went? Said a number of our people were mugged. Pollution, don’t have it. Good food. Every kind of food every day. Name the meats and fruits and so forth. Say we have meat every day, fruit, fruit—
End of tape.
Tape originally posted May 1999