[Editor’s note: This document was released both as a State Department cable as part of its 1981 FOIA release, and as Serial 2002 of the FBI’s RYMUR release.
[The text for this document was released in 2014 by the now-defunct Wikileaks website at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1979GEORGE01213_e.html. This URL may be available through the Wayback Machine.]
UNCLASSIFIED FBB 757
[Listing of agencies receiving informational copies on pdf]
0 191632Z MAR 79
FM AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN
TO SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9214
LIMITED OFFICIAL USE GEORGETOWN 1213
FOR L:T FORTUNE
PASS DEPT JUSTICE FOR: J HERGEN
E.O. 12065: NA
TAGS: CASC, OREP (RYAN, LEO)
SUBJ: JONESTOWN TAPES
We note from NY Times article of March 15 that a business enterprise in New York, International Home Video Club, Inc., intends to market tapes and cassettes of the “final hours of Jonestown” during the week of March 19. Tape obviously was acquired through unauthorized means. Assuming that its commercialization cannot be prohibited on evidentiary grounds, it would seem only logical that any proceeds from this sale be sequestered as Temporal assets and may subject the disposition by the San Francisco court which has jurisdiction in this matter.
Burke [John Burke, American ambassador to Guyana]