Procedures and Instructions for Guyana Working Group

The operations of the Guyana Working Group, established within hours of the news of the deaths in Guyana, involved more than military and diplomatic efforts to secure the Jonestown site, to coordinate with the Georgetown government in making decisions to treat the victims in a respectful manner, and to physically remove the remains. There were the logistics of how to receive and identify the bodies at Dover Air Force Base, how to notify next of kin, and how to handle the queries coming in from the press, other government agencies, and the public. The following documents present three aspects of the State Department’s protocol on handling some of these issues.

(Editor’s note: Independent researcher Brian Csuk received these documents from the State Department in response to his request for agency records under the Freedom of Information Act. His website on primary government sources related to Peoples Temple went offline in 1998.)