BB-2-bbb-1
LETTERS:
February 28, 1978
To [Forbes] Burnham, [Ptolemy] Reid, and [Vibert] Mingo (and to be said to Rodgers): TOS [Timothy O. Stoen] is bragging about being emboldened by Tubman’s letter in Chronicle. Sees divided house. He is moving in and this could have been avoided. It is said that he had been sent article by someone friendly to us because he got the article. Conspiratorial money. They move across the world to where they think Guyana will read. We are counting on you that this will make no difference. They got the IMF thing. We have no intention of the IMF causing a problem. If they would leave us to survivie in peace — we were assured by a friend in the state department that they wouldn’t do anything to hurt us. Three very right wing papers. Two have no circulation at all: 5,000 and 3,000. And his vnegnence campaign. “Two Great Men Have Fallen”. The implication only that we are in a socialist country, because bitter and vengeful and was a right wing paper. We put all of the rags on notice except one. They are all involved. Did same circuit with England before. An England snesational rag has no effect on U.S. With IMF they don’t mind any coverage unless put in light of immigrants and racial climate. We wouldn’t want to bring that up only portray ourselves as service, only if they try to destroy us totally. Eventually they will try to come for you. Remotist possibility is that if they should comr for us, they will come for you. Our stance is going to be, that we are honoring courts. This is ridiculous. We wouldn’t think of trying to get and [an] audience with the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. We don’t appreciate Bill playing into their hands. Irrefutable proof of TOS was given encouragement to start again. At a private affair of newsmen where he was not invited, all except Examiner ignored his ranting and he was asked to leave. One thing he made quite clear. There was a letter in Chronicle by Bill criticising us so now he felt like he had a chance and was going to renew the campaign because “you can buy anybody you want in Guyana if they haven’t already been bought off. Apparently they haven’t offered Bill a big enough price.”
Discreetly — we absolutely need assurance on this thing. This has become a “cause of life” (major principle to our people). We’ve been given assurances in past by ones we didn’t know knew. But we were told (like yesterday letter) we are negotiable. A word directly from Dr. Reid is what we need. You don’t have to be hesitant with IMF or other loan situation and us. We are your best aces. We have reliable proof. We want you to get your IMF or other loans. Naturally we don’t want coverage. The past is the past. We wouldn’t want anything about us being immigrants from racism. Articles to tell about project which will reflect well on Guyana and the U.S. is what we want. It is stupid to not let an article like Dr. Fernanded [Fernandez] to be printed. Makes us suspicious. Makes no sense that they don’t want to get it out in the open the good things we’ve done. Press is not thought to be representing the government although it does in many quarters in the U.S. therefore good press would help Guyana. U.S. won’t be bothered unless it mentions immigration
—–
B-2-bbb-2
We get all of this information, we tell you all we hear that you never made it clear to your ministers what your policy is toward us so they feel free to take pot shots at us. That has never come from any official source assigned to talk to us. Your official sources are much more careful. Many of these people may have other motives for telling us these things because we found disloyalty in strangest quarters. Only consistent ones we can talk about are Dr. Reid and Mingo who are totally loyal and until he departed, the foreign minister [Fred Wills]. Of course all the ministers we met briefly have been loyal to your administration That is why it was a shock to see the foreign minister leave, but we realize it is not our affair. Reason we hace such high regardl for your was your total commitment and willingness to die over the Cubana crash. We believe on occasion you must talk to the U.S. that way. Life is finally to be layed down anyway. People in power are abused and removed like Indira Gandhi (whether right or wrong it was a set-up). That is what we admire about you. Rather die (than live out in some rest home) for the honor of the lnation. We shan’t forget that moment. Only known you through Reid, Mingo, and Wills and particularly through Dr. Reid and Mingo. I am sure you are aware of a great deal of self-serving Loyalty isn’t worth a penny for most part mark has found but. For all Mark did for TOS, he is grateful for the experience it gave and taught him and he did do so much for TOS. For fear of a coalescing of forces against foreigners, we can give you petition after petition of names of people who are supportive of Peoples Temple and Guyana. We have been told that that is why Barbara is pulling away although we haven’t noticed it personally. So in other words we could give petition after petition of people who are supportive of us and loyal to Guyana. We don’t go by labels or judge people by labels. Mertle Kenneday made some statemtns about your judgement which were uncomplimentary over the Cubana crash incident. He thought you had risked destruction of relations between Guyana and the U.S. which were foolish.