[Editor’s note: This interview from May 23, 1980 originally appeared on the Our Hidden History website.]
Joe Holsinger (former aide to Congressman Leo J. Ryan):
… I had appeared on a public television several months ago, with a group of Black professionals, mostly psychologists and doctors. They invited me to appear today, to provide information that they thought… I might be able to help with the forum today, with their research. I appeared in Washington in February before the International Relations Committee and they made some statements, some charges, and documentation, which resulted in the Foreign Relations — Foreign Affairs Committee, or International Relations Committee whichever they call it today. They voted to ask the House of that Committee and Intelligence to investigate my charges. They are currently investigating those charges by the House for that Committee on Intelligence.
Interviewer:
Can you tell us what the charges are?
Joe Holsinger:
The charges basically amounted to CIA contact with both the Burnham government there and with the People’s Temple. That originally, it was my belief at the time I went to Washington that the purpose of our involvement there was to support the government of Burnham for commercial reasons and they use the People’s Temple almost as enforcers to help support an unpopular government there, to keep control of the government Guyana.
There had been an article in the San Mateo Times in December of ’79, which indicated that the Deputy Chief of Mission there, Richard Dwyer, was in fact the CIA Station Chief. He was the one that went to Jonestown with Leo’s party and he claimed to be slightly wounded, but there was a tape made at the time of the murders and suicides there with Jones yelling, “Get Dwyer out of here! Get Dwyer out of here!” The indications are that with Dwyer went back into Jonestown after Leo was murdered and was there at the time. There’s great questions as to who shot Jim Jones and why? Wether Jones shot to shut him up?
The question also as to how all these people died and just when they died, which is all documented here. As soon as I came back from Washington because of my testimony, I started getting documentation from Berkeley psychologists called ‘The Penal Colony’ here. Then from the Alliance for Preservation Religious Liberty in Washington, which indicated other things. One of which was that George Phillip Blakey, was a top Jones aid and he was the man who arranged the purchase or the lease of the land in Guyana, provided the money, arranged the lease down in 1974. He is also now tracked as being CIA operative in Angola in 1975 with UNITA. He’s also the same guy who was a top aide, who arranged all this purchasing and finances, is also the husband of Deborah Layton Blakey, who fled Jonestown and made those charges.
He’s the brother in law of Larry Layton who was acquitted yesterday. And it is interesting to note that the Presidential Times Tribune says, yesterday, in an acquitting the jury appeared to have agreed with the defense contention that Layton was brainwashed and drugged at the time of the shootings and could not be held criminally responsible.
The gist to what I’m getting to is this: I received a lot of documentation, which I’ll provide you here today, that indicates the strong possibility that Jonestown and the People’s Temple, was in reality, a mass mind control experiment conducted by the CIA as a follow-up to something called MKULTRA which they conducted from the early 50s through 1974. They used to use the VA hospitals and state hospitals. They used the federal and state penitentiaries for their experiment.
Interviewer:
Do you think that Jim Jones was actively involved with the CIA?
Joe Holsinger:
I do now.
Interviewer:
Do you have any conclusions as to how the people died in Jonestown?
Joe Holsinger:
Yes, I have part of our documentation here is a report from – which is attached here. The Chief Medical Examiner in Guyana, Dr. Leslie Moto. He reported – and this is attached here – his opinion was that more than 700 of those bodies found in Jonestown were not suicide victims, but were murdered. They have based this on the injection marker in the upper arm. Page four of my statement here.
Interviewer:
By injection they died?
Joe Holsinger:
Yes, and by gunfire. There were a lot more people killed by gunfire than they’ve ever admitted so far. We even heard reports that there were about 50 men with guns ringing around there, so people couldn’t get out. And very few of them did get out. According to the Chief Medical Officer in Guyana, most the people down there were murdered rather than suicide.
Interviewer:
Who is suppressing all of this? Are you implying the CIA was active in this suppression?
Joe Holsinger:
Yes. I am suggesting to you that a lot of things that don’t make sense here — I’m suggesting that the long delay in anyone getting in, the press getting in there, or anyone at all getting in there for several days, was caused by a deliberate attempt to manufacture the story, which has now been accepted and sold successfully to the American people.
Interviewer:
What is that story do you think the people are falsely accepting?
Joe Holsinger:
That in effect, this was a large group of disillusioned or rather, disoriented Black people who went down to Guyana and who turned their backs on this country, committed suicide, and we mine as well get rid of them. It’s an aberration type of thing. I think that’s the story that’s been peddled. When you see the documentation here, you’ll begin to wonder yourselves why the first reports report are 350 people died or 400 people died, and for several days that was report and then they started finding of more bodies when the first reports were that 500 fled in the jungle. The people examined the bodies the first time and counted them. Counted them by name, the types of people, men, women, and children. Turned them over.
Then a few days in they claimed to have found two or three stacks of bodies underneath those. It boggles the mind, the stories that were passed out. But they have apparently gotten away with, I think, with one of the greatest fabrications of recent years.
Interviewer:
What significance do you attach to the fact that the leadership of the Temple was largely white and the membership of the temple was largely black?
Joe Holsinger:
I mentioned that in here. I think that that’s in part and parcel for the whole thing. I think it’s what got me very suspicious about this whole experiment about the possibilities here, the cadre was all white. And yet, we think of Jonestown as a bunch of Black people who were committing suicide without mentioning the white cadre and that doesn’t quite add up. I think there are racist overtones to the whole thing.
Interviewer:
What kind of racist overtones? What are you exactly alleging?
Joe Holsinger:
I’m alleging that the media picture was printed, or was painted rather. Then brought out in print and so on, was that you have to worry about these people because they’re crazy, they’ll do anything, they’re not like us.
It’s my impression at this time that they were conducting some sort of mind control experiment. For example, they had a very modern hospital down there, which they bragged about. So modern that that population, they had medical checkups for everyone, every day. There’s no need for that unless you’re conducting experiments where you having control groups and you’re giving people their “vitamins” every day.
It’s my guess that they were just using them as guinea pigs to see what they could do under isolated circumstances. They’d take them off to a jungle some place far away from everybody and get them there somehow. Then they were able to see how these various drugs worked on different groups.