BB-23-m-1
To: Carolyn Layton
From: Scott Thomas, Jr
CHANNEL 5 NEWS AT 7:00 PM • REPORTER: BILL SCHECHNER • 8/18/77 THURS.
Newscaster: The churches [church’s] 3500 acre operation in Guanya [Guyana] on the north coast of South Africa. The church says it’s an agricultural experiment station. What former members paint a grimmer picture of the jungle outpost. So far no news media has been allowed to go in there, but today Eyewitness News was able to get some pictures of the place and Bill Schechner now has this report.
Bill Schechner: The picture we are going to show you are a dozen or so of several hundred that was taken by Eugene Chalkin [Chaikin], who is a church member for six years and also has done some legal work for the church. We operated under a couple of ground rules. The main thing we agreed not to talk about the controversial swearing [swirling] around People’s Temple at the moment. For another, all I know about these pictures is that I was told that these are pictures of People’s Temple agricultural mission in Guyana. I talked to Gene Chalkin about them, and here’s what he said and some of the pictures he took.
Eugene Chalkin: The world is a hungry place today. There’s constantly projections that there’s going to be mass starvation around the world, and we thought that whatever contribution we could make, we better try to improve production in the tropics, because that’s the area of the world where food production is worse.
Bill Schechner: You have options on whether large tracts. If your techniques work out and you were to develop that tract, you will then be in the food business. Is that the long-term goal?
Eugene Chalkin: No. We’re not really interested… It’s not a money making project. We’re not interested in going down there for the purpose of competing with Safeway stores or what have you. Our purpose is to develop the effective food production. We have an organization for all of our work activities, just like any organization would. We have the agricultural divided up. For example: A group of
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BB-23-m-2
Eugene Chalkin: people who envolve [are involved] in a citrus industrial development and some of them organize in a group that grows citrus trees from seed – and then they go through the whole process and there’s other end up driving tractors and planting and harvesting. Others are involved in the construction industrial. Others are involved in food processing.
Bill Schechner: Are people paid for their labor?
Eugene Chalkin: No. They’re not.
Bill Schechner: Do they paid to be there?
Eugene Chalkin: No, They don’t
Bill Schechner: Is there any term for which an individual signs up when he or she goes down there?
Eugene Chalkin: No.
Bill Schechner: Are the people who go there, there voluntarily?
Eugene Chalkin: Yes, they are.
Bill Schechner: Are the people who are there now free to leave if they choose to?
Eugene Chalkin: Absolutely.
Bill Schechner: Anyone there now if they wanted to leave and come back?
Eugene Chalkin: Sure.
Bill Schechner: If an individual who was there decided to go and they have no funds, with the Temple make funds available to them to return them to the United States?
Eugene Chalkin: Sure.
Bill Schechner: So far the press has not been allowed in. But Temple officials said today that it is their plan to let the press in some time in the next week. In SF, Bill Schechner, channel 5 – Eyewitness News.
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BB-23-m-3
To: Carolyn Layton
From: Scott Thomas, Jr
CHANNEL 9 NEWS AT 7:30 PM • NEWSCASTER: CAROLYN CRAVEN • 8/18/77 THURS.
Newscaster: In a press statement issued today, People’s Temple denied stories of the mass exodus of their members to the church’s 27,000 acre ranch in Guyana in South America. The release stated that reports of the exodus up power the quote: bias and sensational reporting that has characterized recent coverage of the Temple. In recent weeks, New West Magazine and others has published stories from former church members, charging the church and its leader, the Rev. Jim Jones with beating and taking large sums of money from its members. Jones, the Temple says, is in Guyana and too ill to return to San Francisco to answer the charges. Today’s release said however that the church encourages those who wish to move to their agricultural project. But it said with nearly 9 thousand members of the church in Northern California, all of them cannot go to Guyana.