EE-1-L-28 – L-31
Letter to Carolyn Sue Looman, September 11, 1977, from her mother
Sunday, Sept. 11, 1977
Dear Sue,
We received your letter yesterday, Sept 10, which should give you some idea of how long that mail is in transit. You may remember the mailing date: The post mark date is obscure. The stamps are great and I shall pass those on to Peter Ross.
We, too, were very upset by the events just passed but since your letter did not clarify why you made the original phone call which started the whole thing in motion, we are no less confused than we were in the beginning. Regardless of how much in error your brothers may have been in their interpretation of your contact, I was deeply touched by their spontaneous outpouring of love and compassion for you. I think you might like to know that although John is not working, he obligated himself to the airlines ticket and cash, plus costly phone calls because he thought you needed help.
Meanwhile, Daddy and I knew nothing of any of it; your call, John’s return call, the ticket arrangements, or the appeal to the State Department until after all had taken place. We did not even know you were in Guyana until John called to report what has happened and to alert us to the possibility of a phone call from you or someone connected with your group. We have never seen any of the items in the press, nor has John, so that we were ignorant of it and not influenced by it.
In any event, we fervently hope such an episode will never be repeated. I know you hope not either.
We have had a very busy summer but are sorry to have it end. Today is very cool with a touch of fall in the air and I already dread the thought of colder weather coming. My hope is that the winter will in no way be as bad as last year and if it’s only a little warmer than that, I shall be grateful.
We had lots of company this year beginning with the Graners for a week before July 4th, and including four of my cousins in one group and four in another. [illegible name] and her mother from Florida and Auntie Carolyn. Claude who were here just last week. Sandwiched between all that was a vacation trip for us to New Hampshire to visit Ellie Ross at their second home there. I suppose it’s a vacation home, really, but its so very nice that it is only slightly less elegant than their Canton house. I had presumed it was more rustic than it really is. At any rate, she is delighted with it and happy to be able to use it. Her condition appears to sound right now but I get vibrations of anxiety from her whenever someone we know succumb or is reported to be ill with cancer.
It was the first summer in several years for us to take vacation. Goodyear shut down for the week and will do so again at Christmas time, limiting our choice for 2 weeks of vacation. Although we enjoyed the summer trip I don’t think it was as relaxing and restful as our fall ones have been. I’m sorry not to be looking forward to one.
Jessica came and spent two weeks with us during August because she starts kindergarden this year and her opportunities for extended vacations with us will be limited to school vacations. We ended that two weeks with a camping trip with John & Jan. Our only camping trip in two years. I had hoped we might go again but time is filling up quickly and the chances are slimmer all the time.
Sunday I will go to Washington, D.C. for a meeting of Advisory Committtee Chairpersons. President Carter has called for an end to State Advisory Committees, and although there is some opposition to terminating them, this meeting may be the last of its kind. Regional Committees are proposed as a substitute for state ones and I have been asked to serve on that so my work will continue. I hope to see both Evelyn & Len Pettiford this time. Last time there we saw Evelyn but not Len. I missed seeing him. I always felt very close to him.
On Saturday night we are invited to Mansfield to a supper dance to celebrate Nancy Manning’s marriage. Apparently she chose not to have a wedding as a her sisters. We have not seen any of them in a long time and I should like to see them again. It has been over a year since we saw Suzan. Time do fly.
I have wondered what happened to Tricia & Paul. Are they with you there? A number of weeks ago I finally located a t shirt with a picture and got a package ready to send to you with shirt & dress. I can’t tell you how many times something interfered with my sending it. I got there too late, I would forget to take it; any number of delays. Finally, I learned why. The Lord does give direction when I stay tuned. I shall give the dress to Bice Whittaker’s little girl and the t shirt to some one else. Jessica has grown so much this summer, I think she would be out of the dress by winter. Gramma sends her love.
Much love,
Mother
[Photocopy of an envelope addressed to Carolyn Looman, postmarked September 12, 1977.]
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EE-1-L-5 – L-8
Letter to Carolyn Sue Looman from her mother, September 18, 1977
Dear Sue,
We received your letter of September [illegible word], and found it disturbing for a couple of reasons. First of all, how can you think that we know of, know, or know anything about Joseph Mazor? We’ve never heard of him, [illegible words] that to make certain that none of us had any knowledge of him and his dastardly act I called both John and David. David thought he remembered the name from an article in the Chronicle, but that was the extent of his knowledge of him. How or why would we get him involved with you.
Since you don’t indicate what the problems are that you are afflicted with we simply do not understand why you are so angry. Or why your anger should be directed toward us.
We are grateful for your explanation of the [illegible word] which caused you to make your phone call. If you had heard John when he called you where the message had come from he could have evaluated it on the basis of reality. As it was, he thought you were so strange and uncommunicative, that he interpreted it as an oblique plan for getting away from Guyana and back to the States. He thought you indicated you weren’t free to talk and that you wanted to come home. Since he knows none of us had [illegible word] a message to you regarding my health, he thought you were using it as an excuse to get out of there. After understanding that you did want to come home and did want a plane ticket he was very apprehensive when the word came to David, not from you, but from someone else, that you had gone into the interior. That was the point at which he [illegible word] the assistance of the State Department to see you and make sure you were all right. As I explained to you, all of this happened before I knew anything about it. By the time he called me he was anxious that his anxiety was infectious. I would not have thought you incapable of handling a situation like that – if you were, indeed, in one – on the other hand, having heard nothing from you, it seemed (the State Dept. call on you) like it might relieve all of us, one way or the other. Anyway, having put the thing into the works, Ralph said the counsel would carry though. You realize that your letter reached us many days after the representative from State had been to see you. Incidentally his report to John was very complementary of the project and the work you are doing.
The other disturbing thing about your revelation of where your message came from is that someone was indeed intent upon tormenting you, or getting you to return to the States, or otherwise causing you trouble, and you probably need to deal with that.
As you may have noted, I am in Washington, waiting for Evelyn Pettiford to come to spend some time before my meeting starts. Her visit may make the trip worthwhile sometimes I get very discouraged with these meetings.
Last night was the reception for Nancy Manning who married a very charming man who practices law in Columbus and who got married in an open necked sport shirt. The wedding was 2 weeks before in the Manning back yard for just members of the family and they sound and look like kids with some good values. I really liked him Nancy has grown up considerably and required the charm of the rest of the Manning women.
Susan choked back the tears when I told her you were in Guyana. She and Walter have a trip to San Francisco coming up in November and she had been counting on seeing you. Walter has been hired to direct some part (or all of it, I’m not sure) of the M.B.A. program at Case Western. Susan also has a job now and is relieved to be earning some money and being able to work with Walter. She looked great and said, too, that your last visit with each other was super.
Walter is familiar with Guyana having worked for ALCOA at the time of independence. He was interested in the crops you might be growing because he remembered the soil as being “lots of red clay and not very fertile.” He wondered if you were doing any growing for export. He said it was of interest to him that ALCOA was so certain that the natives could not work the plant operation when they took them over and that the natives had done very well. Is this a part of Guyana that you are familiar with? He said Independence came in 1959. That makes it a very new government. Does it appear to be stable?
The phone rang and Evelyn & little Lennie are on their way up. Will get this in the mail. I would be interested to know if the mail takes us long going from here as from there. Two weeks is such a long time. Take care.
Love,
Mother
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EE-1-L-54, L-56
Letter to Jim Jones from Carolyn Looman, January 30, 1978
To: Dad
From: Carolyn Looman
Re: Overdue Assignments
Jan 30, 1978
My faults: I’m selfish and narcissistic, and that pretty well explains most of my egregious faults, which include: impatience, authoritarianism, abstractionism, inconsistency, self-righteousness, laziness, & poor follow-through. I’m a poor listener & have a lousy memory. I often expect children to “suit me” instead of suiting myself to children. I overreact to relatively minor things, & fail to act on important things. Having always sought intensity, I’m still very shallow, and I’m more interested in unfolding “truth” than in people. Bull shit on myself!
Re Happiness: For a decade or so I haven’t thought my goal was happiness or contentment. Not seeking it, I don’t measure it. But Jonestown is exhilerating! I appreciate deeply being with you, here, amidst the blooming of this family & principle. I feel proud as hell to be here, knowing this existence is totally undeserved, a gift. I feel physically better than ever, & it even seems my head is clearing a little. I don’t make practical recompense for all I’ve been given. Day by day I determine to do better & I never measure up to my own meager resolutions. I’m unhappy only with myself in the Jonestown world.
Re Attractions: I’ve always been attracted to you. Not a desire for sex but for closeness. Definitely not an obsession, seems normal. All my adult life I’ve found many people, some animals, & assorted things attractive. I definitely have no desire to sleep with a congo pump, but I do distinguish a faint yearning to be one. Weird. A yearning to bridge chasm between self & other in the still capitalistic world of my mind.
Re Hostilities: Toward you, almost none have surfaced as specifics since arriving in Jonestown, except once or twice about p.a. announcements at, for me, inconvenient times. (I have, I figure, latent hostilities about your hostilities toward me, but rationally that converts to more hostility against myself. I deserve any hostilities directed against me. I do not know how to make the best of my guilt. It’s too mammoth, so I repress it.)
The series of rallies when you specialized in teaching compassion (e.g. with Jair) revealing yours in its utmost refulgence, really llifted lingering hostilities/doubts/hesitations. I’m totally chagrined at my incapacity for fully appreciating you, & guilt-ridden at the thought of my disloyalty in the past.
Jonestown is making me grow. Thank you for letting me teach. The responsibility is helping peel off layers of resistance to life. The children are precious, & seeing them grow is thrilling. (next page)
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What I Stole
- soap left in shower
- scissors from school tent – kept in my school box (returned now)
- pants – came to me in laundry
- shampoo & lotion in Georgetown
Rationalization – no excuse!
someone took mine
none – I simply wanted to have them available for personal use.
my own did not come back
my shampoo & creame were taken.
Thank you for teaching reality, responsiblity, & right from wrong. Your 3 R’s.
Suggestion: It would be a marvelous experience for our children, & perhaps a good PR move with the visiting Ambassadors, to establish a pen-pal exchange with children in Russia & Cuba. I’d recommend Kwame Jones, Shiron Johnson, Detra Smith and perhaps Danny Beck for starters.
Re Jair
I did note to send him to Teaching Experience, though probably more because I thought he’d earned it then out of respect for your judgement, i.e. upholding your word. I do see more & more the rightness & necessity for upholding your word at all times. It does seem to be getting easier to face the responsibility.
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EE-1-L-16 – L-20
Undated letter to Jim Jones from Carolyn Looman
Father – (from C. Looman)
I wasn’t out walking around during the radio broadcast yesterday. I know that would have been disrespectful and counter-productive. I was coming out of the shower as the music started for the program & I was in the dorm while it was on, & I was listening.
I was especially pleased to hear you say, so matter of factly, that Jesus was a Communist! It struck me that it’s so terribly difficult to put into words the worth of what is happening here in Jonestown, & the feeling of being here. I thought it was a very good program, though, & the only suggestion I can think of is for a group of people with excitement in their voices, as you project, & even some laughter to present basically the same (over) content. Also, I think it might serve the cause of Socialism in Guyana to discuss the amount of work required to develop a socialistic/communistic (apostolic?) community, & the amount of deep satisfaction the effort brings. I think that might touch base better with Guyana’s young people, both those who are committed & those who aren’t completely lost yet. Also catchy phrases like “the good life,” as you’ve used, are very good.
Now, because I was walking around inside my dorm during the program (no one else was there) while listening, I’m responding to your assignment.
I’m here in Guyana (teaching school, no less!!) because you had the foresight many years ago to see how fascism would encroach in the U.S., & to prepare a place where your followers could be protected from it. Certainly, left to my own wits, I’d never have recognized that I could be a part of the solution instead of just perpetuating the problem, & I’d have been, deplorably, grist for the mill.
I might have taken good care of a lot, & that’s about it.
By bringing us to Guyana you’ve literally save us, liberated us from capitalist captivity, from the imprisonment of our minds & bodies in that hell where one has little choice but to design a life only for one’s self & perhaps a few loved ones, an inherently deprived, empty & non-satisfying life. For so many of us that means you’ve saved us from hunger & malnutrition & early death, disease & the harsh, harsh realities of dangers, hostilities, & wasted potential in the ghetto, from being discarded early in life as not being youthful enough. You’ve saved us all from the worst of racism, like the cliometric theorists have quite fixed, the genetic weapons, the neutron bomb, the ready & waiting concentration camps, the inferior food sent to the ghettoes – from the effects of laws, that would treat 14 year olds like adults in court & give them the death penalty, that would give police the right to imprison people, who gave them answers they didn’t like. You’ve saved us from food shortages & the economic crunch that is already squeezing even middle class people & will be the excuse for more excruciating persecutions of blacks & other peoples who are “different.”
You’ve protected us from nuclear war & earthquakes & poisons in the water & air. In short you’ve saved us from hell & brought us to a place where the major things in life are provided & are in their “right place.” I grow to appreciate socialism/communism more & more every day. It is right, it works, it supports life, & uplifts it; It’s beautiful. It’s a joy to see the growth happening in everyone & to imagine just a little of the “good life” that lies ahead for our children.
Thank you, Father, for your love, which puts up with ass holes like me & which endures through the worst. It’s truly awesome.
Carolyn Looman
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EE-1-L-67
Page of letter written by Carolyn Looman
reposition of Burnham gov’t: 1.) Did CIA money come to PNC gov’t with agreement that CIA would not interfere in Guyana so long as the PPP was kept out of power? 2.) Could PNC be concerned that large favors toward Jim Jones would be used to dupe people or stir agitation against PNC gov’t? 3.) Would USSR consider/be inclined to support PPP in overthrow of PNC if it appeared headed toward right or would it support PPP with arms or $ if PNC fell to the right?
Carolyn Looman
I would appreciate being allowed to give my life in a revolutionary such as suggested by Gene [Chaikin].
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Undated Notes to Jim Jones from Carolyn Looman on Tim Stoen
EE-2-k-1
To: Jim
From: Carolyn Looman
Re: TOS [Timothy Stoen] – Agent
Just a thought about Tim’s CIA connections: He reminds me of the Louis Tackwood story in Glass House Tapes, how Tackwood apparently (my memory isn’t fresh) lived two entirely separate lives, in a kind of successful schizophrenia, in which he kept life intact and may have lived each one with a kind of sincerity. I remember getting the same impression of the man who was Dennis Banks’ security chief at the same time he was working for the FBI. He risked his life in daring efforts to save the Indians, etc.
An awesome phenomenon.
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Undated Note to Jim Jones from Carolyn Looman
EE-2-k-2a – 2d
To: Jim
From: Carolyn Looman
Sunday
I still don’t recall any thoughts at all related to the words “conscious or unconscious treason,” & it bothers me that I don’t. I hope Tim or I will remember what I said, so I can deal with it straight on.
I’m writing now because my response on the floor last night was inadequate, so I was focusing on the treason quote, which threw me off, and I’d repressed the misgivings I felt after last Tues. meeting, so I didn’t assemble my thoughts quickly enough to give a full explanation of the conversation with Tim. I did say I was disturbed & that was wrong and it was wrong not to write to you as he said.
My concern encompassed more than the issue of the news & did reflect some lingering naïveté about Phil Tracy. I didn’t say I thought Tracy was friendly, but that I’d been told by my brother that Tracy’s original story was not inflammatory and that our intense response had helped bring out the story that was eventually written. Thus I wondered if Tracy had started out as an agent or a dupe. I have a half-baked theory that people who end up doing evil don’t necessarily start out with that intention & I’ve long been curious about the process by which evil comes about. I naïvely see evil in the abstract more than I do in individuals, & I hadn’t fully come to terms with myself.
The rest of my response on the floor was inadequate partly because I didn’t want to express some of my thoughts in front of others, partly because of a defensive reflex that shows I’m still not taking full responsibility for myself.
I do have uneasy feelings about your approach to the coming visitors. I’m reluctant to express them because I know from experience that I’ll later see how I’m totally off base, or at best my sense of timing is off. Either way, I hate to divert your attention with my thoughts. I’m also chicken shit about saying things I think you might consider treasonous – a complicated fear I’m still trying to unravel in my mind.
But I owe you an explanation of it, my thoughts as I spoke to Tim.
It seems that [Don] Freed or anyone like him will see through attempts to cover or misrepresent certain aspects of Jonestown life, e.g. the number of people living in cottages, the use of the PA system, the terms “Dad” & “Comrade”, the use of the fist, the position of the nuclear family, & the individual’s control of money. I’m convinced that caution with Freed et al. is absolutely necessary, but I think he would be more critical of the “cover-up” than he would be of any of the realities. It also seems there is little if anything he could say that would do any more harm than the traitors have already made of it. (It’s a relative risk)
Finally I think that the truth about you & Jonestown will hold up, & some people will appreciate it, so long as they can understand it, & if it takes the rest of the world forever to recognize its goodness, then so much the worse for them. I can’t really calculate how callous that viewpoint is. I know that incaution can mean the lives of our comrades in the US or renewed threats to our existence here & inestimable grief for you and harm to your well-being. But I think some people will understand you better, respect you more, or leave you alone even if they disagree with you so long as they can see your honesty & not feel they are being deceived, manipulated, duped or insulted. If they see honesty they are also more likely to question or disagree openly & directly, so some misconceptions could be straightened out instead of festering in locked closets. Again, it’s a relative risk, but I think the risk is greater if an intellectual, egotistical person feels he’s being fed lies.
I know you taken all this into consideration, I just don’t understand your conclusions. I don’t think I’m owed any explanation, & I know I’ll understand more in due time. I wish I had a good radar system to protect danger approaching in people. I don’t, and you do. I am sorry to take up your time.
Carolyn
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Memo to Jim Jones from Carolyn Looman on USSR, September 1978
EE-2-k-19a
To: Jim
From: Carolyn Looman
Re: USSR
Date: September 13 [1978]
It’s my observation that black members of our community are very reserved on the subject of going to the USSR. Remembering the reactions during white nights of the past, when they expressed concern about the absence of blacks in the USSR, I’ve made comments about the Russian films and the possibility of going there, to see how our black people would react. With only one or two exceptions on the teaching staff, all have been totally non-committal even about the films. I suspect that there is a deep concern about going into another white culture. During the white nights, the USSR was always the least popular alternative among the other major places considered for refuge, despite its obvious ability to give us better protection.
For myself, I grow more and more keen about the possibility of our going there. Though my initial reaction was to cling to Guyana unless our children’s survival became a near impossibility here, I now think it would be far better for you (and us) to know our people were in a relatively safe spot. Then you would have freedom to do many other things with somewhat less anxiety, I would hope. The Soviet environment and its resources would be conducive to the pursuit of greater accomplishments and, with the training we get from you, our young people could become effective in world humanitarian service/revolutionary struggle/socialist living on a scale that would be much harder to achieve from a Guyana base. At least, this is my perspective, and my feelings are strong enough that I wanted to express them.
Whether the USSR is viewed as an advantageous alternative, a possible alternative, or a sheer necessity, I think a good deal of propagandizing would be advisable to penetrate the reservations so many of our people seem to feel. Perhaps an emphasis on how much the Russians would appreciate our black presence and culture would help; also it’s notable that they have respected the Africans so much that they have never occupied African soil or dominated African politics in any way. Also, Pushkin, the most loved of Russian poets, was descended from an African. Probably, too, simultaneous emphasis on the richness of African culture/history/accomplishments should be continued, so there is never an implication that the African heritage is in any way meager, and it would go with us wherever we might go. Finally, continuing reinforcement regarding the advanced level of the socialist consciousness may alleviate the insecurity that attaches to the race issue.
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