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Peter Wotherspoon Undated Statement of loyalty
Dad,
I would be willing to suicide in whatever way will help the collective if there would be a way to draw in a group of conspirators to be present when I’d detonate *in protest* it might help us in two ways.
Thank you,
Peter W. [Wotherspoon]
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Undated letter to family from Peter Wotherspoon
California Historical Society Peoples Temple collection, MS 4123 box 7
[Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ letterhead]
Dear Mary, B., N., E., D., C.
I’m lying on my belly on the roof of the Marcie (Cudjoe). We are just entering the Kytuma River after travelling all night over the ocean from Georgetown entering the Mora Passage and the Purima River. The banks on either side are covered [ink switches from blue to red] with thick bush vegetation too thick to penetrate for with our eyes. Mike and I have been playing speed chess and enjoying a delicious hot chocolate malt drink called “milo.” The “Marcie” has been loaded with 150 new mattresses so we’ve had supreme comfort all the way. As we head up river, I notice it is much cooler than Georgetown, just the opposite of what we expected. Mike’s been taking pictures, including one of Larry and William playing chess. The jungle is very still and I haven’t spotted any wildlife yet. The roar of the Marcie’s engines cover many of the jungle sounds. We had a very smooth crossing over the ocean with only a few getting green around the gills. They all feel better this morning and now that we are in the river the boat is not rocking at all. We’ve passed many indians, (or “Nationals” as they are known as here) in dugouts paddling down the river. One group of young men had a 25 ft motorboat and cicled us at high speed to show off for the “Yankee” girls. The trees are full of lime green bromeliads (air plants. We spotted a little grey and black tree sloth like the one we saw in the movie on South American jungle animals. High in the trees are colonies of ants looking like giant grey wasp’s nests. Huge vultures sail serenely like bird kites just over the hundred foot tree tops.
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Every now and then the thick curtain of trees and shrubs is broken to reveal the thatched huts and cleared land of a family of Nationals. The walls and roofs are thatched with palm leaves or more correctly “Truly” leaves. The riverbanks resemble the everglades of Florida with bright colored flowers and mangrove (sp?) roots on the tree bottoms. The river is a beautiful brown color I describe as “Mug’s Old Fashioned Root Beer.” Julie Cordell says it looks more like Coca-Cola. As [ink switches back from red to blue] we approach Port Kaituma the banks of the river have encroached within 20 ft. on each side. The variety of leaves trees and flowers is uncountable through for the most part animal life remains well hidden, warmed by the boat’s engines. The songs of jungle birds pierces even the motor’s noise. Instead of jungle floor, the water extends deep into the foliage green leaves. Vines some with other vines and leaves twined around them, extend from high in the trees down to the water. The river here is about 20 ft. deep. Larry spotted a little waterfall in one of the recesses. We rounded a bend and the bank cleared to reveal an Amer indian settlement. At each home are two or three dugouts with rock wildly in our wake. There are many children swimming and boating and the take special delight at the waves we create as we pass. It feels like we’re in a huge float in a parade with the Nationals waving and smiling from their houses and docks and us waving and smiling back from the boat. William spotted a grey and black little monkey darting through the trees. I just spotted a belted kingfisher bird just as if he flew out of a picture book. A couple of them black birds, that look like cranes flew across our bow. Twice, huge butterflies with dazzling iridescent blue-green wings flew above our deck.
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As we near Kaituma, the banks are only seven feet away in places and we can reach out to touch the branches. There is a deep peace here, a free peace, a harmonic peace that is barely ruffled by the chugging boat. Port Kaituma is now in sight. Long buildings of corrugated aluminum, mining loading structures and dwellings sit in the emerald circle of the rainforest. We approach the dock ready and eager to see our loved ones of Jonestown and begin our new lives in the heart of Socialism.
[ink switches back from blue to red pen] Hope you are all well. Remember what you guys promised before I left. Don’t let me down, OK? Hurry up and get down here. It’s beautoful here. I’ll write you soon and tell you all about it.
Hope you’re on the way,
Pete [Wotherspoon]
Please share this letter especially any notes to different people.
P.S. Tell Ken, Tom wants crossbows!
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Undated request to Jim Jones from Peter Wotherspoon
[Editor’s note: FBI document uses this reference number twice.]
EE-2-uv-7a – 7b
(from Peter Wotherspoon)
Dear Dad,
When and if you feel it is suitable I would like to change my name. I’ve always hated the name “Peter” for all the pain and embarrassment it has brought me. I think of “Wotherspoon” as largely a family of Chilean fascists. It is also been a source of ridicule. I wish to use the name “John” because of people like Johnny Jones who I admire in his Socialist sensitivity and commitment. As a last name I would like the Aurucanean Indian name Chiloe (pronounced Chee-low-way). I don’t feel I deserve to take a name of Jones for certain, nor any other great Socialist leader. I will have to prove my commitment with what remains of my life in the opportunity of my death. If it is all right with you, I would like to be known as “John Chiloe” and to bury my old effective personality with my shitty name.
Thank you, Dad
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Undated letter to Jim Jones from Peter Wotherspoon
EE-2-uv-12a – 12b
Dear Dad,
No one has received more concern, love and mercy and deserved it less than myself. I feel guilty eating the food you have provided by sweat, blood, and suffering. I feel we eat much too good, knowing that you have worry and plan and struggle for every bit of food and other luxuries that you give us. I also know I would be healthier eating less.
I understand the principle involved giving Helen Snell your protein but I also recognize the danger it presents to your health and therefore the whole collective. Please allow me to give Helen my portion of protein. I know that I have enjoyed privilege and perhaps eaten when Helen Snell, because of being black, has had to go hungry before she came to this family. I don’t approve of Helen’s insensitivity to the sacrifice you have had to make to give us life, but I can understand an old black woman in her insecurity from suffering hunger and racism a good part of her life having a blind spot in this regard.
For the greater good of the Collective, please allow me to do this small token of my gratitude, and substitute my protein instead of your own. I know you live only for us, but please guard your health and continue your protein intake that I understand is vital during times of ill health.
Please do not mention this to anyone. It will be my privilege to make this small sacrifice.
Thank you Dad for all you’ve done, all you continue to do, the mercy and love you’ve extended to me. I will try to make up for letting you down in the past.
Thank you,
Peter Wotherspoon
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July 1978 letter to Jim Jones from Peter Wotherspoon
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July 7, 1978
Dear Dad,
I have a dilemma that I don’t know how to deal with. It began recently when Mike Lund [Rozynko] approached Penny stating that he liked me and wanted to spend some time with me. Penny immediately questioned his motive and he honestly admitted his homosexual attraction which impressed Penny very much. She wrote it up to you and you approved it. I don’t think Mike’s motives were more than a.) having someone to talk to: (he had stated some time ago that he was lonely) b.) having someone to play chess with c.) discussing education and working on lesson plans together. I think Mike’s homosexual attraction was his way of saying he liked to be around males, including me. Penny talked to me indicating that she thought Mike was interested in a sexual relationship as well. I don’t know for sure, but I really don’t think so. The reason I didn’t think so was because of my experience with Mike in the past. I was at one time infatuated with Mike and set up situations hoping
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to start a sexual relation with him. He was totally unresponsive, and after I touched his privates while he was asleep and he woke, we talked it out and he made it clear he wanted my friendship but no sex. Soon after we were split up on the floor and Mike made dramatic changes and was very cold towards me. I thought that he was faking in his total reversal and felt he had dumped all the blame of his former anarchy on me. What was felt towards him reversed in me, (I was hostile), until he convinced me by his continued dedication that his change was real. After that we became comrades in a platonic sense but were seldom together.
I think Mike didn’t really realize what he was opening himself up to by associating with me after my ultimate disgrace. Not everyone realizes my structure requires someone with me 24 hrs a day, and it presents a problem to me at times to find people willing to stay with me
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while I do my work or watch movies. James Turner thought I was “coming on” to him because I asked to sit with him while I worked. He didn’t say this to me but apparently mentioned it to someone later which eventually led to the exchange between Mike Lund and Jerome in the restroom. Mike was very upset by people asking if he were having a “relationship” with me. He wanted to write those people up but hesitated because they included friends of his. Then he mentioned the comments in front of Penny and she insisted he write it up. It went to Council and council referred it to Brother’s Meeting. I had grave misgivings about it all because Mike thought that it would be cleared up that he was cleared to be with me to keep an eye on me and that he volunteered for this assignment. But that also he was not initiating a sexual involvement with me. At the Brothers’ Meeting what was established was that he had a.) answered the plea in an otherwise void of silence (for someone to relate with
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me sexually to teach me how to relate to adult homosexuals b.) that this relationship was already cleared and needed no more clearance from relationship committee c.) that my “relating” to Mike was better than my relating sexually to children. Mike, who has had interests (unexpressed) to relate to Stephanie Chacon, was taken aback and shocked and told me that he felt we had been portrayed as having a sexual (his own words expressed his embarrassment and revulsion). I understand we are pioneering new attitudes towards adult homosexuality, but the stigma still persists strongly in Jonestown. Mike is feeling uncomfortable around me now (he has not expressed it but I feel it.) As for my part, I did not expect differently from Mike but feel that many persons who wish me well and see as part of my cure, an adult homosexual relationship, are expecting Mike and I to proceed on with it.
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I like Mike and am quite satisfied to play chess, work on school work and to talk with him without anything further. I realize that I’m expected to relate to some adult sexually to cure my immature fixation with children. I’m willing to cooperate but feel very uncomfortable because emotionally I’ve never known how to respond to such a relationship. After your own tremendous sacrifice to try and help me with this problem, I feel tremendous shame and guilt over what I put you through (now understanding it more clearly) and a dread to enter any relationship in which someone has volunteered to go through the ordeal for the sake of Socialism. I wish I had never put you through that and don’t want to put anyone else through it.
Recently I have experienced some emotional upheavels, feelings of total self-rejection, of fears, doubts, pressures and confusion which left me depressed and desperate. Things culminated
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when Lew Jr., (hostile and confused because my structure forbade giving him any attention), reacted to my confrontation to him about a mess he made in school by an accusation of wanting revenge and his mentioning that he couldn’t sleep because of flashbacks about my molestation. It hit me very, very hard And I barely could function through the morning classes. I asked to talk to Penny and Tom Grubbs and they both helped me to deal with and understand Lew’s motivation, and the dynamics of what was happening by my being cut off from relating in any way with children outside of the classroom. My dam burst, and I was able to verbalize my doubts about my teaching ability, feelings that I had that people were trying to ease me out of teaching and that Tom might feel hostility towards me and all my fears and doubts. Tom, who I had thought felt hostile towards me (I broke a bow, and bowstring out of ignorance when I first came to Guyana), surprised me with his sensitivity and his perception as to what I was feeling, his confessions
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dealing with his own problems with sex, and his extreme willingness to help. Penny was also very supportive. The children were talked to by Tom and he was able to explain to them that I wasn’t rejecting them but was conforming to a structure to cure me of my sick compulsions. This relieved me of the guilt (at least somewhat) and pressure of seeing them craving attention and not giving it to them. I still am going through emotional whirlpools but now I feel like I can communicate more and I can function. I feel I can confide in Tom some things and some things to Penny. I feel a need to communicate to you also so I can keep a channel open to you. I’m sorry, I know a thousand people also want this channel and also dump reams of notes on you. I’m trying not to write too often for this reason. I thank you for providing my structure and caring to deal with me. I don’t
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deserve your love. Thank you for the opportunity to serve socialism, the privilege to teach, and the great privilege of being in this beautiful family you’ve created. I’m sorry I’ve added so greatly to your pain and grief. I will prove this by working rather than with words.
Thank you Dad.
Peter Wotherspoon
To: Dad
From: Peter Wotherspoon
Personal
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Undated letter of loyalty from Peter Wotherspoon
EE-1-UVWXYZ-98
Dad, I have a lot to communicate but knowing how burdened you are I will submit my letter to you two pages every few days. I am torn between wanting to communicate with you and not wanting to add to your overload of reading material. I hope I’m doing the right thing. Peter W.
Dear Dad,
I am very grateful to you for the opportunity to work with a renewed commitment and make up a little bit for the trouble guilt and pain I’ve brought you, the children and our family. Thank you also for letting me teach. By passing the knowledge you made it possible for me to acquire, I feel those years of college are not a complete loss. I feel I have some worth as a teacher to make a contribution to the collective. I have really few skills and practical talents in other areas. I’m not a great teacher, in fact I’m working hard to learn to be a teacher. I’m working hard to be a learner, too.
While on Learning Crew and in the weeks that have followed I’ve done a lot of self-analysis and discussions with Penny. I’ve done everything I can, (and will continue to do so), to cooperate with any structure designed to keep a recurrence of my crimes and to help me grow out of my mental weaknesses and compulsions. Penny has been kind but firm, understanding but also a very sharp mirror to all my shortcomings. In short, it is what I need to grow up.
I’m grateful to you for our Brother’s Meeting and to those comrades who were not afraid to tell their homosexual experiences. I could not help but wish, all through the meeting, that I had participated in such a meeting as a child or adolescent. I’m certain that if I had that outlet as a child I wouldn’t have ended up with sick compulsions and 30 years of life wasted in an infantile state.
I’m sorry to burden you with this long letter Dad, but I feel it the lessor [lesser] of two evils; I might have avoided giving you greater hurt
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and betrayal if I had communicated my history and feelings before acting out.
As you read the accounts of my Chilean comrades, I felt a great shame and guilt at the contrast of what they did with their lives and what I have done with mine. I had similar thoughts as I watched you suffering for us trying to help us grow and become aware and committed. I desperately want to get rid of my fixations on sex and to do what I can for Socialism before it is too late. I hope that I can earn the privilage [privilege] of someday committing revolutionary suicide by bomb, by gun, by knife, by poison or by fire, taking as many Fascist enemies as I can scheme to assemble.
As a child I feel I must have been somehow different, not because I was molested, but because I was more preoccupied with sex at an early age than any normal child. When I was molested I responded favorably (also abnormal) and was eager to continue. When I was about five, I played, bathed and slept with an older girl cousin. She was a child also and as was normal in that situation I ended up having regular sex with her. But I was too obsessed with it and when my parents were transferred to Antofagasta (northern Chile) and I had to leave my cousin I was very frustrated sexually. After one year, we were staying at a hotel awaiting departure back to Santiago, and I wandered alone exploring the partially completed new wings. A worker approached me gently and after talking did oral sex to me. It was the closest thing to the sex I had with my cousin. I willingly participated, returning
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three times to him. Somehow it stuck in my head until that one encounter repeated itself a million times in my sexual fantasies. I had a brief encounter in Santiago with an older boy trying anal sex, which somehow was not very satisfying. We moved to the States and for two years I had no contacts, although I was masterbating [masturbating] regularly. Another older boy molested me with masterbation [masturbation] and finally I initiated a mutual oral sex with a friend my own age (about 10). He told on me to his parents and they told my parents. My Dad, who on other occasions had warned me against homosexuals, describing them as the lowest, vilest, scum of the earth, now entered my room in the darkness and sat at the foot of my bed. He questioned me about my sexual play and about the Man in Antofagasta (I had confided to my “friend” the incident). I got the impression from his tone and manner that he couldn’t even stand to look at me, hence the darkness. From then on I felt I never could talk to my Dad about anything, especially subsequent homosexual acts. All through my childhood I didn’t understand why I was different but I knew deep inside. I was what my Dad hated – a homosexual.
My Mom was a sick, overprotective smothering type of mother who I resented and fought with daily. I was teased by my peers for my names, nationallity [nationality], my walk (I was born with foot deformities),
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my lack of coordination in sports, my accent, my poor scholastic record, my inability to box And finally my mom’s overt overprotectiveness which I despised. When my dad wanted to teach me to box, she confided to me that due to my Dad’s serious ulcers, a careless punch could kill him. I naturally declined to ever learn boxing with my Dad and being an only child with no friends, I never did learn anything along those lines except a little KARATE very recently. Worries beset my Dad continually and aggrivated [aggravated] his ulcers And my mom was quick to lay the blame of his pain on my acting but It gave me one more reason not to confide my problems in him. I tried to confide secrets to others, only to have them used to tease and embarrass me later. I once wrote a girl my age (14 or 15) a “love letter” about how I felt about her. She made light of it with all her friends. As a result of all this I’m a very withdrawn person who will communicate superficially quite easily but go through great anxiety laying my inner thoughts out in the open. I trembled and marvelled at the ease and freedom my comrades at the Brother’s Meeting spoke.
As a result of rejection or to avoid it, I spent my years alone with nature, animals, and immaginary [imaginary] playmates and situations. It gave me some sensitivity to creatures and wilderness and a highly developed imagination to escape into. I never wanted to grow up because I couldn’t relate to adults. I wanted acceptance from my peers and to get it I became extremely diplomatic and manipu-
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-lative. I worked hard to obtain some new toy or game because for a few days until the novelty wore off, I could bribe some to be my playmates. The quest made me very materialistic. As a teenager, I was very anxious to relate to girls and somehow prove to myself that I WAS not abnormal. The few girls who would spend any time with me were shallow and treated our friendship casually. I didn’t develope [develop] any sexual relations with girls at this time though, I was preoccupied with it. I did participate with boys my own age in mutual homosexual acts all through my adolecence [adolescence]. I lacked the sensitivity as did my partners to make these contacts relationships. We mutually used each other to masturbate ourselves. Sexual encounters had the same cold air to them. As a capitalist business transaction, I had a couple of experiences with younger boys also during those years. Any time I tried to face myself and my actions, I became very suicidal. I felt trapped by my compulsions. Religion fostered tremendous guilt as well. My parents were wishy-washy Christians, but as a child and even part of my adolescence I took religion seriously, (not church but religious beliefs). I felt I was evil and dirty in my sexual experiences. And prayed for forgiveness. I anticipated God would punish me every time I masturbated, and eventually saw myself as an agent of the Devil in my compulsions. I don’t
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know why I didn’t committ [commit] suicide– I was close to it enough times. I know on a few occasions it was concern about my pets that delayed me. On others I think I was afraid of extended pain. I can endure a lot of pain because as a child I was seriously burned twice, At the edge of death from multiple stings, had shingles, and other painful diseases which conditioned me, but I never enjoyed pain and tried to avoid it.
While in Chile in 1965-66 I had many emotional upsets. My cousin, who was my age and who I fellowshiped [fellowshipped] with (non-sexually) shot himself in the head. I withdrew from life for a few months And even tried to find refuge in Catholicism. I just couldn’t buy that bullshit very long and began to become more radicalized by my Chilean Socialist friends- (I had some awareness through civil rights activities and anti-Vietnam activities.) I didn’t want to leave Chile but with no means of support I had to return and continue school. I was bitter, hated the U.S., Capitalistic goals, racism, and the Vietnamese war which I vowed I would die before I’d go into it. A large part of my confusion and hostility was dirrected [directed] to my parents. They sent me to college, but I couldn’t study and soon started a five year escape into drugs and mysticism. The drug culture of 1967-68 seemed the answer for a misfit like me– a reject – for most of the hippies were rejects for one reason or another.
My dad in the meantime was feeling the heavy demands of a new position, his finances, and (as my Mom was to relate to
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me later) the fact that his son hated his parents. He deliberately drove his car at high speed into a concrete abuttment [abutment]. For a year I helped take care of what was left of him, seeing him a partially aware vegetable in a care home. He died and I left to find my idealistic dream community of love in the Haight-Ashbury. As most fog-headed gullibles to hit the “Hate”, I was an easy mark for every con-artist in long hair. The school of hard knocks got some of the fog out of my head but made me more self destructive in my attitude to drugs. A two month stay in jail made me greatly alienated to the society around me and in the depressed aftermath of the destruction of the Haight-Ashbury I sought to build an isolated community in the south seas. I dreamed about living in an isolated socialist commune based on Agriculture. The last attempt failed but brought Mary Wotherspoon and I together. Mary was never “in love” with me, (even then she saw through that bullshit) but she felt sorry for me and told me so. We had a sexual relationship but I was so inept and unaware, I doubt whether she got much out of it. I’d come to realize that I was ugly, that I had an ugly hairy body, and no particular talents that would make me attractive to someone so I really couldn’t believe she was really interested in me. I was sure that the minute she got a chance to compare me with anyone else, she would take off. I tried to possess her And was very jealous. She is proud, independent, and assertive. It didn’t take too long before she was sick of the overgrown
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child that she had elected to babysit. She left me many times before we joined the Church but took pity and returned to my shit. Finally little Mary was born and we officially married to avoid stigma to the child And to get financial aid. After we came to the Temple, Mary stayed with me to demonstrate her loyalty to the Cause and Socialism. I’ve put her through hell and she justifiably hates my guts. I feel guilt over what I’ve done to her life as well.
Sexually I have concentrated on males in my deviate [deviant] behavior and have consciously or unconsciously tended to pay attention more to males. Unfortunately I not only have sexual attractions to males but to young girls also. I don’t like to inflict pain to children. I knew it would be physically painful to a girl to have sex with a man, so I’ve shied away from even the temptation. It is the same thing which makes me uncomfortable with anal sex with boys. I have in general limited my sex play to mastubation [masturbation] and oral sex, As was done to me. My cruelty to children is much deeper. It manifests itself in rationalizations about the mental scars I’ve left behind And in the callous selfishness which insulated me while acting out my compulsions. I’ve had a hard time confronting this fact and accepting it. I cringe at the thought that gentle Lew Junior forced himself on another child because of what I did with him. The real horror of what I’ve done comes crashing in when I contemplate it. That is one thing that really leaves me very depressed.
(continued in a few days)
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Lists of people purportedly molested by Peter Wotherspoon
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Molested by Peter
Clark Smith
Jimmy Cordell
Searcy Darnes – states
Orlando Robinson
Darrell Martin
James Ford
Edward Ford
Shawn Baker
Lew Jones jr.
Brian Guy
Mike Lund – states
Isaac Rhodes
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Dorothy Brewer
Lisa Layton
Addie Jones
Jair Baker
L.B. Reeves
Eddie Dennis
Pauline Groot
Herbert Newell
Julius Evans
Glen Moton
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20-april-78-offered on P. Wotherspoon
Cardell Neal
Mike Lund
Danny Marshall
Russell Moton
Maurice Romano
Russell Moton
Burrell Wilson
Bruce Turner
Kevin Freeze Dry
Chris Jones
Teddy McMurry
Jerry Ray
Zeke Wilson
Stanley Clayton
Ronny James
Tommy Anderson
Herbert Newell
Steve Addison
Ken Norton
Ben Robinson
Ronshonski Darnes
Clarence Klingman
Clifford Gieg
Chris Lund
Dad – I did not get those on right side of room – There were no hands raised when I turned around – I don’t know if others were taking names – Tish
I saw some of them on our side – Jeff Carey, Larry Schacht, Bob Christian,
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Paul McCann, Lee Ingram, Verne Gosney.
There were some more I can’t remember.
Annie Moore.
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