[Editor’s note: This document was released both as a State Department cable as part of its 1981 FOIA release, and as Serial 26 of the FBI’s RYMUR release.
[The text for this document was released in 2014 by the now-defunct Wikileaks website at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1978GEORGE03817_d.html. This URL may be available through the Wayback Machine.]
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GEORGE 03817 202214Z
ACTION ARA-15
INFO OCT-01 ISO-00 SCS-06 FBIE-00 CIAE-00 DODE-00 PA-01
TRSE-00 MCT-02 CA-01 INR-10 INRE-00 SY-05 SYE-00
USSS-00 H-01 AID-05 SS-15 SSO-00 NSCE-00 CCO-00
OC-06 JUSE-00 NSAE-00 ICAE-00 SVC-00 L-03 CG-00
DOTE-00 /071 W
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Z 202155Z NOV 78
FM AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN
TO SECSTATE WASHDC FLASH 8106
LIMITED OFFICIAL USE GEORGETOWN 3817
E.O. 11652: N/A
TAGS: CASC, OREP (RYAN, LEO)
SUBJECT: IDENTIFICATION OF REVEREND JAMES JONES, HIS WIFE, A SON, AND ELEVEN BODYGUARDS AMONG DEAD PERSONS AT JONESTOWN.
1. At 1700 hrs local, Police Commissioner Lloyd Barker informed Embassy Peoples’ Temple (PT) leader James Jones, his wife, one son, and eleven members of his bodyguard were identified as among the dead at Jonestown. Barker said that Rev. Jones had a bullet in the head. Police suspect that an argument may have developed over a large sum of money that Jones intended to remove from Jonestown and he may have been executed.
2. FYI: According to Barker the national police dispatched a six-man team to Jonestown on 20 November along with several PT escapees from Jonestown to aid in identification efforts. Among the police technicians were two photographers and two fingerprint technicians.
Burke [John Burke, U.S. Ambassador to Guyana]
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