[Editor’s note: This document was released both as a State Department cable as part of its 1981 FOIA release, and as Serial 38 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/1978GEORGE03845_d.html. This URL may be available through the Wayback Machine.]
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PAGE 01
GEORGE 03845 212120Z
ACTION SCS-06
INFO OCT-01 ARA-11 ISO-00 CA-01 L-03 FBIE-00 CIAE-00
INR-10 NSAE-00 PA-01 TRSE-00 H-01 AID-05 SS-15
SP-02 CCO-00 SVC-00 DODE-00 NSCE-00 SSO-00
ICAE-00 INRE-00 /056 W
——————128493 212129Z /14
Z 212120Z NOV 78
FM AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN
TO SECSTATE WASHDC FLASH 8125
LIMITED OFFICIAL USE GEORGETOWN 3845
E.O. 11652: N/A
TAGS: CASC, OREP (RYAN, LEO) GY
SUBJECT: PEOPLES TEMPLE: DISPOSITION OF REMAINS
REF: GEORGETOWN 3826
1. At approximately 5:15 P.M. local ambassador received message conveyed out of cabinet in response to earlier request he had made by Minister Hamilton Green that the bodies in Jonestown be interred locally. The message was that cabinet had decided that they would like all of the bodies returned to the U.S. and as soon as possible. To assist in the accomplishment of this, the government was prepared to relax normal regulations such as the identificiation of bodies. The principal reason given for the refusal to permit local interment was GOG’s [Government of Guyana’s] fear that there would be such a flood of next-of-kin wishing to visit the Jonestown burial site and asking for the disinterment of bodies of their relatives that it would overtax the government’s transportation and administrative facilities in that part of Guyana.
Burke [John Burke, U.S. Ambassador to Guyana]
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