[Editor’s note: This document was released both as a State Department cable as part of its 1981 FOIA release, and as Serial 41 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/1978GEORGE03820_d.html. This URL may be available through the Wayback Machine.]
UNCLASSIFIED
PAGE 01
GEORGE 03820 211329Z
ACTION ARA-15
INFO OCT-01 ISO-00 FBIE-00 CIAE-00 DODE-00 PA-02
TRSE-00 SCS-06 MCT-02 CA-01 INR-10 INRE-00 SY-05
SYE-00 USSS-00 H-02 AID-05 SS-15 SSO-00 NSCE-00
CCO-00 OC-06 JUSE-00 NSAE-00 ICAE-00 L-03 A-02
MED-05 OPR-02 PER-05 PPTE-00 /087 W
——————118793 211338Z /41
O 210645Z NOV 78
FM AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8109
UNCLAS GEORGETOWN 3820
E.O. 11652: N/A
TAGS: CASC CDES GY (PEOPLES TEMPLE)
SUBJECT: DEPARTMENT ASSUMPTION OF DEATH AND W/W NOTIFICATION
RESPONSIBILITIES
REF: ELLICE/WARD TELECON 11/20/78
1. Embassy agrees that department must assume responsibility for notifying relatives of both dead and surviving Peoples Temple members. Please confirm by telegram. Future callers from states will be told to call department. Most of telephones connections we have experienced within the lst few days have been unintelligible anyway.
2. This cancels Georgetown 3813 [Serial 36.]
Burke [John Burke, U.S. Ambassador to Guyana]
UNCLASSIFIED