FBI Section 95 • N-1 • Letters to Jim Jones

N-1, which is the third of four folders in FBI Section 95, is labelled in the Guyana Index as “Letters to Jim Jones” and consists of 243 pages.

The listing below is complete for this section of the FBI’s FOIA release. The complete PDF for this section as released by the FBI is here.

The citation for these documents should open with the FBI’s official designation of these records, which is “RYMUR 89-4286.” Each individual page in these records has a unique number. Page 78 of this document, for example, is marked “N1-A-43a”. The complete citation for that page, then, would be “RYMUR 89-4286-N1-A-43a”.

These letters break down into several categories. The biggest comprise the descriptions of how people would handle the traitors and enemies who have bedeviled Jones. A related category are the letters describing how the Temple could exact retribution against those who killed Chris Lewis, a Temple member who was murdered in San Francisco in December 1977. In addition are scattered reports, self-analyses and biographical statements.

Note: This site features many primary source documents from Peoples Temple, including letters and other writings by members of the Temple and residents of Jonestown. Many of these writings were solicited by the Temple leadership to include confessions of misdeeds and crimes which the members may – or more often, may not – have committed. These confessions were tests of the members’ loyalty, but they were collected as a means of leverage to prevent them from speaking out against the Temple in the event of their departure.