[Editor’s note: This document was released both as a State Department cable as part of its 1981 FOIA release, and as Serial 1244 of the FBI’s RYMUR release. The FBI withheld several names from this cable. They are denoted below in red type.
[The text for this document was released in 2014 by the now-defunct Wikileaks website at https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1978GEORGE04327_d.html. This URL may be available through the Wayback Machine.]
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GEORGE 04327 181649Z
ACTION ARA-15
INFO OCT-01 ISO-00 H-01 L-03 CA-01 JUS-01 SCS-06 FBIE-00 SS-15 PA-01 ICAE-00 INRE-00 INR-10 NSAE-00 SSO-00 /054 W
——————041719 181658Z /46
O 181630Z DEC 78
FM AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN
TO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8490
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E.O. 12065: NA
TAGS: GY
SUBJ: TEXT OF DEPARTMENT’S REPLY TO CHAIRMAN ZABLOCKI.
REF: STATE 316757
1. Embassy has discovered one error in department’s reply to Chairman Zablocki [House International Relations Committee Chairman Clement Zablocki] re Codel Ryan.
2. In the last paragraph of the introductory portion of the letter just before the specific replies to the individual questions begin, text states: Quote: This was the last word the embassy had of the delegation until the following afternoon when Ambassador [John] Burke was informed urgently by Prime Minister [Forbes] Burnham that the party had apparently been attacked at the Port Kaituma airstrip while boarding aircraft to return to Georgetown, and that Congressman Ryan and some of those accompanying him might have been killed. Unquote.
3. Actually, embassy received message from DCM Dwyer [Deputy Chief of Mission Richard Dwyer] relayed through the Peoples Temple office in Georgetown on Saturday morning November 18. Specifically, DCM Dwyer asked for additional airlift to accommodate those
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members from the community who had elected to come out with Congressman Ryan. Embassy responded to this request by arranging to charter a second aircraft which arrived at Port Kaituma almost concidentally [coincidentally] with the previously-chartered Twin Otter. There were other relayed messages between Dwyer and the embassy dealing with the subject of the additional airlift before the Ryan party left Jonestown for Port Kaituma.
Burke [John Burke, U.S. Ambassador to Guyana]
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