{"id":109598,"date":"2021-04-11T07:16:39","date_gmt":"2021-04-11T14:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=109598"},"modified":"2025-12-18T08:53:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:53:30","slug":"richard-mccoy-memo-to-file-december-8-1978","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=109598","title":{"rendered":"Richard McCoy Memos to the Files, <br>December 1978"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In early December 1978, three weeks after the deaths in Jonestown, Richard McCoy \u2013 former Consul to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, then-Guyana Desk Officer at the State Department \u2013 wrote at least two memos &#8220;to the files&#8221; summarizing the agency\u2019s and Embassy\u2019s interactions on several issues related to Peoples Temple during the previous two years: the two-year child custody battle involving John Victor Stoen; the defection of Deborah Layton Blakey in May 1978; and the challenges of distance and accessibility faced by the Embassy in monitoring the community. The memos, initially intended for internal use only, offer both analysis and overall context to the public official stance of the U.S. government. While not overtly stated, the intra-office memos reflect the frustration that especially the Embassy felt in negotiating disputes between Americans in a foreign country.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=109614\">Richard McCoy Memo to File, December 5, 1978 on Deborah Layton Blakey defection<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=109590\">Richard McCoy Memo to File, December 7, 1978 on accessibility to Jonestown from Georgetown<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=133008\">Richard McCoy Memo to File, December 8, 1978 Richard McCoy Memo on Temple Contacts in Georgetown<\/a>  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/images\/new2.jpg\" alt=\"NEW\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=109590\">Richard McCoy Memo to File, December 8, 1978 on Stoen custody matters<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>(<strong>Editor&#8217;s note<\/strong>: Independent researcher Brian Csuk received three of these documents from the State Department in response to his request for agency records under the Freedom of Information Act. His website on primary government sources related to Peoples Temple went offline in 1998.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>(The fourth document \u2013 the Memo on Temple contacts in Georgetown \u2013 was provided by Nick Miller in November 2025. The editors are grateful for his assistance in locating this document.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In early December 1978, three weeks after the deaths in Jonestown, Richard McCoy \u2013 former Consul to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, then-Guyana Desk Officer at the State Department \u2013 wrote at least two memos &#8220;to the files&#8221; summarizing the agency\u2019s and Embassy\u2019s interactions on several issues related to Peoples Temple during the previous two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":13689,"menu_order":18,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-109598","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/109598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=109598"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/109598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133014,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/109598\/revisions\/133014"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=109598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}