Richard D. \u201cDick\u201d Tropp was a core member of Peoples Temple\u2019s inner circle and is widely considered to be the organization\u2019s official scribe and in-house historian.<\/p>\n
As a Temple member in California, Tropp directed letter-writing campaigns and wrote and edited the group\u2019s newspaper, Peoples Forum<\/em>. He also began gathering oral histories of Temple members for a planned biography of Jones and the movement, work he continued to do even after his emigration to Guyana in October 1977.<\/p>\n While in Jonestown, Tropp was a main contributor to at least two unpublished books on the perceived conspiracies against the organization \u2014 one the 52-page\u00a0Target: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and the nearly 500-plus\u00a0Conspiracy Book<\/em><\/a>. This distinguishes his role from Jonestown resident Edith Roller, whose extensive journals were not written for an audience.<\/p>\n Tropp\u2019s writings paint him as an introspective, serious man moved by intensity and injustice. Focused and determined, he was known to seldom laugh but to be an understanding teacher. Having been a professor at Santa Rosa Junior College, he later plied his skills by teaching at Jonestown\u2019s school.<\/p>\n Tropp\u2019s letters also show he was a man in conflict with himself. He encouraged\u00a0intellectuals and elites<\/a>\u00a0(of which he considered himself) to be watched, and suggested they should be executed once they\u2019d served the cause\u2019s purpose. In another letter, written after a White Night in May 1978, he politely but adamantly advocates for Jones to make Jonestown more transparent to the public and to start planning the settlement\u2019s future.<\/p>\n A witness recalls him arguing with Jones against the idea of poisoning the community on Nov. 18, but just hours later, he wrote\u00a0Jonestown\u2019s last words<\/a>, as ever with an eye for history, by instructing responders to \u201ccollect all the tapes, all the writing.\u201d<\/p>\n Tropp and his younger sister, Harriet Sarah Tropp, died in Jonestown.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n The individual writings below include RYMUR citations, and should open with the FBI\u2019s official designation of these records, which is “RYMUR 89-4286.” Each RYMUR page has a unique number.\u00a0Tropp\u2019s dramatic reading on pages EE-1-T-64 \u2013 EE-1-T-65, for example, should be cited as RYMUR 89-4286-EE-1-T-64 \u2013 RYMUR 89-4286-EE-1-T-65.<\/p>\n