{"id":28126,"date":"2013-07-08T17:04:41","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T17:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=28126"},"modified":"2020-05-01T16:10:44","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T23:10:44","slug":"318-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=28126","title":{"rendered":"Q318 Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

To read the Tape Transcript, click here<\/a>. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1<\/a>, Pt. 2<\/a>).
\nTo return to the Tape Index, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

FBI Catalogue<\/strong> Jones Speaking<\/p>\n

FBI preliminary tape identification note: <\/strong>Labeled in part \u201cAug 1 Questions & Answers\u201d<\/p>\n

Date cues on tape:<\/strong> Context of tape consistent with date<\/p>\n

People named:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Public figures\/National and international names:<\/em><\/p>\n

Jimmy Carter, U.S. President
\nEdward M. Kennedy, U. S. Senator, Democrat from Massachusetts
\nRichard Nixon, former U.S. President
\nWilliam Webster, FBI director<\/p>\n

Adolf Hitler
\nMargaret Thatcher, leader of Britain\u2019s Conservative Party
\nJosip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia<\/p>\n

Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister
\nAnwar Sadat, President of Egypt
\nJulius Nyerere, President of Tanzania
\nMobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire
\nDeng Xiaoping, Premier of China<\/p>\n

Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Nicaraguan dictator
\nForbes Burnham, Prime Minister of Guyana
\nViola Burnham, wife of Forbes Burnham<\/p>\n

Mervyn Dymally, lieutenant governor of California (by reference)<\/p>\n

Angela Davis, university professor, black activist
\nHuey Newton, leader of the Black Panther Party
\nJames Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King
\nGenghis Khan, leader of Mongol Empire<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Temple members not in Jonestown:<\/em><\/p>\n

Nell Smart<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Jonestown residents, full name unknown:<\/em><\/p>\n

Annie (several elderly black women in Jonestown)
\nCasanova child (either Angelique or Sophia)
\nChaikin child (either David or Gail) (speaks)<\/strong>
\nMike (likely Carter, Touchette or Rozynko) (speaks)<\/strong>
\nOdell (either Blackwell or Rhodes) (speaks)<\/strong>
\nPatty (probably Cartmell, could be Parks)
\nRodriguez family<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Peoples Temple members<\/em><\/p>\n

Geraldine Bailey (speaks<\/strong>)
\nShawn Baker (speaks)<\/strong>
\nJack Beam (speaks)<\/strong>
\nJim Arthur \u201cJimbo\u201d Bishop (speaks<\/strong>)
\nErnestine Blair (speaks)<\/strong>
\nEugene Chaikin (speaks)<\/strong>
\nJames Cordell, aka Jim Stalin (speaks)<\/strong>
\nTom Grubbs (speaks)<\/strong>
\nMagnolia Harris (speaks)<\/strong>
\nJohn Moss Brown Jones
\nStephan Jones
\nTish Leroy
\nDov Lundquist (speaks<\/strong>)
\nOreen Poplin (speaks<\/strong>)
\nKay Rosas
\nBobby Stroud
\nDeanna Wilkinson (speaks)<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Bible verses cited:<\/strong> None<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

(This tape was transcribed by Katherine Hill. The<\/em> editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Jim Jones leads the Jonestown community in a discussion of the news. People answer questions which he poses, and receive rewards of time (whether they are allowed time off of work, or are granted another dispensation of time commitment, it is unknown). Jones offers his own expansion on the answers or provides additional commentary on almost each reply, and sometimes, he uses the answer as a point of departure to offer some lesson or opinion which is only tangentially related.<\/p>\n

In the context \u2013 since he comments upon the complexity and subjectivity of the questions themselves \u2013 it is apparent someone else has written them for him. The writer could be Eugene Chaikin, whose own commentary show more thoughtfulness and analysis than mere responses to questions about the news.<\/p>\n

Whatever the authorship of the news quiz, Jones uses several of the questions to present his commentary with which the people of Jonestown were by then familiar. A question about Israeli intentions for Lebanon leads to a discussion of nationalism, which leads to a discussion of China\u2019s Doctrine of Three Worlds<\/a> and its corollary, \u201cthat nuclear war is inevitable.\u201d In fact, as Jones claims a few moments later, the whole doctrine articulated by China\u2019s leaders \u201cis predicated on the inevitability<\/em> of nuclear war.\u201d Moreover, as Jones says later, \u201cif China believes there\u2019s gonna be a nuclear war, it\u2019s best<\/em> in her mind, no doubt, to get it over with, right?\u201d It should reassure his followers, he adds, that \u201call<\/em> the world admits that this part of the world will survive, almost untouched.\u201d This is a recurring theme throughout Temple history, leading Jones, for example, to transfer his congregation from Indiana in the mid-1960s to northern California.<\/p>\n

This is also a recurring theme of the night. Jones returns to the Doctrine of Three Worlds \u2013 and its implications for nuclear war \u2013 no fewer than three times, asks if everyone knows it, and promises that it will be on the next test. He also prods for further discussion by soliciting contrary opinions. Even if they don\u2019t agree with his own view, \u201cif you want to take a devil\u2019s advocate,\u201d people will be rewarded with time off. \u201cWe don\u2019t like to reinforce ourselves with our own beliefs,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cWe welcome a ray of hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Jones\u2019 digressions leads to a question-and-answer session \u2013 mostly rhetorical, with himself \u2013 on how they are to conduct themselves around reporters and visitors. He reminds them to \u201cremember certain things. We live by peace<\/em>. We don\u2019t believe in guns.<\/em> We don\u2019t believe in violence towards each other. You remember all of these things? Be sure you got them all in your brain. Obviously we don\u2019t put anyone in boxes<\/em>.\u201d He makes similar admonitions on sex and marriage, child-rearing, and the role of religion in Jonestown.<\/p>\n

Especially on the latter, though, Jones gives a mixed message. At first, he counsels his followers to answer a reporter who asks questions about religion that \u201cwhat I believe about religion is my own business, I don\u2019t want to go into that.\u201d Immediately afterwards, however, he starts speaking of the contrasts between religion and socialism,\u00a0 how the latter \u201cbrings about selflessness<\/em>. It brings about the death of the ego<\/em> and the life of the sociocentric ego<\/em>.\u201d The problem as he sees it is that people can\u2019t seem to escape religion\u2019s hold on them. \u201cSome of you got one leg in that religious shit and one leg in socialism. That\u2019s why you crip around.\u2026 That\u2019s why a lot of you are sick<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has similar views on astrology, \u201can opiate of the people\u201d which offers false hope to those who believe in it but which is really nothing but a form of fatalism that keeps people from trying to change things, because there\u2019s \u201cnothing you can do about the goddamn situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are elements of fatalism in reincarnation as well, a concept he spoke of often in the States. Here he gives a more nuanced view: He believes in reincarnation, but he doesn\u2019t like it, and can\u2019t really relate to it. \u201cI believe it,\u201d he repeats, but \u201cI don\u2019t understand it, still don\u2019t make this universe any sensible to me, don\u2019t make any sense to me at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The one \u201cpractical merit\u201d which reincarnation has taught him, however \u2013 in a message consistent throughout the Temple\u2019s history \u2013 is, \u201cdon\u2019t commit suicide, \u2018cause you get your ass in a worse grab bag.\u2026 You\u2019ll go back 500 generations. Ten thousand years.\u201d In addition \u2013 in a more explicit message than he delivered from the pulpit \u2013 the definition of suicide covers more than the act of killing yourself. It includes not taking your prescribed medication, it means not watching your weight. \u201cWhen your ass is waddling, bigger than a balloon, down the pathway, you\u2019re commitin\u2019 suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n

In general, the mood of the meeting is upbeat, and Jones hands out many more compliments and rewards than he does criticisms. His praise of the opportunities which the community has to learn about current events around the world, both during the news quizzes and in the schools, appears to be genuine. Complimenting one young teenager, Jones notes, \u201che wouldn\u2019t have known that kind of a commentary [in the US]\u2026 What insight, to be able to quote a black <\/em>president in Tanzania and give his philosophy? We see a senior like Comrade [Oreen] Poplin stand up here and give a question and pose her own answers that you would never <\/em>see from seniors in USA.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the news items discussed:<\/p>\n