{"id":32306,"date":"2013-07-25T16:48:40","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T16:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=32306"},"modified":"2014-03-10T23:56:58","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T23:56:58","slug":"foi-dod","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=32306","title":{"rendered":"Cables            Describe Military Removal of Jonestown Dead, Search for Survivors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/pixel1.gif\" alt=\"pixel\" >The                                U.S. military found itself overwhelmed in its mission                                to retrieve the bodies from Jonestown in the first                                days after the tragedy, according to documents recently                                released from the Pentagon under the Freedom of                                Information Act. From securing the site to locating                                survivors and counting the Jonestown dead, the release                                of cables among military agencies which coordinated                                the Joint Humanitarian Task Force depicts frustrations                                and challenges throughout the first week. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Travel                                by government forces is currently being hindered                                by heavy rain,&#8221; according to a memo from November                                19. Two days later, the military still found itself                                hampered by weather conditions. In addition, &#8220;ground                                transportation within jungle area is difficult and                                complicated by reportedly impassable conditions                                of road between Jonestown and Port Kaituma&#8230; [T]he                                airstrip at Matthews Ridge, 20 miles sound of Port                                Kaituma, is not currently not serviceable for C-130                                [large military transport aircraft] operations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Beyond                                the weather and physical limitations imposed by                                the jungle, the recovery effort was further hampered                                by a low initial body count and the knowledge that                                Jonestown had had upwards of 1000 residents. That                                fed rumors of large numbers of survivors hiding                                in the jungle. &#8220;Some 400 to 600 People&#8217;s Temple                                members are still believed missing&#8230;&#8221; a November                                22 cable said. &#8220;Some survivors may be hardcore followers                                of Jones, consequently could pose a threat to security                                force operations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It                                wasn&#8217;t until later that same day that the removal                                of bodies began and the true extent of the disaster                                became known. &#8220;Many more dead were found under piles                                of bodies,&#8221; a memo reported about a week later.                                By that time, military reconnaissance teams were                                confident the rumors of hundreds of survivors were                                unfounded. &#8220;They found nothing,&#8221; a confidential                                communication read. &#8220;No recent footprints found                                on trails [leading to Venezuela], talked to locals                                and police in area, they reported no sighting of                                refugees.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The                                Jonestown site was fully evacuated by 26 November,                                and the remains of 912 people were transported to                                Dover Air Force Base.<\/p>\n<p>The                                Department of Defense released the cables in response                                to a FOIA request made by the editors of <i>the                                jonestown report<\/i>.                                Copies of the cables, which consists of approximately                                50 pages of sometimes hard to read photocopies,                                are available through this website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. military found itself overwhelmed in its mission to retrieve the bodies from Jonestown in the first days after the tragedy, according to documents recently released from the Pentagon under the Freedom of Information Act. From securing the site to locating survivors and counting the Jonestown dead, the release of cables among military agencies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":32307,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-32306","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32306","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57469,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32306\/revisions\/57469"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/32307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}