![\"06-06-ckg2_thumb\"](\"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/06-06-ckg2_thumb1.jpg\")
<\/a>The Big Book of Conspiracies<\/em>
(New York: Paradox Press, 1995), p. 69.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nMany conspiracy\u00a0theories about what \u201creally\u201d happened at Jonestown have emerged since 18\u00a0November 1978. This article examines the role of the Green Berets in the deaths\u00a0in Jonestown as asserted by the conspiracy theorist John Judge in 1985.<\/p>\n
Conspiracy\u00a0theories often have a life of their own, independent of and in many cases despite\u00a0of, any supporting evidence. In some sense, they are like Plato\u2019s allegory of\u00a0the Cave. As in the allegory, some things remain hidden despite the projected\u00a0shadows dancing on the cave walls. Without seeing what is behind or outside the\u00a0cave, one may never know what is real. We are left chasing the pallid shadows within\u00a0the cave allowing only conjecture as to the validity of our perceptions. The\u00a0evidence in front of us can only explain so much and that which is behind us that\u00a0remains, or so it seems, eternally out of sight. Sometimes, we need only turn\u00a0around, or in this case, look at the evidence.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0such a vacuum of evidence \u2013 or where little evidence exists \u2013 conspiracy theories\u00a0(and not \u201ctheories\u201d in the scientific sense of the word) easily give way to the\u00a0splenetic imaginations of conspiracy theorists. Their unsupportable claims are emboldened\u00a0by a trickle of facts that tend to stretch the scope of any known detail and\u00a0eagerly suggest nefarious alternatives to any \u201cofficial\u201d story. These theorists\u00a0run amok with assertions and claims that generally go unchallenged and\u00a0unchecked, especially those found on the Internet. In recent years, the Internet\u00a0has become the repository for all things conspiracy from JFK to 9\/11. If it had\u00a0happened within recent memory, one can only imagine the hundred-fold increase\u00a0in websites dedicated to the conspiracies of the Lincoln assassination \u2013 and\u00a0\u201cyes,\u201d a few already exist. It is the conspiracies that may have a wild assertion\u00a0or claim to fill a gap in the official historical record that sometimes turn\u00a0out to be right. These, nonetheless, are rare. Therefore, any treatment suggesting\u00a0an alternate history should not be dismissed out of hand, but instead reviewed\u00a0and researched. Wild accusations are not necessarily untrue, only unexpected\u00a0and improbable. Improbability, however, is not impossibility. Jonestown is no exception\u00a0to this treatment.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Black Hole of Guyana: the new truth about Jonestown?<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1985, Jonestown\u00a0researcher and theorist, John Judge, rhetorically asks in the preface to his\u00a0work on Peoples Temple \u201cIf the discrepancy between the truth of Jonestown and\u00a0the official version can be so great, what other lies have we been told about\u00a0major events?\u201d[1] <\/a> Judge\u2019s piece, The Black Hole of Guyana: the Untold Story of the Jonestown\u00a0Massacre<\/i>, not only challenges the official story of Jonestown, it seemingly demolishes it. By amassing over 290 citations to back his claims \u2013 with many listing\u00a0multiple sources for the same detail \u2013 Judge has done something amazing. He has\u00a0rewritten history\u2026 or has he?<\/p>\n First, to be\u00a0fair, The Black Hole of Guyana <\/i>was written in 1985 \u2013 well before the Internet\u00a0\u2013 and it does not appear to have been updated since it was originally penned;\u00a0however, the text is still available online despite the research community accumulating\u00a0years of evidence in the interim. Given the amount information currently\u00a0available online, in books, and the number of witness available who are willing\u00a0to speak on the matter, it is rather odd that an update has not been\u00a0forthcoming. In tackling Judge\u2019s points, modern research could have been more\u00a0fruitful than imaginable. One could only imagine what could be discovered if\u00a0the depths of Judge\u2019s case were made today with the vast resources available. For\u00a0example, the FBI has released a second, albeit redacted, round of documents\u00a0that were not available in 1985. Moreover, there have been numerous Freedom of\u00a0Information Act (FOIA) releases by the Air Force and the Army since Judge\u2019s work\u00a0was written thanks to researchers pressing on with the endless quest for\u00a0answers regarding all things Jonestown. Their FOIA requests have not been in vain,\u00a0as each has filled a gap in historical record and it is this information that\u00a0help place The Black Hole of Guyana<\/i> in context with what is known, and\u00a0what is clearly inadmissible speculation.<\/p>\n John\u00a0Judge,\u00a0nevertheless, has too many assertions in his online tome to challenge\u00a0all\u00a0of them without writing a volume as thick as Homer\u2019s Odyssey<\/i>. This may\u00a0be seen as fault or even a purposeful evasion of the bulk of the work. This\u00a0point is duly noted. The position of this piece is not to dismiss all of the work presented by John Judge, but instead place in context the part for which this researcher is most familiar. Judge, like most conspiracy theorists studying Jonestown, finds fault with the CIA, the FBI, the military and numerous other governmental organizations and not those ultimately responsible.\u00a0This is too wide a net to cast to address adequately in a few pages. For this\u00a0reason, this piece shall focus solely on the role of the Green Berets that have\u00a0been implicated, even if obliquely, in the deaths of those in Jonestown.<\/p>\n Green Berets in Jonestown<\/strong><\/p>\n Judge asserts that\u00a0the Green Berets were in Guyana and that they had a hand in the murders of over\u00a0900 Americans, however, he is careful not to claim directly that they killed\u00a0anyone. In fact, Judge only makes the suggestion that the Green Berets were\u00a0there \u2013 in or around Jonestown \u2013 at the time of the suicides, hiding in the\u00a0Jungle, and that the death count increased due to their presence. It is up to the\u00a0reader to connect the dots. Here is what Judge has to say about the Army\u2019s\u00a0elite Green Berets.<\/p>\n It\u00a0seemed the first reports were true, 400 had died, and 700 had fled to the\u00a0jungle. The American authorities claimed to have searched for people who had escaped,\u00a0but found no evidence of any in the surrounding area. At least a hundred\u00a0Guyanese troops were among the first to arrive, and they were ordered to search\u00a0the jungle for survivors. In the area, at the same time, British Black Watch\u00a0troops were on “training exercises,” with nearly 600 of their\u00a0best-trained commandos. Soon, American Green Berets were on site as well. The\u00a0presence of these soldiers, specially trained in covert killing operations, may explain the increasing numbers of bodies that appeared.<\/p>\n Most\u00a0of the photographs show the bodies in neat rows, face down. There are few\u00a0exceptions. Close shots indicate drag marks, as though the bodies were positioned\u00a0by someone after death. Is it possible that the 700 who fled were rounded up by\u00a0these troops, brought back to Jonestown and added to the body count?[2] <\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Reading the text\u00a0above, one might suppose that the Green Berets appeared \u201csoon\u201d after people\u00a0started dying in Jonestown. The source cited by Judge for this is the book White Night<\/a><\/em> by John Peer Nugent that states \u201cBy Monday morning, November 20, more\u00a0than 300 U.S. military people were on the ground in Guyana.\u201d[3] <\/a> The number\u00a0reported here is untrue if only because by the 20th<\/sup>, there were too\u00a0few personnel on the ground. The important detail here is that Nugent does not\u00a0claim that any of these troops were Green Berets, Air Force personnel or even Boy\u00a0Scouts. He simply does not say who they were.<\/p>\n No mystery airlifts<\/strong><\/p>\n What is known is\u00a0that that the Air Force and Army personnel airlifted by the 437th\u00a0<\/sup>Military Airlift Wing, including eight members of the 31st\u00a0<\/sup>Aero-medical Evacuation Team in addition to one Navy pathologist, arrived as\u00a0early as the 19th. The first such flight took off on 19 November at 0805Z or\u00a03am local time. The medical team and several teams of Air Force Combat\u00a0Controllers (CCT) were there to pick up and treat the victims of the Port\u00a0Kaituma shootings and secure the aircraft returning with the injured and the\u00a0medical crews. A second mission on 20 November was sent to establish\u00a0communications and pick up the dead, including the body of Congressman Leo J.\u00a0Ryan and the reporters killed at Port Kaituma. By this point, only rumors\u00a0swirled around Guyana about the possible mass suicides in Jonestown and there\u00a0is no mention of troops in the remote enclave. The record also shows that there\u00a0are no massive airlifts reported capable of transferring Green Berets\u00a0undetected. Every flight has been accounted for during the operation.<\/p>\n The\u00a0role of the Special Forces deployed to Jonestown<\/strong><\/p>\n There were\u00a0American Special Forces deployed to Jonestown, but not for the mission Judge\u00a0would have us imagine. The only Special Forces deployed to Guyana were the 6\u00a0CCT members of the 437th<\/sup> ALCE (Air Lift Control Element) who were in\u00a0Guyana between 20 November and 27 November. These were the Air Force CombatControllers whose job it was to provide aircraft communications (think air\u00a0traffic controllers) and aircraft security. In fact, the count for Air Force\u00a0personnel finally reached 69 officers and 297 enlisted by November 24 and\u00a0thereby exceeding the 300 count attributed by Judge and Nugent to be on the\u00a0ground by the 20th<\/sup>. Those groups arriving after the 20th consisted of\u00a0the four Air Force 437th<\/sup> Security Police that arrived on the 23 of\u00a0November and of course, the Army\u2019s Graves Registration units.<\/p>\n Fluctuating\u00a0numbers, but no Green Berets<\/strong><\/p>\n The number of\u00a0American military personnel in Guyana fluctuated from day-to-day as the airlift\u00a0flights entered and left Guyana during the height of the recovery operation. During\u00a0this period, no Green Berets are ever reported by personnel on the ground. In addition,\u00a0with the press swarming the sites in Guyana before the State Department could\u00a0get a handle on the situation, no one mentions these troops. There are no\u00a0photos at the main airport or at the Port Kaituma airport showing Green Berets\u00a0or any evidence of their presence. Neither the Guyanese forces entering\u00a0Jonestown, nor the survivors that literally walked out of Jonestown (Tim\u00a0Carter, Mike Carter, Odell Rhodes, Mike Prokes, Hyacinth Thrash to name a few)\u00a0make any mention of the Green Berets purportedly conducting \u201ccovert killing\u00a0operations\u201d outside of Jonestown. Such an oversight by the people on the ground\u00a0in Guyana and by the rest of the world seems astonishing. How could an army\u00a0post enough men to corral over 700 people hiding in the jungle and then\u00a0slaughter them in a neat orderly fashion? Since only three victims in Jonestown\u00a0had gunshot wounds, Judge also does not explain how the covert killers may have\u00a0operated. With their mission complete, and as if by magic, the men whose number\u00a0would have to be in the hundreds, simply disappeared without a trace. It begs\u00a0the question \u201cHow did one lone researcher find out something the rest of the\u00a0outside world did not?\u201d Such a claim, if determined to be true, would bring\u00a0down a government. Surely, at least one reliable witness must exist. But, where\u00a0are they?<\/p>\n The\u00a0phantom troops of the Green Berets \u2013 examining the \u201cevidence\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n To bolster his\u00a0case, Judge states, \u201cClose shots [photographs] indicate drag marks, as though\u00a0the bodies were positioned by someone after death\u201d because the bodies were\u00a0lined up in \u201cneat rows.\u201d[4] <\/a> As a consequence, he rhetorically asks, \u201cIs it possible that the 700 who fled were rounded up by these troops, brought back to Jonestown and added to the body count?\u201d[5] <\/a>\u00a0The euphemism of being \u201crounded up\u201d and \u201cadded to the body count\u201d barely masks\u00a0what it implies \u2013 murder. The correct answer to such a non-sequitur is a\u00a0resounding \u201cno.\u201d First, no American soldiers have been placed at the scene. Second,\u00a0\u201cdrag marks\u201d do not indicate the presence of soldiers; let alone no such marks\u00a0would denote what patch the perpetrators might have been wearing, if any. Third,\u00a0how does Judge suppose these phantom troops would have done their dastardly\u00a0deed? He does not tell us except to say that they are trained in \u201ccovert\u00a0killing.\u201d But what does that mean? To buttress his claim that there were Green\u00a0Berets on the ground in Guyana Judge cites the presence of Charles Edward\u00a0Beikman.<\/p>\n Charles\u00a0Beikman \u2013 loyal member, but not a Green Beret<\/strong><\/p>\n Beikman, a Jones\u00a0devotee, was staying in Georgetown, the Guyanese capital when the suicides and\u00a0murders in Jonestown began. Judge points out that Beikman was \u201c\u2026a Green Beret\u00a0who was to stay with [Jones] to the end.\u201d[6] <\/a> This is an odd claim especially since the source cited, pages 181-2 of The Suicide Cult<\/a><\/i> by Marshall Kilduff and Ron Javers, makes no such mention of the Green Berets. Kilduff and Javers\u2019 work only mentions that Charles Beikman\u00a0was arrested by Guyanese security for the attempted murder of a \u201ctwelve-year\u00a0old girl\u201d in Georgetown.[7] <\/a> In fact, Beikman was never a Green Beret, and even if he was a Green Beret at the time, he was never in Jonestown during the murders. Sadly, Charles Beikman\u00a0was another one Jim Jones\u2019 pawns. He was loyal, trusting to a fault, and he may\u00a0not have understood the ramifications of his actions at the time. Stephen Jones\u00a0describes Beikman as a \u201csimple man\u201d which underscores this point. He may have\u00a0been illiterate and undereducated, but he was a good man in a bad position and\u00a0used for the twisted principles of others including Sharon Amos, the Temple member in Georgetown who ritualistically cut the throats of her own children. Beikman\u00a0would never have made it into the Green Berets and the evidence supports this. At\u00a0this point, one may be tempted to make a comparison to Forrest Gump \u2013 the big-hearted\u00a0simpleton who stumbles through life only to win a Purple Heart in the Army\u00a0during Vietnam \u2013 except Beikman never joined any armed service and unlike Gump,\u00a0he had blood on his hands. It therefore follows that if Beikman were a Green\u00a0Beret, a professional soldier trained in covert killing, then he was a\u00a0miserable failure. He not only failed to kill a little girl, he was caught and\u00a0spent time in jail for his crime. It is far more likely that he was an\u00a0unfortunate fellow in the wrong place at the wrong time. This makes him a\u00a0victim, not a killer.<\/p>\n No\u00a0evidence of Green Berets presence<\/strong><\/p>\n In January of\u00a02012, another Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was processed and this\u00a0time the target was very specific. The United States Army issued what would\u00a0amount to the final refutation of the claim that the Green Berets were in\u00a0Guyana killing Americans. In a direct challenge to Judge\u2019s work, the FIOA question\u00a0presented to the Army was part of an ongoing effort to determine if any Special\u00a0Operations Forces (SOF) were in Guyana at any point in 1978, not just in\u00a0November. The answer again, to no one\u2019s surprise, is \u201cno.\u201d No records exist\u00a0showing that the U.S. Army Special Operations Command personnel were in Guyana\u00a0during 1978.[8] <\/a>A conspiracy theorist may assert that the lack of evidence is a part of the\u00a0deception and this is a point in their favor. Such a claim is logically\u00a0fallacious; known as a false dichotomy, the choice is not an \u201ceither\/or\u201d proposition.\u00a0Moreover, the position that the Green Berets were in Guyana is a positive claim\u00a0to which the claimant would be required to provide evidence to which none\u00a0exists and as has been shown above, none has been provided. On the other hand,\u00a0proving a negative (that the Green Berets were not in Guyana) is much harder\u00a0claim to make, yet the documentation above points away from the claim that the\u00a0Army had troops on the ground in Guyana. We could say that in this case the\u00a0absence of evidence is evidence of absence. This absence of evidence is painfully\u00a0apparent in the works cited as proofs by Judge, given that they do not affirm\u00a0the positions or facts he presents. In each case, like the missing Green\u00a0Berets, the details that make his case are absent in the source material.<\/p>\n Evidence\u00a0honors the victims<\/strong><\/p>\n If there is a\u00a0constructive side to the works of the conspiracy theorists like Judge, it is\u00a0that such treatment of the events in Jonestown keeps us engaged. Conspiracies\u00a0breathe life into the world of information that swarms around the events that\u00a0intrigue us. There is, however, a cost to allowing these theories to persist.\u00a0By implicating the US Government as the true villain in Jonestown, the true\u00a0culprits are allowed to run free \u2013 if only metaphorically. The search for a larger bully capable of doing the unthinkable only serves to dishonor the victims. While others may also believe this is an act of the CIA, the FBI or the United States Army\u2019s Green Berets, the reality has been in front of us the entire time and it does not need embellishment. Evidence should always trump belief, but for some, reality is not enough. Why? Conspiracy theorists are continually asking, \u201cWho else could perpetrate the horror seen that November?\u201d This\u00a0serves no one if the answer is fabricated out of whole cloth. That question,\u00a0and the resulting theory set forth by Judge in The Black Hole of Guyana,\u00a0<\/i>does not honor the victims. It smears their legacy and contorts the truth. Whatever\u00a0else this piece may be, it is not history. Calling it \u201chistorical fiction\u201d may\u00a0be the only kind label we can apply. The prisoners in Plato\u2019s Cave were not\u00a0free to look around, seek answers and ask questions without repercussions. Without\u00a0direct evidence, Plato could only imagine another world outside the cave. John\u00a0Judge uses the same reasoning to conclude there is something more to Jonestown,\u00a0although from my standpoint he is only chasing shadows.<\/p>\n (Chris\u00a0Knight-Griffin is a regular contributor to <\/i>the jonestown report. His other article in this edition is FOIA Request Update: The United States Army Special Operations\u00a0Command<\/a>.\u00a0His earlier writings appear here<\/a>. He may be reached at jonestownresearch@hotmail.com<\/a><\/i>.)<\/p>\n Footnotes<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n
\nhttp:\/\/www.ratical.org\/ratville\/JFK\/JohnJudge\/Jonestown.html<\/a> (also here<\/a>).<\/div>\n