{"id":89809,"date":"2019-05-03T15:55:52","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T22:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=89809"},"modified":"2026-04-23T17:11:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:11:35","slug":"serial-854","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=89809","title":{"rendered":"Serial 854"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Editor\u2019s note<\/strong>: This document was released both as a State Department cable<\/a><\/u> as part of its 1981 FOIA release, and as Serial 854<\/a><\/u> of the FBI\u2019s RYMUR release. <\/p>\n

[The text for this document was released in 2014 by Wikileaks<\/a>. It is also available through the Internet Archive<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

UNCLASSIFIED
\nPAGE 01
\nGEORGE 04107 051352Z
\nACTION ARA-15
\nINFO OCT-01 ISO-00 L-03 SSO-00 SCS-06 CA-01 SS-15 DODE-00 FBIE-00 JUSE-00 SY-05 H-02 CIAE-00 INR-10 NSAE-00 NSCE-00 INRE-00 SYE-00 \/058 W
\n——————018131 051359Z \/44<\/p>\n

O 051328Z DEC 78
\nFM AMEMBASSY GEORGETOWN
\nTO SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8331
\nUNCLAS GEORGETOWN 4107
\nE.O. 11652: NA
\nTAGS: CGEN, CASC
\nSUBJ: RETENTION OF LOCAL COUNSEL
\nREF: STATE 296852<\/p>\n

1. Embassy has retained Gorden Smith Gillette, a Georgetown solicitor, as local counsel in connection with questions concerning the disposition of people’s temple property in Guyana. Gillette has been a member of the bar for 27 years. He served as chief prosecutor and national ombudsman before re-entering private practice in 1970.<\/p>\n

2. DCM [Deputy Chief of Mission] and L [Local] representative met with Gillette Dec 4 and described legal question upon which advice of local counsel was needed. He does not charge an hourly rate, and was unwilling to speculate regarding his fee because of the complicated nature of the problem. He has been informed of the embassy maximum authorization of $1,000.00 U.S.<\/p>\n

Burke [John Burke, U.S. Ambassador to Guyana]<\/p>\n

UNCLASSIFIED<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Editor\u2019s note: This document was released both as a State Department cable as part of its 1981 FOIA release, and as Serial 854 of the FBI\u2019s RYMUR release. [The text for this document was released in 2014 by Wikileaks. It is also available through the Internet Archive.] UNCLASSIFIED PAGE 01 GEORGE 04107 051352Z ACTION ARA-15 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":87656,"menu_order":59,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-89809","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89809","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89809"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137255,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/89809\/revisions\/137255"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/87656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}