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PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
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Translated from the Russian by Nadezhda Burova
and Sergei Chulaki

Designed by Andrei Razumov

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English translation © Progress Publishers 1987

Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

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CONTENTS

Page

Introduction................................................................................ 5
First Acquaintance..................................................................... 8
Political P rotest........................................................................... 15
Peoples Forum, a Newspaper for P rotest...................................... 30
Jonestown: A Social Experiment.................................................... 36
Mark Lane: Conspiracy Against the Tem ple................................. 51
Persecution and Reprisals........................................................... 55
The CIA’s Scheming................................................................... 79
Our Visit to the C o m m u n e .........................................................103
The Assassination of Congressman Leo R y a n ............................ 136
The Last Hours of the Peoples Tem ple........................................ 152
Covering Up T races....................................................................... 161
In Lieu of an Epilogue..................................................................179
A fte rw o rd .......................................................................................183

t
INTRODUCTION

Strictly documentary, this book is based on actual facts,

carefully analyzed evidence, press reports, the testimony of
eyewitnesses and conclusions drawn by authoritative legal
and forensic experts concerning the murder, on November
18, 1978, of 918 US citizens by CIA agents. Among those
killed, apart from members of the Peoples Temple organiza­
tion, were also Congressman Leo Ryan and the three jour­
nalists who accompanied him on his visit to Jonestown.
The Peoples Temple, an organization of underprivileged
US citizens, emerged in the mid-sixties in Indianapolis
and operated mainly in California. It aimed at securing a
decent life for the most exploited and oppressed Americans.
Officially registered as a religious community, the organiza­
tion was active politically, coming out against race oppres­
sion and campaigning for civil rights, peace and democrat­
ic freedoms. Small wonder, then, that it was harassed by the
secret police and victimized by the press.
In the mid-seventies, over one thousand members of the
Peoples Temple left their country for political reasons. They
emigrated to Guyana,1 where they set up an agricultural
commune of a new type. By choosing Jonestown (a settle­
ment in Guyana named so after Jim Jones, the ideological
leader of the Peoples Temple) as their new place of resi­
dence, many American families defied poverty and lack of
rights that were their lot back home, in the country they
fled. This act of political protest, of a kind never known
in the United States before, brought unprecedentedly brutal
reprisals by the punitive machinery of the United States.
The materials in this book reveal that the official version
about “the suicide of the religious faftatics” in Jonestown,

• 1 The co-operative Republic of Guyana (area 215,000 sq. km.,

population 830,000—as of 1977) is situated on the Atlantic coast
in the north-eastern part of South America. It borders on Vene­
zuela, Brazil and Surinam.

5
 which was skillfully circulated in the mass media, was
contrived by the US administration as a cover-up for a
monstrous act of predetermined murder of several hundred
American dissidents by US special services. This is the
first book to shed light on what actually happened at the
Peoples Temple Agricultural and Medical Community in
Guyana.
Shortly before the tragic end of the Jonestown commu­
nity, the Peoples Temple leaders threw down a challenge
to the US administration. On October 4, 1978, the San
Francisco Examiner announced that the Peoples Temple
leaders in Guyana were going to file a multi-million dollar
suit against the US government within 90 days. The Peo­
ples Temple charged that federal agencies, among them the
CIA, the FBI and the Postal Service, at the Federal Gov­
ernment’s instigation, conspired to destroy the Jonestown
community, which even the American press called a unique
experiment in socialist lifestyle. The suit threatened to cause
embarrassment to the White House, the Department of
State and the US political, intelligence and subversion
establishments.
In his letter to the Soviet Ambassador to Guyana,
Richard Tropp, Peoples Temple General Secretary, wrote:
“We have demonstrated the utter failure of the capitalist
system to provide humane living and working conditions
for the masses.
“Among us are hundreds and hundreds of people who
can (and will be anxious to) offer dramatic testimony, out
of personal experience, to this tragic and gross travesty and
failure of the capitalist system and its violation of our hu­
man rights. .. ”
The members of the Peoples Temple followed their leader
in espousing new ideals. “We not only consider ourselves
friends of the Soviet Union, but we regard the USSR our
spiritual hom eland.. . ”—stressed the leadership group of
the Community in its documents. “Jim Jones has been dedi­
cated to the Soviet Union since he was a teenager: at
first, it was an emotional admiration and identification with
the Soviets’ heroic defenses of the motherland in the Great
Patriotic War; later, as he became schooled in Marxist-
Leninist thought, his dedication evolved into a more com-6

7
prehensive, philosophical appreciation of the meaning and
role of the Soviet Union for human progress and liberation
of the world. It is our desire in coming to the Soviet
Union to set up a community. . .”
The wholesale murder of Jonestown’s inhabitants, com­
mitted 43 days after the publication of a report about the
forthcoming suit against the US government and about the
negotiations on the community’s emigration to the Soviet
Union, terminated the Peoples Temple plans. The organi­
zation was branded as a “sect of suicides” and declared
formally disbanded.
Operations aimed at mass extermination of civilians in
different countries are widely practiced by the CIA as a
means of attaining political goals. Over the last 20 years
alone the US Central Intelligence Agency has undertaken
900 major secret operations and several thousand smaller-
scale terrorist actions. One such operation, carried out in
Vietnam under the code name Phoenix, took about 80,000
lives.
What makes the carnage in Guyana so different from
other CIA crimes is that its victims were not foreigners;
they were Americans who had left their home country be­
cause they did not want to live under the US socio-politi­
cal system.
In the United States, political assassinations are normally
investigated—admittedly with a varying degree of thorough­
ness—by judicial bodies and, moreover, by private investi­
gators. The assassination of President John Kennedy and
his brother Robert, and the murder of Dr. Martin Luther
King by a hired assassin have been the subject of reports
drawn up by special government-appointed investigation
commissions. As to the murder of 918 Americans in Jones­
town, it has never been investigated by US authorities and
the perpetrators of the crime have been neither identified
nor punished.
However, the case of the Jonestown carnage is by no
means closed. This book cites many documents which have
remained out of reach of the CIA and will again draw the
world public’s attention to the atrocities committed on
November 18, 1978. History, which is the best judge, will
bring its verdict against the murderers.
 FIRST ACQUAINTANCE

On a December day in 1977, the Soviet Embassy in

Georgetown, capital of Guyana, had three unusual visitors.
They asked the duty officer if they could see the Consul,
Fyodor M. Timofeyev.

“The two women and the man in the waiting-room

introduced themselves, saying that they were members of
the Jonestown community,” recalls Timofeyev. “Most of
the talking was done by the small, slight red-head Sharon
Amos. Both she and Deborah Touchette, a tall and grace­
ful Black woman with a dazzling smile, were quite at
ease. This could not be said about their companion, Michael
Prokes, tall, fair and as stiff as a poker. The visitors told
me that the members of the Jonestown community were all
US citizens who had fled their home country for political
reasons and that they were now engaged in setting up a
socialist agricultural and medical cooperative in Guyana.
In this, they said, they sought to draw on Soviet experience.
They asked if I could give them books about the Soviet
Union. They were especially interested to know more about
the approach to the nationalities problem and other matters
under socialism, about economic management, the develop­
ment of the Soviet peoples’ culture, etc.”

The people at the Embassy had already known something

about the Jonestown agricultural community from an ar­
ticle in the local newspaper, Guyana Chronicle. It was
founded in October 1974 by some 1,000 North Americans
who settled in the forested central part of the country.
This was consonant with the intentions of the Guyanese
government which in those days launched a campaign to

8
develop the central regions where the jungle reigned su­
preme, as people tended to concentrate in towns on the At­
lantic coast.The goal of the Forbes Burnham government was
to provide the population with food and clothing through
mustering internal resources. According to the government
program, the creation of “cooperative socialism” was to
provide a foundation for a socialist society in Guyana. The
Peoples Temple’s initiative was in harmony with the general
plans of the Guyana government. The newspaper recom­
mended that the experience of the Jonestown community
be studied and drawn upon.
The Consul presented his visitors with books on the
Soviet Union, a copy of the Constitution of the USSR and
several issues of the newspaper Soviet Weekly. For their
part, the visitors gave the Consul booklets and articles on
the Peoples Temple and the Jonestown community. Cited
below are materials from various American newspapers
on this organization.

THE PEOPLES TEM PLE

The San Francisco Bay Guardian, March 31, 1977 (The
article presented below—in a slightly abridged form—had
been written by the journalist Bob Levering for The San
Francisco Bay Guardian before most of the Peoples Temple
members moved to Guyana.)

The biggest religion story these days is the phenomenon

of Peoples Temple . . . that has been in San Francisco less
than five years but has already become the largest single
Protestant congregation in the state (more than 20,000
members), participating in activities as diverse as support­
ing the tenants at the International Hotel (more than 3,000
church members turned out for a demonstration last Janua­
ry) and publishing . . . the monthly Peoples Forum (they
distribute between 600,000 and 1,000,000 copies to every
neighborhood in San Francisco)... |The church . . . also
has a free meals program. .. It conducts a massive human
service program including . . . its own medical and legal
clinics, a home for mentally disabled children and four nurs­
ing homes...

9
 The leader of this rather unusual church is the Rev.
Jim Jones, who was recently appointed to the SF Housing
Commission by Mayor Moscone. . .
A quick look at a recent issue of Peoples Forum indicates
the wide variety of concerns his church addresses: there’s
a lead story on “Laura Allende: Woman of Courage”, about
a recent visit to the church by the slain Chilean presi­
dent’s sister; an “Open Letter to Local Nazis”, condemning
these “abominable racists” ; a long editorial about the link
between unemployment and crime, saying people must
“face up to some of the vicious inequities and injustices in
our social order”. ..
A church service at Peoples Temple . . . is hard to forget.
The one I attended took place in the heart of San Fran­
cisco’s Fillmore district, a mostly black ghetto. Peoples
Temple acquired the building . . . in mid-1972 and uses it
as the headquarters for its far-flung operations. The service
began at 8:30 p .m ... The mood in the church when [Jim]
arrived (he prefers to be called Jim rather than the Rev.
Mr. Jones or Pastor Jones) . . . reminded me of a United
Farm Workers rally... Every seat was taken and people
were standing in the back and along the walls. The congre­
gation was perhaps 75% black . . . all ages and races were
well represented in the crowd of some 3,000 people.
Jim Jones founded Peoples Temple . . . in the middle-
Sixties, bringing the message to . . . Los Angeles, where the
church acquired a building for its services in late 1972. ..
As many as 200 members make the trek between the San
Francisco and Los Angeles churches . . . using buses from
the Temple’s fleet of 13 converted Greyhounds.
Today, the sheer size and scope of Peoples Temple opera­
tions is mind-boggling. Of the church’s 20,000-plus mem­
bers (attendance at a minimum of five church meetings
is required before someone is admitted to membership)
about 9,000 are in San Francisco, 10,000 in Los Angeles
and 1,500 in Ukiah.
. . .These are some of the . .. Peoples Temple programs:
A clinic in the San Francisco church in which about 80
persons are seen each day by qualified nurses. . .
A physical therapy facility in San Francisco, for seniors
and handicapped persons...

10
 A drug rehabilitation program in San Francisco that
claims to have “rehabilitated” 300 former drug addicts.
Many of the addicts receive training in one of the Temple’s
vocational training programs in fields such as printing,
electronics or auto repairs.
A legal aid program in San Francisco where some 200
people a month come with serious legal, usually criminal
problems...
Four nursing homes for seniors . . . each of which has
from 10 to 25 elderly residents.
. . .Contributions for medical research (the national asso­
ciations for cancer, heart disease, and sickle cell anemia),
the Telegraph Hill Medical Clinic, the ACLU [American
Civil Liberties Union], the NAACP [National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People] . . . the United
Farm Workers.
Major decisions are normally reached through open busi­
ness meetings, of which members are notified either by mail
or through an elaborate telephone tree. That is how, for
instance, the congregation decided to demonstrate . . . in
support of the four Fresno Bee reporters and editors who
had refused to disclose their sources to a judge. More than
1,000 people demonstrated in the middle of the week, on an
around-the-clock basis for several days. . . But emergency
decisions can be made by the church board of 50 elected
members.
The church’s annual budget, $600,000 for all of its pro­
grams, is raised almost entirely through individual dona­
tions. .. The church receives no foundation or government
grants to run any of its programs. Jones is paid about
$20,000 a year, but this also covers his travel expenses
and is shared with his family (he and his wife have adopt­
ed eight children of several races and have one son of their
o w n )... In addition to Jones, there are only four paid
staff members, all of whom receive subsistence pay and
live in church-rented houses. But thegre are hundreds of
other members who donate most of thefr nonworking hours
to do voluntary work with one program or another.
In this respect Peoples Temple resembles a social move­
ment more than a normal church. And the church service
I saw, likewise, resembled a Civil Rights rally with Martin

11
 Luther King in the South during the early Sixties.
Soon after Jones arrived the congregation sang the old
movement standards “O, Freedom” and “We Shall Over­
come”.
Jones’s message is that people should subordinate their
personal desires in the service of their fellow human beings
for the greater good of humanity.
Jones delivered this message throughout his “sermon”
the evening I was at the Temple. .. There was an air of
excitement when Jones informally asked if there were any
questions. ..
All the questions related to social issues. . .
Consider, for instance, his answer to a question asked
by an older white woman: “What do you think is- the
number one problem with the American people today?”
Jones immediately answered, “Apathy.” Then, after think­
ing a moment longer, he added, “Everyone is worried about
their own narcissistic problems,”
. . .He saw apathy as one of the major reasons why the
CIA got away with giving money to support the despotic
regimes in Iran and Chile and why the American criminal
justice system punishes poor defendants severely and lets
off the rich ones. At the same time, he saw signs of apathy
in the rise of nazism in this country and the possible rise
of fascism as the economy gets worse.
He then personalized how he thinks people should fight
against these injustices. “I am in this battle and I may
be shot or put in jail,” he said. Then he pointed out that
many of this country’s “working poor” are proceeding with
materialistic illusions. “.. .1 am at war with this system that
places greater values on material things than on human
beings.” He said he believed in the old cliche that “The
love of money is the root of all evil”. That is why, he
said, he stays away from restaurants and luxurious surround­
ings. “I do not feel good about being in a restaurant when
some people are not warm. The only thing I feel good
about is work.”
Does this mean he is acting out of guilt, he asked him­
self rhetorically? “I have a lot of guilt,” was his response.
“I have guilt to know my taxes have gone to the Shah of
Iran or to Chile.” . . . As Jones concluded, most of the

12
audience stood up and applauded and cheered. . .
He speaks about the issues of political and economic in­
justice felt daily by the mostly poor and minority group
and they believe he practices what he preaches.
.. .Jones is a short, somewhat overweight man with
straight, well-combed black hair. He often wears a clerical
collar under a somewhat seedy looking jacket, in keeping
with his practice of acquiring only secondhand clothes.
Jones’s eyes are often hidden behind a pair of light-
sensitive glasses that darken when hit with light. Though
an energetic and fundamentally healthy person, his eyes
reveal fatigue, the result of a grueling work schedule and
usually only about two hours of sleep a night.
. . . What keeps him going? “Seeing human lives reha­
bilitated keeps me going,” Jones replied. That’s why he
enjoys counseling so much and is willing to spend so much
time at it. But at a deeper level, he asked, “Why should I
complain about my life? There’s nothing better to do with
my life.”
He acknowledges that he gets discouraged sometimes.
But something seems to reinspire him, such as Laura Allen-
de’s visit... She . . . keeps up a hard schedule of speeches
about her native country. At the time of her visit, Jones
said, he was terribly exhausted and tired, but her visit was
a “real shot in the arm” for him. “T hat’s what keeps me
going,” he said. “I have seen sainted people, people that
are living epistles. And I think Laura Allende is in that
category. You see other people making sacrifices, as she is,
and you say to yourself, ‘What else can I do?’ ”
. . . He has made his share of enemies for the political
stands he has taken and has received more than his share of
threats from local Nazis and other right-wingers. But no
one accuses Jim Jones of being a hypocrite.
It is this quality about Jones that seems to attract peo­
ple to follow him. Many members of the church I met with
during the past month and a half told me that, above all
else, it is Jones’s constant personal ^tem pts to square his
actions with his beliefs that attracts them to him and to the
community he is building.

13
 AID TO IN H A B IT A N T S
OF SAN FRANCISCO’S SLU M S
San Francisco Examiner, January 21,1976

The Peoples Temple yesterday gave $6,000 to s... *>- a

Tenderloin aid program for older people [living in the San
Francisco slums].
The gift was handed by the Rev. Jim Jones. It will pay
bills for another three weeks, including the salaries for
Seniors’ Assistance workers plus cab fares for the elderly,
and administrative costs.

PEOPLES TEM PLE HELPS IN D IA N LEADER TO

REG AIN H IS F A M ILY
San Francisco Examiner, February 28, 1976

American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks [hunt­

ed by the police] stood for a long moment before the Dis­
ciples of Christ Church. In his arms was his 4-month-old
daughter he had not seen until his family arrived by plane
last night.
His wife, Ka-mook, freed on bail from a federal charge
in Oregon with $20,000 of the Peoples Temple money,
stood beside him. In her arms was an older daughter...
When he finally found words, Banks said softly, “A week
ago my wife was behind an iron door, my children were in
Oklahoma. You, in your love, have moved the iron door.”
The Rev. Jim Jones led more than 4,000 men and
women in singing, “We Shall Overcome”.
Then, in his strong voice, Jones affirmed his congrega­
tion’s support of Banks and declared, “We shall not settle
for anything less than his liberty!”
. . .Banks is wanted in South Dakota, where he was
convicted last July of possessing arms in a riot and assault
with a dangerous weapon “without intent to kill”.
.. .In mid-trial Banks’ counsel withdrew, leaving him to
defend himself alone. His appeal for a mistrial was denied.
. . . Extradition to South Dakota, he declares, will mean
certain death.
POLITICAL PROTEST

“A week after their first visit,” Fyodor M. Timofeyev

reminisces, “the delegates of the Peoples Temple came to
the Soviet Embassy in Georgetown again. This time they
had Jim Jones’ wife, Marceline, with them. She told me the
story of the community in greater detail. Despite their
leaving the United States, the members of the Peoples
Temple, she said, felt the effects of the persecution they had
suffered from at home. A veritable persecution campaign
had been launched in the United States against Jim Jones
and other members of the organization. ‘We feel that we
must be completely honest with you. You must know the
truth about our organization,’ Marceline said, as she handed
over to me a type-written text of her husband’s short bio­
graphy and a cutting from the newspaper Peoples Forum
carrying her own article about the Peoples Temple” .
Both these texts are cited below.

Jim Jones: A Shorf Biography

Jim Jones (born 1931) grew up in the grinding poverty
of the Great Depression in a rural town in Midwestern
United States. His earliest experiences were those of the un­
wanted poor, and the suffering he saw made him deter­
mined at an early age to do something about the great
social inequities around him. Even before his ‘teens’ he
became a partisan for the cause of social justice and libera­
tion. He tells of hearing of the heroic defense of Stalingrad
over the radio, and the deep impress|pn it made upon him.
The valor of the Soviet people during that terrible struggle
sparked his interests in the Soviet Union and the principles
upon which it was founded. Before long, he was reading
avidly of the life and struggle of Lenin, and by the time

15
 he was sixteen, he was a Marxist, openly declaring his
ideals, and in the closed environment of rural America, he
was quickly ostracized for those beliefs. By the time he grad­
uated from high school he was actively involved in work
toward the advancement of socialist causes.
The McCarthy period was especially difficult for a man
of Jim Jones’ convictions and outspokenness. Though he and
his associates were severely persecuted, watched, followed,
questioned (some had to flee the country), he persisted. Be­
cause he quickly saw that the labor movement in the
United States had been either transformed into another
arm of capitalism, or effectively intimidated by the
McCarthy witchhunt, he searched for another vehicle to use
to politicize working people. The few semi-progressive
organizations that remained had been cowed into inaction,
or were so riddled with FBI agents and informers as to be
useless. Moreover, it was clear that such progressive or so­
cialist organizations that existed were largely made up of
an intellectual elite, and had long since ceased to address
the problems of the working class or attract its ranks as
members.
Thus, although a confirmed atheist from his youth, Jim
Jones turned to the church as a vehicle for education and
organization. The church still attracted large numbers of
working people, and by entering the church Jim Jones
recognized that he might be able to “subvert” this only
remaining practical platform for the education of Marxist
ideology. Those who entered the doors thinking they were
“just going to church”, stayed on to become confirmed
socialists and atheists, although they never would have set
foot into a “political” meeting.
From the start Jim Jones directly confronted the most
controversial issues of the day. Most prominent among
those issues was the deep scar of racism. He recognized that
foremost among the factors that had destroyed the radical
labour movement in the United States had been the racial
antagonism among the working class. Thus, in the bitter
atmosphere of the Midwest in the 1950s, Jim Jones con­
fronted the racial issue head on and laid the blame directly
at the door of capitalism. Though the city (Indianapolis)
where Peoples Temple was based was a viciously racist

16
 Poultry farm

Jim Jones and his pet

“ e* r* -J"
A Black boy holding up a poster
one (indeed it was the Origin of the Ku Klux Klan) ReV.
Jones was a non-compromising advocate of integration and
racial equality. With his wife, Marceline, he adopted many
children of different races, including his Black son, Jim
Jones, Jr.1 He became the city’s first Human Rights Direc­
tor and integrated a host of public facilities, restaurants
and hospitals.
Because of his convictions and activism, he and his family
were the targets of intense harassment and racially-motivat­
ed violence for years. He was branded a “race-mixer”,
“traitor”. . . There were constant threats and attempts on
his life and the lives of his children. ..
Seeking an atmosphere that would perhaps be more
receptive to his outspoken work, he and his family moved
to California in the mid-1960s. There despite continued
harassment (California did not prove to be the ground of
tolerance he had hoped) Peoples Temple flourished and
grew to thousands of members. Branches of the Peoples
Temple were opened in several cities, and the work of
rehabilitating drug addicts, finding jobs, and homes for
destitute people, providing services for youth and the elderly
went on in each locale. Jones kept up a grueling schedule,
speeking five or six times weekly to thousands of people,
mostly urban ghetto-dwellers, all across the state. Perio­
dically he would journey across the United States where ex­
tensions of Peoples Temple formed in a number of cities.
Not a meeting went by that Jim Jones did not expose,
comprehensively, yet in simple and forceful language, the
smug corruption, the blatant hypocrisy, the abuses, disgraces,
and contradictions of American capitalism. .. He was
scathing in his denunciation of the military-industrial com­
plex, corporate greed, profiteering, the politics of neglect
and genocide, and host of other abuses of capitalism both
within the U.S. and around the world. He established a
hard-hitting newspaper (Peoples Forum) that exposed U.S.
corruption within, and U.S. imperialism without—and
distributed each issue free to over onelhalf million people.

f Johnny, as the people in the community called him, was a

member of its leadership group.—Authors.

2— 186 17
 Throughout, his advocacy of socialism and his admiration
of the Soviet model has been consistent. For years he
has put forth Marxism-Leninism as the only answer to the
waste, neglect, deceit and corruption of American capital­
ism. Ilis outlook is internationalist—he has advocated an
alliance of all races of working-class people throughout the
world, in the struggle against the exploiting class and all
who serve it. And, although the humanitarian activities of
Peoples Temple are staggering in their scope, this move­
ment was never conceived of, nor implemented as simply
a “good works church”.
Jim Jones’ activism in the cause of liberation struggles
both in the United States and abroad was extended and
enhanced through the organization of Peoples Temple.
Recipients of this support have been efforts for Southern
African liberation from apartheid and economic exploita­
tion, anti-fascist efforts in Chile, Northern Ireland, South
Korea . . . and many other nations. The Temple has assist­
ed Chilean refugees and Native Americans . . . given strong
support to countless victims of oppression, political pris­
oners such as Angela Davis*1, and has spoken out militantly
for the release of Rev. Ben Chavis and the Wilmington
Ten.2 The vast congregation of Peoples Temple has helped

1 California’s Governor Ronald Reagan (now US President)

and his associates connived at the conspiracy against Angela Da­
vis, a member of the US Communist Party. She was arrested by
tjhe FBI and jailed on a trumped-up charge of “murder, abduction
and criminal conspiracy”. For sixteen months she was kept in solit­
ary (confinement. In February 1972, she was put on trial on
charges that carried the death sentence. The trial continued for
thirteen weeks. Democratic opinion in the United States and other
countries exerted great pressure on the authorities to stop the legal
lynching. Millions of men and women demanded that Angela
Davis be set free. In those conditions the jury could not risk bring­
ing the “guilty” verdict that would clearly have been in violation
of the US law. ,On June 4, 1972, Angela Davis was released from
jail.—Authors.
1 In 1,971, the Ku Klux Klan and the racists from the White Peo­
ple’s Rights attacked a peaceful meeting of black youth at a church
and threatened to blow it up. The Wilmington siege, as it came to
be known, lasted for three days and three nights. Two people were
killed and ten injured. A year later the participants in this meet­
ing—clergyman Benjamin Chavis, eight black students and one

18
plan and has attended en masse countless demonstraions
in support of liberation movements, peace, and socialist
causes around the world, while opposing repression and
the blatant denial of human rights within the United
States.
To do this within the United States has been a most
dangerous undertaking. Jim Jones has been the target of
organized establishment opposition in reactionary circles. He
has been shot, knifed, poisoned, and threatened innumer­
able times. His family members, children, congregants
have been terrorized, beaten up, spied upon, waylaid. His
churches have been firebombed, vandalized, arsoned. At­
tempts have been made to infiltrate the organization with
provocateurs, a few of whom are now making false allega­
tions against him. Peoples Temple has been subjected to
severe, McCarthyistic harassment, bogus “investigations”,
yellow journalism, and torrents of malicious gossip and
highly publicized lies.
In recent months, a campaign to destroy Jim Jones has
stepped up, involving agents, reactionaries, criminal and
Nazi elements. Similar campaigns have been mounted
against other organizations within the U.S., even some . . .
who have no socialist perspective. . . The Black Panther
Party1 has been completely destroyed [by FBI agents—
Authors.], and informed sources have told us that this de­
struction was engineered, step by step, as part of a frighten­
ingly successful, calculated plan. . . These are some of the
reasons why Jim Jones has built up the Guyana community
—a “frontier” socialist cooperative, agriculturally-based.
. . . Thus, by establishing a base outside the United States
white woman—were charged with setting fire to a local grocery
store near the church. Chavis was sentenced to 34 years in jail,
five of the accused to 29 years, and the white woman (mother of
three) who supported the students, to 10 years. . . In spite of the
incontestable facts that the Wilmington Ten were innocent, the
legal authorities refused to review the case. The World Peace
Council launched a world-wide campaign in defence of the Wil­
mington Ten, who were finally set free iif 1981.—Authors.
1 The Black Panther Party—one of the better-known organiza­
tions of American Blacks. This left-wing radical organisation,
founded in October 1966, strongly championed the rights of the
Black people and enjoyed the support of and popularity with the
latter.

2* 19
 PEOPLES
TEM PLE
Of TM£
OtSOPICS Of CHRIST P. 0 . Box 15023
Jim Jones. San F r a n c is c o . CA 94115
Pastor
J u ly 3 0 , 1977

IIttotiio/p STATSKEHT
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/ *>*«»i^i
AwkW«rdvlef WHAT'S BEHIND THE ATTACKS CM PEOPLES TEMPLE?
I mi tld ml mtouklmt.
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.?»•»/ fjM. Mfliy e f f o r t s t o la u n ch a m a ssiv e sm ear cam paign a g a in s t th e
H'io*M)»'*vtb. mIwwml
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/Utfitttkr40mmti
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Ami tmk tm m'*
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CVmptbrttmfc>/irr>*
e r a d i c a t in g i n e q u a l i t y , r a c is m , and w ant — and w ork in g
:' wimmM i/w
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ttm m fo r p ea ce and an en d t o o p p r e s s io n and e x p l o i t a t i o n .
thto **4 ticb*tttfiltix...
j

There i s no q u e s t io n a t a l l b u t t h a t t h i s sm ear
cam paign i s d ir e c t e d tow ard s d i v e r t i n g a t t e n t i o n from

th e r e a l aim s o f t h o s e who a re b e h in d t h e a t t a c k s . A
p e r f e c t exam ple was th e manner in w hich th e sm ear

campaign was la u n ch ed : w ith an a c c u s a t io n , made in th e

form o f an in n u en d o , t h a t th e P e o p le s Tem ple was i n some

way c o n n e c te d w ith a b r e a k -in o f a m agazine o f f i c e ,

w ith in a m a tte r o f d a y s t h i s ch a rg e w as p roven t o be

c o m p le te ly f a l s e by th e p o l i c e d ep artm en t i t s e l f .

We a re n o t r e a l l y s u r p r is e d a t t h e c h a r g e s t h a t
have been made a g a in s t u s . Movements f o r fundam ental

s o c i a l change have a lw a y s been s u b j e c t e d t o s o p h is t ic a t e d ^

in a third world nation we could better insure both the

continuation of our movement and the safety of our chil­
dren with the intention, of course, of continuing the struggle
for world peace within the United States as well.

The type-written “official” biography of Jim Jones was

appended by the following footnote:

20
 Jim Jones’ public pronouncement of our Marxist-Le-
ninist and atheist perspective has jeopardized our standing
within the denomination with which we are affiliated,
therefore, if such were to appear in the world press, we
would most likely experience repercussions that could ham­
per our effectiveness. However, we felt that we could
do no less than to be completely honest with you.

JIM JONES: A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

By Marceline Jones

Peoples Forum, No. 5, October 1977

Having been the wife of Jim Jones for 28 years, I think
I have a perspective of his life in which readers might be
interested.
I met Jim in 1947 when I was a student nurse at Reid
Memorial Hospital in Richmond, Indiana. He worked full­
time at night as an orderly while attending Richmond High
School. We were married June 12, 1949. We moved to
Bloomington, Indiana, where we both attended Indiana
University full-time. To pay for his education, Jim worked
full-time at odd jobs. He was an excellent student, and
could look to a bright future in any career he might choose.
In the thirty years I have known Jim, his primary concern
has always been for those of his fellow human beings who
are relentlessly oppressed. I have never known him to make
a decision that would benefit him or our family at the ex­
pense of anyone else. There has never been an issue involving
human rights that Jim thought “too insignificant” to deal
with. For example, during his freshman year at college
he walked out of a barbershop with one-half of a haircut
because the barber stated that he would not cut a Black
person’s hair! On another occasion he was hitch-hiking
home from the university when the man with whom he
was riding made a racist remark. Jim immediately demand­
ed to be let out of the car, and vralked. Another time,
the police were called because Jim refused to eat lunch
quietly in a restaurant when a Black man was forced to
carry his lunch out in a paper bag.

21
 In the early 1950s, Jim was made an associate pastor
of a large, all-white church in Indianapolis. The pastor
was near retirement, and Jim was to succeed him. Jim went
door-to-door to invite Blacks to attend the church. But
when several Blacks came, he noticed that they were being
seated in the back rows only. He asked that I escort them
to the platform. Right after that service, an emergency
church board meeting was called. The board offered Jim,
as an alternative, to build a church that he could pastor
. . . for Blacks only. Jim walked away from the church on
the spot, saying that “any church where I pastor will be
opened to all people” . It was then, at the age of 22 years,
that he established Peoples Temple.
In the early 1960s, Jim was very ill and was to be admit­
ted as a patient to the Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.
At that time he was Director of the Mayor’s Commission
on Human Rights. His physician was Black, and when it
became time to assign Jim a room, the admitting clerk
asked him if he was “colored or white” . Jim, who was
badly in need of medical attention, was incensed, and
refused to go to bed until the hospital was integrated.
Black friends who were patients at that time told of being
moved in order to integrate the wards. It took several hours,
but Jim did not lie down until it was done, although he
was in much pain. Jim ’s concern has always been for
results, not publicity, and although he was in a position
to call the press for “coverage”, he didn’t do so.
I recall vividly the May of 1959 when one of our chil­
dren was killed in a car accident. The cemeteries were segre­
gated and our daughter was Korean. Blacks and other
Third World people were buried in the lowlands, where
water often stood inches deep. Jim was told that he and I
could have our child buried in the “white section”. He
replied, “I cannot bury our child in any place where any
member of my church cannot be buried.” And so, I can
picture, these many years larfer, our five-year-old being
lowered into a grave, half filled with water, in a swamp­
land. It is a painful memory, but one which I would not
erase, nor do I regret it for one moment.
Jim has always had a special tenderness for senior
citizens. I remember visiting one of our members in a con-

22
valescent hospital in Indiana. She was dying of cancer,
and had been neglected. She whispered to us, “Get me out
of here, please.” Jim looked at me, and then turned to her
and nodded. He got on one side of her, and I got on the
other, and we carried her out of the hospital, over the
protests of the administrator. She stayed in our home,
and we cared for her until she died some months
later...
As a result of his strong stands for justice (and I have
given just a very few examples of the kind of personal
stands he has taken, almost daily), our family has been
greatly harassed. Jim’s life has been threatened so much
that I feared greatly that our children would be deprived
of their father at a young age. However, we both knew
that the only way to teach our children worthwhile values
was to live by our convictions, despite the risk. So, Jim
has always been very open and forthright about his belief
in economic and social equality.
In 1965 we decided to move to Northern California. We
had small children of different racial backgrounds and we
thought that California was the most progressive state. The
harassment continued. Our children were taunted, animals
killed, Jim’s life threatened. A bomb was placed under the
bus where he and I were resting on one occasion. Our San
Francisco church was destroyed by an arson fire, and rebuilt
by our people.
Jim has always lived his life under close scrutiny of his
members. We have always lived modestly. Indeed, if we
had not worn used clothes and bought second-hand furni­
ture, we would not have been able to adopt our children.
Since coming to California, Jim has pastored three
churches, keeping up a grueling schedule. Contrary to my
wishes and urging, he will not fly to and fro to Los Ange­
les, but insists on riding one of the church-owned buses.
It was over his protest that a compartment was built in
the rear of one lof the buses so he could get some rest. He
has never planned a vacation without planning for all the
people. You will not find him baslftng on some beach, or
in a lavish hotel. At Christmas, all the children of the
church get the same amount spent on them, so that no
child would feel ashamed. When families couldn’t afford to

23
 | Wife depicts Jones
!

as Marxist
B> W.U.L4 CC TVBNRB by the temple is 3mong the lotmer
N»» V*rg T lim K m tw members whose criticisms are tht
SAN FRANCISCO - Ta his wife. basis for some of the temple's unfa-
. <limJanos is a Marxist social philoso­ titrable publicity, she said
pher io whom "sorm-t* to my follow Jones's Marxist twist to religion
man is (ho highest senior to God." came to him when he was about 21
Jones. -Hi years old. a native of years old. his wife said She said that
Indiana, is ai (he center of a swirl of he told her then that to order to
charges about the conduct of affairs bring people out of their superstition
erf the 9.000-member I’eoples Temple. you have to give them a substitute."
The temple has been accused by for­ She recalled that he pointed out that
mer members of cheating some of it* Jesus told the rich man. 'Sell whal
> members out of their homes and of you have and give il lo the poor"
inflicting corporal puni.-.hmeitl on
; others
Throughout all this. Jones, a But-
f ler University graduate and United
| Church of Christ minister, his wife of
| 2ti years said in an interview that he
| was at ltic church's agricultural mis­
sion. a 21.089-acre Jungle tra d on the REV. JIM JONES
: northeast coast'd! South America at A ’Useful' Church
Guyana.
Beyond issuing blanket denials of and 20 percent a mixture of Oriental.
wrongdoing. Juries has not discussed Indian and Chicauu Me is of Welsh
■«W . -L— t»«»o -1 and Indian extraction, and Mrs

buy presents, Jim saw that they got the amount needed to
see that all children had an equal Christmas.
This is just a very, very brief sketch. I could write
a volume of examples of Jim Jones’ concern for individ­
uals, animals, and even plants. I would like to close by
saying that if I were not married to Jim I would still be
a member of his congregation. His totally selfless life has
been an inspiration to me, and I subscribe whole-heartedly
to his stand for social justice and complete racial and
economic equality in order to insure a decent life for
everyone.

The principles advocated by Jim Jones turned the mem­

bers of the Peoples Temple into dissident Americans and the
entire congregation grew into a civic organization that was
perceived as a “foreign body” in the very heart of American
society. It set an unwanted example. In the strained con-

24
text of the racist Middle West, Jim Jones and his Peoples
Temple wages an uncompromising ideological struggle
against the racists.
Jim Jones’ charismatic personality, selflessness and cour­
age in the struggle against injustice and race discrimination
made him a prominent figure in the political life of the
U.S. West Coast. During the 1976 election campaign, the
liberal Democrat George Moscone, future Mayor of the
city of San Francisco, and District Attorney Joseph Freitas
sought to gain the support of Jim Jones and his followers.
California Governor Jerry Brown repeatedly turned to
Jones for assistance in winning over to his side the voters
from Black ghettoes. In token of his appreciation of Jones’
support during the election campaign, San Francisco Mayor
George Moscone invited him to join the San Francisco
Human Rights Commission and subsequently appointed him
Chairman of the Housing Commission.1
In the same year of 1976, Democratic Vice-President
elect Walter Mondale made an election tour of California.
Once he invited Jim Jones on board his personal airplane
and had a lengthy talk with him. In 1977, at the request
of the Democratic Party’s candidates for the presidency, Jim
Jones organized for Rosalynn Carter, the first lady of the
United States, a mass rally of California’s non-white popu­
lation. “I was very pleased to be with you during the elec­
tion campaign,” wrote Rosalynn Carter to the founder of
the Peoples Temple in a letter of April 12, 1977.

PEOPLES TEMPLE IN THE MIRROR

OF PUBLIC OPINION

“If you are sick, we shall give you free medical treat­
ment, if you are hungry, we shall feed you without charg­
ing you a cent, if you are offended and humiliated, we
shall help you regain faith,” that was what the Peoples
Temple offered to do. But the main thing about the Peo-

1 Moscone had to pay for his friendliness toward Jim Jones.

A few days after the Guyana tragedy Moscone was shot and
killed in his office and was thus prevented from realizing his inten­
tion to make a press statement on the true reasons behind the
destruction of Jim Jones and his commune.

25
pies Temple, the thing that attracted the underprivileged
most, was its call to fight against race discrimination and
lawlessness.
In the mid-seventies the Peoples Temple had a member­
ship of more than 20,000. It was referred to as one of the
fastest-growing religious movements in America (the
Peoples Temple was officially registered as a religious
community). Many American public figures felt they had
to reckon with Jim Jones’s popularity and influence.
Here are some excerpts from letters received by the mem­
bers of the Peoples Temple from various US politicians,
public and religious figures.

“The work of Reverend Jones and his congregation is

testimony to the positive and truly Christian approach to
dealing with the myriad problems confronting our society
today.”
Hubert H. Humphrey,
United States Senator
“Ninety-nine percent of all the work done by Peoples
Temple is in service to the elderly, poor families, and
troubled youth. On many occasions I have referred destitute
people to Peoples Temple for help and they received it.”
Art Agnos,
clergyman
“Your contributions to the spiritual health and well-being
of our community have been truly inestimable, and I am
heartened by the fact that we can continue to expect such
vigorous and creative leadership from the Peoples Temple
in the future. By your tireless efforts on behalf of all San
Franciscans, you have demonstrated that the unique powers
of spiritual energy and civic commitment are virtually
boundless, and that our lives would be sadly diminished
without your continuing contributions.”
George R. Moscone,
Mayor, City of San Francisco

“Your projects are indeed worthwhile and we need many

organizations such as yours to work with people who need
help.”
Lisa Naito,
Hawaii State Legislature

“As the head of an organization that has worked closely

with the Peoples Temple, the minister, and the members,
I have the highest regard for . . . the positive contribution
they are making in the city of San Francisco. Their com­
mitment and dedication to ending human suffering of the
oppressed and downtrodden are unsurpassed. .. Your back­
ground and willingness to work make you and the others
from the Temple a great asset to NAACP, and we hope that
you will be participating in many NAACP activities in
the months ahead.”
Joe Hall,
President, San Francisco National
Association for the Advancement
of Colored People

“Many Indian people when in need for family groceries

have called upon us and when we run dry I feel secure
because I know that I can place a call to the Peoples
Temple and that these families will eat tonight. This has
happened often. And it will no doubt happen again tomor­
row.”
Dennis Banks,
Federal Indian Law Instructor

“The Peoples Temple was one of the first forces in the

City to concentrate on needed education against the growth
of neo-Nazism in the area.”
Earl Raab,
Jewish Community Relations Council
of San Francisc *

“The city-wide Planning Committee for the Martin

Luther King Celebration has chosen you as the local speak­

27
er because of your continuous effort in the struggle for
equal rights and social justices for all people.”
Donneter Lane,
President, San Francisco Council
of Churches

“The efforts of your church to live in racial harmony

and equality are exemplary. You are obviously putting into
practice the humanitarian ideals most needed by our socie­
ty and by our churches.”
S.B. Ethridge,
Director,
Teachers Rights National
Education Association

“You are truly a friend of the poor, the helpless and

the oppressed.”

Charles Lewis,
President,
Legal Defense League

“In taking the action that you did, you set an example
which should be emulated by all concerned with such vital
issues as the defense of freedom of expression; and I am
sure that your protest not only had a major influence on
the outcome of the case itself but also enlightened countless
persons throughout the country.”

Albert Kahn,
author

“I have known Jim for several years and have worked

with him in the movement for liberation and self-determi­
nation of all peoples. Jim is a highly sensitive man, one
who is completely dedicated to the cause of social justice.
I have seen him under fire from reactionary elements, and
he has never wavered in his commitment. He is undoubted­
ly one of the most articulate and effective leaders in the
United States today. At the same time, he is a humble
man who does not seek ‘to bask in the limelight’.”
Carlton B. Goodlett, ■
President,
National Newspaper Publishers

One may be struck by the lack of consistency between

the verbal support for the Peoples Temple on the part of
the US upper echelon of power, on the one hand, the
harassment and victimization campaign that the US secret
services launched against Jim Jones’s followers, on the
other. The reason for such inconsistency can be revealed
by a closer look at US reality and the rhetoric habitually
resorted to by the high-ranking White House officials. While
making use of the most popular mass organizations for
their own pre-election political purposes, they instruct
special agencies to prevent the spread of progressive ideas
and persecute their advocates.
Many Americans knew nothing about the tangle of intri­
gues against the Peoples Temple. Regarding it as an orga­
nization that opposed the anti-humane way of life, they
supported its activity.

I
 PEOPLES FORUM ,
A NEWSPAPER FOR PROTEST

Among the extant, historically important documents

related to the Peoples Temple is a copy of the newspaper
Peoples Forum, No. 5, of October 1977. It came out more
than a year before the murder of all the members of the
Peoples Temple community in Guyana. A glimpse of this
issue of the newspaper will give you an idea of its political
orientation.
The article entitled, “Persecution, American-Style” tells
about a frenzied campaign that was carried on in the local
press against the Peoples Temple, portrayed as a “cruel
exploitative organization”. The accusations against the
Temple and Jim Jones, says the newspaper, were unsub­
stantiated and slanderous. The author of the article brings
into sharp focus the motives behind the slander campaign:

Peoples Forum, No. 5, October 1977.

“.. .Peoples Temple has supported liberation struggles

here in the United States and abroad for years. Our church
has extended strong support for Southern African liberation
from apartheid and economic exploitation, for anti-fascist
efforts in Chile, Northern Ireland, South Korea, and many
other nations... The Temple has given strong support to
many victims of injustice and political oppression; spoken
out . . . for the release of Rev. Ben Chavis and the Wil­
mington 10; . . . provided a forum for Southern African
liberation leaders, . . . and for many persons who have
come to Peoples Temple to report to thousands gathered
here on human rights violations in the Philippines, Chile,
Zimbabwe, and many other nations of the world, includ­
ing our own; sponsored delegates to international conferen-

30

r*/5r*
ces documenting and organizing against racism and oppres­
sion.
“The Temple has been active in the recent formation of
the Northern California chapter of the World Peace Coun­
cil, an organization that has worked for twenty-five years
against militarism. . . Our newspaper, Peoples Forum, has
exposed official complicity in shielding Nazi mass-murder­
ers, and was one of the first to warn about the rise of neo-
Nazi and Ku Klux Klan activity in San Francisco. ..
“Peoples Temple has exploded several myths purveyed by
reactionary forces in America. One of these is that people
of different races (especially Blacks and whites) cannot
work, live, and cooperate together on all levels. Peoples
Temple is a living model of full integration. .. We have
sought to emphasize unity, and to view religious, cultural,
and ethnic diversity as factors that should not divide, but
rather, enrich and broaden our outlook.. .
“The presence of this kind of ‘community within the
community’ that is proving that poor people can build a
power base, and a unified voice that will ‘cry aloud and
spare not’ against the racial and economic injustice in
society, and help to educate the public through its own free
newspaper—this is a threat to right-wing forces in the es­
tablishment. ..
“. . . The use of the media for carrying out the persecu­
tion is only the outer shell of the plot. .. And Peoples
Temple is only one of many targets these days.” The article
concludes that the entire progressive movement is in peril.
That is why, Peoples Forum says, in the face of the danger
posed by racism and reaction, the newspaper reiterates its
call for unity.

The newspaper’s progressive political orientation vividly

manifests itself in the rubric “For the Ambitious, Curious,
and Concerned” which provides commentary on some of
the topics the bourgeois press prefers to pass over in silence.
Among the questions raised here are t h | following:

“The Rockefeller brothers: How they got their fortunes

and increase them daily. Their influence over U.S. policy.
How does Henry Kissinger, e.g., hop right over from being

31
Secretary of State to become a Board member of the Chase
Manhattan Bank? Tie-ins with South Africa.”

“Chile: Has the U.S. claimed its full share of responsibili­

ty in the overthrow and assassination of Allende? How is
it perpetuating this dictatorship today?”

“The multinational corporations: By what network do

they influence governmental decisions? Is it possible for any
major decisions to be made independently of the corporate
structure?”

Many questions are related to the deteriorating conditions

at home:

“Schools: Why do they cost more and more and teach

less and less? Why are colleges in deep financial trouble?
What kind of job market are students facing and why?”

“Prisons: What’s behind the push to build more of

them? What is the extent of medical experimentation on
prisoners? Psychosurgery?”

“Medical care: . . . Is there any way to reverse the gigant­

ic machinery which cuts anyone but the wealthy off from
extended medical care? Who controls the nursing home
circuits?”
“Environmental controls: How widespread is: pollution?
Lack of safety standards? Poisonous chemicals in food and
other products?”
Thus, it was by no means a “sect of religious fanatics
advocating the cult of suicide” who published the newspa­
per Peoples Forum. There can be no doubt that the news­
paper served as a vehicle for political protest, as a mouth­
piece of those who fought against the dictatorship of the
monopolies, against mass oppression, and for democratic
freedoms in the United States.-This conclusion is prompted,
among other things, by the letters the newspaper received
from its readers and published under the general heading
“Letters to the Editor”. Some of them are cited below.

32
T h e son of S h a ro n A m os, a T e m p le a c tiv is t
 J u n g le c le a rin g

W a te r in g th e la n d w re sted fro m th e ju n g le
 “Dear Friends:
“I have been following with great interest the vituperati­
ve and defamatory attacks against the Peoples Temple. . .
“I initially met Jim Jones in my capacity as attorney
for Dennis Banks. At the time of our first meeting his wife,
Ka-Mook, was incarcerated in Kansas under a $20,000
bail. The defense fund was virtually non-existent and the
possibility of Ka-Mook obtaining bail was slim indeed.
“Then you and the Temple stepped forward and out of
the goodness of your heart produced virtually the entire bail
for Ka-Mook. This put her in the position of being free
to help prepare our defense. Today (July 28, 1977), we got
the wonderful news that the United Court of Appeals for
the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco held that the govern­
ment’s case against her must be dismissed. If you did not
provide the bail, she would have had to sit in jail for
about two years until she was ultimately vindicated, and
instead of being free to be with her family and small babies.
If I knew nothing else about you, this would be sufficient
for me to sing your praises to every available ear. .
Dennis Roberts, Atty,
Oakland, Ca.
“I wish to express my full support in your recent strug­
gle against the slanderous and sensationalistic cheap press
that has shamed our city recently. It’s very sad that anyone
who has fought so effectively for the poor should be sub­
jected to this injustice. I stand with you.”
Jim Gonzalez,
San Francisco
“Dear Editor:
“When the name ‘Jim Jones’ was splashed across the
front pages of the sensationalist press, I was plainly surpris­
ed. And I must confess again, the media blitzkrieg that
followed pulled me in like it has many others. Which
means, too many people are unaware, like I was, of the
community and political activities o r Peoples Temple.
“I began to get an idea of the forces behind the attacks
when the sloppy, abusive, propagandized reporting in the
mass media continued to frightening extremes. When the
S—186 33
 very arm and hand of Big Business and the capitalist politi­
cians, the mass media, turns itself so viciously and deviously
on one group, I can only guess that more is afoot than what
appears in the press. And now that I see it is poor people,
Blacks, Whites, unions and progressive groups who are
aligning themselves alongside you at his moment, the pictu­
re becomes clear...
“Too suddenly and with devastation the media will use
devious means to undermine an organization or movement.
We saw that with McCarthyism in the 50s, then the geno­
cide war waged against the Black Panthers in the 60s. The
press becomes a frightening weapon turned against the
people, all the more so because it feeds lies and fear in place
of honest reporting. And now, because of the allegiance
Peoples Temple has shown to poor and oppressed people,
it too becomes a target of the reactionaries and their
media.”
Steve Heilman,
Santa Rosa
“Dear Editor:
“The only crime Jim Jones is guilty of is bringing the poor
together from various religious, racial, and ethnic back­
grounds.”
J. W. Wyman,
San Francisco
However, there were other kinds of letters, too. Although
addressed to Jim Jones, they were entirely different in their
content. Here is one example:

“Editor:
“Now that your leader, the Rev. J. J. Nigger has left the
country, we would all like the rest of you to follow.. .
“Assuming that any of you savages can read, you might
have noticed that 83% of non-nigger America wants
nothing to do with you.
“What you should do is return to your ‘roots’, i.e., Africa
and start your own nation. You would be happier—and
we sure as hell would be happier.
“There are white groups forming all across the nation

34

7"
such as the N.S.W.P.P., the Aryan Brotherhood, the Na­
tional States Rights Party, the National Youth Alliance,
some of the Birch youth and some of the members of the
Young Americans for Freedom. There young white Ame­
ricans are forming their own NATIONAL FRON1.
“England has a National Front and thousands of them
have been taking to the streets to attack the niggers of
England and drive them out of the country.
“It will soon happen here, so why not save us all a lot
of trouble and just set up plans to move back to Africa—
NOW!
“Yours for a white America—NOW\
(unsigned)

The racists’ frenzy and the Ku Klux Klan provocations

were far from spontaneous. Through their agents, US special
services, above all the FBI, dealt heavy blows at the Peo­
ples Temple. They terrorized its activists, brought legal ac­
tion, through their figureheads, against its members and
victimized them through the press. This forced the com-
minity leaders’ decision about political emigration to Guya­
na whose government had by that time launched a prog­
ram for building “cooperative socialism”.

I
JONESTOWN:
A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT

So as to make it possible for the Peoples Temple to

carry out its agricultural program, the Guyanese govern­
ment allotted it 3,824 acres of land not far from Port Kai-
tuma. Shortly after, the first 30 acres were cleared near the
area where a small hut was built to accommodate eleven
members of the Temple.
The settlers found themselves in a beautiful country,
a land of exotic landscapes and hospitable and friendly
people of various nationalities.
A developing country, Guyana offered the Peoples Temp­
le an opportunity to cany out its agricultural project and,
moreover, to apply in practice its cherished principles ol
racial and economic equality and service to fellow human
beings. In response to the Guyanese government’s general
call to provide the country’s population with food, cloth­
ing and accommodation, the members of the Temple start­
ed, while still in the United States, a few years before
emigration, to improve their skills and study jobs related
to tropical medicine, agriculture and civil engineering.
Jonestown’s population grew rapidly and soon numbered
1,000 people. Who were they? Who moved from the United
States to the virgin jungles of Guyana? Who were they,
the people who had no faith in the much-vaunted American
way of life? What were their background and their jobs?
The skills inventory drawn up by the Jonestown leader­
ship group and cited below in full gives an idea about that.
Mind that some members of the community were skilled
in several related jobs.

SK IL L S IN V E N T O R Y
A G R IC U LTU R E
7 bananas (specialists)
4 citrus (specialists)
23 farm managers and specialists
 2 herbalists
4 horticulturalists
5 insect control workers
5 intensive gardening workers
4 nursery workers
8 organic gardening workers
1 peanut farmer

A N IM A L HUSBANDRY
36 animal husbandry workers (raising pigs, cows,
chickens, horses, small animals)

ARTS

15 artists
1 band leader
1 composer
6 dancers
3 drama
1 instrument repair person
21 musicians
14 performers
8 singers

A T T O R N E YS AND LEGAL STAFF

2 attorneys
14 legal staff
2 notaries public

CO N STRU C TIO N AND RELATED AREAS

1 boiler operator
1 brick layer
3 cabinet makers
30 carpenters
2 carpet layers a
1 cement layer *
55 construction workers
24 electricians and trainees
1 fiber glass worker

37
 3 handymen
1 journeyman machinist
2 machinists
1 masonry
1 molder
9 painters
10 plumbers
1 power plant operator
1 sand blaster
7 sawmill
8 sawyers
1 soldering
2 steel mill workers
2 tile layers
1 tool and die
13 welding
1 wiring
11 wood cutting

ENGINEERING AND RELATED SCIENCES

1 architect
2 draftsmen
3 engineers
4 irrigation workers
7 landscapers
2 surveyors

GARAGE

20 bus drivers
8 diesel mechanics
3 fork lift drivers
3 garage foremen
1 grader
22 heavy equipment operators
2 light crane operators
14 master mechanics
24 mechanics
16 tractor drivers
8 truck drivers

38
KITC H EN AND FOOD SERVIC E
15 bakers
4 butchers
10 canners
4 caterers
83 cooks
11 dieticians and nutritionists
24 food preparers and preservationists
1 home economist
6 restaurant management experience
6 waitresses
MEDIA
1 artist
1 audio visual
3 bindery experience
1 dark room technician
3 editors
2 graphic artists
1 ham radio operator
1 journalist
2 movie projectionists
l newspaper distributor
1 offset printer
8 photographers
7 printers
2 proof readers
3 public address technicians
2 radio engineers
2 sign painters
6 video tape technicians
4 writers
M EDICAL FIELD
1 anesthesia
43 care home operators and assistants
1 dental technician |
1 doctor
5 EKG technicians
2 first aid personnel
2 family nurse practitioners
 45 geriatric workers
1 gynecologist technician
1 inhalation therapist
1 inhalation therapist trainee
3 lab technicians
14 Ivn
2 licensed dispensers
3 masseuses
7 medical assistants
2 medical receptionists
3 medical secretaries
2 medical supply supervisors
1 paramedic trainee
1 pathologist
1 pediatric nurse practitioner
1 pharmacist
1 pharmacist assistant
44 practical nurses
4 psychiatric technicians
2 public health nurses
1 pulmonary technician
1 physical therapist
2 surgical room technicians
3 X-ray technicians
REPAIR SERVIC ES
6 appliance repairmen
1 eyeglass repairman
1 musical instrument repairman
3 refrigerator repairmen
1 television repairman
2 typewriter repairmen
1 watch repairman
SE C RETARIAL SERVICES
7 accountants
1 auditor
6 bank clerks and secretaries
19 bookkeepers
2 cashiers
16 clerical workers

40
 1 composer
2 data processors
1 efficiency expert
10 file clerks
71 general secretaries
5 IBM operators
2 keypunch operators
9 librarians
4 office managers
2 postal clerks
3 receptionists
5 switch board operators
16 transcribers
18 typists
SOCIAL SCIENCES
52 children’s workers
2 group therapists
10 social workers
37 youth counsellors
4 youth leaders
SUPPLIES
1 bee caretaker
8 buyers
3 candle makers
1 charcoal maker
5 designers
3 drapery designers
1 embroidery worker
1 furniture builder
18 handicrafts persons
10 interior decorators
3 jewelry makers
3 inventors
1 plastic manufacturer
17 quilt makers
9 sales people
44 seamstresses
2 shoemakers
3 soap makers
 2 tailors
2 toy makers
4 upholstery
5 warehouse persons
13 weavers
SCHOOL PERSONNEL
6 administrators in schools
6 music teachers
27 teachers in all areas of craftsmanship, and education
8 tutors
M ISCELLANEOU S SK ILLS
14 administrators
2 archers
3 aircraft technicians, mechanics
1 apartment operator
16 bilingual members—Spanish, French, Swahili, Rus­
sian, German, Chinese, Portuguese
6 boat crew
1 calculator operator
1 chemist
5 cosmologists
2 general researchers
2 factory foremen
7 fishermen
13 maintenance
1 manicurist
1 marine biologist
3 real estate agents
1 seaman
4 shipping clerks
1 vacuum packer
In the statement he made for the Foreign Affairs Com­
mittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, John Moore of
the United Methodist Church wrote:
“The people went to Jonestown with hope, hope which
grew out of a loss of hope in the U.S. There can be no
understanding of movements such as Peoples Temple and
Jonestown apart from this loss of hope. They migrated,
because they had lost hope in any commitment of the

42
American people or the Congress to end racial discrimina­
tion and injustice. They had lost hope in the people and
the legislatures to deal justly and humanely with the
poor... Older people went to Jonestown hoping to become
free of purse snatchings, muggings, and the harshness of
the urban scene. Some young people hoped to learn new
skills, or to become free from pressures of peers in the
crime and drug scenes. People went to Jonestown to find
freedom from the indignity our society heaps upon the
poor. They went with hope for a simple, quiet life. . .
They saw themselves leaving a materialistic society where
things are valued more than people. Many went as pioneers
to create a new community in the jungle. Still others saw
in Jonestown a vision of a new society, a wave of the
future.”

The jungle retreated. It now framed vast fields, gardens

and plantations. The settlers experimented, with considerab­
le success, in raising new kinds of crops in the tropical
conditions of Guyana.
Here is what the members of the community grew on
their plantations: sweet potatoes, cucumbers, cabbages,
beans, pineapples, bananas, coffee, French beans, maize,
melons, tomatoes, papayas, asparagus, eggplants, black
beans, soybeans, bread fruit, sugar cane, pumpkins, goose­
berries, cashew nuts, cherries, almond, black plums, avoca-
does, etc.
The settlers had a saw-mill and made their own furnitu­
re. They built a school, a day nursery, a kindergarten and a
club. The air was ringing with children’s laughter coming
from the playground where the rings, beams, etc. were
installed. Every child had an opportunity to acquire all
the necessary knowledge by attending Jonestown’s newly-
built school.
The materials cited below are borrowed from a booklet
published by the Peoples Temple. They show that the
educational system in Jonestown differed from that general­
ly accepted in the United States. *

JO NESTO W N SCHOOL
In Jonestown education is a way of life which affects

43
 all aspects of life. It is our intent to make education
relevant to the growth and maturity of the child physically,
morally, socially, intellectually, artistically, and finally with
the goal of guiding the child in the acquisition of habits,
attitudes and skills such as will enable the child to partici­
pate in collective thought, values and activities.

PRE-SCHOOL
Nursery school children receive guidance, supervision of
activities, and instruction. Most activities are group activi­
ties. Children are encouraged to participate. Curriculum
includes learning the use of table utensils, cleanliness and
health habits, number concepts, naming quantities, alpha­
bet recognition, and dance routines with educational
themes. Learning tools include manipulative toys, puzzles,
individual chalkboards, and motor and perceptual motor
facilities in the play yard.

ELEM EN T A R Y ED UCA 71 ON
At present the Jonestown School includes grades 1
through 7. Classes are not organized by grade or age,
but rather by ability. The child can progress as rapidly
as he/she desires and is advanced to a higher ability group­
ing when the teacher determines that the child is able to
perform with the next ability grouping. For example, we
now have an eight-year-old child working on a level equi­
valent to that of two thirteen-year-old students. . .
The school curriculum presently includes: language arts,
receptive and expressive language which includes reading,
writing, spelling and composition skills, mathematics, physi­
cal and earth science, social science (with emphasis on
Guyanese history and culture), political science, and arts,
crafts and music.
An emphasis is placed on development of educational
games, activities, and materials utilizing materials indige­
nous to this area and parts of discarded objects...

TH E W O RK -STU D Y CONCEPT
Students are involved in more than just “school” work
in Jonestown. They are actively involved in the develop­
ment and maintenance of Jonestown. Each child is required

44
with help to care for his/her clothing, bedding, and living
space and to participate in cleaning activities, including
domestic and yard and grounds care. Children even take
some responsibility for maintenance of flower and plant
beds and lawn care.
Also, on a merit basis, good workers are allowed to parti­
cipate in the numerous work projects underway.

H EALTH CARE
Jonestown made considerable progress in setting up an
effective public health service. It had a general physician,
a neurosurgeon and a pediatrician, six registered nurses and
a pharmacist with teaching experience.
The clinic was open twenty-four hours a day. Its equip­
ment made it possible to take electro-cardiogram readings,
take a wide rage of tests roentgenofluorography, roentge­
noscopy, etc.
A great deal of importance was attached to preventive
treatment. Every six months each member of the communi­
ty was given an overall medical examination. Great attention
was given to infants (once every two months), to expect­
ant mothers, to the chronically ill (diabetics, epileptics,
etc.). There was also a dietician who controlled food pre­
paration in the public kitchen. His assistant, a medical
nurse, drew up the menu and watched over the quality of
food.
All the children who came to Jonestown and who had
until then suffered from malnutrition got vitamins. Anaemic
patients were administered medical preparations particular­
ly effective with children. The clinic acquired equipment
for administering emergency aid at any time.
Doctor Larry Schacht once performed a medical opera­
tion, which an American doctor said would normally have
required five or six skilled specialists and up-to-date equip­
ment if it were to be done, say, in New York. The San
Francisco Chronicle carried an item about this unique
episode. .
f
LONG-DISTANCE CAESAREAN
San Francisco Chronicle, February 18, 1978
“Dr. Albert Greenfield helped deliver twins by Caesarean

45
 •WMWJW '
I V Wariua««! Star 10.

A PO TO M A C D O C T O R H ttPS DELIVER
TWINS 2,000 MILES A W AY
Hayman Cash Rcgi'V* C«-; kte fad wuuld survive," sato Hayroen.
a woman to. Smith a?-jvrtea who was On Tuesday night, •Jmost If Hours
expecting tubex f responded became later. Hayman and tSrcehfio^dI called
2 m i l could contact an obstetrician' * the doctor to find out the results of
° l tatted Dr, Greenf;-*rM and I told the vpvmton. Because be was out on
him 2 bad a medical mission to South onctfior medfral emergency, tbe two
America and o pregnant woman who DobLinac men talked v> a woman.
seeded medicar «dv**u/' he sato m ham ttpnrator there who toid them
sn intrrview;yts>cfd«ys "! ,t*Kcd him foe ;«peraiion had been successful.
if l>e wouhl hctp <Ait'/: ‘' ' V- \ St»e also told them foot the facility
. For th^v.r.cet iV.mmutu*,. CreeR*- where1to* operation took place was
BeId, 40. ta*ke<f from thr phnnr in his c»H«J Mission Village in northwest
home at 2 C»»i<r&/wbk Court lothe doc* Guyana. It has a medical clbric. an
tor in'truy-iiw, £<* ing Jfirtj, itwtrue-, ^Orphanage 3ud so agrlcuUurat
tKto$ mt bow to perform a'C<fcforea»^ ’project, where most-of toe people are
*I€HA«X>*iAYMAN seCUtaft on-the woman* ifty using *,,, U.S. voluMccrs, She identified toe
By Mar; Atm Ktths special apparatus, Haymaa « i t *bhr roan who; performed the Caesoreaft.
VjMtoxfUvUtriuit *tr** to . Greenfield'* fMepfipfa ss Dr. Larry Schacht.
into w* ham radio so. that the two
Dr. Afotn A. Greeafccfd, imobste- dattorx coukl^cy.rcy.'.on5 a ;two‘v»ay /*tHE OPERATION was very suc-
trk**a. wai about u) retire tor the ^omversatwn ■•'■ '--
ftlghi. He sat In Ms pajamas in « cesjfoK thanks xo. your help, the
woman operator said la a taped
> $m%fi room oft bh bedroom m Pott*
;' » * « , lapping through » medical four-
ww& ttninsnsteT ■>»»*£*■ recording Of the radio conversation
the««fod*.uf ham radio operators which Hoymsn made
Ml on padlettic aod sdale$c<>m£yft*> her* aod to other part* of toe,country
cofogy. tiised to and U^tened, If; ' • '*. "Yhis w Or. Gweaftetd.” uHJ toe
Two Mock* away, His friend, ,; One man said that after listening doctor. '‘Howiatou.mbtlfor?" ; ,
Richard V H a in a n , wa$ tomkng the to she instructions hi- personally the*THe mother i$ fine/' saW
Wf>m*iL wShe fost;*boui two piftta
wal$ of hi* fmrn rft&o. ttf: had just
beenUtitiftgtoscmeoaemJap**fe*. thought hc oBiild perform, the
eery, spM Heymart, who has been nj 62 b^bod and sfce t s ' w e a k but $
M ost he Is pl«ftfl?np"o tfip1w ere Ift ham oferotcr loo 20 years. His call doing very well And toe babies are'
May. tetters arc K3pMi,. ' extremely healthy/'
More than thousand miles •'The doctor i» the i»togte ha<1 °Have toe b»6tee‘ Wftgs bee® lis­
»w»]y Ui the Jangles of Cfayeoa, a made a diAgnosi* of twins hy placing tened fo and If so arc they clean?''
country to the northeast corner of
Stotb America. a vraRvxa two weeks bts handii on the woman's abdomen.’' ashed Grecafteld.
•VRoger/* /' - * '•
oHadbeett
verdue to imr seventh prreneney
to labor more than 14 hour*
said Creecffold. "Were (her* acy-roecfvamcal pebto
■'One of the twins was in a head lems dying the actual proe«tor*?"
aad was tape^toeing serious cumplt* down or vertex position and xk* other ashed Greenfield. =•
w»$ in a breach or bottom down poss- '*the procedure w*at very weft-
Uon." •. ‘ thanks to your dear expianatfon and
She couldn't be fawn to the hear- '4i talked him through the* entire ouliining of toe procedures.' St. went
est Hospital* one hour away, because operation/* said ,Cr**«<te!d, an -very Everybody just followed
a storm **4 ground fog prevemed obstetrictan for the paw tt-yean.**'! vour blueprint and everything went
plenty from t«iu*fc bff at site small sure Wsj» nervQtui. t wanted to be justffoe."
airstrip seven enfas away. The ftefot sure l gave him every detail ! was • ‘.’Tbis ia Dnctpr Greenfield again, t
to tlhunmated only tty kerosene oyer$;mpi}fyift|( things. forgot what 1wax gome td sav .;
“Aftereach dnatl.Jrd 'Do you
foifow me?' and tie d say either ‘Yer ,
IN THE NEXT tor moment*. the go bn to the next step/ or be d say;'
Eves of the Maryland nten arvd the *Cg»jidyou repeat that * “ ^- '
Guyana womanbecame involvedto
go fotosoal foedi'rtJ drama By the »Y H Phi. MONDAY, ^reenfwrid
time ft was over, the- Potomar men had finished giving mitfwct^ms for
•toad played .« *njjc* r»»to to (hr the delivery as well ai posi*opcrattvc
woman's dehrery of identical twm order*.
gtete, one weighing I pounds 4 “That was a first for roc." said the
oattoes, (he eto< r * pound* 5 ounces. doctor "That w*> tnc ftr-gest- dis­
At 19 o'clock. Monday night. os tance consultation l ever Had. It was
Haymait was liddHna with the dials a very novel and thrUlteg experience.
on ms ham radio to his home at
Cotebfpok Ave,, He picked up »n *Ve were woitioz on pins and ncc*
emwr^cycaft. dies to hear from the doctor «n
<fuy«n»/‘
“ffieard a doctor tm one of the stn-
tfema wito fa urgent pfo» m be con- *-Al (Qt. Greenfield) extwmed
oeCtod -with an obstetrician/' putd doubt in me penorietty whether any
Uaymon. who to vice t>ee*ute»t of of 9 em •** tfse mothee end twins -» DR.ALS£RTG8EtN^!rtO ,

section this week, although the patient was more than 2000
miles away in a village in the jungles of Guyana.
“Greenfield, an obstetrician, was at home in suburban
Bethesda, Md., on Monday night when a neighbor, who is
a ham radio operator, said a doctor at the Mission Village
clinic in Guyana needed help because a storm prevented the
woman from being flown to a hospital. The two doctors
began the long-distance consultation. Greenfield said the

46
next day lie was told the mother and babies were doing
well.”

It was not until they came to Jonestown that many of the

settlers learned what it meant to have four wholesome,
high-calorie meals a day instead of living on the dole and
having nothing to eat but a bowlful of thin soup. Informa­
tion on how meals are organized, found in the above-
mentioned booklet, is cited below.

PUBLIC K ITC H EN

The first structure that catches the eye of a visitor to

Jonestown is the kitchen where food is cooked for all the
members of the commune. . .
The menu is drawn up way ahead so that the cooks
can get all the right kind of products, and the medical
personnel can check on the quality and nutrition of the
dishes. Most of the foodstuffs are produced locally. The
public kitchen is busy working twenty-four hours a day,
because the kitchen personnel prepares the food one day
ahead for those who work far afield. Work in the kitchen
is run in shifts to achieve its maximum effect, the maxi­
mum utilization of all the foodstuffs, and to give the person­
nel a chance to rest.
Food. The canteen has a strict schedule. Breakfast is
served in three shifts. The first shift caters for those who
work at the pig farm, at the saw mills, etc. Their time is
from 5.40 to 6.30. The second shift is from 7.00 to 7.30
when all the other adults have their breakfast, and the
third shift, 7.30-8.00, is for children. The old and the sick
have their breakfast brought to them at home. The stan­
dard breakfast menu consists of eggs that are brought here
from the poultry farm, cereals, home-made syrups, fruit.
Buns, biscuit and bread are baked right in the kitchen. . .
For lunch people eat sandwiches, peanut butter, egg
salad, omelettes, eggplants, dishes made with pork. For
dessert they have nuts, fruit, cake and f)iscuits.
The kitchen personnel is made up of the chef (who
once ran a little Italian restaurant) and other experienced
people of different ages. The dishes they prepare show their

47
national identity, although they, too, make wide use of
local products which they have learned from the local
population how to cook...

The Guyanese press repeatedly published materials about

the Jonestown community. With the approval of the Mi­
nistry of Information, it reported on the Peoples Temple
experience in organizing cost-effective farm production on
the land won over from the jungle. The idea was to widely
introduce the community’s practices in order to promote
the construction of “cooperative socialism” in the country.
The following editorial comment appeared in a December
1977 issue of the Guyana Chronicle. It was authored by
Dental Surgeon Dr. Ng-a-Fook who spent several rewarding
days in Jonestown.
PEOPLES TEMPLE: A F IR ST EXAM PLE OF COM ­
M U N IT Y LIFE
Guyana Chronicle, December 1977
“Some 800 people, all members of the Peoples Temple,
are living at the giant agricultural project at Jonestown,
aimed at helping Guyana with farming while also helping
make Jonestown self-sufficient in food and housing.
“At the area known as Jonestown, the Pastor and foun­
der, the Rev. Jim Jones, has come under fire from reac­
tionary forces in the U.S.A., who see the prosperous agri­
cultural project and the communal life enjoyed by its
members there as a threat to the old established order.
“But more and more evidence is coming to light in sup­
port of the Peoples Temple and its very human activities
at Jonestown. A very high elected California State Official
who visited Jonestown, has described the Peoples Temple
organization as ‘the most significant force today in the area
of human rights, social change and concrete service work’ ”.
An American attorney, Charles Garry, who visited Jones­
town on November 6, 1977, told The Sun Reporter on his
return to the United States, “I have been in paradise. I
saw a community where there is no such things as racism.
No one sees the color of his skin, whether he is black,
brown, yellow, red or white. I also saw that no one thinks
in terms of sex, no one feels superior to anyone else. I

48
J im J o n e s a n d o th e r le a d e rs o f th e c o m m u n e
a t th e a n im a l fa rm

V e g e ta b le fa rm
don’t know any community in the world today that has
been able to solve the problems of male sex supremacy.
That does not exist in Jonestown.”1
The success of the Peoples Temple project attracted
many visitors to Jonestown, including officials from Guya­
na’s government ministries, public figures, and tourists from
different countries. All these visitors were very enthusiastic
about this closely-knit, multi-ethnic family. A guest from
Africa said, “This is a model which should be applied eve­
rywhere.”
The members of the community had different age, racial
and national backgrounds. The older people were sure that
they would receive medical assistance if they need it. They
lived in an atmosphere of kindness and material security.
Medical examination and physical therapy were provided
on a regular basis. “Papa” Johnson, 106 years of age, and
Mrs. Jackson, 103, were the oldest members of the Temple
who had made a long trip from the United States to Jones­
town.
The Jonestown residents had ramified links with Califor­
nia where they had many relatives and sympathizers who
told the destitute about the wonderful experience and the
new life in the jungle community. The information they
relied on came from letters, Peoples Temple publications
and, especially, from the broadcasts of the Peoples Temple
radio station which was put into operation in February
19782. It should be noted that US special services repeat­
edly tried to hamper or interrupt altogether radio com­

1 T h e U S C o n s titu tio n d o e s n o t p r o v id e fo r th e e q u a lity o f

m e n a n d w o m e n . T h e a v e ra g e A m e ric a n w o m a n re ce iv e s 59 p e r
c e n t o f th e w a g es o f th e A m e ric a n m a n fo r th e sa m e w o rk . T h e r e
a re 5 0 -1 0 0 p e r c e n t m o re u n e m p lo y e d a m o n g w o m e n t h a n a m o n g
m e n sp e c ia lists in th e U n i t e d S ta te s . A c c o rd in g to A m e ric a n s ta ­
tistic s fo r th e e a rly 80s, w o m e n c o n s titu te d a m e re 11 p e r c e n t o f
th e to ta l n u m b e r o f m e d ic a l d o c to rs , 4 .4 p e r c e n t o f tr a in e d e n g i­
n e ers, M p e r c e n t o f law y ers, 9.5 p e r c e n t o f re s e a rc h e rs . T h e r e a re
o n ly tw o w o m e n in th e U S S e n a te a n d 21 'j&omen in th e H o u s e o f
R e p re s e n ta tiv e s .— A u th o r s .
* I t s sig n c a ll W B 6 M I D / 8 R 3 w as fo rm a lly r e g is te re d in th e
U S A a n d w a s k n o w n b y m a n y r a d io a m a te u r s in m a n y c o u n trie s ,
in c lu d in g th e S o v ie t U n io n .

4—186 49
munication between Jonestown and the United States. Cited
below is a newspaper report on the Temple Radio.
PEOPLES TEM PLE TAK ES TO TH E A IR
The Sun Reporter, February 23, 1978
“Rev. Jim Jones, at the Peoples Temple Agricultural
Project in Guyana, South America, has initiated a remar­
kable new project using the Temple’s ham radio. In just
the last few weeks Rev. Jones and a crew of experienced
radio operators have made more than 2,000 contacts of
friendship and goodwill to ham radio operators throughout
the United States and in other countries...
“Jones has spearheaded this new effort with great ener­
gy and persistence. ‘Radio operators can make wonderful
ambassadors’, he notes...
“Copies of radio identification numbers the Temple has
contacted from its Guyanese station are being forwarded
to President Carter and many U.S. congressional represen­
tatives. .
MARK LANE:
CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE TEMPLE

Mark Lane, an American lawyer, is the author of a

number of publications refuting the conclusions of the
official report on the investigation into the assassination
of President John Kennedy and asserting that the plot
behind it involved the CIA. Lane knew Jim Jones person­
ally. He visited Jonestown and rendered legal assistance
to the community members. When, after their extermina­
tion on November 18, 1978, the mass media circulated
the CIA-fabricated version about the “suicide of religious
fanatics”, Mark Lane expressed strong doubts about
its reliability. In his book The Strongest Poison1 he
maintains that there was a government conspiracy against
the Peoples Temple. Lane holds that Congressman Leo
Ryan, who was killed on the runway of the airfield near
Jonestown, had been misled by the Department of State
and that the public was intentionally misinformed in order
to conceal the truth. It stands to reason that Lane could
not cite the most dramatic proofs of the CIA crime in
Guyana because those who had testified to it were killed
under various circumstances. However, the facts he does
cite show that the Jonestown community was a far cry
from the picture of it portrayed by the CIA-prompted mass
media.

Excerpts from Mark Lane's Book

The Strongest Poison
. .For an integrated community, pppulated by a virtual
cross-section of the human race, it was the most racially

1 M a r k L a n e , T h e S tr o n g e s t P o iso n , H a w t h o r n B o o k s, N e w
Y o rk , 1 9 8 0 .
harmonious I ’ve ever seen or heard about. Its value system
was different. It was based on a code of consideration, res­
pect, and concern for people, and the progress being made
along these lines was remarkable considering the number
of so-called misfits and outcasts that were there. The child­
ren were learning how to share and to be concerned as
much about the welfare of others as they were about their
own welfare.
“The experience made me a realist about life and about
people. It gave me as much insight into myself as I had
the courage to face. (I know the same is true of others, as
I have heard different ones make similar statements.)
Beyond that, it gave me about as accurate a picture as a
white person can hope to get of what it means to be
black in America. It also gave me a unique perspective
and insight into the nature of the American system and
how that system functions.
“. . .1 recognize that my dislike for him [Jim Jones]
stems from feelings that are purely subjective and which I
don’t want to color my portrayal of him. One thing about
the man that I had to respect was that he did practice what
he preached. Despite how some have portrayed him, he
really didn’t live above the people. . . In Jonestown, he spent
most of his time in his quarters which consisted of one
approximately 12’ x 18’ room. Basically the same thing was
true of him in San Francisco where he lived in a small
apartment inside the Temple. ..
“Jones said, and meant, ‘Everyone has the right to an
education. That is sacred’.
“During the early evening hours I observed large
numbers of people—children, teachers, and seniors—gather­
ed together in a large outdoor schoolroom, studying Rus­
sian. .. Later I learned why the community had turned its
attention in that direction.
“I talked with various residents, many of whom had been
ghetto dwellers all their lives, casually inquiring about the
culture shock which I believed must have ensued upon
the arrival in the middle of the jungle community. I asked
one black woman who had lived in Watts, the black com­
munity in Los Angeles, what brought her to Jonestown.
She said, “I have three children; one of them is about

52
high school age now. I figured if we stayed in Watts, my
children would never graduate from high school. What with
drugs, high crime rate, high unemployment in Watts, it
would be a miracle if my children got through school.
And if they did, it would be a greater miracle if they
would be able to read and write even with a high school
diploma.1 Unfortunately, the most recent studies of schools
in disadvantaged communities provide very strong support
for her conclusions. Then she said, ‘Here in Jonestown my
children attend the best school we would ever be able to
find. They have teachers who really care about them.’
In fact, the ministry of education in Guyana had granted
accreditation to the Jonestown school system. Very likely
the schools in Jonestown were superior to their counterparts
located in the center of the large cities in the United
States.
“When speaking during a service in one of the Califor­
nia Temples, Jones would usually trace the oppression of
Blacks and other minorities to current times. It was almost
like a history lesson. He would give long and specific
accounts of how Blacks, particularly, have been victimized
by racism and capitalist expoitation. He would rattle off
relevant statistics and examples in meticulous detail. For
many Blacks who came with no education to speak of,
often blaming themselves for conditions they didn’t under­
stand, having little sense of self-worth and actually feeling
inferior because they had been beaten down by white stan­
dards and white institutions for so long—for them, Jones
was a hell of an eye-opening experience. It wasn’t brain­
washing that Jones was engaged in—it was more like
deprogramming. Jones was educating and the effect was
therapeutic for thousands who heard him and whose lives
were in a state of confusion from feeling imprisoned in a
society they were told was free. He liberated many minds
out of their confused states by demonstrating why there
are huge ghettoes in every large city of America ‘and why
those ghettoes are populated mostly by| Blacks. He laid the
blame squarely at the feet of white racism and a socio-eco­
1 A c c o rd in g to th e sta tis tic s p u b lis h e d in th e U n i t e d S ta te s , 23
m illio n a d u lt A m e ric a n s a r e c o m p le te ly illite r a te , w h ile a n o th e r
30 m illio n c a n o n ly r e a d w ith d iffic u lty .— A u th o r s .

53

]
nomic system that clearly puts profit motives above human
values, resulting in the lack of opportunity necessary for
Blacks to enter the mainstream of American life. This was
not a demagogic approach Jones was taking, either. He
had too much of a grasp of his subject; he was too concern­
ed about minute details—details that a demagogue need
not bother with in order to achieve his objectives. Not
that emotion wasn’t involved—it was. But it was aroused
by the sheer logic of his presentation which were backed
up by an impressive array of facts, statistics, and documen­
tation gathered from a massive amount of reading.
“There was no way anyone could dispute what Jones
said about the social ills of the society and how Blacks
were the victims.
“.. .It was Jones’ lucidness that made him effective—
what he said made sense. When he would spend hours
attempting to show how the system was to blame for the
conditions of Blacks in the United States, he was convinc-
mg. . .
PERSECUTION AND REPRISALS

The house the Peoples Temple rented in Georgetown was

two kilometers away from the Soviet Embassy. It was in
fact a small hotel which could accommodate visitors on
their way from the United States to Jonestown. It also
housed a kind of headquarters whose personnel coordinat­
ed the community’s life with the Guyanese government
agencies, and a radio station. Marceline Jones invited Con­
sul Timofeyev to visit that house and to meet some of the
Peoples Temple members. Below is Timofeyev’s account of
the visit.

“Several days after I received the invitation, I gave a

call to Marceline Jones and went to the new housing estate
where the Peoples Temple had its headquarters. The high­
light of the area, mainly built with small private houses,
was ‘Safaya’, a major Guyanese educational center where
exhibitions and various public events were usually held. The
newly-built two-storeyed, white-painted wooden mansion
housing the Peoples Temple headquarters was not far from
it. There were several children—black and white—playing
in the yard. Marceline Jones took me to the reception
room on the first floor with its Guyanese-made furniture of
red wood; the coffee tables were of crab-wood which has a
fine black and white pattern. This was not a mark of lux­
ury. It is simply that there are few pine-, fir- and oak-trees
in Guyana.
“In the hall I saw some ten people of different ages. An
elderly Black woman, who introduced herself as Virginia
Taylor, took me to the table on whicl| there were plates of
sandwiches, pieces of chicken on cocktail-sticks and salted
nuts, and soft drinks. It was a hot sunny December day in
the tropics. The town was quickly being plunged into the
dusk and by half past seven it was already quite dark.

55
 “Each of those present told me the story of his or her
joining the Peoples Temple. People were frank in telling
me about their life in the United States and about how and
why they had found themselves in Guyana.
“Here are some of the most typical life stories I mana­
ged to recall and write down.

“Richard D. Tropp was born in Brooklyn, New York, in

1940. As a student, he promised well. He did make an excel­
lent teacher. He also had an outstanding gift for music. In
Jonestown, Tropp was the local school principal and
taught English.
“Tropp’s family background is that of petty-bourgeois
Long Island Jewish emigres from Eastern Europe. At the
University of Rochester, he majored in literature and Eng­
lish. He was also interested in philosophy and dramatic art.
He obtained a distinction and was granted a tour of Euro­
pe as one of the University’s best graduates. In 1965-1966
he taught at the University of California at Berkeley. He
was soon disappointed with the academic career and, hav­
ing obtained a master’s degree, took up the study of the
hippy movement as an emergent social phenomenon in the
United States.
“In 1967, Tropp resumed his teacher’s career, this time
at Fisk University in Nashville, and developed an interest
in radical political ideas. In the spring of 1970, Tropp met
Jim Jones whom he regarded as an ideal leader dedicated
to the cause of defending the oppressed and fighting against
lawlessness.
“Virginia Taylor (Mom Dean) was born in Cincinnati,
Ohio, in 1886. When she was seventeen she ran away from
home and joined the Holiday in Dixie group. She remained
with it for two years. Subsequently, she married Harrison
Taylor, who had a job with the Pittsburg Coal company.
Virginia got a job as a hospital nurse. Years after her hus­
band’s death, she moved to Los Angeles where she met Jim
Jones. Prejudiced against him at first, she soon turned into
his active supporter and followed him to Guyana.
“Tom Grubbs was born in Bremerton, Washington, in
1941. When he was twelve, his family moved to Wyoming

56
where they lived a life of destitution. Then the family
moved to Texas. His mother brought him up in fear of God.
It was not until he met Jim Jones that Tom developed a
feeling of spiritual freedom and faith in man’s powers. In
1973, he got a teacher’s job at a school for handicapped
children. By 1976 he had gained recognition as an expert
in the field. A friend of Jones, he followed him to Guyana.
In Jonestown, he was the elementary school principal.
“Henry Mercer was born in Jesup, Georgia, in 1885. He
had to work since his early age. At sixteen, he became
involved in revolutionary activities. In 1929, he joined the
movement of Philadelphia’s unemployed and participated
in the Hunger March. In the years of McCarthyisrn he
was persecuted and eventually arrested on a charge of “sub­
versive activity”. Later, he became a member of an edu­
cational board and a trade unionist responsible for the orga­
nization of strikes. In 1973, Mercer met Jim Jones whom he
subsequently followed to Guyana.
“Amos Sharon was born in San Fransicco in 1936. As
a beatnik in the fifties she championed nihilism and left-wing
extremism. She dropped college and married. Her marriage
proved to be a failure. She took up politics seriously and
attended the California Labour School which was closed
as McCarthyisrn set in. Despite being harassed by the FBI,
Sharon did not give up her activity and participated in
protest demonstrations. Sociologist Ben Zablocki told her
about the Peoples Temple. She attended one of the meet­
ings and was overwhelmed. Later, during a demonstration
in Ukiah she met Jim Jones. She became a dedicated and
active member of the Peoples Temple.
“Forrest Ray Jones was born in Kentucky in 1931. He
was a gifted musician.
“Upon finishing school, Forrest got a job as a general
worker at a sheet iron works. However, the call of music was
strong, and he joined the Kentucky Boys and moved to
Alabama. In 1963, after years of traveling with the group,
Forrest returned to his home town of iManticello where he
first got a job at a hardware shop and then worked, for
a year and a half, as an insurance agent. In 1969, Forrest
married Agnes Jones, the adopted daughter of Jim and
Marceline Jones. They lived in Ukiah, California, until they

57
 left for Jonestown where Forrest organized the Jonestown
Express Band.

“My interlocutors told me—in great detail—how the

secret services’ struggle against the Peoples Temple in the
United States gradually acquired a threatening scale: some
members of the Temple were killed and many were arrest­
ed. Behind the harassment of the community were the FBI
and the CIA who acted through the diplomatic missions in
Georgetown, they said. The Temple’s correspondence was
opened and inspected, the delivery of pensions paid out
through the Consulate to the elderly members of the Temp­
le was hampered and the US Customs Office arrested, with­
out any reason whatsoever, shipments sent from the Unit­
ed States to Jonestown. Economic leverage was applied to
pressurize the Guyanese government into urging a forced
repatriation of the community members to the United
States.
“In his sermons and speeches Jones stressed that he was
at war with the US administration, fighting it over the
matters of civil rights, racial justice and peace. It was for
this reason that Jim Jones was declared “unreliable” and
a round-the-clock watch over his organization was establish­
ed.
“The Peoples Temple church was exploded and set on
fire, and Jones’ right-hand man and bodyguard, Lewis,
was killed. It was not the money that attracted the killers.
The money (Lewis had $1,000 on him) remained untouch­
ed in the dead man’s pocket.
“Attempts were made to bribe people into giving false
evidence against Jones and his organization. They were
charged with financial machinations and drawing illegal in­
come. As subsequently became known, one David Conn, an
informer working for a government agency, tried to obtain
false evidence against Jones from the Indian leader Dennis
Banks.
“At the time when Conn approached Banks, the South
Dakota authorities demanded his extradition. The ‘crimi­
nal’ was to be punished for his protests against the oppres­
sion of American Indians. Banks was known to have made
statements to the effect that if he returned to South Dakota,

58
he would be killed by racists. He was promised to be helped
to avoid extradition in return for his public denunciation
of Jim Jones. He was threatened with extradition in case
he refused.
“David Conn, who shamelessly tried to trade Dennis
Banks’ life and security for false evidence, had for several
years been actively engaged in a conspiracy against the
Peoples Temple. He told Banks that ‘very influential peo­
ple’ were interested in his false evidence against Jones. How­
ever, Banks did not give in to blackmail and threats. He
made a written statement, witnessed by a notary, to expose
the plot. Cited below is the text of his declaration published
in the newspaper Peoples Forum.”

Declaration of Dennis Banks

I, Dennis Banks, declare that I am a citizen of the United
States, and that I am 44 years old.
Several months ago, in May 1977, my friend Lehman
(Lee) Brightman was contacted on the phone by a man
named George Coker. He wanted Lee to set up a meeting
between myself and a man named David Conn, concerning
the question of my extradition to South Dakota. Naturally
I was concerned about this when I was notified of the call.
In the next couple of days there were other calls. Lee called
David Conn and asked him for some more information
about my extradition. Conn told Lee that he wanted to
talk to me about Peoples Temple and Jim Jones.
Lee asked Conn what Jim Jones had to do with my
extradition. Conn wouldn’t tell him. He said it was strictly
confidential and that he would only talk about it with
him and me personally.
So Lee set up a meeting between myself and David Conn
at Lee’s house in El Cerrito, for that night.
At the meeting, Conn showed up with a folder of papers.
He read notes from the papers. I noticed the paper was
stationery from the Standard Oil Company of California.
Conn said that he was working with the U.S. Treasury De­
partment, with an IRS agent, and with two men from the
San Francisco Police Department. He told me the first name
of the Treasury agent (Jim) he was working with. But

59
Conn did not talk about my extradition problem.1 He read
material that was disparaging to Jim Jones. He went on for
some time. Finally I interrupted Conn. 1 asked him what
all this stuff about Jim Jones had to do with my extradi­
tion. Conn asked me, “Well, you took money from the
church, didn’t you?” He said that my association with
Peoples Temple could reflect very badly on my extradition.
He then asked me to make a public denunciation of Jim
Jones. He assured me that if I made such a denunciation,
the rulings in my extradition would go in my favor. I asked
him why a statement against Jim Jones could help my ex­
tradition. Conn said that such a statement would be a
determining factor with people like the Governor and other
government agencies making decisions about my extradition.
He said that if I came out with a statement against Jim
Jones a decision against my extradition could well be forth­
coming.
Conn was obviously making a deal with me, and I was
being blackmailed. Conn let me know that besides working
with Treasury agents and other government agents, he was
already working with ex-members of Peoples Temple, such
as Grace Stoen, and that he had people who would talk
against Jim Jones. He said that the Treasury agents had
already talked with Grace Stoen.
Conn pressed hard for me to meet with a U.S. Treasury
agent alone that very night.
Conn also said—and he was emphatic about this—that
he in no way wanted this information revealed for fear
that it would “blow their cover” and ruin any possible
meeting between me and the Treasury agent.
I was further pressured to meet with the agent from
the Treasury Department. The deal was to meet with the
agent and to prepare a public statement against Jim Jones
in return for some kind of immunity against my being
extradited. I refused to talk with any Treasury agent
without my attorney, Dennis Roberts. Conn insisted that
1 had to do it alone.
At this point, Lehman Brightman asked Conn to leave
the house.
1 The US Treasury has a far-flung network of informers and
closely collaborates with the secret police.—Authors.

60
 The next night I was called at D.Q. University by Conn.
Conn told me that it was very urgent that I meet with
the Treasury agent that very night, alone. I said to Conn
that I had already told him I wouldn’t meet with the Trea­
sury agent without my attorney.
These agents all knew that I had a lot hanging over
me. Besides the extradition (which to me is certainly a life
and death matter), I also had a case in Federal Court in
which the Treasury Department was involved. I have often
made it clear that if I am extradited to South Dakota,
that is like a sentence of death, because I am certain
that I will be killed there.
So this was definitely a deal that I was being offered.
Because it was not just a matter of Conn indicating that
it would go well with me if I cooperated, but the implica­
tion was that if I didn’t cooperate, it would go badly for
me. This was to me a threat, and obvious blackmail.
I declare, under penalty of perjury, that all of the
foregoing is true and correct, executed this 6th day of
September, 1977, at Davis, California.
(signed)
D ENNIS BANKS
Facts about the persecution of and provocations against
the Peoples Temple became known to many Americans.
Cited below are letters in which different people voiced
their solidarity with the victimized members of the Temple
and denounced their persecutors.
P.O. Box 2488 Loop Station San Francisco
Chicago, Illinois 60690 Equal Rights Council
2990 22nd Street
San Francisco, Ca. 94110
415-285-0660
August 2, 1977
Peoples Temple
P.O. Box 15023
San Francisco, Ca. 94115
I
Dear Members of Peoples Temple:
To many people in this country, as well as throughout
the world, your church and what you stand for has meant

61
 H C « v v m M .O ^ m a u v
&t&it of (JJaltformn 1*1*1 M S - 4 U 1

o r r i c e o r i w t l ie u t e n a n t o o v e n u o r
S T A te CAOtTOL
SACRAM ENTO. C A U ro R M IA 9 S * M

A ugust 3 , 1977

The H onorable Per be* Burnham

Prim* M in iste r
Government B u ild in g *
Brickdam
Georgetown
Guyana, so u th America

Dear Mr, Prim* M in iste r !

S o t s u r p r is in g ly , th e m e tr o p o lita n media have s in g le d o u t
P e o p les Temple f o r s c r u t in y and c r i t i c i s m .
T h is unusual a tta c k on th e Church i s th e c a u se o f g r e a t
con cern and a n g u ish among th e f r ie n d s o f P e o p les Temple.
However, X am p le a s e d t o r e p o r t t h a t th o s e o f us who have
lo o k ed a t th e g r e a t work o f B ishop Jim J o n es w i l l co n tin u e
t o h ave s t r e n g t h in ou r commitment t o him.
My form er c o lle a g u e in th e s t a t e l e g i s l a t u r e and Mayor o f
San F r a n c is c o , George Mos c o n e , who has g iv e n much a e e i s - ']
ta n c e , h as c o n tin u ed t o ex p r e ss c o n fid e n c e in th e Reverend i
Jon es who i s Chairman o f th e San F r a n c is c o Housing A u th o r ity .
The C hairp erson o f th e L e g i s l a t iv e Black Caucus and i t s j
members a r e s tr o n g in t h e ir sup p ort o f th e P e o p le s Temple j
and, s o i s th e P r e s id e n t o f th e n a tio n a l Newspaper P u b lis ­
h e r s A s s o c ia t io n {B lack P r e ss o f A m erica), C a rlto n G o o d le tt.
T h is a tta c k i s no d i f f e r e n t from a ttem p ts r e c e n t ly by th e
U n ited S t a t e s m edia t o d i s c r e d i t Guyana and Jam aica. Ke
era now e x p e r ie n c in g t h e same phenomena h e r e w ith P e o p le *
Tem ple. The r e a so n s a ra o b v io u s . <
Me a r e h opin g t h a t you w i l l c o n tin u e t o g iv e your support ’V -J r )
t o t h e M issio n and a g a in 1 w ish to e x p r e ss my d eep g r e t i -
■ ‘ — -» — *— -o u r e f f o r t s in P e o p les Temple‘» '

y*i

W tD ih m f
l c . c . Dr. R aid, Deputy Prime M in iste r
Mambarji o f , th e C abinet

hope and justice. But what is more important, that hope has
become a reality.
I for one have seen the fruits of your work and have
seen that you practice what you teach. There is no doubt
in my mind that when an issue of justice or human rights
has come to your attention you have always responded in
every way possible to help.
I would like to express that although it outrages me to

62
see what the news media is doing, it does not surprise me.
In my life I have always seen that we are always played
against each other—church against church, Blacks against
Latinos, Latinos against Blacks, every minority and working
people blaming each other for their failures and problems
because that way they can keep us apart and not see that
the real problem is between those who have and those
who don’t.
I would like to put our organization at your service to
do whatever little we can to show the media and whoever
is trying to discredit your work that as long as we live
we will not stand for anybody trying to destroy any of
our honest, hard-working leaders that are fighting for our
rights.

Sincerely,
Cristina Vasquez,
National Representative,
San Francisco Equal Rights Council

August 3. 1977
The Honorable Forbes Burnham
Prime Minister
Government Buildings
Brickdam
Georgetown
Guyana, South America
Dear Mr. Prime Minister:
Not surprisingly, the metropolitan media have singled
out Peoples Temple for scrutiny and criticism.
This unusual attack on the Church [defamatory articles
aimed at discrediting Peoples Temple and depriving it of
the support of the people in the State of California.—
Authors.]is the cause of great concern and anguish among
the friends of Peoples Temple. However, I am pleased to
report that those of us who have looked at the great work
of Bishop Jim Jones will continue to have strength in our
commitment to him. f
My former colleague in the state legislature and Mayor
of San Francisco, George Moscone, who has given much
assistance, has continued to express confidence in the Reve­

63
 rend Jones who is Chairman of the San Francisco Housing
Authority. The Chairperson of the Legislative Black Caucus
and its members are strong in their support of the Peoples
Temple and so is the President of the National Newspaper
Publishers Association (Black Press of America), Carlton
Goodlett.
This attack is no different from attempts recently by
the United States media to discredit Guyana and Jamaica,
[in response to the anti-American statements of their
leaders.—Authors.] We are now experiencing the same
phenomena here with Peoples Temple. The reasons are ob­
vious.
We are hoping that you will continue to give your sup­
port to the Mission and again I wish to express my deep
gratitude and admiration for your efforts in Peoples Temp­
le’s behalf.
Sincerely,
Mervyn M. Dymally,
Lieutenant Governor, California, USA
MAKING HOME IN THE SOVIET UNION

During her conversation with the Soviet Consul, Marce­

line Jones said that the Peoples Temple funds were made
up of the donations and all the personal savings of its
members, and also charity donations from various people
and organizations, and the pensions of the Temple’s elderly
members. According to Mrs. Jones, most of the Peoples
Temple members, some 20,000, live in the United States.
The Peoples Temple has a headquarters in San Francisco.
The money raised by the Temple’s members in the United
States is used to buy farm and medical equipment and
various other goods which are sent to Jonestown where
efforts are made to establish a new way of life.
Marceline ended her story in a question that must have
been her main reason for seeing the consul: “What would
be the Soviet authorities’ attitude to the Peoples Temple
request, addressed to the Soviet Embassy in Guyana, to
allow all of them to come and settle in the Soviet Union?”

“The question came as something unexpected to me,”

 D e b o ra h T o u c h e tte , o n e of th e le a d e rs of th e
P e o p les T e m p le , w o rk e d in th e field to g e th e r
w ith th e ra n k -a n d -file m e m b e rs o f th e c o m m u n e

I
Schoolchildren at the Peoples Temple school
recalls F. M. Timofeyev. I said that I could not answer
right away and that I should have to consult the USSR
Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I stressed that if their intention
was serious, it should best be stated in written form. M ar­
celine said that the Temple’s leaders would certainly do so.
She invited me and other Embassy officials to visit Jones­
town.
“Several weeks passed. Members of the Temple regular­
ly came to the Soviet Embassy. They brought us booklets
and clippings from American newspapers with comments
on the Peoples Temple activity in the United States.
“Sharon Amos was among the most frequent visitors.
Once she brought her son with her. The nice, dark-skinned,
five-year-old boy reminded me of a personage from the
famous Soviet film Circus. He and my son, Sergei, often
played together. Once I watched him at a children’s mati­
nee at the Embassy: the boy was quite at home and
evidently enjoyed himself.
“Sharon brought us invitations to a concert to be given
by the community at the Guyanese cultural center. Among
the audience were five persons from the Soviet Embassy
and several Guyanese statesmen, including Deputy Prime
Minister Ptolemy A. Reid, Minister of Culture Shirley
M. Field-Ridley, her husband, Minister for Co-operation
Hamilton Green, and Minister of Home Affairs Claude
V. Mingo (the latter was also a member of the government
in charge of the activity of the Jonestown community).
“The house, seating 5,000, was overcrowded. With us in
the dress-circle box assigned to the diplomatic corps were
several Americans, among them Daniel Weber from the
US Consulate and Peter Londoner, Second Secretary of
the US Embassy (subsequently there were hints in the Ame­
rican press to the eff ect that they had had a hand in the
operations against the Peoples Temple and in the extermi­
nation of all its members in Jonestown). The concert was
a great, unprecedented success. One of the songs composed
by the community musicians and performed at the concert
was entitled “Socialism Is the Only Way”. I still have a
tape recording of these songs.
“At 2 p.m. on March 20, 1978 Sharon Amos, Michael
Prokes and Deborah Touchette came to the Soviet Embas­
5— 186 65
sy with an “important mission’*, as they put it. On behalf
of the Peoples Temple leadership group they made it offi­
cially known that they wished to transfer all their money
to a Soviet bank, to apply, on behalf of all members of the
Temple, for Soviet citizenship and, upon obtaining a con­
sent to their request, to go to the Soviet Union. They
gave me the following paper:
PEOPLES TEMPLE AGRICULTURAL MISSION
Jonestown, Port Kaituma, N.W.D., Guyana
March 17, 1978
To: His Excellency
Ambassador of the Soviet Union
Gorgetown, Guyana
South America
URGENT APPEAL!
Peoples Temple, a pro-Soviet, socialist agricultural col­
lective of over 1,000 U.S. ex-patriates living in Guyana, is
under severe persecution from U.S. reactionaries, bent on
our destruction. Our assets are threatened. We make this
U RG EN T APPEAL to the USSR via Your Excellency to
help us establish a special bank account for Peoples Temple
in a Soviet Banking Institution to safeguard our assets, and,
in the event that our organization should be destroyed, to
insure that our assets remain under Soviet control.
My Dear Mr. Ambassador, and To whom It May Concern:
In the remote North West Region of this young, develop­
ing nation, a group of over one thousand Americans has
been building a socialistic cooperative. Our project has
been carried out under the helpful auspices of the Guya­
nese government. Under the leadership of Cde. Jim Jones,
PEOPLES TEMPLE has been actively engaged in combat-,
ing injustice and struggling for civil rights causes for some
twenty-five years in the United States.
The community here represents an attempt to build a
society free from the economic and racial oppression suf­
fered by millions of people in the United States. It is com­
posed of ordinary people of all races and ages, from infants
to centenarians, most of them former inhabitants of Ameri­
ca’s ghetto areas. Here on this agriculturally-based, home­
made community, built without any outside funding, this
great fraternal association of people, under the tireless, prin­
cipled leadership of Cde. Jim Jones, is finding a new lease
on life, through pooling of resources, determination, and
diligent work.
PEOPLES TEMPLE AND THE USSR
Peoples Temple has always felt a deep affinity for the
heroic peoples of the Soviet Union. Your impressive strides
in the 60 years of building socialism, and the sacrificial
Soviet people’s defense of the motherland (and, by exten­
sion, the whole world) against Nazism, and the Soviet
Union’s firm and consistent support of liberation struggles
all over the world, have been a consistent source of great
inspiration to us. As Marxist-Leninists, and as international­
ists, we not only consider ourselves friends of the Soviet
Union, but, as the Director of the American Russian Insti­
tute in San Francisco (California) wrote in a recently-
published communication to the journal New Times (Feb­
ruary, 1978), we regard the USSR as our spiritual home­
land. The communication also goes on to state that Peoples
Temple “has been active among the poor of all races,
attempting to pull these unfortunate people out of the de­
spair of the ghetto, drug addiction, and the physical social
ills caused by capitalism”, and that “Peoples Temple has
become close to the American Russian Institute, and has
given us unestimated material and work help. The reason
for this aid: because they wish to help create the conditions
for detente and peace between the U.S. and the USSR.
The Peoples Temple has supported every progressive move­
ment and organization. . . ”
THE U.S. REACTIONARY CONSPIRACY
TO DESTROY PEOPLES TEMPLE
For the duration of his carreer, Cde. Jim Jones has
been a leader in the struggle against ^cism and economic
injustice, and for peace, civil rights, and international co­
operation. Consequently, he has been a constant target of
reactionary and bigoted elements in the United States which
have sought to terminate his work. In recent months, a vast,'

5* 67
 well-coordinated, and well-financed conspiracy has been
launched against Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple:
—smear articles in the news media have been used to
cover up a host of devious subterfuges, that have featured
harassment from government agencies, such as the U.S.
Treasury Department;
—agents have offered bribes to various people to de­
nounce and lie about Jim Jones and Peoples Temple;
—there have been efforts to cut off pensions and other
payments to elderly members;
—the U.S. Post Office Department has admittedly coop­
erated in these efforts. Mail has been sabotaged;
—the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has
harassed us, trying to sabotage our amateur radio com­
munications between our community in Guyana and U.S.
headquarters, as well as the outside world, so that our com­
munity would be especially vulnerable;
—shipments of vital supplies have been ransacked by
U.S. Customs agents (who also admitted this);
—more recently, the Internal Revenue Service of the
U.S. Treasury Department has sought to violate our basic
rights and freedoms through a series of calculated moves
to actually rob our organization of our assets;
—known agents with Nazi and criminal connections,
operating under quasi-legal cover, have been involved and
exposed;
—the conspiracy has tried to engineer a series of dubious
legal maneuvers to “kidnap” children from their homes,
including Jim Jones’ own child;
—a campaign of terror has been launched, including
threats of violence, actual acts of violence and sabotage,
assassination attempts, forays into our jungle community
by imposters, armed interlopers, and hired agents who have
tried to carry out treacherous acts;
—a few weeks ago, a member of our organization was
brutally murdered in the United States. The killing had
all the earmarks of being carried out by law enforcement
officers known to have been cooperating with the conspiracy
against Jim Jones;
—news articles, letters, and other communications have
been planted in various publications on the left to cast

68
aspersions and sow confusion about our organization and
leader, much in the modus operandi of the COINTELP-
RO 1 activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
during the 1960s against various progressive and liberation
groups in the United States.
REASONS BEHIND THE CONSPIRACY
The vicious wave of neo-McCarthyite attacks has been
mounted against our work because we are a successful
socialist group, made up of thousands of poor, working-class,
as well as professional people of all races, who have express­
ed friendship toward the Soviet Union. We have demonst­
rated the utter failure of the capitalist system to provide
humane living and working conditions for the masses.
Among us are hundreds and hundreds of people who can
testify out of personal experience to this tragic and gross
travesty and failure of the capitalist system.
Furthermore, Jim Jones has been an outspoken, uncom­
promising foe of U.S. imperialism, addressing literally hun­
dreds of thousands of people in cities all over the United
States in his quarter-century leadership of Peoples Temple.
He has publicly and repeatedly praised the U.S.S.R. for its
accomplishments, and tireless efforts for world peace, and
assistance to liberation struggles. Our members are veterans
of the struggle since the days of the Great Depression. Some
were leaders in the Unemployed Councils, Workers’ Alli­
ances, the hunger strikes and marches, labour battles, civil
rights protests, and peace activism down through the years.
Peoples Temple has given assistance to scores of campaigns
for justice within the United States (such as the American
Indian Movement and the Wilmington Ten Defense), join­
ing in efforts to free scores of political prisoners, and has
also extended help abroad, providing both material and
moral support (the latter through our newspaper, Peoples
Forum) for efforts in Angola, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, South
Africa, Vietnam, and Chile, while exposing the many crimes
of U.S. imperialism and corporate a i| to tyranny.. . Praise

1 COINTELPRO—the FBI program of subversive operations

against the CPUSA and radical organizations carried out in the
1950s and 1960s.

69
 for the achievements of Cuba, which Jim Jones visited early
in 1977, has been another reason for reactionary attacks.

RECENT EFFORTS OF THE ANTI-PEOPLES

TEMPLE CONSPIRACY THAT THREATEN OUR
GUYANA COM MUNITY

The most recent efforts against us have been to “starve

out” our Guyana community, not only in some of the ways
indicated earlier, but by seizure or encumbrance of our or­
ganization’s assets. If these efforts succeed, it will by no
means mark the first time in American history that an in­
terracial, fraternal organization of working-class people and
minorities has been effectively destroyed, as you are no
doubt well aware. We know from long experience the
viciousness of reactionary forces in the U.S., and here, iso­
lated in a remote area, we are not blind to the possibility
that we could be literally destroyed. . . We are also aware
of the possibility that, even though much of our assets are
here in Guyana, the United States may not permit the
socialist-leaning government here to pursue its course...
Reactionary forces in the United States may already be
trying to create conditions for maneuvering Guyana into
their effective sphere of economic domination. .. The Cu-
bana Airlines disaster in 1976 is a grim reminder of the pos­
sibilities for sabotage. Though we hope that such would not
be the fate of a nation that is struggling toward a better
life for its people, and within which we have been proud
to develop our community, we are not, again, about to
underestimate the power of reactionary forces within the
U.S. and this Hemisphere. Experience has taught us other­
wise.
OUR APPEAL FOR HELP
It is for this reason that we are seeking to transfer our en­
dangered assets to a bank within the Soviet Union, where
we can at least be assured that, should efforts to destroy
our community succeed in one way or another, our hard-
earned and carefully-husbanded resources would not be
confiscated or otherwise expropriated by the enemies of the
people, and used against their interests, but would be sal­

70
vaged and bequeathed to that cause for which we are strug­
gling, and to which we are dedicated wholly, and for
which those assets were earmarked in the first place: THE
CAUSE OF THE PEOPLE, INTERNATIONAL SO­
CIALISM.
We seek, then, to place our assets in a Soviet banking in­
stitution to safeguard our funds for future use in developing
our project here, as well as for the above-mentioned reasons
concerning what might happen should we be unable to
function. We cannot, of course, survive without these assets,
should we be cut off from them.
We wish to make it clear that even though it meant our
own destruction, we have decided that under no circum­
stances would we return to the United States to live under
capitalism. Dear socialist comrades: we have* found a life
here worth living for—and, if necessary, dying for!
It is in this spirit that we earnestly and sincerely beg
your attention to this appeal. Somehow we are confident
that it will reach across the many thousands of miles to
your hearts. We are prepared to whatever necessary, to
follow whatever procedures, in order to successfully accomp­
lish this step of securing our assets, which represent years
of our labor, saving what we could from the toil under
oppression placing them safely. We are prepared to dispatch
a special delegation of our staff to the U.S.S.R. to meet at
the earliest convenience of the appropriate officials.
We are not a group of people given to precipitous, rash,
or reckless actions and decisions. If that were so, we would
not have survived and flourished as dedicated socialists
struggling in a sea of opposition for so many years. We have
carefully deliberated this course of action, and are pursuing
it out of a sense of urgency, concern, and great conviction.
We are a beleaguered people. Yet, despite the war being
waged on us, and the veiy real danger it poses to our
survival, it is our hope that we may be able to weather the
storms and attacks upon us, and continue to build our
community as a model of socialist cooperation, providing
the kind of life for our residents that, "'under the oppressive
conditions of the United States, they never could enjoy.
We would, therefore, wish to be able to draw upon
whatever account we may establish within the Soviet Union,

71
in order to continue to maintain and develop the project
here, and to aid political refugees elsewhere, as we have
done on numerous occasions. Such an arrangement would
give us great peace of mind, knowing, as we develop our
community, that in the event that our work were terminat­
ed, the resources that we have worked so hard to build up
under great duress over the years would be safe for people
who are building under the banner of Marxism-Leninism.
We thank you in advance for your consideration of this
appeal. With all best fraternal wishes for peace, universal
brotherhood and socialist progress, and regards from our
leaders, and from all of our residents, here in our beautiful
tropical community,
I remain,
Fraternally yours,
Leonora M. Perkins1
P.S. I am enclosing supplementary materials on our work,
and on the struggle of Jim Jones against the conspiracy to
destroy him and his life’s work. Also on his behalf, we
extend an invitation to the USSR to come to visit our
agricultural project community here. We could think of no
greater honor than to welcome representatives from your
country to view the extent of our progress and the nature
of our community, and to establish stronger ties of frater­
nity and friendship. It would be for all of us a most signifi­
cant and inspiring event. And perhaps the Soviet people
might receive hack from us a small measure of the deep
inspiration and encouragement that we have received from
them.
The next day, the Soviet Embassy had another request
to help the Jonestown community to establish a bank ac­
count for the Peoples Temple in a Soviet bank. Here is
the text of this appeal:
PEOPLES TEMPLE AGRICULTURAL MISSION
Jonestown, Port Kaituma, N.W.D., Cuyana
March 19, 1978
To: His Excellency
The Ambassador of the Soviet Union
Georgetown, Guyana
1 Member of the Peoples Temple leadership group.—Authors.

72
m **

My Dear Mr. Ambassador:

WE EARNESTLY BEG YOUR ATTENTION
TO THIS URGENT APPEAL!
Peoples Temple, a pro-Soviet socialist Agricultural Co­
operative of over 1,000 US ex-patriates living in Guyana,
is under severe persecution from US reactionaries bent upon
our destruction. Our assets, which are rightfully ours, earned
by the sweat of our brow, are threatened. We make this
appeal to the USSR to help us establish a bank account for
Peoples Temple in a Soviet banking institution to safeguard
our assets, which are our very “life-line”, and, in the event
that we should be destroyed as an organization, to insure
that they remain under Soviet control.
We would, of course, wish to be able to draw upon
whatever account we may establish within the Soviet
Union, in order to continue to maintain and develop the
community here, and to aid political refugees elsewhere, as
we have done on numerous occasions.
Such an arrangement would give us great peace of mind,
knowing, as we develop our community, that in the event
our work be terminated, the resources that we have worked
so hard to build up over the years, would be safe for people
who are building under the banner of Marxism-Leninism.
We will be glad to make available to you details of the ef­
forts being made against our organization, as well as evidence
of our wide support and friendship for the Soviet Union.
With all best fraternal wishes for peace, universal broth­
erhood, and socialist progress, and regards from our leader,
Jim Jones, and residents in this beautiful community,
I remain,
Fraternally,
Leonora M . Perkins
P.S. Supplementary materials of an informational nature
are attached to this letter. Our Georgetown mailing address
is P.O. Box 893 (Georgetown, Guyana), and local address
there is 74 Lamaha Gardens, phone $1787 or 71924.
“WE WANT TO EMIGRATE
TO THE SOVIET UNION”
Two months before the CIA agents murdered all the

73
members of the community, the Soviet Ambassador in
Georgetown received a letter signed by Richard D. Tropp,
General Secretary for the Peoples Temple Agricultural
Community. The letter radiated the utmost sincerity, was
imbued with the faith of its members in the justice of their
cause and with anxiety for its future. At the same time the
letter showed their determination to oppose the criminal
scheming aimed at destroying their community. Below is the
full text of the letter:

Dear Sir:
In the interests of the security of our community, which
is imperiled by U.S. reactionary efforts to harm us because
we are a successful socialist collective with a Marxist-Le-
ninist perspective that is entirely supportive of the Soviet
Union, it is the desire of the Peoples Temple Agricultural
and Medical Project/Community (a group of Americans
who have come to Guyana to help build socialism) to send
a delegation of our staff members to the Soviet Union
for the purpose of making arrangements for the emigra­
tion of our people to the Soviet Union for political refuge
and asylum.

Breakdown of Population of the Community:

Total Population: 1,200 (including some 200 U.S. residents
who have not arrived here yet)
0-18 years: appx. 450 persons
18 and over: appx. 750 persons

Duration of Stay in the USSR: Permanent, unless condi­

tions in the USA make return useful for purposes of helping
social change efforts there.

Living Arrangements: Whatever is preferable to the USSR;

either a socialist cooperative, or separate family arrange­
ment. We are accustomed to collective living. We could
set a model, perhaps, that would be useful to the Soviet
Union. We are flexible. We would prefer a warmer climate,
because our older people have gotten adjusted to it, but we
will be grateful to settle wherever you deem desirable.
Finances'. Our funds have been built up over a long period
of time. Several people (such as Jim Jones) have contrib­
uted all of their personal funds into the collective.

Background to This Request: Under the leadership of Cde.

Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple has been actively engaged in
combating injustice and struggling for civil rights causes
for some twenty-five years in the United States.
The community that Cde. Jones has established here in
Guyana represents a successful attempt to build a society
free from the economic and racial oppression suffered by
millions of people of all races and ages, from children to
centenarians, many of them former inhabitants of Ameri­
ca’s ghetto areas. ..
The Peoples Temple has always felt a deep affinity for
the heroic people of the Soviet Union. Your impressive
strides in the 60 years of building socialism, and the sacrifi­
cial Soviet people’s defense of the Motherland (and, by
extension, the whole world) against fascism, and the Soviet
Union’s firm and consistent support of liberation struggles
all over the world, have been a constant source of great
inspiration to u s .. .
In every public meeting Cde. Jones pledges his absolute
solidarity with the Soviet Union. ..
For the duration of his career, Cde. Jim Jones has been
a leader in the struggle against racism and economic in­
justice, and for peace, civil rights, and international coope­
ration. Great strides in this direction have been made under
his leadership. Consequently, he has been a constant target of
reactionary and bigoted elements in the United States which
have sought to terminate his work. In recent months, a
vast, well-coordinated, and well-funded conspiracy has been
launched against Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.
Smear articles in the public media have been used to
cover up a host of devious subterfuges that have featured
harassment from government agencies,, such as the U.S.
Treasury Department. . . We are certain !>f the involvement
of CIA agents.
For many years, and especially since the Peoples Temple
donated several thousand dollars to the Defense Fund
of Angela Davis, we have been the target of continuous
government agency and intelligence harassment. One of
our officials discovered at the time of the donation to
Ms. Angela Davis that the Federal Bureau of Investiga­
tion (FBI) was incensed at the Peoples Temple for this
action, and were intent on destroying Cde. Jones in the
same manner as they destroyed Dr. Martin Luther King.
This vicious wave of attacks have been mounted against
our work because we are a successful socialist organization
made up of thousands of mostly poor and working-class
people of all races, who have expressed deep friendship and
support for the Soviet Union. We have demonstrated the
utter failure of the capitalist system to provide humane
living and working conditions for the masses.
Among us are hundreds and hundreds of people who
can (and will be anxious) to offer dramatic testimony, out
of personal experience, to this tragic and gross travesty
and failure of the capitalist system and its violation of
our human rights.
Furthermore, Jim Jones has been an outspoken, un­
compromising foe of US imperialism. . .
The efforts to undermine our organization present a
problem of security. We know from long experience the
viciousness of reactionary forces in the U.S., and here, isolat­
ed in a relatively remote area, we are not blind to the
possibility that we could be literally destroyed— without
much difficulty—a possibility which we have seriously
weighed and for which we are not wholly unprepared (our
emphasis.—Authors.).
We are also aware of the possibility that the United
States may not permit the socialist government here to
pursue its course (even though Guyana is currently non-
aligned). . . We do not see how our organization can avoid
a collision course when we are a purely collective society,
absolutely aligned with the USSR, trying to exist in the
context of a society with too many in leadership with
strong sympathies toward the United States. Various forces
in the United States may already be working through these
elements to try to maneuver Guyana into their effective
sphere of economic (and, hence, political) domination, and
what could follow thereafter could spell disaster for us.
We are concerned for the future of our children, and the

76
safety of our older citizens. We are concerned, too, about
the security of our assets, which are jeopardized by current
and (in all likelihood) continuing efforts to undermine our
community. A war is being waged against us. We are hope­
ful that we can weather the storms and attacks on us, and
continue to build our community as a model of socialist
cooperation, providing the kind of life for our residents that,
under the oppressive conditions of the United States, they
could never enjoy.
So we are not naive about the very evident possibility
of the destruction of our movement. In the Soviet Union,
we would be safe. Our children would have a bright future.
We would all want to enthusiastically build and serve in
the Soviet Union, in the interests of socialism. We are
industrious, hard-working, and accept the idea of collective
structure: our own democratic, voluntary structure works
well through peer examples and incentives to bring about
a very high level of cooperation and achievement, as many
visitors have attested. ..
It is our desire in coming to the Soviet Union to set up
a community that you would be proud of: that would shine
out as a model, an example that you would be able to point
to for the world to see and which, we hope, would help to
further the cause of socialism. Our desire is, first and fore­
most, to be of service. We are humanists, and desire world
peace, but we are not naive to the necessity for armed strug­
gle in various parts of the world. If persons in our com­
munity are needed to assist in these struggles, we would be
proud and only too willing to allow them to serve. Cde. Jim
Jones has been dedicated to the Soviet Union since he was
a teenager. At first, it was an emotional admiration and
identification with the Soviets’ heroic defense of the Mother­
land in the Great Patriotic War; later, as he became
schooled in Marxist-Leninist thought, his dedication evolv­
ed into a more comprehensive, philosophical appreciation
of the meaning and role of the Soviet Union for human
progress and liberation in the world. |

Concluding Remarks:
We thank you in advance for your consideration of the
foregoing. We are hopeful that we will be able to pursue
these matters with you at your very earliest convenience,
and that appropriate arrangements will be able to be made
soon.
On behalf of Cde. Jim Jones and all the residents of
the Peoples Temple Agricultural Community ^Jonestown),
all best wishes for peace, universal brotherhood, and socialist
progress,
Fraternally yours,
RICHARD D. TROPP
General Secretary for
Peoples Temple
Agricultural Community
at Jonestown

The Soviet side treated these appeals with interest and

consideration.
In late September and early October 1978 the Soviet
Consul in Guyana, F. M. Timofeyev, and the Soviet Embas­
sy physician, N. M. Fedorovsky, visited Jonestown where
they discussed in every detail the questions broached in the
above-cited documents. They reached an agreement with
Jim Jones about a delegation of the Peoples Temple’s lead­
ers visiting the Soviet Union to discuss practical matters
related to the community’s resettlement in the Soviet
Union. The visit was scheduled for late November-early
December 1978. It never took place: on November 18,
all Jonestown’s inhabitants were murdered. The U.S. special
services had been hatching this operation for a long time.
THE CIA'S SCHEMING

On June 22, 1978, James Cobb Jr., a resident of San

Francisco, submitted a statement to the U.S. Supreme
Court in which he accused the Peoples Temple and Jim
Jones of criminal action on the grounds that this organiza­
tion had allegedly published, on March 14, 1978, an open
letter threatening mass suicide of the members of the com­
munity controlled by Jones and located in Jonestown in
Guyana. Cobb claimed that on April 18, 1978, in its state­
ment for the press the Peoples Temple made public the
unanimous decision of the Jonestown residents to commit
suicide. In his book The Strongest Poison, the lawyer Mark
Lane writes that this information was brought to the atten­
tion of the Department of State, the members of the US
Senate and House of Representatives, and news agencies.
The information was false: neither the open letter nor the
declaration mentioned by Cobb have ever existed.
It stands to reason that Cobb’s actions and the noise
stirred around them in the American press put Jones and
his followers on their guard, confirming their fears that the
US special services were serious about the plan to extermi­
nate Jonestown’s inhabitants and to subsequently portray
the murder as suicide.
The news that came from the United States shortly after
was still more alarming. The lawyer Timothy Stoen accused
Jones of the alleged effort to prevent members of the Jones­
town community to leave Guyana b^ applying various
forms of physical and moral pressure.
What is known about Stoen? For a number of years he
worked in close cooperation with Jones whom he followed
to Guyana as the community’s legal adviser. It subsequent­

79
ly turned out that since his years at college Stoen had been
a CIA agent and spent some time in West Berlin on a
CIA mission. In 1977, Stoen’s link to the CIA was exposed
and he was expelled from the Jonestown community. On his
bosses’ instructions, the agent provocateur set up and head­
ed the so-called Concerned Relatives (i.e. relatives of those
allegedly detained in Jonestown by force) organization. It
demanded the liquidation of Jonestown.
Moreover, Washington made efforts to pressure the
Guyanese government into driving the Jonestown residents
out of the countiy. In 1977-1978, Guyana’s economy was
hit by a severe crisis which resulted from the policies pur­
sued by transnational monopolies. The latter jacked up
prices on oil products (all of which had to be imported)
and sharply reduced prices on the traditional items of
Guyana’s export—sugar cane, bauxites and rice. The
Guyanese government hoped to overcome the crisis by ob­
taining loans from international monetary institutions, such
as the International Monetary Fund, the International
Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Interna­
tional Development Bank. These financial agencies are
controlled by US monopolies and the possibility for Guyana
to obtain loans was largely determined by the US admin­
istration’s stand on the matter. It is no accident that in
1977-1978 Guyana was visited by a number of delegations
headed by high-ranking officials from the US Department
of State. While negotiating economic and financial aid to
Guyana, the American side was increasingly adamant in
linking that aid to an end to the Peoples Temple activity
in Guyana and to expulsion of all its members from the
country. Although among the members of the Burnham
Cabinet there were people opposed to the Temple, many
liberal and progressive leaders of the country continued to
support it. Until the last day of the Temple’s existence the
Guyanese government had never officially raised the ques­
tion of expelling its members from the country.
The CIA agents in Jonestown informed the US Embassy
that the community planned to emigrate to the Soviet
Union, that they learned Russian and saw Soviet films ob­
tained through official channels from the Soviet Embassy
in Georgetown. Richard Dwyer, the US Charge d’affaires in

80
i
I n a c la ss-ro o m
D o c to r L a r r y S c h a c h t w ith his e le c tro n ic m icro sco p e
 1

Guyana,1 and the US Consul Richard McCoy2 made that

known to the US Department of State. More detailed infor­
mation and ensuing recommendations were provided by the
CIA resident in Georgetown.
In his book The Strongest Poison Mark Lane writes that
the State Department was perfectly aware of the Temple’s
plans to resettle in the Soviet Union and of Sharon Amos’
frequent visits to the Soviet Embassy. The Temple’s office
in Georgetown received several phone calls from the US
Embassy about the reason for such visits. Deborah Blakey,
who later deserted from the commune, also informed the
American Embassy and the State Department about the
plans of the Peoples Temple.
A stars-and-stripes flag flies over the building—a white,
three-storeyed mansion—in Georgetown’s Main Street
where the US Embassy is situated. In 1977 it was headed by
John Berg,3 formerly a scientist and college teacher who then
got himself a job with the US Department of State. Second
in rank to him at the Embassy was Richard Dwyer. Among
other people on the staff were not only diplomats but also
those who used their diplomatic status as a convenient
screen behind which they engaged in espionage and subver­
sive activities. Their names became known to the public
after the appearance of Philip Agee’s book Dirty Work,
some parts of which were reproduced by the Guyanese
newspaper Mirror in its issue of December 6, 1981.
The book mentions the Vice-Consuls Daniel Weber and
Dennis Reece who played an unsightly role in the tragic
events in Jonestown. The two spies had a hand in the CIA
efforts to infiltrate its agents into the Peoples Temple.
Guyana had long been a target of the CIA subversive
activity. The agency’s attention was focused on political
parties, armed forces, Prime Minister Burnham’s office, and
the Ministry of National Development. Its efforts, aimed
at impeding the construction of “cooperative socialism” an­
nounced by the Prime Minister, involved a wide range of
means from bribing government officials and politicians

‘ After March 1978.

* Before May 1978.
* He was appointed by Reagan to a high post at the CIA.

6-186 ' 81
 to waging slander campaigns against the Guyanese state in
the press.
Most of the CIA agents charged with infiltrating the
Peoples Temple were recruited from among former service­
men who had undergone special training while with the
US Marines. Some of them participated in the extermina­
tion of civilians in Vietnam.
The community in Guyana was under that country’s
jurisdiction and American government agencies had only
a limited possibility to interfere in its affairs. This is why
the American authorities were trying hard to change the
good will that the Guyanans felt for Jones’ commune by
feeding deliberately negative information about it to Guya­
na’s government agencies. However, all these foul intrigues
fell flat. The government of this sovereign state did not
want to look at Jonestown through Washington’s glasses.
A year before the destruction of the community, the CIA
had attempted to undertake a major subversive operation
against it. This was disclosed by the former CIA agent
Mazor who had been appointed commander of a special
party commissioned to carry out the operation. The merce­
naries were armed with American weapons and financed
by the CIA through Timothy Stoen who had personally
participated in recruiting them.
Having seen at first hand the life of the community to
which they were invited, the mercenaries led by Mazor,
refused to cariy out the operation and asked to see the
Temple’s leaders.
As it follows from the notes the Temple’s members hand­
ed to the Soviet Embassy, Mazor and his party were
astounded when they saw, instead of a “concentration
camp surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed
sentries” their bosses had told them about, a kindergarten,
a school, cassava and citrus plantations, and workshops
where people, who looked happy and content, were busy
doing their jobs. The mercenaries heard the settlers sing
popular American songs—the songs sounded merry and
optimistic—and spirituals. They saw parents take their
children to a day nursery, kindergarten and school and then
go to work on the fields, dairy sheds and in workshops. As
Mazor told Jonestown residents, he and his companions

82
 mminmmIW WWHWWMHI'WWJIJ'm f l * 'HUM-1•’ 11W 11»» y >v
3

had been so much impressed by what they saw that they

felt they could not carry out their mission, entered the
compound and confessed to having been assigned subversive
actions against the community.
Excerpt from Mark Lane's Book
The Strongest Poison
“In Jonestown, Mazor told a frustrated and susceptible
Jim Jones, Carolyn Layton, Lee Ingram, Charles Garry,
Terry Buford, Eugene Chaikin, and others that he had been
to Jonestown previously. The members of the select audience
exchanged startled and questioning glances. Mazor explain­
ed that he had, in the recent past, undertaken an assign­
ment to kidnap all of the children from Jonestown. He
refused to disclose the name of the principal on whose
behalf he had agreed to act. Mazor confirmed major
portions of the story that he told that night to Jones in a
tape-recorded interview with me (he had given permission
to record his words) in San Francisco after his return from
Guyana. He also spoke to the reporter for the Los Angeles
Times during January 1979.
“In substance, Mazor reported that during September
1977 he had led a group of men armed with rifles and
bazookas. . . He said that a huge jet was standing by to
carry all of the children back to America. . . What they
found [in Jonestown] was about ten buildings and a clear­
ing—no barbed wire, no guards with automatic weapons,
nothing like what they had been led to expect. For two
days, the invaders watched the compound and tried to
figure out what the hell was going on. The only guns they
saw were shotguns used to kill snakes.”
Mark Lane further writes about some revealing details
of the first abortive conspiracy.
“I believe Tim Stoen was a CIA operative, if not from
the beginning, then certainly long before the end. Where
was the money coming from to keep him on the Temple’s
case full time with an office, to hire 4 private detective
(Mazor), and a prominent San Francisco public relations
firm (Lowery, Russom & Leeper)1 to work against the
1 A legal firm that fabricated suits and charges against the
Peoples Temple.—Authors.

6* 83

1
Temple. Where was the money coming from to send rela­
tives and attorneys to Guyana and put them up in the best
hotels while they did their dirty work? There was too much
money behind Tim Stoen. . .
“But Stoen’s announced goal was the destruction of Jim
Jones and the Temple. . . Using the so-called ‘Concerned
Relatives’, Stoen kept the pressure on by hitting again at
what he knew to be Jones’ most vulnerable area—his loyal­
ty to his members. He promised never to give up anyone
who didn’t want to leave. So all these ‘Concerned Relatives’
show up in Guyana with Congressman Ryan (supposedly
on separate missions)—some of whom were so concerned
that they hadn’t bothered to even call or write their Temple
relatives in years. They suddenly show up and discover that
all of their relatives in Jonestown are happy and don’t want
to leave.
“On March 10, 1961, Rotary International1 awarded a
Foundation Fellowship for International Understanding to
Timothy Stoen, according to a six-page letter to Stoen
signed by George R. Means, the general secretary for the
organization. The fellowship stated that Stoen was to study
at the University of Birmingham in England. A nine-page
document attached to the letter listed the recipients of the
Rotary awards for the 1961-1962 year. That compilation
disclosed that Stoen was the only recipient designated to
attend the University of Birmingham. A newspaper account
of the event revealed that Stoen had ‘spent a semester
at American University in Washington, D.C.’. .. These doc­
uments, the Rotary letter and compilation, and the news­
paper clippings were discovered by Terry Buford as she
examined boxes of data shipped to Georgetown from the
Temple in San Francisco. This material was with the
other documents which had been found abandoned in the
Temple-owned building in Ukiah. In Georgetown during
the late spring of 1977, Buford found the opportunity to
look through all the papers for the first time. Together with
the letter, its attachments, and newspaper clippings was
another clipping describing Stoen’s arrest in East Germany
and many handwritten notes by Stoen describing that event.

1 Used to cover CIA’s activities.—Authors,

84

TS577
 “The article stated that Stoen had spoken before a Rota­
ry Club upon his return to the United States. There is no
explanation in the article as to why Stoen, an anticom­
munist student scheduled to study in England, was in Ber­
lin, except, for his statement, ‘I thought I should go
to East Berlin and see what it’s like behind the Iron
Curtain.’
“Stoen told the members of the Rotary Club that he
was arrested when he took a picture of ‘a sign erected near
the newly-built wall’. Stoen and his associate, whom he took
pains to describe to the press as his ‘newfound friend’ were
seized by police officers. Stoen said that he was imprisoned
for fifteen hours and then finally released.
“In his private notes, however, Stoen did not refer to
a ‘newfound friend’ but to his ‘source’. Throughout the
notes he referred to the information that he had received
from his source about the inner workings of the Communist
Party in East Germany. Stoen wrote that even in his private
notes he could not reveal his source, for if the notes ever
fell into the wrong hands, the life of his source would be
placed in jeopardy. Stoen also wrote that his source escort­
ed him about Berlin and was with him when the pictures
were taken in an area known by the source to be a restricted
area, clearly off limits to photographers.
“Buford later flew to the airstrip at Port Kailuma to
share the evidence with Jones. Buford said Jones concluded
that Stoen was likely an agent working with a government
police or spy organization.”

Secret Agent's Revelations

Michael Prokes was another CIA’s secret agent. This is

what Mark Lane writes about him:
“Michael James Prokes was born in Modesto, California,
in 1947. He died in a motel on Kansas Avenue just off U.S.
Highway 99 in Modesto on March 13, |979. He was a soft-
spoken, kind, and gentle young man,” Mark Lane recalls
in his book. “He attended Modesto Junior College where
he studied journalism and starred as a quarterback on the
football team in spite of his modest size and slight build. He

85
 graduated from the University of California at Fullerton,
earning a degree in communications. In 1970, Prokes was
employed as a reporter for station KXTV-TV in Sacra­
mento, and was also the Stockton bureau chief for the
station. . .
“During October 1972 Michael Prokes joined the Peo­
ples Temple in Ukiah, California. He quit his television
job and, in doing so, rejected the advantages that often fall
to the upper middle class in America, including his home
near a country club, a better than average income, a fashion­
able automobile, and the respectability that accompanies
such an accepted lifestyle. Prokes soon assumed the position
of media spokesperson for the Temple. He became acquaint­
ed with San Francisco media personalities when both he
and the Peoples Temple moved headquarters to San
Francisco during 1975. . .
. .1 met Mike Prokes in Jonestown toward the middle
of September 1978. He was eager to show me around the
agricultural experimental project and was proud of a society
that was struggling to eliminate racism. . .
“I saw Mike again in Jonestown on November 17, when
Congressman Leo Ryan arrived to begin his investigation.
It was the day before the massacre began... He told me
then that he saw the Ryan visit as a method of preventing
the emigration of the Jonestown commune to the Soviet
Union. When I tried to reassure him that the investigation,
as far as I knew, had nothing to do with the emigration, he
told me that it would be a mistake for me to underestimate
the duplicity and cleverness of the American intelligence
agents. He said, on the eve of the destruction: ‘I wouldn’t
be surprised if they have agents infiltrated in here and in
San Francisco [where the Peoples Temple had its branch.
—Authors].
“Four months later, on March 13, 1979, Prokes called his
press conference for 7 p.m. in room 106 at Motel 6 on Kan­
sas Avenue. To the many reporters who crowded into the
room, he made available a forty-two-page statement, a por­
tion of which he read for the electronic news media. Then
Prokes silently rose, and entered the bathroom, which was
behind him. He closed the bathroom door and fired one
shot from a 38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. By 7.43

86
he had arrived at Doctor’s Hospital in Modesto and was
pronounced dead there three hours later.
“Near his body, reporters found a one-page suicide note
in which Mike had written: ‘If my death doesn't prompt
another book about the end of Jonestown, my life wasn’t
worth living.’
“In both his oral and written statements to the press, he
asserted: ‘The truth about Jonestown is being covered up
because our government agencies were involved in its de­
struction up to their necks. I am convinced of this because,
among many other reasons, I was an informant [emphasis
is ours.— Authors.] when I first joined the Peoples Temple.’
“Prokes attached to that statement a four-page docu­
ment in which he detailed his role as a government agent.
In that report he revealed his salary, his assignment, the
name of the government agent who had recruited him, and
the method he employed when making his regular reports
to the agent who served as his control.
“All of this information was available to the reporters
at the press conference. . . Among those Mike mailed his
final statement to were: The New York Times, Newsweek,
and Time. They, however, did not print a word from the
statement. Not a single national daily in the United States,
not a single magazine, radio or television company, not a
single news agency made public what Mike Prokes had writ­
ten in the last minutes of his life.”

Here is the text of Mike Prokes’ written statement:

“In October of 1972 I called at Jim Jones’ house at the

number listed in Redwood Valley to try to set up an inter­
view with him for the news. I talked with a woman, a senior
named Esther Mueller, whom Jones had taken in. I told
her of my interest and she suggested I call the San Francis­
co Temple where Jones was at that time. I called but was
told to call back on the weekend. A fe^r days later I re­
ceived a call at my office from a man who asked if I would
meet with him to discuss the Peoples Temple. I found the
request very curious: I said o.k. and we met the next day
in a Stockton restaurant. The man told me his name was
Gary Jackson. I asked him what he did and he said that

87

n
 he worked for the government, but I couldn’t get him to
be more specific. He asked what prompted my interest in
the Peoples Temple. I asked him how he knew that I was
interested in the Temple. He paused for a few moments,
then said something to the effect—“There are ways if you
think about it.” The answer was obvious—Jones’ phone was
tapped. I told him that a series of articles in The San
Francisco Examiner prompted my interest. J said I wanted
to look into some of the things the articles said about Jones
and the Temple, and if I found them to be true, I was
planning to do an expose for our TV news program. Jack-
son (somehow I doubt that was his real name) said there
was a lot more to the Temple than what the Examiner
wrote. He said it was a revolutionary organization led by a
dangerous man, bent on destroying our system of govern­
ment. He talked to me a while longer, telling me various
things Jones had supposedly said and done; then he made
a proposal. He said if I could be successful at joining the
Temple full time as a staff member and report regularly on
what was going on inside the organization, he would ar­
range for me to be paid two-hundred dollars a week.
“In thinking back upon it, I must have been checked out
and considered to be good prospect, since I had been a
dedicated Christian churchgoer, attended college in conser­
vative Orange Country, good student with no involvement
in any kind of organization or activity that could be consid­
ered ‘questionable’. I told the man that I found his offer
intriguing but that I first wanted to pay a visit to the
Temple. He agreed, saying I wouldn’t be able to join on
the first visit anyway. But he said I wouldn’t be able
to get a good picture of the organization until I was
inside it, because the public meetings were only so
much posturing. I arranged to attend a service at which
I heard Jones preach. Later, I got to talk with him private­
ly. I was surprised to hear him speak so openly against the
system in my presence, particularly so soon after the nega­
tive publicity about him. But I was fascinated by his minist­
ry and I thought it would make great stuff for a book or
screenplay, which I thought I might like to write. I talked
with Jones for at least two hours. I asked him if he needed
more staff. He said he could use as many as were willing

88
to work voluntarily with the Temple providing only living
expenses. I told him it was something I wanted to give
serious thought to, and he said he would be thrilled to
have me.
“Jackson called me up a couple of days later and I told
him I was going to quit my job and accept his offer. I didn’t
tell him I wanted to write a book about the Temple. Ar­
rangements were made for me to be paid (the payments were
left for me at various predesignated locations, always in the
the form of cash enclosed in plain white envelopes). My
reports were made verbally (from pay phones at which I was
called) because it was too risky to write anything, as there
was a lot of suspicion in the Temple (as one might imag­
ine) of a reporter who quit his rather prestigious job as
a bureau chief to join an organization that didn’t pay any
salaries.
“As time passed, I gradually began to feel conflict over
my role as an informant, even though I wasn’t providing
what one might call valuable or sensitive information. I
was starting to identify with the problems and sufferings
of the members. As I observed various one’s troubles being
resolved by the Temple’s program, the confict I was feeling
turned to guilt. I had been watching Jones for some time, as
closely as possible without drawing attention to myself. His
schedule was unbelievable. He was up at all hours calling
people on the phone, consulting, reading reports, and stay­
ing in touch with every phase of the organization. It was
obvious he worked harder than anyone—but I questioned
his motives. Personally, I didn’t like the man after the first
few months I was in the Temple. But I recognized that it
was for reasons that were subjective and which I didn’t want
to affect my judgement of his character. One thing I was
noticing was that he was almost always the first to notice
someone’s need and point it out—a senior on a packed
auditorium without a chair, for example, or interest in
someone’s health who lived alone. He was always dealing
with needs and often ones that weren’t! that obvious to
others. He seemed unusually sensitive. Every time I saw him
he was expressing concern, or doing something for someone
of asking that it be done. But he didn’t leave it at that. He
was keen on following up on whether the thing he had asked

89
he clone for someone was actually carried out. Still, in view of
all this, I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt. I had
to be sure about him.
“One day I had taken some letters to his apartment in
the San Francisco Temple just as he was coming out the
door. He was late for an appointment, so he told me to
put the letters on a table inside. Fie left and then I went
out. I started back to my office and then changed my mind
and went downstairs to get a drink from the water fountain.
Down the hall I noticed Jones had stopped and watched for
a moment as an elderly woman moved slowly up another
staircase. Jones didn’t see me as he was facing the other
way, and there was no one else around. Even though he
was late for his appointment, he was going to take another
five minutes to help that woman up the long flight of
stairs. . . He went up and began assisting her and then I
intervened and told him to go ahead to his appointment.
That act of kindness did it for me.”
Shortly before Jonestown’s tragic end, the Peoples
Temple’s leaders launched an open challenge against the
US authorities. On October 4, 1978, The San Francisco
Examiner, and the next day The Sun Reporter announced
that the leaders of the Peoples Temple based in Guyana
were going to file a multi-million-dollar suit against US
federal agencies, including the CIA, the FBI and the Post
Office, within 90 days. The suit would charge, the newspa­
per said, the agencies of being involved in a government-in­
spired plot to destroy Jonestown, that unique experiment
in the practical implementation of socialist living. The suit
threatened to cause great embarrassment to the White
House, the Department of State, the US political, espionage
and subversion agencies. There were many people among
the Temple’s membership who could—and were eager to—■
act as witnesses. They were determined, by citing from
their own experience, to denounce the capitalist system and
concrete wrong-doers in the upper echelons of power in the
United States.
When, 45 days after the publication of the news about the
forthcoming suit in The Sun Reporter, all Jonestown’s
residents were murdered, the question of the law suit was
removed from the agenda. Here is the text of the report:

90
PEOPLES TEM PLE STR IK E S BACK
CONSPIRACY TO D E STRO Y JO N ESTO W N
CHARGED
The Sun Reporter, October 5, 1978
The Peoples Temple settlement in Jonestown, Guyana,
has been described as an “armed camp”, where people are
held against their will and harshly disciplined. Attorney
Mark Lane says he has investigated the charges and found
them to be false and part of a government-inspired plot to
destroy this unique experiment in socialist living.
Peoples Temple plans to launch a massive, multi-rnillion-
dollar [emphasis is ours.—Authors.] lawsuit against various
government agencies, which the temple says have conspired
to disrupt its activities and destroy its operation. . .
Lane said that his commission has collected evidence that
“the intelligence community in the United States has par­
ticipated in deliberate efforts to destroy Peoples Temple,
Jim Jones and Jonestown” . He said that the suit would
probably be filed during the next 90 days and would name
CIA, FBI, Post Office, Treasury Department, Federal
Communications Commission, and Internal Revenue Service
as agencies that had tried to disrupt temple activities.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in “laundered” funds
has been withdrawn from a Central American Bank and
used to finance some of the numerous lobbying efforts and
lawsuits filed against the Temple recently, Lane charged.
He said the suit would name a man who had withdrawn
the funds and turned them over to lobbyists and plaintiffs.
Lane also said that FGC had tried to withdraw the
Temple’s license to operate a shortwave radio used by
doctors in Guyana to contact physicians in the States for
instructions on how to treat emergency patients. The FCC
is worried that the Temple is using the radio to conduct
business. “The business they’re conducting is the business of
the lives of Americans and Guyanese natives,” Lane said.
The attorney said he thought the government targeted
Peoples Temple because its experiment in socialist living
was “embarrassment” for the government there. “Twelve
hundred Americans have fled to the jrfigles of Guyana in
search of human rights and an opportunity to lead fulfil­
 ling lives—opportunities that are not available to them in
the ghettos of America,” Lane said.
Lane described Jonestown as a “model community” . ..
Lane added that the Guyanese government had particular­
ly been pleased by the achievements of the Peoples Temple
—which served as a model for all the other countries of the
Caribbean.
The Guyanese government calls upon its citizens to move
further inland and in this way to counter the prevailing
tendency of population congestion in the overcrowded cities.
However, only the members of the Peoples Temple commu­
nity have so far supported this initiative.
In Lane’s words, during his visits to Jonestown he was
deeply impressed by the fact that formerly impoverished
people are living together happily without crime, drugs, or
hopelessness. . .
He described the education of young people in Jonestown
as much more sophisticated and successful than in U.S.
schools and remarked on how well informed he had found
the children to be on a wide variety of subjects.
“There’s no money in Jonestown and no need for it,”
Lane continued.
He said he was particularly impressed by the quality of
medical care at Jonestown, where the community’s 1,200
inhabitants are served by 70 health workers. Natives are also
cared for free of charge, in a setting that Lane compared
with Albert Schweitzer’s1 famous hospital in Africa.
In Lane’s words, on one of his visits to Jonestown he had
a two-hour medical examination which was the most
thorough he had ever received over many years.
Lane denied reports that life in the community was over­
disciplined and that people got jailed in Jonestown. He
accused the media, and especially the press in the San Fran­
cisco Bay area that they played into the hands of those who
sought the destruction of the Peoples Temple by appalling
and irresponsible coverage of the Jonestown experiment.

‘ Albert Schweizter ( Ii875-1965), a German and French theolo­

gian and physician who built with his own funds a hospital in
Gabon. His work in this hospital became the embodiment of his
humanistic ideals.

92
 The staff of the U.S. Embassy in Guyana kept a watchful
eye on the activities of Peoples Temple. Particularly preoc­
cupied with Jones’ organization were the U.S. consuls,
Richard McCoy and Douglas Ellice,1 and CIA agents
Weber, Reece and Hartman posing as diplomats. They
operated an intelligence network in Jonestown and master­
minded an operation to destroy the Peoples Temple. As
Thomas Reston, a State Department spokesman, said after
the monstrous execution of this operation, “in fact, we be­
lieve it is safe to say that more attention has been devoted
by the United States government to this particular group of
Americans living overseas over the past eighteen months
than to any other group of Americans living abroad”.

According to The Mirror, December 6, 1981, the list of

names of CIA agents operating in Guyana since 1970
included Lee James Adkins, Leonard Barrett, James Wil­
liam Bourne, Constance Brown, Alice Bruns, Gloria Cle­
mente, Lamont Damschroder, John William Davis, Aubrey
Decker, Timothy Desmond, Thomas Doolittle Jr., John En-
koji, Bernard Fitzgerald, Comer Wiley Gilstrap, Samuel
Greenfield, Joseph Hartman, Charles Kable III, Francis
Cote MacDonald, John Mateer Jr., Gerald McManus,
Lynnwood Minar, David Napierkowski, Kenneth Page,
Gerald Pascale, William Randolph, Robert Riefe, John
Sapp, and John Thomas.

Most of these men were in Guyana at the time the plan

to destroy the Jonestown commune was being prepared
and executed. Journalist Gunther Neuberger who published
the above list pointed out that most of the information
obtained by these agents had been used by the CIA for
subversive actions which included misinformation and mani­
pulation of the press, political and economic destabilization,
assassination of political leaders whorn Washington wanted
out of the way. f
State Department officials also paid frequent visits to

‘ After May 1978.

93
 Jonestown. They said that five visits they had paid to
Jonestown in 1977 and 1978 dealt with problems which
went far beyond the welfare and whereabouts of its resi­
dents. The State Department officials used these visits also
for rendering the Jonestown residents routine consular ser­
vices and for introducing officials (deputy head of the
US mission and a State Department official concerned with
the affairs of Guyana who were not on the US consular
staff) *to the community, about whose life they had only
second-hand information.
Such visits helped all official visitors to keep fairly regu­
lar watch over the settlement. They also enabled them to
talk with the Guyanese government employees working in
this district and to ask them about their impressions.
The heightened interest that the Embassy and the State
Department showed in what the leaders of the Temple
might think of the motives of sucK visits can be judged from
the exchange of telegrams about the frequency with which
they were paid.
At the end of a report on the Consul’s first two visits
(August 1977 and January 1978), the Embassy expressed
the belief that to return continually to Jonestown to “inves­
tigate allegations of Americans held against their will”
(quotation as in the Embassy’s text) could open the Embas­
sy and the Department to charges of harassment. The
Embassy then said that, unless the Department directed
otherwise, it planned to have a consular officer visit Jones­
town quarterly to perform routine consular services, at
which times the officer could follow up on any welfare
whereabouts inquiries with members, relay family greet­
ings, etc. The Department quickly replied, concurring in the
quarterly visits, with the proviso that there would have to be
a legitimate consular need for the trip. The Department
added that it did not want to create the impression that the
US Government was “checking up on Jones or the Peoples
Temple” (quotation as in the Department’s text). The
telegrams stated in conclusion that visits for no apparent
purpose would serve only to reinforce the suspicions that
Jones already harbored.
During the two visits Jones had displayed his belief—
already well known to the Embassy and the Department—

94
that there were conspiracies against him and that allegations
such as those in the inquiries from relatives had been fabri­
cated as part of them. On the first visit Jones had described
the Consul’s presence as a direct result of the lies and had
asked if it were true that the US Government had requested
the Guyanese Government to expel the Temple. . .
Taken together, the impressions and opinions of the offi­
cial visitors were not unfavorable to the Peoples Temple in
Jonestown. To put it another way, they did not give much
support to the dramatic charges made by some concerned
relatives. . .
In September 1977, there was a visit to Jonestown by
a U.S. official (the AID Rural Development Officer) as
part of a broader trip in the region. . . In his report, the
AID officer said in part: “Farm operations are good. Crops
have been planted and harvested of all indigenous foods,
with good, practical applications of processing and preserv­
ing of food products. . . The level of operations, the quality
of field work performed and results being achieved will serve
as a model for similar development efforts in the hinter­
land.” Prior to 1977, the settlement had been visited by
three American officials: the Vice-Consul in July 1974, the
Ambassador in March 1975 and the Deputy Chief of Amer­
ican Mission in May 1976. All of them recall that they
were favorably impressed by what they had seen.

Visit of August 30, 1977 by the Consul. In his telegraphic

report of the visit, sent promptly on his return to George­
town, the Consul stated that his initial impression was that
the community had made surprising progress in three years
in clearing the surrounding jungle and establishing a settle­
ment.
. . .The young woman whom the Consul interviewed as a
result of her family’s concern that she was being held against
her will stated that she had been neither physically nor
psychologically intimidated to remaim in Jonestown. She
was told by the Consul that if she wished she could leave
immediately in the company of the Guyanese official ac­
companying the Consul and that no one would stop her.
She said that she did not want to leave, that she was not
living in fear and that she was very happy.

95
 Visit of January 11, 1978 by the Consul. The week after
^ his second visit the Consul transmitted to the Department a
telegram on conditions in Jonestown that contained his
impressions from the two trips. These are pertinent excerpts:
“ The Consul is convinced on the basis of his personal
observations and conversations with Peoples Temple mem*
bers and Guyanese Government officials that it is improb­
able that anyone is being held against their will in Jones­
town. At no time during his conversations with Peoples
Temple members did he sense that individuals were fearful,
or under duress or pressure. They appeared adequately fed
and expressed satisfaction with their lives. Some were
engaged in hard, physical labour repairing heavy equipment
and clearing fields, but this is normal work on farms. ..
The Consul was alert to possibility that attempts might
have been made to stage a favorable scenario for his visit,
but given conditions at the community, did not believe
that this could have been done. Work and life appeared to
be going on in a normal fashion. Persons with whom he
talked in private—some of whom were those allegedly held
against their will—appeared spontaneous and free in their
conversation and responses to the Consul’s questions. Also
local GOG officials who visit the community frequently
and often without advance notice told the Consul that they
never received the impression that anything strange was oc-
curing in the community.
“The Consul used his normal line of questioning with
twelve members about whom there had been specific alle­
gations (by concerned relatives.—Authors.) that the Temple
was holding them against their will. Their answers were all
negative. The Consul asked the same general questions of
other members he approached on his own. Jones appeared
somewhat disconcerned by these spontaneous contacts, but
on no occasion did the Consul get the impression that the
negative replies he received were rehearsed. All the elderly
people with whom the Consul talked on social security mat­
ters were neatly dressed and expressed satisfaction with
their life in Jonestown. The Consul did not at any time
have the feeling that the older members with whom he
chatted were in any way apprehensive about talking to
him.”

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E q u ip m e n t for physiotherapy