Episode Five: The Consequences of Apathy
Music: Set Them Free from He’s Able.
Jones Q998: Okay. Now, Mother, haven’t you ever thought about that– haven’t you ever thought about killing anybody? And I think you need think about what you will do and how far you will go, and I think you need to face reality. I’m of the opinion that the stronger you manifest your will and determination, the more likely you are to survive in this crazy world. I don’t know how you plan your life, but everybody, even though they know that with will and determination can win many a victory, how many plan your death ever? Well, it’s no great mumble, how many, how many plan your death, in different ways– how many plan your death? Do you ever plan your death? There’s a number of you that do not lift your hand and say you plan your death. You don’t ever plan your death? You’re gonna die. Don’t you think you should plan about such an important event? I– No sense at all that you’ve got that plan around the corner. Believe me, you’d know the difference. Through the state of siege, you would’ve known the difference. But I think that a healthy person has to think through his death, or he may sell out. Some of you people get so fuckin’ nervous every time I talk about death– You’ve been brainwashed, you’ve been brainwashed. Capitalists have, capitalists have made you robots! They’d made you robots. They teach you don’t– death, death is the enemy, death is the enemy, so that you will work your ass off three score and ten years, you’ll work just like a goddamned little old slave, you’ll work three score and ten years, and you’ll never never never never never never die, because it’s– Death is the enemy. You were dying all the time, them fuckers tellin’ you, death is your last enemy, Christian preacher sayin’ death, death, shun death, gotta overcome death, we gotta have victory over death, the final enemy– death! Rejoice when you die and cry when you're born.
You’re listening to Transmissions from Jonestown. This is Episode Five: The Consequences of Apathy.
In the early morning hours of November 19, an elderly woman named Hyacinth Thrash emerged from her tiny cottage in Jonestown. The previous night everyone had been summoned to the pavilion. The community was in crisis again, but Hyacinth refused to go. Once a loyal follower of Jim Jones, she had grown weary of the long white nights and Jones’ increasingly erratic behavior. Her sister Zip urged her to go, for absenteeism would be met with harsh punishment and public derision, but Hyacinth refused. Instead she slipped under her bed and waited until all was quiet outside, then she simply fell asleep.
Now, in the early morning hours the usual hustle and bustle of the once lively community was dead silent. Hyacinth cared for the elderly and children in Jonestown, in many ways this had been a happy home, full of positive energy and the sound of child’s laughter, but now not even a dog barked. Confused and afraid Hyacinth headed towards the pavilion. Outside the smell of a thousand bodies filled the air, insects swarmed, and the ground was soft with decaying liquids. All around her the family and friends that had been the center of her universe were gone, decaying in the tropical heat. In a building where the old and sick had once received care, she saw the still corpses half covered by sheets, unmoving except for the buzz of flies. Hyacinth went back to her tiny cottage where she stayed alone until the next day when the GDF discovered her. Terrified and alone she pondered the fate of her sister, struggling with horrific feelings of guilt and shame, and questioning her faith. She experienced what it feels like to be the last person on earth. For many Jonestown survivors these feelings would last their entire lives.
Child Q668: Well, in socialism it’s fun to work out in the fields, ‘cause in capitalism, they teach you (laughs) — (makes shooting noises) In capitalism, they teach you it’s bad to work out in the fields, and it’s really good for you. You live a lot longer, and it’s better for your health, and also um, (Laughs).
Child Q668: And in socialism it is better than capitalism because we think about the children and the seniors. And what do we do if there is a revolution? We fight and stand up for our rights.
Few Peoples Temple members who were in Guyana at the time of the mass tragedy survived. An old man played dead in a ditch. The basketball team and several others were safe in Guyana’s capitol Georgetown. Some were safe at sea on the Peoples Temples boats the Cudjoe and the Marceline. In all, approximately 87 people survived Jonestown. This episode focuses on the survivors closest to the events of November 18, how they survived and how the massacre affected them and their families in some cases for generations. Many of these people lost entire families and saw things no human being should see. The courage that it took to get out of Jonestown gets lost in the historical details of these people’s stories. I hope I can honor that with this episode.
A group of teenagers, Brenda and Tracy parks, Brenda’s boyfriend Chris O’Neal, and a badly injured Tom bogue with his sister Tina were on the tarmac when the shooting began at Port Kaituma. As the killers fanned out across the runway executing the congressman and several others, the teenagers ran into the jungle for cover. In the panic of escaping the red brigade, the teenagers lost their way in the jungle and were lost for three days. They walked in circles drinking swamp water, terrified they might wander back into Jonestown. Tracy and Brenda parks had just seen their mother murdered. Brenda was covered in her mother’s blood. Sometime in the night they heard gunfire coming from what they thought was the direction of Jonestown. Ironically on the orders of Jim Jones Tom Bogue had received survivalist training, as part of a punishment for running away. Tom spend three weeks on the working crew, cutting wood and digging ditches 18 hours a day in chains. But he had also learned how to survive in the jungle. Eventually they were discovered by the Guyana Defense Force and rescued. Several years later tabloids still reported that children from Jonestown were living deep in the jungles of Guyana raised by Amerindians.
Their experiences at Jonestown and the public’s perception of Peoples Temple left these kids feeling isolated and made adjustment to everyday life unbearable for some. Chris O’Neal survived the jungle and Peoples Temple, but throughout his life suffered from depression and alcoholism. He believed that he had cancer and was tortured by night terrors. On November 9, 2014 Chris called police and reported a domestic disturbance at his home in California. He took a large knife and went to his front porch. When police arrived, Chris threatened them with the knife and charged at them. He was shot nine times by police. Earlier that day Chris told his wife he did not want to live and that he wanted the cops to kill him. His death was ruled suicide by cop. After so many years dealing with his deep feelings of loss and alienation the levy broke. This tragic butterfly affect is not isolated to those who at one time thought Jim Jones was a living god and savior.
Jones Q919: Another cancer. Gone. Pain gone now? Pains all gone now? Thank God. There’s a cancer. Another one, gone.
Announcer Q919: Another praising sister, whose-
Jones Q919: Many in the church age believe in the spiritualization of God, and as you believe in the spirit of God, in keeping with the spirit, you may be healed mentally and spiritually. When you see God in the material realm, then you get healed in your physical realm. Then the deliverance comes in the physical body, freedom comes in the natural. We get freedom from poverty, from want and disease. If you apply it to the spirit of God, your spirit will be healed. And if you apply it to the mind of God, your mind can be healed. But if you apply it to the body of God, then your body will be healed. It’s wonderful. I don’t think I have to say more about that. Those that recognize the body of God shall reduplicate that process in them. If you see the temple of the Holy Ghost, then you’ll be able to reproduce God in you. Just as I am.
Just how far the shadow of Jonestown falls so many years after the death of the movement is the subject of this next story. Tina Bogue was pregnant with her son Chad Rhodes during her harrowing escape into the jungle. After three terrible days of hunger and tropical heat, Tina’s deprogramming and transition back to reality was addressed by the voodoo practitioner Dr. Sukhdeo. Whom we will discuss later in this episode.
She was in shock, her traumatic experiences caused Tina to suffer from seemingly random amnesia. When Tina was about 4 or 5 months pregnant with Chad, and thousands of miles away from Guyana, she forgot who the father of the baby was. Her husband, loyal to Jim Jones had stayed in Jonestown and died, but for whatever reason she did not believe he was the father. After the baby was born Odell Rhodes, another Jonestown survivor, claimed paternity of the baby, so Tina put Odell’s name on the birth certificate. Odell was a father to Chad in name only. Tina’s health and mental problems made is difficult for her to reenter society. The amnesia hindered her recovery. When Chad was five, Odell Rhodes had Tina declared an unfit mother and won custody of Chad. But because he had never really been a part of Chads life it didn’t take long for Tina to win him back. Throughout his youth Chad was in trouble with the law and even led cops on a high-speed chase. Tina finally had a breakthrough with her amnesia and claimed a man named Tarik Baker was Chad’s father. Baker had died in Jonestown. Chad and Tina searched desperately through death records and couldn’t turn up a death certificate, all they found, was a mass grave with an empty headstone. There was no sign of Tarik Bakers. In 1999 Chad shot at police from an overpass in Oakland California. Using a high-powered assault rifle, he sniped at police below on a freeway killing one and severely injuring another. Chad was originally given the death penalty but because of his confession will now spend the rest of his life in prison.
Assuming that everyone in Jonestown was brainwashed isolated the survivors. The belief that all these peoples needed was a little deprogramming whitewashes their past and invalidates their experiences. If someone is programmed like a robot, then they cannot be held responsible for their actions. So, then who is responsible for the death of nearly a thousand people? For a survivor of Jonestown, there was no time to grieve without public opinion shaming you into silence.
If you emerged from beneath a mountain of death, all the people you knew, the people you loved, and reporters where there with their lights flashing and cameras capturing every move, every facial expression, the whole world passing judgment upon you based on these images of violence and carnage, what would you do?
News: The FBI is delving into this apparent immunity to prosecution that Jones had miraculously acquired throughout his twenty-year career. The FBI is also concerned that Jones’ doctrine is still embraced by possibly hundreds of followers. Investigators are determined to learn not only the motivation behind the Guyana massacre, but what to expect from the remaining members of Peoples Temple.
Odell Rhodes was one of the only survivors of Jonestown to witness people both voluntarily take cyanide, and be force fed the potion. He emphasized that armed guards surrounded the pavilion cutting off anyone’s escape into the jungle. Rhodes watched as the first person, a young mother and her baby, were given the deadly poison. He said it was as if everyone was in a trance, ready to die together for the cause. Only medical personnel were allowed through security. He heard the doctor ask a nurse to get him a stethoscope. Seeing this as his only possible escape route he fell into step beside nurse. As they stepped beyond the guards with crossbows, Odell realized that he would have to kill the nurse to be able to escape undetected. Fortunately, she instructed him to look in one building while she searched another for medical supplies. Odell entered the nursing office and made his way to the back of the building, where there was a senior center; most of the people there were bedridden.
"Are you the man who is going to take us up there?" an old woman asked.
"You know what they're doing up there?" Odell said.
"We know." She said.
"I'm not the man to take you." He said.
On the morning of November 19, he frantically reported over the airwaves to the world the horrors he had witnessed the night before. Odell Rhodes was a cousin to civil rights activist Huey P Newton, who wrote the book revolutionary suicide and was often quoted by Jim Jones. (CORRECTION! Stanly Clayton is Huey P Newton’s cousin).
News: In 1966 the Black Panther movement was founded. Prominent among the founders were Bobby Seal who is its president and Huey Newton. His first book was called, “To Die for the People”, and imminently her will publish his autobiography which is called, “Revolutionary Suicide.”. A concept I shall now ask Mr. Newton please to explain.
Huey P. Newton: The only revolution that is worth fighting is a humane revolution.
News: Also, one that succeeds?
Huey P. Newton: Pardon me?
News: Also, one that succeeds?
Huey P. Newton: Yes. Right.
Of all the people who survived Jonestown, no one saw as much of the massacre unfold as Stanly Clayton. Stanly Clayton survived the death ritual in Jonestown almost to its very end. He watched in the pavilion as the babies went first, poison squirted down their throats. He said the people sat calmly believing this was just another suicide drill. But as the babies were laid face down in the garden, they realized that this time was different. Jim Jones urged them to hurry over the microphone as security guards led people one by one to the vats. Many resisted and had to be forcibly injected.
Stanly Clayton: Jim Jones said, “Lets do the babies first, take care of the babies first.”. We’re having nurses picking up babies out of their mothers’ arms and some of the mothers themselves were coming up with their babies. They were forced to take the potion. After they injected them and took the poison, they took them and laid them right outside the pavilion, right out there to the garden where they plant food and so forth. They laid them right out there. People that didn’t want to die they, a lot of people, I would say a lot of people didn’t want to die so they were just sitting there afraid. Jim began to come out of his seat and go into the audience were the people were sitting and began to pull them up out of their seats and lead them on into where the potion was. I seen one, in one case she struggled pretty hard cause she didn’t want to die. They injected her in the arm.
Reporter: Did you see a point where they laid people on top of people?
Stanly Clayton: No, I didn’t see it.
Reporter: Does that surprise you now that you’ve heard that?
Stanly Clayton: Yes, it does.
Stanly Clayton later testified that he saw several people injected with poison, then led to a clearing and laid face down. Stanly watched until all but 100 people in Jonestown were dead. He made his way towards the jungle pretended to check dead bodies for survivors. Hugging a security guard, he played along until he could make a break for the bush. He hid in the jungle out of sight waiting for the opportunity to retrieve his passport. Stanly testified that about 45 minutes after Jonestown had gone quiet, he heard a crowd of people cheer, three times, like a choir of voices. He snuck back into Jonestown but was frightened back into the bush by the sound of gunshots. Stanly walked six miles to a police outpost. Villagers he passed along the way said they had seen several people fleeing Jonestown filling Stanly with the false hope that lots of people had made it out.
Reporter: What were your reaction to officials who were saying there were about 400 people there and their bodies have been recovered yet we now know that there were more like 900 bodies recovered?
Mike Carter: In my…I couldn’t figure out where they had gone for so many days and not be found I mean…the jungle is extremely thick you could walk into it just a few yards and it be like your miles into it. I couldn’t, didn’t know what had happened to them.
Tim Carter: Apparently bodies were stacked on top of bodies is what had happened.
Reporter: Presumably you would know the population of the camp. How many people were there?
Tim Carter: I think it was right around 900, 950. I don’t know an exact number of people.
Reporter: What were you thinking when you were told that only 400 bodies had been recovered?
Tim Carter: I thought that 300 people had gotten out alive and they would be showing up very soon. It didn’t make sense to me that the 3 days we were in Port Kaituma that nobody showed up. Not one person had come out.
In the chaotic aftermath of Jonestown, both the survivors and Peoples Temple defectors were forced to stay at one of the only hotels in Guyana’s capitol, Georgetown. These opposing groups had been frightened and paranoid of each other for years, now the threat of so-called Peoples Temple hit squad had everyone on edge. For several days they were not allowed to leave the hotel while they were all questioned by police and the press. No one knew at first who, if anyone, would be prosecuted for the assassination of Congressman Ryan or the mass murders in Jonestown.
Tim Carter survived Jonestown when he and his brother along with Mike Prokes were given a suitcase full of money and told to take it to the Russian Embassy in Georgetown. They had been given guns and were told to kill themselves if they were caught.
Mike Carter: Yeah. We were told to kill ourselves.
Tim Carter: We were told to kill ourselves with the guns, that’s what we were told to do.
Mike Carter: Listen, if we were caught, and this is what we were told, if we were caught, we were told to kill ourselves. And, which is totally insane. And you can check with police, when we were in Kaituma the gun I had uh…
Harold Cordell: I think you guys are lying. I think you guys are lying. I don’t think any guns were given to you. How’d you get guns and we couldn’t get guns huh tell me that? God damn liars. They’re lying damn it. You saw what was going on there and you had access to guns huh?
Tim carter and his brother were now trapped in a hotel under police protection were bombarded by questions from the press. Tim carter had been close to the inner circle in Peoples Temple and had even acted as a double agent on behalf of Jim Jones, infiltrating the concerned relative’s group as a fake defector. He was instrumental in finding out the groups alleged plans to steal children from Jonestown and the supposed coming of a violent siege. Members of the concerned relative’s group were angry at the Carter brothers for not returning to Jonestown with the guns they had and stopping Jones from poisoning the entire community. Others didn’t believe their story, even speculating that the Carter brothers did return to Jonestown and that Tim Carter had in fact gone back to shoot Jim Jones.
The Carter brothers lost several family members in Jonestown, Tim watched as his wife and young son drank the Kool Aid before making his getaway into the jungle. The next day they were forced to return to Jonestown to identify bodies, already decaying in the jungle heat. This traumatic experience permeates interviews with the Carter brothers following the immediate aftermath of Jonestown. Loyal for so many years, the Carter Brothers now claimed to be brainwashed.
Mike Carter: There’s so much (Laughs) to the story of Peoples Temple. It’s as much of a dream as it is a nightmare. In some sense you know?
Tim Carter: I think what happened was monstrous. I don’t think there’s any words in the English language to describe the crime that took place in Jonestown and I’ll have guilt for the rest of my life that I didn’t do something to stop it when maybe I could have. There’s a lot of things that enter into it when you talk about mind control. He divided and conquered. He deliberately kept families apart from each other just so that kind of thing wouldn’t happen. Your questions are rational but your talking about an irrational situation.
Mike Carter: We are talking about what we were thinking then and I don’t want it used against us because obviously we were fools to stay in that organization. I realize it more that I was a fool and I hope none of this is going to be held against us. I mean I’m sure it will follow us the rest of our lives…
Tim Carter: It will be. Don’t worry it will be.
Mike Prokes: The place had to be surrounded. It had to be…
Tim Carter: I know there’s a lot of very rational questions that arise, but you have to remember these very irrational circumstances. Nothing that happened that day was normal. So, you don’t go through a rational process. I mean I could sit back and look at a lot of things, I could relive my whole life right now if I wanted to. I could see a whole lot of things I should have done and could have done and everything else, but I can’t because it’s done and its over with.
Mike Prokes: The fact remains that we ran for our lives. The place was surrounded. It had to be…
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, renowned psychiatrist and anti-cult activist arrived in Georgetown Guyana on November 27. Although he had little knowledge of the Peoples Temple, nor had he ever been to Jonestown he immediately sought out interviews with the press to explain what had happened that horrible day. Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo had strong opinions about the brainwashing abilities of Jim Jones and talked about the survivors as though they were hypnotized zombies. Although he had very little knowledge of the events he was widely quoted in the media and inevitably shaped the public’s perception of Jonestown as a drink the Kool Aid society.
Dr. Sukhdeo contradicted the medical findings of Dr. Mootoo’s autopsies and claimed it was a mass suicide rather than a murder scene. He spent ten days studying and reprogramming survivors trapped in a hotel in Georgetown. In 1974, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo had been the director of the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami Florida where he treated psychiatric patients suffering from demonic possessions with exorcisms. Records indicate up to 900 patients were treated a month in this way. In his autobiography Dr. Sukhdeo states that his main fields of study include homicide, suicide and the behavior of animals in electromagnetic fields. A native of Guyana, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo had grown up in the gold and uranium enriched swamplands and was taught the old superstitions and beliefs of his people. He claimed this, and not shameless self-promotion is what drew him back to Guyana to study to survivors of Jonestown. He told the press that he paid for the trip himself, but many believe he was sent by the state department to debrief the survivors of Jonestown. His psychiatric methods including hypnotherapy, memory regression, and use of the occult are highly controversial.
Tyrone Mitchell lost his parents, 4 sisters and a brother to Jonestown. He grew up going to the Peoples Temple in south central LA. Years later the house he grew up in was torn down to build an elementary school as a part of public works project. His family went to Jonestown, but Tyrone stayed behind. After they died in the mass tragedy, he suffered a mental breakdown and moved near the school where his old house used to be. His house had a crudely lettered sign that said, “god’s love”, and had a view of the schoolyard. Neighbors said that he had mental problems and abused narcotics like PCP. Tyrone liked guns and had some petty charges for discharging his firearm at the sky and at airplanes. In 1984 Tyrone shot at children from his bay window in his home as they went to recess. He shot 39 rounds from an AR-15 rifle and 18 rounds from two shotguns down into a crowd of students. Several children fell from their wounds in the schoolyard, while most escaped by running back into the school. Those who remained outside hid behind trees, garbage cans, and any other available cover. A team of paramedics rescued several children while Tyrone continued to fire from his second-story window. When the barrage had ceased the school was evacuated, Mitchell's house was surrounded by police. He killed 2 people and wounded 12 others. A standoff ensued for several hours as the police tried to convince Tyrone to give himself up. Eventually tear gas was used and they stormed the house. Tyrone was found dressed in survivalist gear, dead from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head. Other than his connection to Jonestown, no one who knew him could understand his motives for the mass shooting.
Mike Prokes Q665: Jim has done so many things and, I mean it’s been by his example that others have been willing to help the little guy who, who you don’t even hear about.
Attorney Q665: Yes, and see, that’s what I mean, look, I’ve been around a lot of quote “Christians”, you know, and uh, there’s got to be something else happening you know what I mean? And that’s what blew me away.
Mike Prokes Q665: Well, the, the thing that uh, that struck me when I, when I came was that if I saw nothing else, this would have done it for me, is people coming in, like in the wee hours of the morning, they were strung out on drugs and suicidal, had no place else to go, they would have ended up in jail, or dead…
Attorney Q665: Yeah.
Mike Prokes Q665: And you know, they were taken in, they were put in a structured program where they had immediate acceptance, but yet gradually came out of it through concern and through, through programs where they could apply their talents and abilities —
Attorney Q665: Umm-hmm.
Mike ProkesQ665: It, you know, would, would fill the vacuum that would cause them to go on drugs or commit crimes in the first place.
Attorney Q665: Sure.
Mike Prokes Q665: There have been uh, just countless uh, this is what makes up our, our congregation, and there’s a unity here and it’s like a, a large family, and it’s — I don’t know — it’s something that’s really indescribable, you really have to live inside.
Attorney Q665: No, I see, and I know what you’re talking about.
Mike Prokes escaped from Jonestown with the Carter brothers. He was the media spokesperson for the Peoples Temple. On March 13, 1979, 4 months after the tragedy, Mike Prokes called a press conference in a motel room. In front of 8 reporters he read a statement that begins, “Why did Jonestown end the way it did? I believe at least a good part of that answer can be found on the tape recording of the last hour of life in Jonestown.”. At this time the death tape had not been released to the public yet. The FBI had made a badly recorded duplicate for the Guyana government. Mike Prokes believed that this recording proved that the people of Jonestown were not brainwashed. A fact that could be embarrassing to the bungling American government. Even more damning, Mike believed that the recording showed that there was in fact a conspiracy to destroy the Jonestown community, and this tape proved that the people of Jonestown had no other choice than to take their own lives. I will now read a segment of Mike Prokes statement.
Mike Prokes Statement to the Press March 13, 1979:
“I believe, from the accounts I’ve been given, it would reveal too clearly something that the government does not want to admit and cannot admit – that Jonestown represents a symbol of the massive institutional failure of this country to meet the needs of its own citizens. It’s no coincidence that most of the members of Peoples Temple were black, when you consider that most of the inhabitants of the huge slums and ghettoes in virtually every large city of America are black. They don’t like living in misery and if they could get out, they would, but they aren’t being provided the opportunities they need to do so. What I’m saying is that the reason so many people died and took their children’s lives is because they believed their community – that they had built with their own hands – was under siege by the United States government, which I agree was the case. The State Dept. was well aware of the Temple’s negotiations to move to the Soviet Union in order to escape the threats to its security in Guyana. Undoubtedly the State Dept. and the CIA wanted to prevent a tremendous Soviet propaganda victory based upon nearly 1000 Americans moving to the Soviet Union in quest of the Human Rights they had been denied in the U.S. But to what lengths was the State Dept. prepared to go to discredit Jonestown? Would they sacrifice a congressman? Evidently. Otherwise, why did they allow Congressman Ryan to go to Jonestown when they were told in a legal affidavit that there [were] arms there and they knew the visit would be considered an act of provocation. Why did they allow it? Because the State Dept. wanted an incident. Well, they got it. I’m not even convinced that they got more than they bargained for, since the affidavit also told of suicide rehearsals – and warned the State Dept. that they should be taken seriously. Moreover, in a letter from Peoples Temple to the State Dept., it was stated that Temple members would rather die than be harassed from continent to continent. The State Dept. purposely called the bluff by sending Ryan; it was a deliberate act of provocation.
The truth about Jonestown is being covered up because our government agencies were involved in its destruction up to their necks. I am convinced of this because, among many other reasons, I was an informant when I first joined Peoples Temple. I didn’t remain one, however, because I came to realize that the Temple was probably the only hope for the many people it was helping off the streets, off drugs, out of crime, and out of mental institutions, jails, and prisons. I learned to identify with these people until they became my brothers and sisters and then I understood what it meant to be black and old and poor in this society – the hell of living every day in fear. The people of Jonestown died – as one suicide note said – because they weren’t allowed to live in peace. They died because they didn’t want to be left with no choice but to come back to live in the rat-infested ghettoes of America. They died for all those who suffer oppression. I refuse to let my black brothers and sisters and others in Jonestown, die in vain.”
Upon completion of his statement Mike Prokes went to the motel bathroom, turned on the faucet and shot himself in the head. A suicide note was found with the body that said.
“Don’t accept anyone’s analysis or hypothesis that this was the result of despondency over Jonestown. I could live and cope with despondency. Nor was it an act of a “disturbed” or “programmed” mind – in case anyone tries to pass it off as that. The fact is that a person can rationally choose to die for reasons that are just, and that’s just what I did. If my death doesn’t prompt another look at what brought about the end of Jonestown, then life wasn’t worth living anyway.”
The revelation that Mike Prokes at one time had worked for the FBI, spying on the Peoples Temple for 300$ a week came as a surprise to the press who’d spend countless hours trying to dig up any dirt on the temple. If this was true why can’t we find any of Mike Prokes weekly reports in the FBI records? How could the FBI not have a big fat file spanning ten years of temple history, or at least an investigation on record previous to the November 18 tragedy? It is possible that originally Mike Prokes infiltrated the Peoples Temple to write an expose, and spy for the FBI, but it is certain that what Mike found in Jonestown became his life’s purpose. In all the good and bad that was Peoples Temple, Mike found something to fight for and sadly, to die for.
Child Q668: And your whole system is based on money and our system is based on the people. So, you’re all worried about getting all your money and we’re worried about making it better for the people.
Child Q668: Yeah, and you wouldn’t make bombs to hurt people anyway. In socialism we aint got to have bodyguards. We can go pick off the trees of our own land. You don’t have to buy like 25$ and things like that and you can walk down the street with tailored suits and everything but in socialism everybody – one has one thing all because everything is in equality.
Children Q668: Right on brother! Right on!
The murder of Congressman Leo Ryan wasn’t the only assassination that occurred the week of November 18 1978. On November 27 just five days after the mass tragedy in Jonestown. San Francisco Mayer George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey milk were gunned down at city hall. Harvey milk was the first openly gay elected official. He was a passionate civil rights activist. The Peoples Temple enthusiastically supported Milk’s campaign and in return Harvey Milk publicly supported the Peoples Temple. He spoke at Temple meetings and had a personal correspondence with Jim Jones. The Peoples Temple helped Harvey milk get votes and higher attendance records for rallies. Milk’s connection to Peoples Temple was downplayed by the media after his assassination. Being an openly gay elected official fighting for gay rights in the seventies, Harvey Milk often received death threats. The week before Milk’s assassination he made an audio recording intended to be his last will and testament. Maybe it was the death threats, or rumors of a Peoples Temple hit squad, Milk was paranoid.
Harvey Milk Tape: This is Harvey Milk speaking from the camera store on the evening of Friday November the 18. This is to be played only in the event of my death by assassination. I’ve given some strong and long and considerable thought to this, not just since the election. I’ve been thinking of this for some time prior to the election and certainly over the years. I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for becomes a target or potential target for someone who is insecure, terrified, afraid. Knowing that I could be assassinated at any moment or anytime, I feel that it’s important that some people know my thoughts. The founding of my thoughts, my wishes, desires, whatever. I’d like to pass them on and have them played for the appropriate people. I stood for more than just a candidate. I have never considered myself a candidate. I have always considered myself part of a movement, part of a candidacy. I considered the movement the candidate. I think I was part of the gay movement and I think that, I wish I had time to explain everything I did. Almost everything was done because of the gay movement. I think those who remain in silence not wishing to play sides never understood the movement. Never understood that silence sometimes is worse than speaking out.
George Moscone ran for Mayor of San Francisco in 1975. He was also was an early proponent for gay rights. While campaigning Moscone met with the Peoples Temple and asked them to volunteer. The Peoples Temple took to the task with enthusiastic commitment writing letters and printing flyers, bussing in hundreds of followers to cheer at his rallies. Mike Prokes said that in return for the temples support, if Moscone was elected, Jim Jones was promised an important position in the local government. After Moscone was elected he made Jim Jones the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Committee.
Reporter: Jones moved his church headquarters to San Francisco eight years ago and aligned himself with some of the city’s top politicians. In 1976 Jones attended a campaign rally with Rosalind Carter. He became first a member and then Chairman of the San Francisco housing authority. Shortly after Mayor George Moscone accredited him with helping win his election.
George Moscone: If he believed in a candidate, he went all out for him. I mean he told people that this is a man who believes as we do in nonviolence and in trying to rectify wrongs and a decent person and he could impress people. I know the reputation he had when I asked him over two years ago to serve on the housing authority was that he was a man of peacefulness, of quietude. He was a person who discouraged the use of violence, particularly among poor and frustrated people who wanted to help them to rehabilitate themselves. To keep away from drugs and alcohol and he performed as a member of the housing authority in that fashion.
Moscone’s political opponent accused him of using Peoples Temple to commit election fraud. A special unit was set up to investigate the charges of fraud. Assistant District Attorney Timothy Stoen (as you may remember from previous episodes was at that time Jim Jones’ right-hand man) was selected to head the investigation. Timothy Stoen then employed Peoples Temple members to assist in the investigation. After the tragedy, Stoen, who defected from Peoples Temple in 1977, stated that he was not aware at the time of voter fraud. After Moscone’s assassination it was revealed that the Peoples Temple bussed hundreds of people from many different districts to vote, several individuals voting more than once. Jones instructed his people how they were to vote and threatened them if they couldn’t prove it to him with voting stubs. Moscone had frequented Peoples Temple parties and spoken at meeting. Jim Jones bragged that he had bribed Moscone with sexual favors from pretty girls and that he could blackmail him at any time.
Willie Brown Q784: Let me now present to you, my candidate for mayor and the man who’s the peoples choice Senator George Moscone.
George Moscone Q784: Willie Brown, you don’t need any hook with me, because you know I’m smarter than to give a speech after listening to Reverend Jim Jones. Now there are two people I’m glad I’m not running against, Cecil Williams and Jim Jones. (Laughs) as Reverend Jones said, that when the rich understand that they are to be treated as the poor as well, when the kind of calamity that the poor have endured all their lives befalls them, then we will have a coming together of all people, regardless of their economics. That when we learn a sharing of all of the material benefits of this country, that when we learn a sharing of all the intangible benefits of this country in the nature of love for everyone, then and only then will this country be a safe place in which all people can live.
In 1977 Dan White was elected to the San Francisco board of city supervisors. Outnumbered by his liberal compatriots, Dan White claimed to be the boards only defender of the home, the family and religious right. White frequently disagreed with other members of the board including Harvey milk. Dan White resigned on November 10, 1978 stating that the inner workings of city politics were corrupted by pot smoking cynics. Within a week he reconsidered and lobbied to get his job back. Dan white was not a friend to the civil rights movement or public works projects so Moscone refused to reappoint him. On November 27, Dan White entered city hall through a window to avoid the metal detector. He went to Moscone’s office and pleaded with him to be reinstated. When Moscone refused, Dan White pulled out a gun and shot him in the chest and shoulder, and twice in the head. White then made his way to Harvey Milks’ office reloading his gun with bullets from his pocket. He shot Harvey Milk 5 times, twice with the gun pressed against Harvey’s head execution style. He then fled to a diner and called his wife. She met him at a church where he confessed everything to her. She accompanied him to a police station where Dan White had once been a cop, there he made a full confession.
Dan White’s confession: I’ve been under an awful lot of pressure lately. Financial pressure because of my job situation. Family pressure because of not being able to have the time with my family. They traumatized my family by taking me, pressing charges against me at the district attorney’s office. Twice on false charges. That put a lot of pressure on me and my family. (Unintelligible) charging me with taking money from big corporations and not recording it. But I never did that. I never took money from anybody, but the papers printed it. Whether I was a good supervisor or not is not the point. This was a political opportunity and they were going to denigrate me, my family and the job that I tried to do and more or less hang me out to dry.
Police: Dan can you tell inspector (Wise?) and myself, what was your plan this morning? What did you have in mind?
Dan White: I didn’t have any devised plan or anything. I was leaving the house to see the mayor and I went downstairs, and I had my gun down there.
Police: Is this your police service revolver Dan?
Dan White: I don’t know. I just put it on. I don’t know why I put it on. You know I was just going over there to see if he was going to reappoint me and if not the reasons why. And I went in to see him and he told me that he wasn’t going to reappoint me, and he wasn’t intending to tell me about it, he had some…and then that was it. Then I… I just shot him.
Dan White’s confession was played for the jury during his trial bringing some of the jurors to tears. He claimed that false charges of corruption had been brought up against him, and even though the district attorney had cleared him, his political career was ruined. Dan White blamed Harvey and Moscone. During Dan White’s trial his defense attorneys argued that he was mentally operating in a diminished capacity due to depression. They argued against a conviction of first-degree murder. A forensic psychiatrist testified that Dan White had once been very fit and healthy, but the pressures of life had caused him to turn to junk food for solace. This famously became known as the Twinkie defense. Believe it or not it worked, Dan White executed two unarmed elected city officials at point blank range, using a window to enter city hall with extra bullets in his pocket, yet the jury, sympathetic to Dan White found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years. Needless to say, this caused serious outrage in San Francisco’s gay community sparking several riots. These riots ironically became known as the White night riots and eventually led to the elimination of California’s diminished capacity law in manslaughter trials. Dan White served 5 years of his 7-year sentence. Upon news of his release from prison the new Mayor of San Francisco publicly requested that Dan White never return to the city. Regardless of this, he moved back to San Francisco and attempted to salvage his marriage and family. Failing to do this he ran a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the interior of his car and committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.
Paula Adams Q245: My name is Paula Adams, and I first met Jim Jones seven- well, let’s see- about ten years ago as a schoolteacher. He was a schoolteacher in a current event class that I took. And I didn’t know he was a Marxist then, and I thought he was the most sensitive and humanistic person I’d ever met in my life, and he had opened my eyes to oppression and things that were going on in the world that I didn’t even know were happening, and he made a way for me to work for people, to help people, and I became a communist. I’m proud I’m a communist, and I’m grateful that he led me to become something that can actually help people, ’cause that’s what communism is all about. I came to Guyana with the first group of people that came down over four years ago. And we came with the intention of helping a third world nation, a third world socialist nation build, as well as bringing our people to a place where they could live in peace. I’m sorry things didn’t work out that way, but the imperialistic forces of the United States have reached down here and put pressure on this country so that they cannot uphold what they see is right, and everyone here has said- that I’ve met in Guyana has said, that we are a model socialist community, and that we are a perfect collective in the socialist sense, and tonight I am proud to die as a Marxist-Leninist with this collective, and I am proud to die with Jim Jones.
Paula Adams was one of the first Peoples Temple members to go to Guyana in 1974. She was a charming and beautiful woman who worked closely with the Guyanese government. Her flair for public relations was instrumental in getting all the permits needed to build Jonestown. Because the end always justified the means with Jim Jones, he didn’t complain when she began an affair with the Guyanese Ambassador to the US, Lawrence Mann. Jim Jones didn’t usually like to share the more powerful women of the temple, but the influence afforded him by the affair made up for any petty jealousy. Every meeting with the Guyanese government involved Paula in some way, without her influence and inside knowledge Jonestown would have been at the mercy the local newspapers and a corrupt government. Lawrence Mann was married so their relationship was secret, Paula became depressed and suicidal because of the complexities of the affair and for a very simple reason, she fell in love with Lawrence, something truly forbidden to the temples upper crust. Even so, her unshakable loyalty to Jim Jones inspired espionage. Paula tape recorded many of her conversations with Lawrence Mann for Jones’ use. Paula Adams returned to the United States in December of 1978. She had been in Georgetown during the mass tragedy. She moved to the east coast and married Lawrence Mann and they had a child. Paula and Lawrence tried to move on with their lives but the relationship was abusive and so they separated. Paula Adams died in October 1983, almost five years after the deaths in Guyana. Lawrence and Paula were having an argument when he shot her and their child before turning the gun on himself. Like so many who escaped Jim Jones, Paula Adams life ended in tragedy.
The unsolved murder of the Mertle family in 1980 has always particularly disturbed me. Elmer and Deanna Mertle joined Peoples Temple in 1969 along with five of their children. Deanna ran the temples publications office while Elmer was a photographer. They were loyal to the temple for five years, fighting for civil rights and spreading temple propaganda through brochures and flyers. In 1974 Elmer and Deanna watched as their 16-year-old daughter Linda was beaten over 70 times with a paddle for a minor infraction of Peoples Temple rules. They decided the disciplinary tactics of the temple were both illogical and abusive, so they took their five children and ran. Like so many other defectors from Peoples Temple, the Mertle’s found themselves legally bound to the mumbo jumbo web of lies that Jones claimed were iron clad contracts allowing him domain over their children and property. The threats against their life and campaign of hate waged against them by the temple, forced them to change their names to Al and Jeannie mills in 1974.
Jim Jones Q713: Speaking.
Linda Mertle Q713: This is Linda Mertle. I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t call up to my house anymore, you know, and talking this shit to my mom ‘cause it’s not necessary, you know. If she can do what she wants to do with her– it’s– the freedom in this community…
Jones Q713: I’ve said what I had to say, and we can do what we want to do too.
Linda Mertle Q713: Okay, you had your turn to call. I have my turn to call, all right? Now you look here. If you don’t want me fucking with you, and you don’t want me getting my people on you, you stay away from my house. Don’t you do no shit to my momma. You hear me, now? Cause I’m gonna have you hurt.
Jones Q713: Well, you’re gonna hear me.
Linda Mertle Q713: Oh, I don’t want to hear you.
Jones Q713: Yeah, if she keeps her mouth and her pen off of us–
Linda Mertle Q713: My momma can write what she wants to write. Don’t you tell me what she can’t do. This is a free country.
Jones Q713: Well, Linda, you do what you want, we do what we want.
Linda Mertle Q713: Hey, look. You do what you want to do, but don’t do it my momma.
Jones Q713: Well, I had everything I got to say about it, and I’ll see you later, sister. Good evening.
Linda Mertle Q713: Go to hell.
Having once been an integral part of the Peoples Temple propaganda ministry, the Mills were now their most vocal critics using their PR skills to focus government and media attention on Jones.
Reporter: Mr. Mills you were in that church, you’ve heard some of the things that we’ve discussed. Tell us what your views are.
Elmer Mertle/Al Mills: Well, I think any politician after reading the new west article and after hearing the subsequent article that came out in the examiner to continue to unquestionably be involved with Jim Jones is blind. I think you still haven’t reconciled the fact that Jim Jones cared nothing for you but what he could get out of you. Jim Jones used every politician. He cares for no one but Jim Jones.
Jeannie Mills published a book entitled “Six Years with God”, exposing the child abuse and con artistry perpetrated by Jones and his followers. She also established the Human Freedom Center, a safe place for ex temple members to receive counseling and any help they might need whilst trying to defect. The damning New West article that had spelled the beginning of the end for Jones and caused him to flee into the jungle featured an expose on the temple’s brainwashing techniques taken from interviews with the Mills. After doing the New West article Jeannie said it felt like they had signed their death warrant.
Shirley Hicks Q594: So, since I’ve been here, I’ve grown stronger, and I realize that there’s no family like the one I have now, and I’d rather not even think of them as being part of the family. I’d like to buy a big white church and put all of them in it and blow it up.
Jones Q594: (Enthusiastic laughter) A big white church. God damn I love these kids. “I’m gonna kill my mother god damn it, slice her up and cook her.”. (Laughter) White night.
There is no question looking through the transcripts of Jim jones that he had it out for the Mills and blame them along with the Stoens for many of the temple’s problems. He even claimed they had infiltrated the temple as part of the FBI co intelligence program (cointelpro) and had been against them from the beginning. The Mills worked as part of the concerned relative’s group to petition Congressman Leo Ryan to investigate Jonestown. After the assassination and mass tragedy, the Mills family was under police protection for a time but eventually attempted to resume a normal life.
Jones Q606: I don’t need police, laws or incentives or rewards. In fact, I have lived a death ever since my childhood dying daily, tortured daily, to love others, to fight for them, to win their battles. Your Father cares. He is a communist, and his ideal towers above us, his model highly exalted, proven in consciousness, full and practice. Look to him.
On Feb 26, 1980 Al and Jeannie Mills along with their 15-year-old daughter Daphene were found shot in their home in Berkley California. They had been shot with a 22-caliber pistol loaded with exploding bullets. The bodies were discovered by the grandmother. Al and Jeannie were already dead and Daphne died a few days later at the hospital. There was no sign of forced entry or theft. Eddie, their 17-year-old son was in his room smoking weed and listening to music at the time. He was found unharmed, His grandmother found him in his room wearing headphones, oblivious to what had just happened in the tiny house. Eddie was the lead suspect in the case. He had gunshot residue on his hands and would now inherit 200k from the estate of his parents. He and many family members were questioned but was eventually let go and the case went unsolved.
Many people thought that a Peoples Temple hit squad had murdered the Mills and brainwashed Eddie. There were even theories that Eddie had never left the temple or had been part of a drug deal gone bad. Neighbors reported seeing a white van leave the Mills property around the time of the murders prompting conspiracy theorist to suppose that the FBI was silencing the Mills as part of a huge cover-up involving anyone who had held any power in the Peoples Temple. Or those who worked alongside the FBI’s cointelpro. Only two days before the murders the Mills had finished their final interviews with the FBI as part of an exhaustive and highly secretive investigation into the temple.
During their time in the temple Jeannie and Al Mills had believed in Jim Jones as a healer. They believed that Jones had cured Eddies irregular heartbeat by using telepathy. As a child Eddie had endured harsh beatings and mental torture as part of his upbringing in the temple. On November 18, Eddie lost many friends and the world of his childhood disappeared.
Jones Q268: I want to be sure that we have something on tape that we can review that U.S. citizens would step up with a note and see that we are getting certain questions answered. Anytime Mazor, the former conspirator who is now an informer, says anything, we should immediately ask him, is there any way that he has– what he has said could be validated, proven? How do we clearly identify the agents in our project and in Guyana? Because he will know. This is so we can tell where he’s going with us. At this point, he should volunteer about the man in immigration here that’s a CIA agent. If he is sincere. What does he know about assassination attempts, mercenaries, and so on? Where is the money coming from? Who is financing this thing? Who is basically orchestrating or calling the shots?
You may remember in a previous episode we discussed Joseph Mazor; the private investigator hired by the Mills to investigate Jonestown. After spending some time with Jim Jones, Mazor became a double agent reporting on the activity of the concerned relative’s group and warning Jones about their plans to kidnap children from Jonestown. He claimed that the defectors were planning a violent siege to get their children out and he encouraged Jones to become more militant and heavily supply their armory with a variety of weapons. At the same time Mazor hired one of the largest public relations firms in San Francisco to show him how to handle the media for a Peoples Temple smear campaign. In the end Joseph Mazor was a manipulator who gave credence to Jones already paranoid rhetoric by helping to create a conspiracy against the Peoples Temple. Apparently Mazor had a criminal record that included charges of fraud and forgery, so he worked under his wife’s state inspectors license. What inspired the man to play both sides of such a dangerous game is a mystery, these were desperate people who on one side wanted to save their loved ones from a madman in the jungle and on the other a socialist group who just wanted to be left alone. What Joseph Mazor stood to gain by the death and suffering of so many people in unclear.
The Peoples Temple released flyer about Mazor that said
WE HAVE DOCUMENTED PROOF THAT “PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR” JOSEPH MAZOR IS A SPECIAL AGENT FOR INTERPOL – THE NAZI-INFESTED INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL POLICE ORGANIZATION BEGUN IN HITLER’S GERMANY!
The flyer goes on to explain what Interpol is and compares it to the Gestapo. Mazor never said who funded him though he did specify that he was not receiving any money from any defectors of the Peoples Temple. On November 16, 1985 Joseph Mazor was shot dead by his wife during an argument. His motivations, and his secrets died with him.
In the years following the events November 18, 1978 the US government has spent millions investigating the Peoples Temple. Allegations of gun running, money laundering, drug smuggling and hit squads caused the FBI to leave no stone unturned, yet, the government could never prove any of these charges. Enormous resources were also poured into manipulation of the media and the suppression of information to ensure that the public saw Jonestown as a cult of crazies, so isolated and different from everyday Americans that a crime of this magnitude could never happen again, and certainly never on American soil. Just don’t drink the Kool Aid, it’s that easy.
In 1993 the Bureau of alcohol tobacco and firearms raided a Branch Davidian compound in Waco Texas investigating reports of an illegal weapons stockpile. There was an intense gun battle followed by a highly publicized 51-day standoff. The Davidians barricaded themselves in and finally the FBI decided to use tear gas to smoke them out. a fire erupted engulfing the compound and killing all 76 American citizens trapped inside. The media immediately referenced Jonestown, generalizing these people as cult members who had set themselves on fire in yet another mass suicide.
We may never know for sure what caused the fire, but one thing is for certain. If we do not remember the past, we are condemned to repeat it.
End Transmission