Episode 9 Q875 Is it too late for Russia
Jones Q436: I mean, I understand the Universe. But I know one damn thing: our mind goes beyond the Universe. It don’t stop in no damn casket. When you commit suicide, you’re in the worst kind of hell you ever were in.
Dear father,
If you please…
Jones Q757: You might say, well, the death of the movement would be good, because then I won’t be alive, then I can do my thing. But why do you take that right? I wish I could take that right, but I can’t morally take that right. I could die tonight, then I’d be out of my misery. But the death of the movement— All of the United States from one end to the other, there’s a conversation about Peoples Temple going on. They made it; those people made it. Thousand socialists over there in Guyana. The ambassador told us yesterday, the talk of Congress, we’re the talk of Congress. Okay, we’re the talk of Congress. You can know we’re the talk of the Left. They’re watching us, the Soviet Union fascinated by us, they come by— the Cubans every day, the Soviet Union. Totally fascinated. In fact, a little threatened, by our goodness and our lack of elitism. But they’re going to come and study it, they said that we could be a model. The Soviet Ambassador stood spellbound, he was spellbound by the fact, he said, Jim Jones took the church and used the church to bring people to atheism? And the communists’ study? Not even communist practice, he’d be overwhelmed by the communist practice, even though some of you don’t know why you’re practicing communism. He said, you mean you— he got the church and got them out of atheism, he said, we haven’t been able to do that with the Soviet Union’s churches in 50 years.
Well, the fact is, to be humble, some of us are not out of it, but— and then you’ve got that paranormal factor that does kind of confuse things. It confuses me, when I can raise somebody up like Rose and stop our young comrade Williams from being crippled, I don’t mean crippled, paralyzed. And, that— that troubles me, and why three people die in three years, like I mention in para— parliamentary procedure and each die on March 10, three members of Parliament in one small country — very weird — but that doesn’t make me believe there’s any loving God. No. There’s a long jump from my power to heal, to believe there’s something loving up there. ‘Cause if there’d been something loving up there, they’d have left us alone and never made us take the trip in the first place.
You’re listening to Transmissions from Jonestown, this is episode 9 : Q875- Is it too late for Russia?
Communism and the Peoples Temple. Just how dedicated to Karl Marx ideologies were the people of Jonestown? Understanding what the Peoples Temple stood for as a socialist movement and why certain choices were made depends upon which historical perspective you view the events of November 18, 1978. As an outsider it’s difficult to understand what motivated people to sell all their possessions and follow Jim Jones deep into the jungle, only to perish. The most educated people in the highest echelons of temple hierarchy were communists and more than a few of them wanted to resettle the temple in Russia. Yet the true aspirations held by temple leadership other than Jim Jones are rarely considered when defining Peoples Temple.
Jones Q1053-1: Time has come for us to stop worrying, because some of us worry about dying, every day, and you could only die once, so let us cease from our worrying’s, and lay aside all these heavy weights that have held us back, and go forward with me. I’m going to speak absolutely more and more and tell you of the assurance of wherein I stand and wherein I speak, for I know where I am going, better than anybody in the universe. This is avant-garde, the advance class, and we’re going to move forward. There is no way to look back. Put blinders on now, quit letting your thoughts bother you, intellectualism is the greatest defeating force, don’t let your own mind of self-preservation try to destroy you. Don’t think about what will happen if you venture for faith. You know this faith is right. You know it is God, and you know it is beautiful, so don’t take any thought for tomorrow, take no thought for what you shall wear, take no thought for you shall put on I have commanded you in the Sonship degree, to go into the prisons and bring them out. I have commanded you to feed the hungry, I have commanded to give water to the thirsty, I have commanded you to let the captives go free, I have commanded you to fight against capitalism from the beginning of time and now I say, put your blinders on and go forward.
As the horrific events in Jonestown played themselves out like an epic Shakespearean tragedy, the motivations of these people are overshadowed by extreme violence, upstaged by the immense scope of carnage and Jim Jones psychosis. An army of psychiatrist, the press, and conspiracy theorists attempted to define Jonestown for the world and law enforcement. They presented Jonestown as a prison, full of ravenous brainwashed zealots, eagerly following the pied piper of lies to their deaths. The many tape recordings demonstrating the Peoples Temples message of social justice and equality, were drowned out by the screams of children heard on the death tape.
Harriet Tropp Q245: My name is Harriet Tropp. I am 28 years old, and I have been educated at the University of California-Berkeley, and I have also been to law school for three years and have a degree in law, if that means anything, which I don’t think it does, except to show you that I am certainly not anyone that has had my mind made up for me, not for many years, and I’m a Marxist-Leninist and I believe – and I have listened to discussion here all night and I participated in it – that if it’s my own personal choice as to what I would prefer to do, I emulate and I agree with the tactics of the Red Brigade, and I think there could be nothing better that I could do with my life personally than give it for the cause of communism in that fashion. However, I don’t see that as a possible alternative for us. We have many children, many seniors, and I know that it would be impossible for them to participate in such activity, or to be accepted in any society where such activity is- is presently and currently going on. So, I feel that our alternatives have been closed off, and we have no other solution but to hope that by our deaths, somewhere somebody sees that we really meant business when we said that we were Marxist-Leninists wanting to live that communist life, And maybe somebody somewhere will get the message. I don’t know.
I hope that listening to Transmissions from Jonestown has broadened the worlds perspectives on the Peoples Temple. The raw audio they left behind is like a window to another time in a very different world. So much has changed since 1978, but as the events of history ripple outward towards infinity, patterns emerge. Listening to the story of Jonestown may bring up more questions than answers. Truth often requires those who search for it to accept coincidence as a form of nature. To simply accept that all the people of Jonestown were brainwashed is not only illogical but socially irresponsible.
What impact does a collective experience like mass suicide have on a society that has to live beyond it? Does it breed fear and suspicion into the generations that follow or cultivate feelings of apathy and hopelessness? The Guyanese have mythological traditions that help them culturally explore the darker aspects of human nature. As a society we condemn cults and their leaders. They’re considered antisocial phenomena’s existing outside of American society and damn them to their fates.
Segregating groups of perceived terrorists from American society serves only one purpose, to silence the voices of dissent and stop revolution from liberating the oppressed. By refusing to examine our own history without societal bias we have lost the ability to discern the voice of a fanatical tyrant from that of a revolutionary savior. Jim Jones leading his loyal flock into damnation, exploit’s our deepest fears that somewhere in our community an evil waits, plotting to destroy our way of life and corrupt the morals of our children.
Male Q357: Father’s voice called her to get up three times. It took– third time, she said Father called out loud, and she jumped to her feet to discover the house was blazing and filled with smoke. She woke up the rest of the children, and they had to go right through the fire to get to the front door. When they got outside, they were all right, but realized the baby was still inside, asleep. My young boy went back in, right through the blazing fire to get the baby, and they came outside without a burn on them, she says. Father is the one and only God there is, and no one can take that away from me. None of my children were even singed by the fire or harmed by the smoke.
If a grand conspiracy against the Peoples Temple existed, we will likely never know for sure. Clearly Jim Jones and many of his followers believed, at least for a while, in the cause and Jonestown. The apostolic socialism that was the battle cry for the Peoples Temple was considered to be a dangerous concept in South America. Many obstacles and unfortunate circumstances failed the Peoples Temple agricultural project and Jim Jones was mentally ill. The paranoia that fed the movement relied on the idea that the United States government and American society was apathetic towards the Peoples Temple.
When the US government found out about the mass tragedy in Jonestown their response was to request that the Guyanese Government dig a mass grave and bury the remains at the settlement. When victims’ families requested the final social security checks to bury their loved ones they were denied and the US Government used the money to pay itself back for the cleanup of Jonestown. The FBI’s investigation into the death of Congressman Leo Ryan was restricted by the Department of Justice. The State Department denied accountability, law enforcement officials lied about their affiliations with the temple, and the press threw their hands up and said I told you so.
It seemed that this tragic event and the terrible loss of life that effected thousands of American families wasn’t important enough to discern culpability in a crime that in the end was blamed on the supposedly brainwashed victims and then eventually forgotten. Jonestown marks the end of an era. Reagan’s the war on drugs was just beginning and capitalism was cool again. Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple became a cautionary tale relegated to its historical low point in a decade known for violence, drugs and industrial decline. This episode focuses on the Peoples Temples connections to organizations and Governments more sympathetic to its cause and the struggles of socialism. The opinions and ideas expressed in this episode do not always mirror my own. I would like to thank the anonymous contributors whom without their voices this episode would not be possible.
Stanley Clayton hid in the bush near Jonestown. He was lucky to be alive having barely escaped the chaotic scene of mass suicide in the pavilion. The sound of Jim Jones rambling on the microphone, demanding his people die with dignity, had given away to an eerie silence. The death ritual was complete. The Peoples Temple had committed revolutionary suicide. Paralyzed with fear Stanly loitered in the darkness, plotting his next step. Stanly wondered, was this the climax of the movement? Were Jim Jones and his staff planning their final moments? Or, was everyone already dead? The last few months in Jonestown had been the worst. Invisible enemies constantly laid siege upon the settlement keeping everyone awake for days a time. The community worked double time in the fields while their food supply dwindled. Father was always sick and confused. Jim Jones drug use had intensified and those closest to him knew he was going mad. Hopelessness thickened the atmosphere in Jonestown while the people toiled and starved those final dreary months. As he crouched in the bush Stanly was startled by sounds erupting from the pavilion in Jonestown. A group of people were cheering. Three times they raised their voices in celebration. After the violence and apocalyptic carnage of the day a small group of people had survived. This surreal moment caused Stanly to consider, could everything he knew about Jonestown be a lie?
Jones Q979: Jones: So, let’s keep our shit together here. Stanley Clayton. They think it’s the second chapter of the new testament. I’m so goddamn pissed, I want to stutter, I’m so depressed with it. The people in here don’t know shit. They don’t care about shit. Only thing they worry about is that Father could knock me dead. And I can too, goddamn ‘em. I’ll knock ‘em dead if they try to destroy this organization. I’ll be glad when they bury you, you fucker.
Anonymous contributor M: After the Peoples Temple attorneys Mark Lane and Charles Geary had escaped into the jungle, they heard machine gunfire coming from Jonestown. The parks children, lost in the jungle near Port Kaituma, saw helicopters fly into Jonestown on the night of the mass suicides and could hear the echoes of gunfire coming from far away. The radio in Jonestown went dead that night. No one could get through. Jones urged his people to die with dignity before the military arrived and started killing people. He knew it was going to happen and made sure to plan a way out for himself and his closest followers. It wasn’t a mass suicide. They were slaughtered.
Jones Q943: Good people have died, good chickens. Some of you aren’t worth the value of a chicken. You cheat, you lie, you’d do any goddamn thing in a corner, anytime you’re up against pressure? Anytime that you’re really called on to show your colors. You are a motherfucker! A chicken would protect their babies quicker than you, but a little pressure comes your way, and you’re a goddamn miserable sell-out. A chicken’s got more value than you, and yet you think you’ve got a right to live. Well, you no good son of a bitching motherfucker. Go tell it to the chickens next time they come in tomorrow. You go back there and tell the chickens all why you should have a good life and why you should be able to enjoy yourself and sport around. Why you should have a kitchen, why you should be able to eat what you want. Go tell the goddamn chickens tomorrow, I dare you! Look at them while they wait to die, and tell them how much better life you deserve, ‘cause you die like a chicken, a chicken suffers, its squawk of its voice continues after the head is separated from it. It’s one of the most cruel, heartrending, painful experiences.
Someone said “Father, why do you put yourself through it?” I said, “So I can realize I’m no better than a goddamn chicken.” You hear them squawk after the head is cut off, all the way, while the blood is draining out, you hear that chicken crying, and they lay their head down, the eyes gasping open and shut and its mouth going open and shut, for a minute and a half of agony, that you can eat, and some of you are not worth a chicken leg. You’re not worth a chicken wing. You’ve got so much goddamn selfishness, you ought to die and let somebody eat you.
Anonymous contributor J: If you look at the Ariel photographs taken of Jonestown you can see huge tread marks in the mud that extend from the far end of the settlement past the pavilion and ending in a large muddy area where several large construction or military sized vehicles had recently been parked. It almost looks as if a handful of survivors in Jonestown had attempted to dig a mass grave with a bulldozer near the pavilion but were interrupted. Or maybe the tracks are from trucks unloading bodies of people that had run into the jungle and were shot by green berets stationed nearby. What’s weird about these marks is that not only are the vehicles gone, but there are bodies lying in the tread marks indicating that several large vehicles, possibly tanks or bulldozers had visited Jonestown sometime after the congressman left but before the mass suicide happened.
Why would anyone choose to balance themselves face down on a muddy track while convulsing after ingesting cyanide? Not to mention people who supposedly chose to die on top of other people who were going through their death throws. Really look at these photographs and you’ll see that some of the bodies are frozen in strange positions, like they had died at another location sitting up or their arms are raised in self-defense. Whatever position these people died in they remained long enough for rigor mortis to set in and then were moved. Nothing about the way the remains in Jonestown were supposedly found makes logical sense.
Jones Q393: I appreciate all of you who watch your tongue, you don’t know who may be listening. You don’t know who in the hell you’re talking about. It didn’t hurt us, ‘cause fortunately I confuse people sometimes. I never tell things just exactly, all the news. If you go out and tell I’m going to Russia, I’ll tell you’re a liar, and they can give me a lie detector test, and I’ll prove it. I’ll make that needle say whatever I want that needle to say. Talk about helicopters, asking where helicopter best could land. It’s marvelous for them to think of us in a situation like that.
After the United States Military airlifted the last of the remains out of Jonestown the settlement was taken over by the Guyanese Government. For two years they contemplated what should be done with the site. The macabre idea of turning Jonestown into a tourist attraction was considered. The Guyanese Government realized that might not be the best kind of tourism for a desolate jungle enclave with few transportation options. The Guyanese people were superstitious about Jonestown. The evil white man who had persuaded his people to massacre each other evoked mythology well known in the northwest region. No one wanted to farm the land or live anywhere near Jonestown. Many Guyanese wanted Jonestown to be destroyed. An evangelical group named World Vision offered to settle refugees from Laos in what had once been Jonestown.
Anonymous contributor G: World Vision is a lot like the Peoples Temple but on a massive scale. They have missions in over 90 countries and are worth billions of dollars. They often front for the CIA; World Vision operates on a global scale selling its evangelical mind control programs to the highest bidder. Using their cover as Christian missionaries they rig government elections and train mercenaries all over the world. If the Peoples Temple was an experimental failure, World Vision was a tremendous success. Famous members of World Vision include Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon and John Hinckley SR father of John Hinckley JR., the man who attempted to assassinate president Ronald Reagan. World Vision repopulated Jonestown with Hmong mercenaries and recommenced its behavioral modification programs two years after Jonestown.
The largest of the two Peoples Temple boats, the Albatross was on a supply run to Trinidad when the mass tragedy occurred in Jonestown. Four Peoples Temple members including George Phillip Blakey and eight Guyanese were on the boat during the massacre.
Anonymous contributor R: George Phillip Blakey made a phone call to his father in law Lawrence Layton from Panama before emptying the Peoples Temples swiss bank account and fleeing to Grenada. Maurice Bishop, a black power advocate and New Jewel leader was preparing to take over Grenada. The New Jewel movement wanted independence from Britain and a socialist government. George Phillip Blakey set up a safe place for Peoples Temple survivors at the mental hospital in Grenada operated by Sir Geoffrey Bourne and staffed by his son Dr. Peter Bourne.
Dr. Peter Bourne had once been America’s drug tsar working for Jimmy Carter, but after he was caught writing valium prescriptions for politicians, he resigned his position. During his time as drug tsar he set up methadone clinics and participated in psychological experiments in Vietnam. In Grenada, Dr. Bourne worked at the mental hospital teaching doctors the latest and greatest mind control techniques. Jonestown’s Dr. Larry Schacht, had trained with Dr. Bourne prior to going to Jonestown. Jim Jones had originally wanted to settle in Grenada and even invested money in the Grenada National Bank.
There were rumors that Peoples Temple members now living in Grenada might start their own shipping company and rebuild the temple there. During the American invasion of Grenada in 1983, the only building destroyed during the invasion was Dr. Bourne’s mental hospital. Later in his career Dr. Bourne became the assistant secretary general to the United Nations and worked on International Human Welfare projects that specifically focused on the world’s most precious resource, drinking water.
The overly complicated financial structure housing the assets of the Peoples Temple confused investigators in the aftermath of Jonestown. The Guyana Government had lost a plane and the US military had spent millions airlifting remains out of Jonestown. Everyone wanted a piece of whatever wealth the people of Jonestown had left behind. A conservative estimate of Peoples Temple assets at the time was eight million dollars. Others said anywhere from twenty million to one billion dollars existed in offshore banks.
Jones Q833: There’s an element in the country that is under the control of the CIA, that we are positive of that, because a friend in the US embassy has told us that. The group that supposedly pretends to be Black Nationalist but is actually headed by the CIA, because we have gotten close enough to US embassy through another means, that he- a man told us that he actually knows that he asked for CIA funds.
Anonymous contributor M: The Peoples Temple in Indianapolis was funded by the Central Intelligence Agency through Rabbi Davis. Jim Jones continued to receive financial support from the CIA funneled through the Layton’s, and the Blakey’s. Jones hid temple assets using dummy organizations and opened accounts under the names of fake religious groups. One of these accounts was in Panama under the name, the Religious Association of St. Peter. The Religious Association of St. Peter is one of twelve fake companies set up by Archbishop Paul Marcinkus to launder illegal investments of Vatican funds into South America. These funds were used to arm right wing militias such as the contras and directly funded CIA black ops. When the scandal hit the news the president of Panama resigned and the Italian Mafia killed the chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano. Detailed records of the account named The Religious Association of St. Peter disappeared, presumably because someone cashed it out.
Jones Q231: Let us work, because if we do not work, if we do not produce, if we do not save, if we do not think of ways of making money which are to be turned in. If we don’t do these things, if we don’t work, if we don’t carry our shoulder of responsibility, we are killing someone, literally killing someone that could get to freedom. this anti-socialist conspiracy against us, has found a way to try to cut off all of our properties. We’re having to sell them cheaply, and having to reduce them immediately, so we can get our people out from under the gun of that class enemy and the conspiracy of Senator Stennis, the CIA and the police red squad, terribly vicious, racist, anti-communist squad in San Francisco that were involved in the murder of our son Chris Lewis. We’re living in a COINTELPRO, we’re living in a Parallax View, we’re living in Z, right now in USA. Please show that you care by working as you never did before.
Conspiracies cloud Peoples Temple’s history and dilutes the message of the movement. The persecution and paranoia felt by the Peoples Temple may have been well warranted. In the past their temple had been burnt down, their leader had been shot at, and even in Guyana the same government forces that horrified Jim Jones were active in Georgetown. But to what degree did the Peoples Temple understand the political climate in Guyana and the CIA’s role in Burnham’s government? Was Jim Jones guilty of experimenting on his own people, or was he also a victim manipulated by sources outside of the temple, or even within it?
Jones Q154: Caused absolute anarchy. And we won’t have it. So, you’ll see me when the lights get low. After a long time, you’re gonna see me when the lights get low, but I will sneak up on you at any night, any hour. Now, please remember that. And you think they won’t be found out. The day helpers are on the ball, they’re going to be finding it out, and at night I’m going to be finding it out, because I know I can stealthily get into your house and observe what you are doing and you won’t even hardly know I’m there until you see me.
Anonymous contributor G: The FBI’s counterintelligence program was specifically designed to disrupt and destroy counterculture movements from the inside out. They wiretapped Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, experimented on African Americans in Vacaville prison, and destroyed the Black Panther movement. They infiltrated civil rights groups and incarcerating their leaders. FBI agents would take control of these groups and introduce them to drug cartels. Pretty soon, gangs were showing up to peace marches and antagonizing the police, starting riots. White flight segregated poor black neighborhoods even more than before and now drug pushers ruled the streets. The FBI trained LAPD in counter insurgency techniques against American citizens and ensured that African Americans who stirred up trouble cycled into the prison system while FBI sponsored drug cartels were protected from any real prosecution.
Jim Jones knew about corruption in the LAPD. Four of his bodyguards that shot congressman Leo Ryan had trained at the Los Angeles police academy. He knew who was on the FBI’s payroll within the walls of Peoples Temple and who wasn’t. Once people were moved to Jonestown, he could deal with those who worked for the FBI.
Jones Q734: You miserable goddamned punk. We’ll put him in the fucking box with the frog tonight. Then see if you can stay away from the frog. One touch of the fucking frog! How about that, Willie boy? Big old Gangland Willie boy? How about going in the box tonight with the frog?
Malone Q734: Dad, uh–
Jones Q734: How about the frog?
Malone Q734: Truthfully–
Jones Q734: Why don’t we get the frog? Why don’t you put your hand in there with the frog?
Malone Q734: Dad–
Jones Q734: Come on, Willie boy, put your hand in there, put your hand in there, Willie boy–
Scattered in crowd Q734: Where’s the frog? Get the frog.
Jones Q734: Put your hand in there, put your hand in there, Willie boy! We might as well be free from you. Nobody’ll see it! Nobody’ll see it.
From the beginning of his career Jones claimed there was a conspiracy against him and his movement. He used this throughout the temple’s history to emphasis his importance as their leader and energize his congregation. Whether he believed his embellishments or not the undeniable presence of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1970’s Guyana likely added to the pressures felt by Jim Jones in Jonestown. Either Jones was unaware that the US Embassy in Georgetown was a CIA Headquarters, or he did not consider just how close in proximity the promised land would be to anticommunist black ops involving the United States Military. Guyana was on the brink of a socialist revolution barely held at bay by vigilant CIA backed pro American activists. The economic future of Guyana depended upon a benefactor, it could either be the United States, or Russia. Burnham in the 1970’s attempted to play both sides much to the detriment of Guyana.
Jones Q342: The Soviet Union is very, very interested in us. A blanket invitation has been made. The decision to go will be ours, and it’s good to know that that alternative exists. The Soviet Union warned us, the ambassador, that this man, Mazor, may well be a double agent. They’ve had much experience with espionage. So they want us to be extremely careful. So, I thought maybe if I told you who has said this to us– It’s the Russian Ambassador. He wants us to be very careful. No talk to anyone about Russia whatsoever, or it could mess up your future, if we should decide to go there. Anything that is to be dealt with the Russians is to be hand-delivered. That’s what he requires. He said there some of your people probably are naïve and don’t realize what killers the CIA are. They are murderers. He said there is nothing like them on earth. They do anything, eliminate anybody they choose, and he said you’ll have to be extremely careful. And hear me– hear me loud and clear. You are to give the right answers, if you have to get your ass up at wee hours of the morning before breakfast, and play that tape over, as to what you say when guests are here. Tomorrow you’ll be praising the PNC, Peoples National Congress, our party. Our prime minister, Forbes Burnham cause Dr. Reid, who’s our very good friend and the chairman of the entire PNC is on his way to Moscow. So, who in the hell knows what’s coming? Maybe some very good developments. Maybe a closer alliance. Maybe the Soviet Union’s going to put missile protections over their head. But we want no damn talk about it. We have the open door. If we don’t want to take it, that’s fine. But don’t screw it up, don’t shit in your nest.
Jim Jones believed a perfect society was waiting for him and his people. All his life Jones dreamed of going to Russia and finally being a part of the society he most identified with. Equality for his people, freedom from religion and capitalist sin, was all Jones had ever wanted for Jonestown. In Guyana, Jones knew that Burnham’s puppet government would not protect them from the conspiratorial forces out to destroy the movement. The temple would one day have to leave Guyana. For Jones Russia was the obvious choice, but for many residents of Jonestown aligning with the Soviet Union and moving halfway across the world seemed like a terrifying prospect.
Jones Q217: To those that are worrying about going to Soviet Union and opportunities, you are completely ignorant. And when you get to the Soviet Union – if you were to go there – you will have completely more freedom. because we won’t have to worry about little people who wanna run away. The authorities will take care of them. And I wanna make it very clear, we’re not going to worry anymore about it here.
During its last year, Jonestown was host to many visitors including some Russian press and officials from the Russian Embassy. Just how sympathetic to this strange American church group the Russian ambassador actually was, was likely exaggerated by Jim Jones. Many CIA agents were secretly stationed throughout South America with the sole purpose of spying on Russia during the cold war. The Soviet Embassy’s true analysis of Jim Jones and the agricultural settlement remains a secret outside of Russian intelligence. Encouraged by the embassies interest in his socialist paradise, Jones read Russian newspapers aloud daily and insisted that all members of the Peoples Temple attend Russian language classes.
Feodor Timofeyev, Consul of Soviet Union embassy in Guyana Q352: You should make your community one of the most — one of the best community which any person in America can dream, and what I’ve heard here, when I spoke to the comrades, I understood that people come together with Comrade Jim Jones in the Peoples Temple for the first of all, because they trust, they believe in the ideas of the socialism, in the equality, and we share absolutely and as an idea of Marxist-Leninism, and we share with you all that idea. We thank you very much that you call us your spiritual motherland.
The Peoples Temple researched immigrating to Russia and discussed it at length during meetings. In the fall of 1978 just months before the mass tragedy the people of Jonestown signed a petition expressing their desire to emigrate to the Soviet Union. Although the community was committed, Jim Jones often overcomplicated the issue and reverted back to his favorite final solution to all their problems. Revolutionary suicide.
Jones Q939: Peoples Temple will just suddenly cease to exist. It was caught up in a moment of a twinkling of an eye. the beauty of death. Revolutionary death. The privilege for dying for what you believe. And if you’re having a problem with dying, I do want those names to start counseling, ‘cause we can help you with it, we can really help you.
For many years prior to going to Guyana Jim Jones was terrified of Nuclear war. Ironically, in 1974 news stories were circulating about possible nuclear missile bases in Guyana, yet Jim Jones felt it was safe to move his people within less than one hundred miles of where these bases were purported to be.
Anonymous contributor R: After Burnham took power in Guyana the United States relinquished control of its air force base just south of Georgetown. This base became Timehri airport and was infiltrated by the Russian military. They used the airport to transport troops in and out of Cuba and Africa. Under the nose of the United States, Russia built nuclear bases West of Georgetown almost to the border of Venezuela. By 1974 the American intelligence community set a plan into action to dismantle the Russian Military bases in Guyana without causing any diplomatic or military unrest for the country. The CIA had been watching Jim Jones and his movement since Indiana. His psychological profile indicated that he was narcissistic, charismatic, and highly paranoid. They used his mental illness to their advantage and manipulated Jones into moving his flock to Guyana.
In August 1977 Jim Jones and his followers left for Jonestown, that same month the United Nations Ambassador Andrew Young carried a message to Forbes Burnham saying that the United States and the world bank, under certain conditions would increase the amount of financial aid to Guyana by ten times previous levels. Burnham was paid off to look the other way and leave Jim Jones alone.
In Jonestown the people were drugged and brainwashed by Jones and his bodyguards. They practiced suicide drills so that by the time it was for real, no one knew.
The military wanted to raid the Russian nuclear bases, but they needed a distraction to quietly move troops into Guyana. Congressman Leo Ryan was fed false reports by the State Department about Jim Jones and Jonestown. Like a lamb to the slaughter, his assassination was preplanned to ensure the news organizations of the world would be focused on Jonestown. As the massacre unfolded and it was revealed to the world that 409 Americans had committed suicide, press from every country in the world descended upon Guyana. On Thanksgiving Day, while the cleanup in Jonestown was still underway, special forces raided the Russian military bases. They successfully disarmed the bases and killed everyone inside. Some 500 bodies of Russian soldiers were mixed in with the victims of Jonestown and eventually taken to Dover air force base where their identities could remain secret and the nukes acquired during the raid, dealt with. Never-ending press coverage of Jonestown caused Russia to pull out and not publicly acknowledge the raid. The surprise attack worked. The entire mass suicide was staged to avoid nuclear war with Russia. Jim Jones escaped Jonestown floating down the Essequibo river. He traveled through French Guyana and eventually made it to Africa, his escape was facilitated by Israeli intelligence.
In the aftermath of Jonestown, Russian news and radio agencies published their own stories about the mass suicide. Russia’s version of events was very different than the United States.
Anonymous contributor M: Russian news reported that on November 18th, Sharon Amos was in radio contact with Jonestown and the Russian Embassy in Georgetown. She reported that Helicopters were landing near Jonestown and armed soldiers were approaching the settlement. Sharon worked in the radio room in the Peoples Temple headquarters in Georgetown. On the day of the mass suicide she and her three children were found dead after relaying to the Russian embassy that Jonestown was under attack. Charles Biekman, an ex-green beret and longtime temple member was charged with her murder, but it was later determined that she had slit the throats of her three children and then committed suicide.
Soviet Embassy representative Feodor Timofeyev had visited Jonestown in October of 1978 and praised the commune as a socialist haven. He claimed that on the day of the mass suicide Peoples Temple member Deborah Touchette passed him a briefcase full of money and peoples temple documents.
In January of 1978 Prime Minister Forbes Burnham held a meeting with the CIA to go over observations he had made in the investigation following the mass tragedy. He expressed irritation at Soviet and Cuban involvement with the Peoples Temple. Burnham was particularly bitter that the Soviet embassy had waited almost three weeks before informing the Guyanese Government that on the night of November 18, they had received a package with a substantial amount of money as well as tapes and documents from the Peoples Temple. Burnham was convinced that the Russians had removed money and evidence from the package. He urged the United States to share evidence about Jonestown with Guyana and they would in turn share more with us. He also expressed disappointment that the Peoples Temple had bequeathed all of its foreign bank accounts to the Soviet Union and not the country that had fostered them.
Allegedly, Maria Katsaris gave Mike Prokes and the Carter brothers a trunk full of money and documents and told them to take it to the Soviet embassy the night of the mass tragedy. They claim to have ditched the money at the chicken coup and the Guyanese Government claims to have recovered it. Tim Carter was allegedly carrying a document that had a list of the Peoples Temple offshore accounts intended for the Soviet Embassy, but after leaving Jonestown he was placed under arrest and was unable to communicate with the embassy. In fact, everyone who made it out of Jonestown was placed under arrest or sequestered at the Pegasus hotel for days after the tragedy. So, who delivered the package containing the Peoples Temple documents to the Soviet Embassy on the night of November 18?
Anonymous contributor Q: JB. Was a part of the 193rd Infantry Brigade from Panama to evacuate the bodies from Jonestown. As his helicopter was lifting off an American government official hopped on board carrying a big crate of documents out of Jonestown. The official told JB to look alive and shoot anyone that attempts to take the crate away. JB never got to look in the crate, but he said it might as well have been proof who killed Kennedy the way the government spooks protected it.
I’m just another soldier with a cutlass in my hand….
Mike Prokes Q992: Greetings from the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project of the Northwest region in Guyana. We’ve been hearing a portion of music as presented by one of the Peoples Temple choirs.
Jones Q935: And we know very well what it is to fight for what we believe. We’ve fought all through our lives for what we believe. We’re fighting at this very moment. The fight is never, never ceased for me, and I don’t suppose it ever shall. But when I can see you sing, I can see growth in the youth beyond anything that one could dream, from capitalistic indulgence and self-centeredness, even racism in some instances, to the beauty of communist practice, then whatever hell I have to endure is worth that hell, to see this demonstration. One day, there could be a confrontation. Who knows? It doesn’t bother us very much, though, because we have been through the belly of hell. We were in the belly of the beast. We saw the CIA practically overthrow this country, or a conspiracy practically undo it. We saw all of its good leaders silenced, but we’re glad that we have come this far, because it has steeled our own spine. When you go through that kind of hell, you come out with an army.an army that will make its own conditions. We will survive together, cohesively, as long as we can build communalism. But we want the world to know that we will exist together, or we shall die together. Those terms must never be sacrificed, those terms must never be altered. That commitment must always be known in the back recesses of every person’s mind, that we are family, that no other movement has produced the kind of behavior that you, as witnessing in the countenances of our people tonight, no other movement has been able to bring the cohesion and the unity and sense of purpose. This unity came from this family, and this family will have to stay together, and anyone that wants to penetrate it or divide it or in way circumvent it, they’re going to have hell to pay.
Jim Jones may have always known resettlement in Russia was impossible. He had preached about the promise land to his congregation for so many years. It had always been the motivation his workers needed for just a few more hours of work and few less hours of sleep. All of the rhetoric and preparations for going to Russia distracted from the reality that the agricultural project had failed, and the Peoples Temple had lost touch with its mission values. The inner circle no longer trusted Jim Jones and later it was revealed that Jones own son was planning a coup to replace his father as temple leader before the organization was utterly lost.
Jones Q963: Got no reason to feel tired. You ought to feel guilty tonight. Not one right in the world, when little babies are dying in mother’s arms. Even children are being napalmed you got no right, ‘cause your tax dollars paid for the napalm. Your taxpayer’s dollars, yours, yours, yours, yours, every one of you. Somebody says he gonna, one of the first comers, they say, well, he– there’s some rumor that I come over here and make slaves out of the people, and then kick you off after I’ve got the place. What the hell would I want with it? I don’t want to even live, so what would I want with this place? All I have to do is get the CIA on the line, tell them and leave you. Shit. They’d pay me ran– They’d pay me handsome. They’d pay me riches. And where would I go sit in a resort some place. I can set in a resort, you no place you can go.
During the last few months of his life, Jim Jones segregated himself from his family and most of his flock. Fervently paranoid he inflicted upon all those who loved him punishments and humiliations. A state of panic ground people down to subservience. Jim Jones spent a great deal of time alone in his cabin communicating with the outside world through his most trusted mistress Maria Katsaris. One of many Peoples Temple members Jim Jones had taken into his bed chamber and confidence, Maria had become very important to him during the last few months in Jonestown. Having come from a Russian (Corerection! Greek) Orthodox religious background, Maria had joined Peoples Temple like so many others, to make the world a better place. In the beginning she was well liked and personable but as she spent more time alone with Jim Jones her personality changed. According to those who knew here, she showed obvious signs of narcotics use and alienated other temple members with constant tattle tailing. Over time she seemed to trust no one other than Jones and disowned her family. The world remembers Maria Katsaris as the woman that handed the documents to the Carter brothers and Mike Prokes in the last hours of Jonestown.
What most people don’t know is that the one person closest to Jim Jones in the final hours of his life, could fly an airplane. Maria’s father had been a pilot, so Jim Jones had encouraged her to learn. By 1978 she had flown thousands of hours and often transported people and supplies in a small airplane for the temple. Were Jim Jones and Maria Katsaris planning to escape together after the mass suicide?
Jones Q273: So now if the trial ever came, I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know what I will do. I’m not saying I’ll give up, and I say you better develop some leadership, because for 47 years, I’ve sacrificed sacrificed sacrificed sacrificed. I don’t know anything but the fact that everybody dies. It can be prolonged, and I have, it can be resurrected, and I have, but everybody has to go through pain and suffering and death. So why not make it for a revolutionary purpose, a beautiful goal, something that makes us above the animals, because there’s no way around the suffering. And the only thing that can make your life uh, feel a bit noble is that you found the best idea and stand by it bravely through all the stormy weather. And communism, sharing, if it is unobtainable, is the right– the only right way to live.
Though it may seem that Jim Jones Romanized death and revolutionary suicide he was very clear on the death tape that he had no intentions of dying in Jonestown.
Jones Q042: Who wants to go with their child has a right to go with their child. I think its humane. I want to see you go though. They can take me and do whatever they want to do. I want to see you go. I don’t want to see you go through this hell no more. No more, no more, no more.
While the Peoples Temple had been ordered to abstain from sex Jones had bedded half the congregation. While the people of Jonestown ate rice he snacked on chips and cold beverages from his personal mini fridge. While cancer patients endured sleepless nights of agonizing pain he medicated himself into a coma. The mass suicide in Jonestown destroyed all the evidence of his crimes and murdered all the witnesses. For Jim Jones this may not have been the end, but a new beginning.
Jones Q1059-1: For some unexplained set of reasons, I happen to be selected to be God. For some unfathomable and inconceivable activity, it so happens that when people meditate upon me, or when I meditate upon them, cancers will be eradicated, accidents can be prevented. You say you speak at an imperative degree; you speak in an absolute degree. Actually, I’m quite a very humble essence of being. I don’t like to discuss my own worth, but I have to tell you, that the universe would not run without me. I do not like the position of a juxtaposition I find myself in, between your affairs and this nebulous world of the paranormal, of the supernatural, I do not like to be in the position that I’m in, but I would tell you that your sun would go out if I ceased to exist. If you know the ring of sincerity in my voice, you know what I’m saying is true. There would be no silver lining in your clouds, if I were to be removed. But I’m going to tell you, I represent Divine Principle, Divine Socialism, total equality, a society where people own all things in common where there is no rich or poor, where there are no races, and so being Divine Principle, I will not pass away, but I shall stand throughout the endless ages of time. I’m going nowhere, I thank you.
Of all the evidence collected in Jonestown the audio recordings proved to be the most significant. The mass suicide in Jonestown was proven to the world through the death tape. Even though many speculate that the death tape is fake or edited together out of Peoples Temple recordings, history regards it canon. For decades researchers studying the tapes and documents left behind by the Peoples Temple concluded that minus a couple of people who escaped, everyone in Jonestown died. Until the discovery of Tape Q875.
Not only did this tape possibly historically redefine what happened on November 18, it was the last recording ever made in Jonestown. The tape logged by the FBI as Q875, was discovered in Jonestown after the massacre along with all the other tapes taken into evidence. There was nothing different or special about the tape to distinguish it from the others causing it blend in with the hundreds of other recordings found in Jonestown for a number of years.
The tape consists of four news broadcasts recorded on November 19. The news reporter refers to the assassination of Congressman Ryan as having happened the night before. Suspicion that mass suicide has taken place in Jonestown has not yet been verified. During the recording someone is switching between news broadcasts possibly searching for reports about Jonestown. Throughout the tape people are moving around the room and quiet voices calmly whisper. Much of the conversation between murmured voices is unintelligible, though you can hear they are American. When the news broadcast cuts to a segment featuring Leo Ryan’s mother you can hear a woman’s voice seemingly reacting to the story.
Q875 When another report says that autopsies will be performed on the bodies from Jonestown at the airstrip you can hear two voices.
Q875 Witnesses who knew Jim Jones and Jonestown researchers have identified these voices to be Maria Katsaris and Jim Jones. Whoever it was, why would they choose to remain in Jonestown amongst the dead and record news stories the morning after the mass tragedy.
Anonymous contributor J: Jim Jones’ body was identified by the fingerprints taken from a lewd conduct case that was handled by Tim Stoen. Jim Jones had several body doubles and faked his death dozens of times in front of his congregation. Maria Katsaris was a pilot and Jones had a small plane. I don’t know if they ever made it out of Jonestown, but the November 19th recording proves they didn’t commit suicide.
Jim Jones was a coward that regardless of his self-proclaimed martyrdom feared death more than anyone else in Jonestown. His years of running from perceived enemies and fighting shadows had caught up with him. This hustler from Indiana with his powers to heal and his socialist dream was about to experience the consequences of a life lived through lies. As the mirage that had hypnotized his followers faded, a selfish little man remained. Jim Jones had spent his life fooling people into believing impossible things about him.
Faking his own death? What’s one more tiny little lie gonna hurt?
I will now leave you with the final recording ever made in Jonestown. Thank you for participating in the Attention Span Recovery Project.
End Transmission