RECOVERED HISTORY: JONESTOWN, WHEN FAITH BECAME FATAL

This fall will be the 30th anniversary of the mass murders and suicides at Jonestown, Guyana. We use the term "murders and suicides" because we will never know how many of the 900 who died did so of their own volition and how many - particularly the nearly 300 children - died at someone else's hand.

We have just come across one of the most of remarkable audio tapes we have ever heard, recording the last minutes at Jonestown. What comes through is a sickening normalcy of pending disaster during which Jones never retreats from deluding his flock.

Why does it matter? Simply because it was the most tragic example of the consequences of Americans' repeated infatuation with faith over reality, an infatuation that only traps the uninformed but, as can be seen below, the supposedly enlightened in the media and politics. And it would seem that we haven't learn much from Jonestown in the 30 years that followed it.

The tape is quite lengthy but it is well worth listening to in full. But first read some of the background below.

THE LAST MINUTES AT JONESTOWN

WIKIPEDIA - Jonestown was the short-lived settlement made in northwestern Guyana by the Peoples Temple, a cult from California. Jonestown became lastingly and internationally notorious in 1978, when nearly its whole population died in a mass murder-suicide orchestrated by their leader, Jim Jones. The name of the settlement thus became, also, a term for that incident. The site is now an abandoned ruin. . . Jonestown's population was about one thousand, once it was fully established and the bulk of Jones' followers had moved to it, but most of them lived there for under a year.

In November of 1978, United States Congressman Leo Ryan, accompanied by reporters and a delegation of concerned relatives of Peoples Temple members, visited Jonestown to investigate allegations of abuses there. The visit ended in the murders of Ryan and four others by members of the Peoples Temple, shot at the Port Kaituma airstrip as they were about to fly out. That evening, November 18, Jones led his followers in their mass murder-suicide. Somewhat over nine hundred men, women and children perished, Jones among them. . .

While in San Francisco, Jones changed his political image from anti-communist to socialist, vocally supported prominent political candidates, was appointed to city commissions and made grants to local newspapers with the stated goal of supporting the First Amendment. Partly inspired by the eccentric preacher Father Divine, he began charity efforts with the goal of recruiting the poor.

After several scandals and investigation for tax evasion[6] in San Francisco, Jones began planning a relocation of the Temple. According to the American Journal of Economics & Sociology, Jones considered locations in California and Brazil before settling on Guyana. . .

Many of the Peoples Temple members believed that Guyana would be, as Jones promised, a paradise. Work was performed six days a week, from seven in the morning to six in the evening, with temperatures that often reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), in Guyana's equatorial climate.

According to some, meals for the members consisted of nothing more than rice and beans while Jones dined on eggs, meat, fruit, salads, and soft drinks from a private refrigerator, separate from the others. Medical problems such as severe diarrhea and high fevers struck half the community in February 1978. According to the New York Times,[9] copious amounts of drugs such as Thorazine, sodium pentathol, chloral hydrate, Demerol and Valium were administered to Jonestown residents. . .

Various forms of punishment were used against members considered to be serious disciplinary problems. Methods included imprisonment in a 6x4x3-foot plywood box and forcing children to spend a night at the bottom of a well, sometimes upside-down. Members who attempted to run away were drugged to the point of incapacitation. Armed guards patrolled the compound day and night to enforce obedience to Jones.

Children, surrendered to communal care, addressed Jones as "Dad" and were only allowed to see their real parents briefly at night. Jones was called "Father" or "Dad" by the adults as well. . .

Local Guyanese, including a police official, related stories about harsh beatings and a "torture hole," a well into which Jones had "misbehaving" children thrown in the middle of the night. The mass suicides that would make Jonestown notorious were rehearsed during "white nights". In an affidavit, Peoples Temple defector Deborah Layton explains how these were rehearsed.

"Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands.". . .

There is a great deal unknown about what happened in Jonestown on the evening of November 18, 1978. . .

Jim Jones called a meeting under the pavilion in the early evening. Before the meeting, aides prepared a metal vat with grape Flavor Aid, poisoned with Valium, chloral hydrate, and presumably (though not certainly) cyanide. . .

The children were poisoned first. Aides took the children from their parents and brought them to stand in line. Some parents apparently went with their children. Poison was squirted into children's mouths with plastic syringes. Eyewitness Stanley Clayton, who was assisting already-poisoned children, reports that many children resisted and were physically forced to swallow by guards and nurses.
According to Clayton, the poison was extremely effective, causing death within about five minutes. . .

President Bill Clinton signed a bill into law in the 1990s, mandating the expiration of secrecy in documents after 25 years. It has been nearly 30 years since the mysterious mass deaths in Jonestown. The majority of Jonestown documents remain classified, despite Freedom of Information requests from numerous people over the past three decades

THE HIDDEN STORY OF JIM JONES

JOHN MCCASLIN, WASHINGTON TIMES - As a San Francisco Examiner religion reporter more than 30 years ago, veteran White House correspondent Lester Kinsolving sensed something sinister about Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple - long before the sect leader, 912 of his followers and a U.S. congressman perished in the jungle of Guyana. "I went to the religion editors of 40 newspapers - including The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times - begging them to send reporters" to the temple's California headquarters during the early 1970s, he says.

On numerous occasions, the reporter was told and even witnessed for himself bizarre behavior by Jones, his armed guards and the temple's congregation. "Not one of them sent anybody," Mr. Kinsolving tells Inside the Beltway. "They refused."

Besides newspaper editors, the sect leader was fooling most everybody in those days, from San Francisco's mayor to the future vice president and even the first lady of the United States. "We had exposed this [sect activity] in 1973," Mr. Kinsolving recalls. "Then, wouldn't you know? Rosalynn Carter invited Jones to have dinner with her [at a California hotel]. She had a whole bunch of Secret Service agents with her, and when Jones showed up with his 'gunslingers' they still managed to work it out. "And can you believe Walter 'Fritz' Mondale entertained Jones on his campaign plane?"

Not everybody was so enchanted. Armed with Examiner newspaper articles questioning the activities of the temple and its subsequent exodus to South America, Rep. Leo J. Ryan, California Democrat, traveled to Jonestown, Guyana, to investigate. Before he could report back to Capitol Hill, the congressman was slain by Jones' followers on Nov. 18, 1978 - hours before the mass suicide.

"I remember when the news hit Washington that more than 900 people died ... and all the major media began acting as if it was something new," Mr. Kinsolving says. "Any way you look at this, it was such a terrible refusal of the major media not to tell the whole truth. "There was only one person that I had gone to [in the early 1970s] who later apologized for not looking into it further - Brit Hume. He worked for [syndicated columnist] Jack Anderson then."

BRASSCHECK: For the first time ever and seemingly out of the blue, nearly 25 years after the fact, a senior member of the [San Francisco] Chronicle "family" has just published a limited admission that, indeed, the Chronicle did not do its job when it failed to report on the Jim Jones' criminal enterprise which operated in broad daylight in San Francisco in the 1970s. [Here is the] statement of support Jones received from a leading member of the family that owned the Chronicle during the heyday of Jones' "church" in San Francisco:

"Called less formally PT, the church is best known and highly regarded for its social works, which include housing and feeding senior citizens and medical convalescents, maintaining a home for retarded boys, rehabilitating youthful drug users. . ." - Charles deYoung Thieriot, Publisher of the Chronicle

A few points about German's language. . .

"nearly a thousand followers fled (to Guyana)" Not quite. Even the State Department, which conducted a pre-massacre investigation into Jonestown, raised the issue of the children. What were they doing there? Who did they belong to? Where were their parents? Where were their passports? Who cleared them to leave the US? The children didn't "flee" San Francisco. They were abducted. Many were put in the hands of Jones' organization by the State of California. (Church records were ordered removed from the People's Temple within days after the massacre by then Governor and Jim Jones fan Jerry Brown. They have never been seen since.)

Finally, as a court in Guyana determined, there were only three suicides in Jonestown. The rest were victims of "murder most foul." The death by Kool-Aid story is largely a myth, one that, like so many improbable stories, did its job with the help of a compliant news media.

WILLIAM GERMAN, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: We learned our lesson nearly 25 years ago: Never shrug off a big story. We did, we got burned badly, and we may never forget. The story that got away was the one that lifted the lid on the Rev. Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. The Chronicle could have published the evidence that brought Jones to final judgment. Instead, it was handed to a nearby magazine. Over the years, bits and pieces of the shameful details have oozed out, but that hardly dilutes the pain. Flashback to early 1977, sixth year of the Jones church's move to San Francisco. Rev. Jones' public image was at its height as "a dedicated champion of the underprivileged." The city's political establishment held him in highest regard. Mayor George Moscone made him chairman of the Housing Authority. Herb Caen checked leaders of the Temple neighborhood and was told, "Jim Jones is a terrific guy, a man the ghetto people can believe in." Influential politician Willie Brown said, "San Francisco should have 10 more Jim Joneses." The press sometimes mentioned dissension in the church, but most stories told of good deeds by Jones. Some dissidents took their complaints to City Hall, where they got little official attention. They did, however, catch the eye of Chronicle City Hall reporter Marshall Kilduff. Kilduff went to his supervisor with a proposal to investigate the complaints. The supervisor -- long since departed -- turned Kilduff down. Everything that needed to be written about Jones had already been written, he said. Kilduff, a journalist who even now doesn't give up easily, asked for and received permission to take his idea to New West magazine, as long as he worked on his own time . . . The New West revelations stirred up a few others and the case against Jones was clear -- fraud, sexual misconduct, medical fakery and general megalomania. Rather than face his accusers, Jones and nearly a thousand followers fled to the suicidal horror of Jonestown, Guyana. . .

CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLYMAN & LATER MAYOR WILLIE BROWN - I have had the great pleasure of knowing a leader with tremendous character and integrity. . . Rev. Jones is regarded among government officials, civic and religious leaders, and particularly the black community and working class people, with utter respect for what he has done to upgrade the quality of life in our area and to bring greater health and well-being to thousands of poor, minority, and disadvantaged people." -- September 1976 testimonial dinner honoring Jim Jones.

MORE ON JIM JONES