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Chapter 1
Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
Jim Jones, leader of Peoples Temple, had gained the respect and admiration of many before the allegations in the 1970s of misconduct and misappropriation of church funds. The negative press generated by these accusations eventually led to Jones's decision to move Peoples Temple to Guyana. There he had already begun an agricultural project a few years earlier with plans of turning it into the utopia he always promised his followers. Although many of them chose to remain in the United States, several hundred members of Peoples Temple moved with Jones to over 3,000 acres under the church's control in northwestern Guyana. Far removed from Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, and accessible only by the most rudimentary of roads, Jones effected total control over the project and all the Peoples Temple members who had come with him. That control ultimately led to their deaths as they followed Jones's orders on November 18, 1978, to commit the “revolutionary act” of mass suicide.
With armed guards surrounding the compound, the adults first administered the cyanide-laced drink to the children, using syringes to feed the liquid down the throats of the babies and younger children. They then drank the flavored poison concoction themselves. When Guyanese authorities entered the compound the next day, they found 909 people dead. They also found Jim Jones, sitting on his throne, dead from a presumably self-inflicted bullet wound. With the deaths of four members of a congressional party, one Temple defector, and a mother and her three children in the Peoples Temple building in Georgetown, the final death toll was 918 men, women, and children.
How Jones managed to get these individuals to follow such orders has been the subject of speculation for the last 40 years. Part of the answer lies in the circumstances that shaped his personality as a child. Born on May 31, 1931, in Crete, Indiana, James Warren Jones grew up in an impoverished, objectively dysfunctional family. He was the son of a disabled war veteran, James Thurman Jones, who had little to do with him, and Lynette Putnam, who was out of the home working most of the time. Raised primarily by babysitters, Jones had little adult supervision during his formative years. Neither parent attended church or any of Jones's school functions. His mother, however, did allow a neighbor to take Jones to church with her on Sundays. In tape recordings discovered in Jonestown, Jones revealed he was so angry by the time he was in third grade that he “was ready to kill.” 1
A voracious reader, Jones, graduated from high school with honors in 1948. In 1949, he married Marceline Baldwin, a nurse, who died with him in Jonestown. Moving to Bloomington, he attended Indiana University for a time. There he was influenced by a speech given by Eleanor Roosevelt concerning the conditions of African Americans in the United States. After he and his wife moved to Indianapolis in 1951, Jones continued his education at Butler University, attending at night until finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961.
After moving to Indianapolis, Jones became active with the Communist Party and increasingly frustrated with the persecution of American communists typified in the McCarthy hearings. He sought to counter this by becoming a minister. Jones had been interested in religion from an early age and became intrigued by the ebullient services and faith healing of black churches. Surprisingly, a Methodist minister mentored him, securing him a position as a student pastor at Somerset Southside Methodist church.
His ministry led him to start a church known as Community Unity in 1954. Two years later, he opened a church called Wings of Deliverance. 2 He did so with the purpose of creating a community for those who were less fortunate than others. This included the unemployed, underemployed, ill, and homeless. The church affiliated with the Disciples of Christ in 1960, and Jones later became an ordained minister within that denomination.
In 1965, Jones renamed the church Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel, which he believed was more representative of his vision for the members. A proponent of racial equality, Jones, welcomed people of all races into the church, something unheard of at that time. His sermons often focused on social justice and his increasing fears of a nuclear holocaust.
He and his wife also created one of the first “rainbow” families in Indiana, adopting several children of difference races and nationalities. They were the first family in the state to adopt a black child. Jones also referred to the congregation of Peoples Temple as his “rainbow family.”
In 1960, he became the first director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission. Jones took full advantage of this position to espouse his beliefs, despite warnings from the mayor to keep a low profile. Instead, he actively sought opportunities to proclaim his message through the media. He met with leaders from the National Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When he spoke at one of their meetings, his message of militant action was well received by those attending. He worked to integrate churches, businesses of all kinds, hospitals, and civil agencies, including the Indianapolis Police Department. Through his efforts, Jones gained both the respect and admiration of many and the intense criticism of others, some of which resulted in vandalism to Peoples Temple. The diverse nature of these interactions heightened his suspicious nature.
Jones's paranoia concerning the government continued to increase, developing into a fear of a nuclear holocaust, which also became a subject in his sermons. His anxiety, along with his socialist beliefs, led him to travel to Brazil to seek an alternative location for Peoples Temple, somewhere that would be safe from the impending destruction of nuclear war. On his way, he stopped in Guyana, using the time to test his message on the racial minorities there and to gage the economic viability of this location. The lack of available resources caused him to continue to Brazil, where he worked with those living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro and studying various native religions. Understanding he might receive a poor reception as a foreigner if he espoused the teachings of Marx, Castro, and communism, Jones began referring to his ideas as an “apostolic communal lifestyle.” He returned to the United States in 1963 upon receiving word from his associate pastors in Indianapolis that, without his return and guidance, Peoples Temple might as well cease to exist.
Upon his return, Jones began referring to his idea of apostolic socialism in his sermons at the Temple. He told his congregation they would experience a cataclysmic nuclear event in 1967 and, to be safe, had to move the Temple to California. Thus, began the move to the Redwood Valley; the establishment of Peoples Temple in Uriah, California; and Jones's referring to himself as The Prophet.
As Peoples Temple grew, Jones established locations in San Francisco (1970) and Los Angeles (1972). He moved the Temple headquarters to San Francisco where he began to court the local and state politicians. He curried their favor and increased his influence as he donated to charitable projects, ran various social and medical programs, and delivered votes during elections. He also surfaced on the national scene, earning the praise of presidential candidate Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalyn Carter.
Jones continued to espouse his socialist ideas through his sermons but increasingly began denouncing the Christian faith. He criticized the Bible as a tool of oppression and ultimately set himself up as God. He claimed he was the reincarnation of Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, and Lenin, among others. According to his wife, Marceline, Jones was both agnostic and atheist, his primary goal being to use religion and the church to spread Marxism throughout the United States.
However, despite Jones's courting of the media and the good relationships he established with them, the move to San Francisco stirred the interest of some journalists, who began investigating Peoples Temple and Jim Jones. As media attention became more negative, Jones sent a team to Guyana to establish Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. The goal was to launch a utopian society out of the prying eyes of the media, a place the Temple could grow without governmental interference. It was to be a “model community… to be emulated the world over.” 3
In 1977, New West magazine chose to publish an expose on Jim Jones and Peoples Temple, whose membership now exceeded 20,000. In the article, authors Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy wrote of the allegations of former Temple members concerning Jones's abuse and control. 4 They cited being forced to sell or turn over possession of their homes and property and to give custody of their children to the church. The article talked about the physical abuse, beatings, administered to those who disobeyed Jones; staged faith healings and illegal methods used to cure illnesses; Jones's sexual misconduct and drug addiction; and the misappropriation of Temple funds for Jones's personal use.
With the impending publication of the expose and the increased negative publicity and scrutiny it would engender, Jones urged his followers to go with him to Jonestown, where he promised to build a “socialist utopia.” 5 Although some chose to remain in the United States, over 1,000 people agreed to move to Guyana. Once there, no one was allowed to leave Jonestown. Jones collected their passports and medications; censored all communications with people outside of Jonestown; expected members to inform on other members, including their families; and posted armed guards around the compound.
Life at Jonestown was far from utopian. Plagued by mosquitoes and tropical diseases, members labored long hours in the 3,000 plus-acre compound located in an isolated area in northwest Guyana. There Jones began promoting his belief in the Translation through which he and all Temple members would die together and be reunited in “an afterlife of bliss.” 6 To ensure compliance, Jones had members practice White Night drills periodically. During these drills, members would come to the pavilion, the main meeting area in the compound. Once there, they would pretend to drink a poison-laced drink and fall to the ground.
Meanwhile, even though Jones left the United States, investigations into the various allegations were ongoing. Central to these investigations, which resulted in a congressional party traveling to Jonestown, was Jones's sexual misconduct. Supposedly encouraged by Tim Stoen, whose wife Grace wished to leave the congregation, Jones engaged in sexual relations with her and fathered a child, John, although the birth certificate names Stoen as the father. Jones sent the boy to Jonestown to keep him out of his mother's reach as she sought custody during divorce proceedings from her husband. When Stoen also left the Temple in 1977, he joined a group of concerned relatives who had family members living in Jonestown and petitioned the State Department and members of Congress to address their grievances against Jones and Peoples Temple.
Intrigued by the allegations of Stoen and the other family members, Congressman Leo Ryan began investigating, apprising the Guyanese prime minister of the situation. The Concerned Relatives group also began legal proceedings to initiate the return of John Stoen and released packets of material to the press and politicians outlining the human rights violations and abuses of Jones and Peoples Temple. Included in the packets were documents, letters, and affidavits from members who had escaped Jonestown. These actions culminated in Congressman Ryan's decision to take a fact-finding trip to Jonestown to see conditions for himself. Accompanying him were two staff members, nine journalists (including an NBC News television crew), and 18 family members of Jonestown residents. 7
Jones and Temple officials denied Ryan's request to come to the compound and examine conditions there; but when Ryan announced he would charter a plane and go there regardless, Jones relented. On November 17, the delegation traveled from Georgetown, Guyana, to an airstrip east of the compound at Port Kaituma. From there, Ryan, several family members, and some of the reporters were driven to the compound. While Jones feted them with dinner and entertainment, however, residents approached various delegates throughout the evening and night, seeking their help in leaving the compound.
On November 18, Ryan and his delegation prepared to return to Port Kaituma, taking 15 of the residents with them. Another resident attacked Ryan with a knife in an attempt to keep the group from leaving but was unsuccessful. Jones did not try to prevent the 15 residents, who included one loyalist posing as a defector, from leaving with Ryan. He did, however, send his security team, the Red Brigade, after the delegation with the intent of killing them.
At the airstrip, some of the delegation and the defectors boarded one of the planes. This group included the loyalist, Larry Layton. As the plane readied for take-off, Layton pulled out a gun and began shooting the people in the plane. Almost simultaneously, Red Brigade members arrived on a tractor trailer, jumped down, and began firing on Congressman Ryan and the others waiting to board the second plane. In just a few moments, the Red Brigade left, leaving five dead and several severely wounded. Among the dead were Congressman Ryan; Don Harris and Bob Brown from the NBC News team; Greg Robinson from the San Francisco Examiner; and Patricia Parks, one of the Jonestown defectors.
As the drama played out at Port Kaituma, Jones sent a message to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown, instructing the people to take their lives in the revolutionary act of suicide. When police arrived later, they found four people dead of knife wounds: a mother and her three daughters. Police indicated one of the victims killed the other three before taking her own life.
Jones also began the Translation ritual in the compound, only this time the drinks were real. A 45-minute audio recording of the process discovered by the FBI as they investigated the massacre revealed how this tragedy unfolded. In this “death tape,” Jones told his followers how much he loved them but that a few disloyal members had made it impossible to live at Jonestown. He also relayed that some of those defectors had stolen children from others to take with them. He appealed to the residents concerning the welfare of their children, that they would not want their children to continue to live in the current situation. He quoted “the greatest prophet” regarding laying down one's life rather than having it taken by someone else. He talked about the violence in the world, arguing that although unable to live in peace, they could die in peace.
Jones then explained what was supposed to be happening at the airstrip. The death of those individuals would trigger a military response, which would put them and their children in jeopardy. As he had in countless sermons over the years, Jones invoked the images of his own paranoia concerning government interference: Ryan's delegation would be only the first of many to come, and the outside world would not leave them alone. He then compared their situation to those of the ancient Greeks who, rather than seeing their children and elderly suffer at the hands of invaders, administered deadly potions, robbing the invaders of any sense of victory. By killing themselves, he argued, they were not committing suicide but a revolutionary act because they could not go back to the way things were.
During his explanations, Jones also responded to a question from one of the residents, Christine Miller, about the status of the negotiations with Russia. Jones had been in touch with Russian officials, trying to arrange an exodus for Jonestown as he feared increased interference on the part of the Guyanese government. In responding to Christine's question, Jones blamed the actions of the Red Brigade for eliminating that option: Russia would not have anything to do with Jonestown because of the actions of those few men in killing members of the congressional delegation. However, Miller continued to ask questions about getting a plane to evacuate and sending a message to the Russians for help. Jones rebutted each of these, coming back to the message of suicide as the only way out.
At one point, Miller even questioned the need for 1,200 people to give up their lives because of t...
