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Mind
Control and Torture by David Wise
25 Years After Jonestown by David
Wise
Sex in Peoples Temple by David Wise
The Mystery Tape by David Wise
Mind
Control and Torture
MIND
CONTROL AND TORTURE
- Or -
MASS MURDERERS, MEGALOMANIACS AND FEARMONGERS
by David Wise
There is an important historical
incident that is overlooked for its true meaning in these trying times. Historically this incident was rated second
in international news impact to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, until 9-11 bumped
it to third. In November of 1978, almost a thousand Americans died in a
somewhat coerced mass suicide in the South American country of Guyana. What was
the coercion? They did not want to be tortured. We have been hearing a lot
about torture in the news lately, but in Jonestown on that fateful day of
November the notion of torture was the emotional and mental blackmail that
would convince mothers who loved their babies to “save” them from this horrible
nightmare – by drinking cyanide. In the famous “Death Tape,” there are more
than ten references by Jones to the horrors that were about to befall the
children, such as: “Don’t be afraid to die. You’ll see, there’ll be a few
people land out here. They’ll torture some of our children here! They’ll
torture our people! They’ll torture our seniors. We cannot have this!”
Does all this seem far out and
weird? Think again. This odd scenario is closer to us than you might think.
Looking at photos from Iraq and Afghanistan and hearing stories about rendition
from Guantanamo may generate a black market for cyanide pills for those of us
today who are growing more and more afraid of torture. Who can stand the
thought of being tied down while your genitalia are cut on or electrocuted by
some evil snickering freak?
Under the rubric of the so-called
war on terror, the “terrorist in chief” has made torture legal. On top of that
he has seized constitutionally illegal powers of detention and has thrown out
Habeas Corpus (a fundamental right securing basic freedoms since the Magna
Carta) just like so much kitchen garbage. Brown and Root is busy building
detention centers for imaginary “unlawful enemy combatants,” which – as it
turns out – might legally include Americans who protest our governments
invasion, torture and mass murder of some new innocent civilian population.
Congressional acquiescence with the president’s demands may make these outrages
momentarily legal – at least until the courts show some backbone on these
issues and rule against them – but this wholesale destruction of civil
liberties will never be right.
* * * * *
I got away from Jim Jones because
he was losing his mind. Jim was taking speed, just as millions of overweight
housewives did during the seventies, popping prescription tablets like they
were candy. Jim already had a lot of trouble with paranoia as evidenced by
bouts of hypochondria, but the regular use of amphetamines causes mental ward-like
schizophrenia. I was there to see him do a flip-flop: There was the Jim Jones
that I met and the Jim Jones that I got away from. Jim started out championing
civil rights and wound up taking people’s civil rights away. He started out
opposing the use of fear but later defended its use. Yet speed is not the main
reason for his demise. That was due to his misconception that you can fight
fire with fire, that you can beat the enemy with their own medicine without
risking becoming the enemy yourself.
Jim Jones was a consummate
politician. He had rubbed elbows with the best of them and prided himself in
beating the enemy with their own tactics. However, there is a great pitfall in
using the tactics of your enemy: you become what you hate. Jim copied the
tactics of Us-Them thinking. This leads to dictatorship. He copied “end
justifies the means” thinking. This leads to dictatorship. However, he was
copying the institutions and the corporations and the government of our country, and – let me repeat – these
non-sustainable methods lead to dictatorship.
No one knew Us-Them thinking any
better than the Nazis. In the delusional world of the Thousand Year Reich the
Jews, Gypsies and Slavs were considered inferior. They were called
“untermensch”, the German word for sub-human. Us-Them labels turned into a
holocaust, resulting in millions of deaths and untold suffering. An Us-Them
mentality dehumanizes precious human beings into objects or animals, free to be
tortured and killed. America is doing the same thing with a new word:
terrorists.
Fear is the tool of cults and
dictatorships. It does not matter if it is the Left holding up Torture as the
greatest fear or if it is the right holding up Terrorism as the greatest fear.
Only a cult or a dictatorship rules people with fear.
Peoples Temple was named for its
leftist identity. These were the days of Malcolm and Martin and flower
children, and we were all against the Vietnam War. I remember Jim speaking
outdoors in public and quoting General David Shupe, “We have fought war on
several continents for Gulf Oil, US Steel, tungsten and rubber, and if America
would get its dirty dollar grubbing hands out of Vietnam there would be peace
tomorrow.” I remember saying, “Man, this preacher is boldly and eloquently
presenting an anti-war message in a way that will work.” There was a great
energy in the air, but there was also something odd.
From the time that I first met Jim
on my arrival in Ukiah, California, he publicly posed a scenario that the whole
country was headed toward dictatorship, and that if the whole church followed
him in opposition to the Vietnam War, concentration camps or torture could
follow. He said not to worry, however, that before he would allow any of this
precious family to face political imprisonment or torture, he would make up
some kind of potion to save anyone from suffering. This was so far out that I
don’t think anyone paid too much attention. Yet he always browbeat the church
with fear of nuclear war, concentration camps and torture. He backed up his
warnings with stories of the American Indian, and the Japanese, and the Samuel
Yette book, The Choice, which
suggested that black folk might be rounded up and put in concentration camps.
He often described the McCarran Act as the legal way people were to be herded
into camps. This was a law passed during the McCarthy Era which threatened to
round up Communist sympathizers. Now, of course, the word “terrorist” has
replaced the word “Communist” as the catch-all bogeyman. And just as colonial
Massachusetts had the Salem witch hunts and the 1950’s had the Communist witch
hunts, we now have terrorist witch hunts.
There are lots of differences in
the times of the Vietnam War and the current “War” in Iraq, but there are also
a lot of similarities. In those days, the left did not know that Communist
China was killing and oppressing people in the name of “the revolution.” This
is a perversion where the left becomes the right. Unfortunately the left and
the right both often turn out to mean Big Government. I call it the Left Wing,
the Right Wing, Chicken Wings, and Globaloney. Time and experience tends to
teach that most Conservatives don’t Conserve anything and most Liberals don’t
Liberate anything. In the days of Joe McCarthy, both the Remocrats and the
Depublicans voted for the McCarran Act, and these days both “parties” voted for
war and torture and the elimination of the Habeas Corpus. A favorable mention
is due the Democrats, however, for voting against shooting wolves from
helicopters, even though they voted that it was okay to shoot Lebanese
civilians from helicopters.
We were really lost back in the
day of the Vietnam War. Many of us in those days thought that money was bad. We
have since learned that money is neither good nor bad but it is defined by how you
use it. I am very pro free market. Talk is cheap and you cannot have social
democracy without economic manifestations of it. There is a reason why monopoly
and free enterprise cannot coexist, because economic dictatorship and a free
marketplace are opposites.
We have learned many things since
the Vietnam War, but we have also forgotten many things. We have forgotten how
to feel outrage when we hear that our soldiers repeatedly raped then murdered a
14-year-old girl, Abeer al-Janabi. (If her name were Kathy, would you care
more?) It is as if an ad agency for the sale of bullets has figured out how to
divide and conquer our conscience. Different than in Vietnam, we are now
anti-war but pro-troops. Isn’t that a lot like being anti-murder but
pro-murderer. Excuse me, but it all reminds me of American TV. Don’t get me
wrong. I empathize with the collective guilt regarding how the soldiers
returning from Vietnam were treated, because they were drafted involuntarily.
Still, the only way to support the troops is to bring them home.
I have heard the argument from
some soldiers that we need to kill Muslims to take over their oil in order to
keep our “lifestyle” here at home. Not true. The medicines are made from the
oil, and the pharmaceutical industry and the oil industry are the biggest
moneymakers on Wall Street. The Pharmaceutical-Oil cartel is suppressing motors
that do not even need fuel as well as many cures for diseases while making
money on death. Rather than move into the paradigm shift toward life more abundant,
they are actually destroying our “lifestyle” and keeping us from our future.
Stanley Meyers, among others, made
a car that would make hydrogen on the fly while you drove around. The only fuel
needed was a little water every once and a while. The technology is very
affordable. Who wants “free” energy? Why don’t you let that onto the “free”
market? Isn’t the supply-demand profile right for you? I guess it would not
sell enough bullets for the Carlisle group.
Maybe nuclear war will keep such
promises of life more abundant off the globe, do ya think? With new legislation
saying that any American can be called an “enemy combatant” and imprisoned with
no lawyer or visitors (except torturers), I guess Meyers could be called a
terrorist because his heavenly technology makes him an “enemy combatant” of the
hellish technology of the worldwide pharmaceutical-oil monopoly.
Are we to say goodbye to free
enterprise? No! A paradigm shift is coming because the behavior of
dictatorships and cults is not sustainable, and many people are waking up past
the IQ suppressants and the Mind Control of our media.
If we allow ourselves to be taken
over by Dictatorships and Cults, next we may wake up to find that our inventors
of hopeful and promising World Improvement Technologies are put into jails,
while monopolies of death control our governments like puppets on a string.
In 1996 I saw a report on Canadian
television that was kept off of American TV. It was a tape recording secretly
made by the secretary of the Prime Minister of Nigeria. Shell Oil Company’s
pipeline ran illegally across the land of the people called the Ogoni. Oil
company executives told the prime minister that they were doing a good job
falsely calling the Ogonis terrorists, driving by and shooting into their homes
and raping their women. This was deemed to be good. The prime minister said
that they would keep it up, but that they needed more money. Ken Sar Wiwa, the
well spoken representative of the Ogonis – and a devout non-violent Christian – asked
that Shell stop setting the oil leaks on fire, because the practice was
petrifying the Ogoni farmland. The whole world thought that Ken Sar Wiwa was
charming and eloquent, but Nigeria called him a terrorist and hung him in the
street.
Dictatorships and Cults mirror one
another. They need enemies and use fear. Both dictatorships and Cults invent
enemies if they don’t have one already. They make everyone an enemy, until
finally their own people are the enemy.
But have no fear, George Bush is
here to protect us from terrorism. Like an Italian protection racket, your shop
gets busted up, and the next day a thug comes along and says that he can
protect you if you pay so much a month… except he was the one that busted your
place up in the first place. Dictatorships and Cults use the thug tactics of
organized crime.
Dictatorships and Cults do not
realize that the right ends are undermined by the wrong means. Jim Jones was
always using the “end justifies the means” approach. He would set up his own
provocation, then act to fix it, then declare himself a hero. He was a
politician who copied his tactics largely from the government. There always had
to be an enemy. Torture was the ultimate fear, and he loomed it over our heads
and he was there to protect us from the terror. If all else failed, he was
going to dish out a potion, the equivalent of a suicide pill.
It is all doublethink and
doublespeak, like giving up your liberty for freedom, when they are both the
same thing. Tell me how this is different than America’s Iraqi policy, which in
a nutshell is, “We are going to kill you to save you.” That is just what
happened in Jonestown. We must change our course, we do not want America to
wind up a bunch of bloated bodies laying out in the grass like Jonestown. We have
to know the difference between standing united “together” for good and running
over a cliff “together” like Lemmings.
George Bush is dismantling the
freedoms and rights of the American people and making fear, dungeons and
torture mainstream. I am not a Jim Jones apologist. This nut hunted me down and
tried to have me killed for publicly opposing him. Yes, Jim Jones lost his
marbles, but megalomaniacs and tyrants in the White House are starting to make
the madman Jones look prophetic. And that is pretty scary.
After
going up against Jim Jones, David Wise, a former pastor of the LA Peoples
Temple was hunted down, and told that a contract had been taken out on his
life. A historian at the University of
San Diego, Fielding McGehee, says, “To date, no one has spoken with greater
authority, knowledge and history of the Peoples Temple as Mr. Wise." His
other articles can be found at the University of San Diego website:
Jonestown.sdsu.edu while David Wise maintains a website JonestownLegacy.com and can be reached at hopetek@juno.com.
25
Years After Jonestown by
David Wise
November 18th, 2003 will
be the 25th anniversary of the tragic Jonestown communion-mass-suicide, which
claimed the lives of almost a thousand people.
I was a pastor of the
Los Angeles branch of Peoples Temple on Alvarado and Hoover. I left the Peoples
Temple in protest of power trips, humiliation tactics and sexual improprieties.
I was hunted down twice. As a result of my confrontation with the church. I
lived in fear for 24 years, thinking I was wanted by the law.
I joined the Peoples
Temple in 1971 in San Francisco at the Benjamin Franklin School auditorium.
When I met Jim Jones, he believed in helping people, and he did not yet think
he was God. That day I traveled back with some of Jim’s followers to the church
on Ukiah and moved into Professor Dick Tropp’s house. Different than many, I
was not on drugs or alcohol. I was a young idealist who opposed the war. I had
left the racist south and come to California looking for people that were
humanitarian. First I joined a monastery, but I thought they were disingenuous.
Then I joined an East Indian Temple, but I thought they were disingenuous as
well. Then a girl on the street told me of the human service work Jim was
doing. I was impressed and I went right away. The Peoples Temple was genuine.
I worked hard, two jobs
at a time. I slept during the lunch breaks. I worked at the Masonite
Corporation, at different sawmills, and at Sears, where I moved furniture. I
gave all my money to the church and still managed to donate extra time to
church projects.
I met a wonderful girl
named Maryell Norris while peeling peaches at Archie Ijames’s house. We got
married with Jim’s approval. My new wife and I moved into a charming little
house surrounded by vines and gardens. Although I worked round the clock, I
remember our life as being like heaven.
Jim had a unique program
through which he paid for students to go to college to become doctors and
lawyers. I visualized that I could make my greatest contribution if I became a
church lawyer. I entered college and moved into the church dormitories. I had
the bunk above Larry Schacht who later became the Jonestown doctor. I never
dreamed that in less than a year, a tragedy would take Maryell away and I would
be single again.
About that time, Jim
asked me to give up the goal of becoming a church lawyer, to leave school and
to become a minister for the Los Angeles Peoples Temple. I agreed.
In Los Angeles, Jim
announced that he had surveyed the whole world and that I was the best man for
the job. I became the resident pastor who helped set up the L.A. church. To my
knowledge I was the only pastor other than Jim whose name was ever on
letterhead and business cards. Jim took time to teach me how to do these
things. Frankly, I never heard of him training anyone else. However, I was to
learn three or four years later that he became neurotic and felt threatened
when I was doing too good of a job. I think that part of this may have come
from trouble he had in the past with people turning on him.
I served from 1972 until
late 1976. I did the things pastors do. I conducted many funerals and weddings.
I visited the sick. I stopped people from killing themselves. I stayed up late
listening to Peoples problems on the phone. I set up housing programs. I set up
transportation programs to and from church. I held little old ladies’ hands. I
picked council members like Florida and Vee and was in charge of departments
and programs. The membership program, which became the model for San Francisco,
was headed by Juanell Smart, whom I later married.
I met with L.A. Mayor
Tom Bradley and with the heads of the Disciples of Christ and made donations to
them. I was pictured in Beat magazine, the publication for the Ramparts Police
Division for helping make peace between the black community and the police. As
Jim directed I made donations to their slain officer’s fund.
Jim was extremely gifted
at raising the level of faith, no matter how questionable his methods, and yes,
his methods were often very wrong. Of course, in the end, the wrong means
destroy the right goals. Nonetheless, Jim certainly possessed an unparalleled
talent for building faith. Nearer the end he had an equal talent for,
unwittingly, tearing faith down.
I remember standing in
the emergency room beside a young black man who had been shot in the head in
some senseless street violence. I remember telling his mother that he would not
die. The doctors disagreed. The young man would probably not live, they said,
and if he did, he would be a vegetable. I looked up at the lit overhead
transparencies showing the bullet in his brain and said calmly. “Jim asked me
to come here and tell you that he WILL LIVE… and HE WILL BE NORMAL.” Of course,
I had not spoken to Jim, but this was my job. The lady broke down in tears,
said, “Thank you Father.” The boy eventually regained consciousness, and
recovered normally.
I remember on two
separate occasions when women called me about domestic violence. In one
incident I lovingly took a 30-06 Winchester from a black man in the middle of
Watts. I mention color because I am light skinned and this was Watts, after
all. In the other incident in Compton I took a 12-gauge shotgun from a black
man who had it pointed right at my nose. I never thought of calling the police.
I must say, I do not believe I would take a rifle from anyone’s hands these
days. I was in some kind of a fearless faith-filled daze then. I suppose this
innocent daze kept me alive in those situations. Once a gang was going to beat
me to death with a stick, but I talked them out of it. Once in Watts I was
robbed. I gave the two men all I had and told them if I had known I would have
brought more money. I have thought about it a lot through the years.
I established a
relationship with HUD and filled three large apartment buildings entirely with
L.A. church members. I will never forget the wonderful black man in charge of
the HUD program. In our visits he would tell me how Jesus was a black
Ethiopian. You would think he would have been perfect for the church. However,
I never invited him to the church because I had watched Jim actually “run off”
different folk and I wanted the tenants to have secure homes. In addition, the
manner in which Jim was claiming this as “his” miracle, made it hard to invite
the guy without worrying about losing his enthusiastic support. If not for
Jim’s eccentricities we could have built a huge national membership. As it was,
2000 people filled the sanctuary to capacity each week, and we stopped passing
out flyers and other such outreach efforts. This is never good, because
behavior is always better in groups with their doors open compared to groups with
their doors closed.
Irene Mason was a sweet
and feisty member. I moved her out of a dangerous bullet-ridden part of town
into one of these federally-subsidized new apartments right down the alley from
the church. In the meetings Irene Mason always sat on either the first or
second row. She was bold and enthusiastic and dedicated. She donated every cent
she could put her hands on. One day while making my pastoral rounds, I opened
her cupboards and discovered that she only had a few cans of peas and corn. I
was devastated. I could see that it was up to me to follow up on Peoples
donations to make sure they were not going without food. I filled Mrs. Mason’s
cupboards from the church pantry, which had lots of donated food, and
encouraged her to come use the church kitchen anytime.
Later this
down-to-earth, wholesome woman told me how my good friend, Sharon Amos, had
stayed overnight at her house one weekend that Jim came down. She alleged that Sharon
drugged her, and that she woke up with a cast on her arm and Sharon telling her
that she had slipped in the tub and was taken unconscious to the hospital. She
went along with equal enthusiasm in public as Jim removed the cast, just as if
she had really slipped and broken her arm. I resented the abuse of this very
sincere woman’s faith. Mother Mason’s faith was hurt not helped by dishonest
tactics. As far as healings are concerned I could see that if Jim were to play
it straight and if there had not been a bottle of amphetamines in his pill bag
there would have been more miracles.... not fewer. Mother Mason died in Guyana.
In Peoples Temple there
was great good mixed with improper means. However, I should note; this is what
most all the other “acceptable churches” do also. That is, they use dishonest
means. People got used to doing all kinds of things for “the cause,” and as
tests. Of course, this was all male bovine feces. Along this line of
foolishness, in Jonestown, rehearsed suicides in the form of a communion became
acceptable… with a lot of help of course.
However, to be
completely fair, as I write this, I also think of this one quiet female usher
who had a pendant which stayed stuck to her chest, right below her clavicle. It
was a picture of Jim. There was no chain holding it up. There was no adhesive.
I would sometimes pull it off her chest, look at it and put it back. I could
see no explanation of how it stayed there, unless she had a plate in her chest
and a refrigerator magnet on the back of the pendant, but she had no scars in
the area to indicate such a possibility. I can not describe the level of faith
that Jim was able to generate and I don’t think you can get it by just
listening to a tape. He used many tools. You had to be there, but like all
healing ministries, he got the people around him to generate miracles left and
right.
With a busload of Temple
members from northern California, Jim came down to L.A. and did a service every
two weeks. Each time after Jim left to go back to San Francisco, the church
looked like a whirlwind had hit it. I would be in my pastor’s robe with people
still gathered round stating their needs and problems. When everyone had
finally left and I had locked the doors, I would take a walk outside down the
alley, and stop at a long row of geraniums growing chest-high and breathe in
their magnificent fragrance. I remember my ears whirring and I was light
headed, as if I were on drugs… yet I was not. I was naturally high and now had
to wind down. For years the smell of geraniums brought this memory.
I was a young white
minister in a nearly all-black church. The only Spanish folk were the Sanchez
family, a husband and wife. There was a white janitor and a few other white
folk that would occasion the meetings. When Jim came down from Ukiah or San
Francisco, he brought white folk with him. Other than that we were all black.
The Peoples Temple
Christian Church on Alvarado and Hoover was a historical landmark. It was like
a castle. It was my home. On Saturdays and Sundays, 2000 people filled the
sanctuary. I would come around the winding rotundas in my pastor’s robe and
greet newcomers in the pleasant Southern California weather. These were highly
spirited, love filled, Pentecostal-type healing services with powerful social
messages thrown in.
These were the days of
Malcolm and Martin and John. These were the days of resistance to the killing
fields of Vietnam. As a pastor, I had the FBI come around and show me pictures
of members of the Black Liberation Army and ask me if I could identify any of
them. They knew we were a radical church. We didn’t really hide it.
Jim was a self-appointed
“Spokesman for the People.” Since there typically aren’t any such creatures as
a “Spokesman for the People” (surely, not something you can find in the yellow
pages) we seemed to be willing to overlook Jim’s eccentricities. Jim seemed to
flout those eccentricities as if he was breaking the rules for all of us. He
was taking on society. He championed our desire to change the world, to save the
world. Everyone thought he might make a real difference in the world. Before he
went to Guyana he was seen as a winner. When he was in Guyana he was actually
wanted by the law in the States. Of course, no one wanted by the law is seen as
a winner. I ought to know.
Was Jim paranoid? Yes.
Severely so. Still, there is an old saying on the street; “Just because you are
paranoid does not mean that they are not really out to get you.”
Once Jim asked me to put
bars on his windows. After I had done so he harassed me in a Planning
Commission meeting, saying, “Why did you put bars on the windows? What if there
was a fire?” It was after that incident that I decided to look in his pill bag.
I found amphetamines. Of course, in those years doctors were prescribing amphetamines
(diet pills) to housewives like they were M&M’s. No one seemed to know at
that time that the regular use of amphetamines creates mental-ward type
schizophrenia. The pills also help to explain his megalomania. Speed and
megalomania seem to always go hand in hand.
A year before the deaths
in Jonestown, another speed-addicted demigod killed himself. His name was
Elvis. Like Elvis, Jim eventually became a drug-sick image of his earlier self.
“It is hard to be an image,” Elvis said, after someone commented that he was
more famous than Jesus. “It is hard to be God,” said Jim Jones.
As we prepared for the
meetings, Jim would peek out to see the crowd filling up the sanctuary. The
energy was building. People on the welcoming committee were screening everyone
at the door. Some of what they learned was sent to Jim. He was always trying to
learn things about people as they came in.
Backstage Jim combed his
black hair in the mirror. Then he took one lock and pulled it down onto his
forehead as if he was Elvis getting ready for a show. Once Elvis commented, “It
is true that I am aware of every move that I make.” Jim’s charisma was similar.
Or rather, it was not so much charisma, as a conscious observance of the
connotation and the implication of his body’s every movement and his voice’s
every inflection and tonality. Of course, it was a big help to train everyone
else to walk behind you and make a big racket over your every gesture. Having a
few people appear to “drop dead” is a powerful thing too.
It is not much different
to hear former Benny Hinn security guards tell how they rehearsed falling over
or going into jerking motions. It worked really well for Jim when Rheaviana
Beam pretended to drop dead in Ukiah, because she fell under the table and no
one could see her. I had just come into the church and I was so scared I could
hardly eat my green beans. When Jeff Carey pretended to drop dead in Los
Angeles, it was pretty clear that he never rehearsed. I simply could not
believe the poor acting. I was all the way in the back of the sanctuary, and I
could still see him breathing. At least he could have fallen under a church
pew, for goodness sake.
Wearing sunglasses makes
people who are already afraid of you think you are quite charismatic also. Like
Rasputin, Jim had a mystical stare. He once said, “I think I am going to go
blind wearing these sunglasses.” Jim Jones would have liked to remove the
glasses but he thought his eyes appeared too humble without them, so he created
mystery with his sunglasses.
One of the most
important reasons for the sunglasses came into play when he had to look down at
the black-and-red typed pages lying on the pulpit in front of him during the
healing. It takes talent to hold your chin up and look down to read the names
of people you are healing and to read facts about their lives. I can only think
of one or two other people who are alive besides myself who have seen these
pages. However, his healings were definitely not limited to these cheat sheets.
Once I remember him taking
his shoes off and balancing in his sock feet on the slippery and thin top edges
of the backs of the church pews, moving from one end to the other, right
through the crowd. I am very coordinated but was not able to do it in the empty
sanctuary the next day. He would give every single person in the room a chance
to get to him.
However, Jim was not all
show. When he built faith up high many people were really healed. Greatest of
all he wanted to improve the human condition and he might raise the money to
bond someone out of jail right on the spot. Once he paid for everyone in the
audience to get a free sickle cell anemia shot.
On occasion, an elderly
couple would face losing their house, and Jim would raise the money, then and
there, to pay their mortgage. A truly dedicated senior named Hezekiah had his
car stolen out of the parking lot while he was supposed to be guarding the
place. No problem, Jim bought him another one. A year later the Mexican
government wrote to tell me, they had the car. I went to Tijuana with my only
Spanish member and brought the car back and drove it myself.
Poor folk who were not
far from the streets had never seen anything like Jim. Reverend Ike only took
their money, he never gave anything back. Jim Jones was like a black man’s
Elvis giving away cars in the hood. So I tried to do the same thing. Cars were
donated to the church and I would give them to single mothers with five kids. I
think it’s true that Jim was not in it for the money. Even though the church
had millions of dollars, he didn’t buy things for himself. He tried to be a man
of the people.
But I could not believe
that while the rest of us were struggling to stay awake in all night meetings
that Jim was popping speed. Still, I will never forget the sweetness and the
goodness of the dear members of the Los Angeles church. As long as I live I
will be filled with fond recollections of my experiences as a pastor in
People’s Temple. In all I never dreamed that in a few years I would leave the
church in protest of Jim’s divided mind and increasing demonstrations of
twisted behavior.
During the time I was in
Peoples Temple, I was married twice. Both women were very different
individuals, although both of them were beautiful and black. My separation from
my first wife, Maryell Norris, was a tragedy. My second wife, Juanell Smart,
who headed the membership committee, was the daughter of Kay Enola Nelson who
was our L.A. Treasurer. My new uncle through marriage was Jim McElvane, the
head of Security for Ukiah and San Francisco.
I was forced to leave,
out of principle. I owe it to Kay for making it clear after I left that I did
not take a dime of Peoples Temple money. I truly believe that this bothered
Jim, because I was a signatory of the account, and not touching a dime made it
clear that I left the church out of principle.
Not long after leaving
Los Angeles, people from the church found me and brought me back to San
Francisco. My second escape was a little more of a dramatic one. I lowered my
trunk down the three stories of the San Francisco church and walked out past
the staff empty-handed, then told the security the trunk was stuff for a yard
sale. Chris Lewis and Jim McElvane soon found me waiting for a bus out of “Grey
Rabbit” bus lines, sort of a hippie version of Greyhound. When I refused to
talk to Jim on the phone, they left and returned with what looked like all 60
members of the Planning Commission. I slipped past them wearing a long hair wig
and a poncho, a disguise loaned to me by the very helpful people of Grey Rabbit.
The church continued to
hunt me down. The second time that the church found me, they put pressure on me
to hand over certain tape recordings, and a messenger for Jim whispered in my
ear that a Mafia contract had been put on my life, because I had been “tape
recording the church.”
I was in Denver,
Colorado, at the time. Approximately one week later, an unknown California man
filed charges against me, and I was subsequently arrested. My lawyer told me
that all aspects of the case were very suspicious and that the judge was taking
illegal actions, as if he had been bought off. That’s when I decided to jump
bond.
After I left the church
I got Juanell and the children out next, and drove them to Denver with me. My
warnings failed to undo the children’s excitement for the church, and to my
disappointment they went back to stay with their grandmother. Sadly, Juanell’s
mother, her uncle and her four children died in Guyana.
* * * * *
I was exposed to the
black culture in a way that probably no other Peoples Temple white-bread person
saw it. No matter the color, some of us have no where to go but up. Some of us
have little left to lose. Some of us really, really need help and hope. The
Jonestown grave is full of hundreds of unclaimed dead blacks who literally had
no one on earth to claim them. There is no one to speak for some of us. Jim
claimed he was all that. Did he mean well? Let’s look at what has become of one
of his most passionate issues.
Statistics reported in the
New York Times show that over half of all black men between the ages of 18 and
40 will be in prison or in detention camps in only six more years. I’m not
speaking just of men from Watts or Harlem, but of all black men in this
country. Is this possible? Why aren’t all of us aware of this? Why isn’t this
as pressing an issue as our nation’s war of liberation in Iraq, or even the 700
detained Muslims at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba?
With all his flaws, Jim
Jones gave ghetto and urban blacks a voice. He often talked about Samuel
Yette’s book, The Choice, which forecast that all blacks will be put in
concentration camps or exterminated. This seems awfully harsh, and these days,
it doesn’t look likely. After all, in the past 25 years many blacks have taken
positions in government all across the United States.
However, living in the
ghetto is a form of concentration camp… already. Unbelievable as it may sound,
there exist tons of information on the Internet showing that the CIA began
shipping drugs and guns to the ghettos around 1980, a practice that continued
for over ten years. At the same time laws were passed making the penalties for
crack up to 100 times tougher than the penalties for powder cocaine, the rich
man’s drug. The U.S. prison population tripled between 1980 and 1993, and the
Justice Department reports that that figure doubled again by 2002. The United
States has 25% of the world’s prisoners and we are only about 4% of the world’s
population. We have more people locked up than any nation on earth… by far. If
prison is the opposite of freedom, then this is not the land of the free.
Former CIA employees
have indicated that the agency wished to wipe out blacks. US Army CIA agent
Albert Corone testified that, “there were some at the CIA that felt that physical
slavery could be replaced by pharmaceutical slavery, and that’s why African
American gangs, i.e. ‘Bloods’ and ‘Crips,’ were singled out for distributing
the drugs brought into the United States by the CIA.” This information can be
found on the Internet, or in books like Dark Alliance and White Out and others.
Since this is exactly what Jim was talking about, we must now ask:
Was Jim Jones really a
“Voice for the People,” or was he a con artist? With all of Jim’s bitter hatred
for the government and his unparalleled emphasis toward raising money, you know
he never planned to let the government come in and take it in the end. Of
course he lost control.
I believe he meant to do
good. But it is hard to be a “Spokesman for the People.” When we look at Medgar
Evers, we see that standing up for civil rights can get you killed. When we
look at Malcolm X, we see that being a “Spokesman for the People” did not turn
out very well for him either. Look at Martin Luther King, another “Spokesman
for the People.” Look at the Kennedys …all shot down. Being a “Spokesman for
the People” appears to mean that you’ll have a very short life. I believe Jim
let it work on his head. I remember him wondering if he should wear a helmet
out back of the church so no one could snipe him from a distance.
In Guyana, the Green
Berets, led by Bo Gritz, worked directly under the command of the CIA. You
might remember Bo Gritz. The most decorated Vietnam veteran in history, Gritz
later became famous as the vice president candidate on the ticket with Ku Klux
Klanner David Duke. Gritz also garnered some publicity when he tried to
intervene in a stand-off between the police and Randy Weaver’s White
Supremacist group. Right in front of the press, Bo gave the skin-head Nazis who
were gathered outside a Heil Hitler salute.
Bo Gritz said that the
man he sent into Jonestown returned with the report, “The niggers are all
dead.” That tells us a lot, doesn’t it? Charles Huff, one of the Green Berets
in charge, said that following the deaths in Jonestown, 16 of the trained
soldiers who were witnesses then committed suicide themselves. One of the
soldiers who participated in the operation has spoken out about how they shot
the survivors and how they were ordered to disturb the bodies.
* * * * *
I lived as a fugitive
until the year 2000, when I was thoroughly investigated by the FBI. They
informed me that I was no longer “wanted” anywhere. Apparently charges against
me were dropped after the Jonestown deaths, and I never knew it. Over the years
I had done some research to find out what parts of the Jonestown story were
true, and which were not, since I hoped to confirm that no Mafia contract had
really been taken out on me. I was especially interested in the involvement of
the FBI or the CIA. By providence or by fluke I eventually made personal
contact with some of the Green Berets who landed in Jonestown and finally felt
I had most of the story.
After the FBI gave me
the third degree I felt that I had nothing to lose by taking my name back.
As I look back over the
past 24 years I have worked nearly every job you could imagine under a variety
of names. I did most forms of blue-collar work as well as white. I am a
carpenter, plumber, electrician, mechanic, etc. I was a dance teacher and I was
a stunt man. I did a Las Vegas show as a singer, but I sang in many other
places as well. I was the manager of a radio station in Maine. I was the news
director of Kansas Radio. I did a health show on the radio. I did health
research for life extension doctors. I did free paralegal work for the poor. I
am the inventor of a variety of world improvement technologies.
I have been in the
newspaper many times around the country, for my world improvement technologies,
as well as for singing at the county fairs. I was on the front page of the Salt
Lake City paper for winning rights to defend tenants from slumlords. I was on
the front pages of Maine newspapers for setting up an alcohol fuel plant that
turned waste potatoes into Made in Maine Windshield Washing Fluid. I also
demonstrated how by using a catalyst called zeolite the nation’s farmers could
turn this alcohol into gasoline. I continue to demonstrate my high mileage
devices, which are unique fuel vaporizers that would end the greenhouse effect
and reduce our need for foreign oil. I continue to work for world improvement.
Although it is still under construction, you are welcome to visit the website.
http://www.worldimprovement.net/. Here you can learn about cures for diseases
and energy answers the monopolies have kept off the market.
One of the FBI agents
informed me that I was the most colorful individual that they had ever
investigated. They ought to know, they read through my files and personal
notes, they went through my audio tapes, they watched video tapes of me singing
at clubs as well as singing and preaching heaven on earth in churches.
The FBI even took
samples of my hair and my clothing. Then just in case I were to turn into a
sociopath some time in the future, they gave me a lie detector test asking me
odd questions like; “Would you ever lie to the congregation?” and “Would you
ever do anything to hurt the congregation?”
Still, no matter what I
have gone through, I am deeply grateful for my years in the Temple. Before
things began to go over the deep end, I must say, I have never since met or
known such people, trying together, sharing together, and caring together for a
better world.
Personally, I see the
larger society as the biggest cult. The word “cult” is used against anyone who
chooses to create new rules or establish new ways. New ways, of course, stand a
greater chance of being accepted if they do not involve force or coercion. I
suppose everything is a cult that does not empower people. Usually no
individual or group is all good or bad, but a combination of both.
For almost five years in
Los Angeles I went to a variety of Socialist bookstores and provided Jim with
Socialist magazines and newspapers. In the end Jim did not seem to grasp that
you can have dictatorship under both this-ism or that-ism. He was misled by the
oxymoron “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” I understand it was the height
of the Cold War. Dialectical Materialism meant basically that you believed in
cause and effect. Jim wanted to control the cause and effect and he copied
anything that worked. He copied the cult of the army, the cult of the police,
the cult of the CIA, the cult of American politics, the cult of American
business, the cult of advertising and the cult of the American churches.
All of these groups
believe that the end justifies the means. They all use divide and conquer
methods. In fact the wrong means always leads to the wrong results. A good goal
will be undermined and destroyed by the wrong methods. In the beginning Jim
admired the historical Jesus and Martin Luther King, and he even gave his son
the middle name, Gandhi. You have to be pretty sincere to name your son after
your belief. But there were two Jim Jones: the one that I met and the one that
I got away from. He eventually became more bitter and hardened. I watched as he
changed more and more to believe in Malcolm and Che Gueverra and Mao and “by
any means necessary”.
My last conversations
with Jim were over this very thing. I said, “Jim, you used to be dead set
against ‘guilt.’ You knew how disabling it was. You said how bad it was. Your
paper which I distributed in L.A. spoke clearly against it. Now you openly use
guilt.”
He replied, “Some of us
have found that guilt is useful.”
I said, “I believe
whoever ‘some of us’ may be, are dead wrong.”
Sex
in Peoples Temple by
David Wise
Many former members of
Peoples Temple may remember me as a pastor of the Los Angeles church for
several years. Before that time, though, I lived in Ukiah, working side by side
with my brothers and sisters to demonstrate my commitment to the issues, to the
church, to the cause. I remember once that I was suffering from a painful cold
infection in my ears during a bus trip Ukiah to San Francisco. I was to sing in
the choir, and I refused to give in to the incredible pain and pressure in my
ears. My eardrums burst while I was on stage singing, and blood and infection
ran down my cheeks. I still did not give in. With a shocked expression, one of
our nurses escorted me from the stage and laid me down on a mat. That was the
“mind over matter” dedication that the Temple asked from us, or at least, that
I asked of myself.
Later, back in Ukiah,
Jim asked how my ears were doing. I told him the doctor said that the eardrums
had grown back together perfectly. I fed into the money-making miracle machine.
Yes, it was a miracle! Today I have constant ringing in my ears to remind me
that I am that same person and that the incident was very real.
I believe it was my
dedication that led Jim to select me to set up the Los Angeles Church. I was as
idealistic and dedicated as anyone in the Temple. As the early L.A. tapes
reveal, Jim had declared that he “looked the world over and could find no one
more suitable for the job” than me. Jim pronounced boldly that I was his “alter
ego.” He said that by moving me to L.A., he had effectively brought everything
dedicated and sincere about the Ukiah Peoples Temple into the L.A. church.
*****
In “25 Years after
Jonestown,” I said, “there were two Jim Jones.” One Jim tried all available
tools in the name of pragmatism. He believed in accomplishing his goals by any
means necessary. The other Jim Jones was less of a user and more sincere. One
Jim had a mad drive to take over the world at the expense of the individual. The
other Jim Jones actually cared about the individual and protecting his rights.
Different than many might think, Jim liked to tell the truth on a one-on-one
basis. That was also when he was most kind. He needed his sunglasses to
distance himself, to manipulate, or to be mean. Mainly, he was mean through
other people. In almost every instance, when he was sadistic, he got others to
do it for him.
The difference between
the two Jim Jones, in my view, came in his perception of being threatened. If Jim
was not threatened by you, he seemed to want to empower you and defend you.
Unfortunately, as time went on, he became threatened by his own shadow.
Jim also had an inner
battle going on between hope and bitterness. Drugs increased his bitterness,
causing him to “take the wrong fork in the road,” as the late Archie Ijames
once said. Drugs also caused him to become seriously paranoid and insecure.
This really evidenced itself through sex.
Jim was successful at
many good things. He had unique abilities to sensitize the public to injustices
between the rich and the poor and was exceptionally talented at inspiring the
crowd. For those who had an ear to hear, Peoples Temple opened new doors into
the possibility and the hope for a better world.
But when Jim felt
threatened by someone, he developed a need to compromise them sexually or
humiliate them in public or both. I believe that public humiliation was
reserved for those he could not compromise sexually. Many former members have
memories of bad experiences, and – not surprisingly, given Jim’s approach to
and use of sex – many of these bad experiences are directly or indirectly
connected with sex. The hesitation to speak on the subject has lingered over
all these years.
Anything that does not
empower the people is a cult. This includes the American government, the
business world and even the family unit. We also know that nothing is all good
or all bad. Thus, it is incumbent on each of us to pick the good from our
experiences and reject the bad. This article represents part of my attempt to
speak of my experience, both good and bad.
*****
Not long after the
formation of the L.A. church, Jim ran into a serious legal problem. He was
arrested in the restroom of a late night movie theater where a lot of gay men
hung out. Apparently, he approached an undercover agent with an erect penis in
a provocative way. This incident threatened to bring down Peoples Temple, and
those who knew about it teamed up to prepare for the possible backlash. While
the lawyers worked to get the arrest sealed, Jim became more and more
threatened and paranoid, convinced that he would still be exposed. To reduce
the fallout, we were told to invite people from a local “homosexual church”,
but members of the church did not return after their first visit. Jim still
needed some homosexuals. He was determined to make Peoples Temple a more openly
homosexual church to stop insiders and outsiders from turning against him in
case his own homosexual arrest became public.
After the arrest, Jim
told Karen Layton, “No more sex with strangers.” He was forced to find outlets
for his sexuality within the church to avoid being destroyed from without. He
used the preposterous notion that he had to “relate” to other men’s
homosexuality, to reach them on their level, or he would propose to introduce
men to their inner homosexuality. Although Jim was the one who was actually
guilty, the arrest led him to spread a new ideology: that all men were latently
homosexual except for him.
With revolutionary,
dedicated, uncompromising enthusiasm, members of the Temple’s inner staff had
helped create healings for the cause. (Not all healings were fake, though. When
the whole church worked together on healings many of them ended up being real.)
The same importance for the cause – perhaps even greater – was placed on some
men to fake homosexuality to protect Jim. Men didn’t have to say that they had
had a homosexual act, but they had to remain quiet if Jim stated in public that
he had sex with them. Many were asked to raise hands falsely when he asked who
all he had sex with.
One former member of
Peoples Temple has written a book which claimed that Jim hated men. This is
simply not true. Jim claimed that every homosexual act he had was for the
cause. This is also not true. Jim had homosexual affairs from the beginning and
with men outside of the church that had nothing to do with furthering the
group’s cause.
I remember well before I
was a pastor in Los Angeles, sitting in a church service in Ukiah, Jim
introduced a classical pianist. He played so beautifully for us all. Jim told
the story of how he had met him in a homosexual bar. He told that what
impressed him the most was that the pianist came up to him and said, “I know
what I want, you know what you want, let’s just do it.” Jim said this was great
honesty and held it up like it was an exemplary thing. This same man showed up
on my doorstep later, when I was a pastor in L.A. He’d been sent there because
he was seen as some kind of problem in Ukiah. When he realized that Jim was not
going to have anything more to do with him, he wrote a hurt love letter in
which he said “the doorknob only turns one way,” and then he took off. We never
heard from him again.
In L.A., Chris Lewis
became Jim’s main poster child for homosexuality, yet I don’t even think Chris
was gay. In the middle of a sermon, Jim would call for Chris, who would
generally be lollygagging in the back of the church or in the kitchen. Chris
would come out knowing exactly what he was expected to do. Jim would say, “We
got all kinds of homosexuals around here. Chris is a big man, you might not
want to mess with him, so you better watch out if you’re prejudiced against
homosexuals. Chris might just kick your ass.” My friend Chris would then strut
up and down the aisles. He wasn’t too worried about it. He was doing it for the
cause.
It was during this
period that Jim had a series of private chats with me in the upstairs staff
area backstage in L.A. To understand the context better, allow me to mention
that I actually lived in the area where the inner staff worked when they were
in L.A. They looked at me with a whole lot of trust at that time. Also
understand that Jim had been meeting with me and teaching me how to conduct
funerals and weddings, and to make donations to the police, etc.
In these private chats,
Jim asked me many questions about sex, among other subjects. I was very honest
and open with my answers. Jim asked how I handled it when a pretty woman made
advances. It was a reasonable question. I was so honored to be a pastor, I told
him, that I tried my very best to be a sexual neuter, much like a Catholic
priest, because that allowed me to be fully dedicated to the job. The odd thing
I remember him asking was about masturbation. He was curious about the most times
I had ever had an orgasm in one day. He asked what I fantasized about while
masturbating, and I told him “nothing.” It seemed hard for him to believe me.
He reworded his question several times, as if I were the first human being that
he had encountered of this description. It seems to me that he must have
thought that fantasizing was corruption of some form. Understand that as he
questioned me, he lived in fear that his sexuality might destroy his ministry.
It was after this
conversation that Jim went to Karen Layton and some others and told them that
he trusted me “more than he trusted himself.” Karen made a big deal about it.
She raised her voice and her hands in the air and said, “Jim has never, ever
said anything like this about anybody.”
The great respect that I
had from the other inner staff ended later when I was asked to join the
Planning Commission, which ruined everything. Karen and Jim both told me that
the Planning Commission could learn from my great honesty. However, when I went
to Ukiah for the P.C. meetings, I learned that honesty was not really welcome.
I was expected to be an attack dog or to be attacked myself. I made one attack
on Howard Cordell that was somewhat appropriate, but I felt bad about it later
and decided not to play ball. As a result, Jim and I became more alienated from
each other, and he began to perceive me as a threat. Frankly, I thought his
behavior in the Planning Commission was insane and absurd. I was especially
worried that he contradicted himself all the time. It was around that time that
I found amphetamines in his pill bag.
While isolated in Los
Angeles during the years of my tenure as a pastor, I had no clue that Jim had
become a paranoid, delusional, sexually-insecure power freak. I remember
standing on the stage in the middle of a meeting with 2000 cheering people when
I quietly asked Mike Prokes, “Do you feel a sense of power when you’re speaking
and people cheer?” “Yes, I do,” he replied. “I don’t,” I told him. “I feel a
sense of responsibility, not a sense of power.” Then I looked over toward Jim
who was speaking and said, “but I know some people do.”
One night in Los
Angeles, Jim sent for me to come to his room backstage. He was wearing a
T-shirt with no pants, like women often wear for nightshirts. Jim often dressed
in that manner to conceal the fact that he had no chest hair and a growing gut.
(The last pictures of him in Jonestown show his top button still uncomfortably
fastened. He came to me several times and asked me to button my top button to
hide my chest hair. At least I didn’t have to shave it.)
As I entered Jim’s room,
he reeked of cheap men’s cologne, either Brut or English Leather. He showed me
his penis and said the herpes sores on him were not open, that it would be okay
if I sucked him. I had never heard of herpes. I told him he should use his
hand. He said, “Your mouth would be softer.” I answered, “When I’m horny, I use
my hand.” He lowered his shirt and accepted the rejection. The next night I
heard he was asking for me again, so I drove to the Albertson’s parking lot and
slept all night in the car seat. Afterwards, when he said he’d been looking for
me, I told him where I’d gone. He got the message.
Near the end of my time
in the church, Jim asked me to go along and be prepared to “moon” the Planning
Commission. I thought this might be funny, but it turned out he deviously
attempted to humiliate me. This incident upset me, but it wasn’t until he
ordered the drugging of a young boy in a Los Angeles meeting that I decided to
leave the church.
The little boy was a
gifted child prodigy singer, guilty only of talking to Jim in a spunky manner
over a microphone. Jim acted as though this little child was a major threat to
his image. He sent a nurse to take a glass of water with knockout drugs in it
for the little boy to drink. Later, after the big church service was over, the
body of the unconscious child was carried into a post service PC meeting where
a couple of jerks made goblin and spook noises into his unconscious ear.
That did it for me. I
was not going to be party to such things. I had been placed over these L.A.
members to be responsible by them, not to watch them be sickly abused right in
front of me. I formed the words “power trips” and “humiliation tactics” on my
lips for the first time and began preparations to leave. Among other things I
made a series of tape recordings to protect myself. This turned out to be a
prescient precaution, since after I left I was roughed up by a goon squad. I
was also told that Jim had put a Mafia contract on my life.
*****
There is little argument
that to have believed in cause and effect, Jim Jones created the wrongest
effect imaginable by using wrong methods. Among these wrong methods was telling
all the men in the church that they were inwardly homosexual to protect himself
or to justify the fact that he was the guilty party. I always believed that he
behaved as though he may have been homosexually molested as a child. While
claiming himself the world’s greatest lover, he very often alienated those he
made love “at” rather than “to”. Apparently he missed out on what he needed the
most: intimacy. Jim was a sexual predator-addict overcompensating for a deep
feeling of inadequacy. We can only imagine the difference he could have made if
he had put as much emphasis on World Improvement as he placed on convincing
others of his own sexual prowess.
The truth is, though, he
never raped anybody. He seemed to accept rejection very politely, even if he
might go through others later to humiliate or torture that person. The same
woman that later wrote a book and told the press how Jim raped her was called
into a council meeting in L.A. by Jack Beam while I was present. The purpose of
the meeting was to tell her to stay away from Jim sexually. At first, Jim was
not in the council session. Everyone confronted her and she had every
opportunity to say anything she wanted to, yet she indicated that she wanted to
keep seeing him. Then Jim came in and after listening to the confrontation, he
quietly came to her defense.
Jim undoubtedly cajoled
people to have sex with him, but allowed the decision to be up to the other
person. He told men that if they let him screw them, it would prepare them if
they were ever in prison (as if that makes any sense). I am sure that he made
women think that he was God and then tried to sleep with them. We do not accuse
a man who buys dinner and shows off his new car just to get someone in bed, of
being guilty of rape. Jim believed that what you finally chose to do was on
you.
*****
As the end grew near,
Jim became more criminal. Hue Fortson told me how my friend, attorney Eugene
Chaikin, while speaking in front of the crowd in Jonestown, told Jim that he
would be crazy if he took certain action. Jim screamed and went on and on about
how nobody better ever call him crazy! After that, few people saw Chaikin
because he was drugged into virtual catatonia for much of the remaining time.
You can’t tell me that he later voluntarily committed suicide. You can’t tell
me that nearly 300 children voluntarily committed suicide. You can’t tell me
that anyone else would have committed suicide if Jim had just temporarily
removed himself and John Victor Stoen – the child who was the subject of the
custody battle that threatened Jonestown’s existence – for the sake of the
larger community.
While living in Ukiah, I
married Maryel Norris, a very sweet and dedicated girl. We had a little
integrated child that bore my same name, Little David. I loved them both very
much. Jim sent Maryel and Little David away to protect the community because
Maryel received food stamps while she was working. She was not in any kind of
trouble; it was a precautionary move to protect the community from what could
have happened. Why didn’t Jim remember the example of Maryel? Why didn’t he
leave the community in order to protect it. Without Jim’s presence no one would
have attacked the community, and no one would have wanted to die.
Jim had become a
self-fulfilling doomsayer and prophet of hopelessness.
*****
The article is adapted
from a chapter in my book, Jonestown Legacy. Survivors best exemplify that
legacy. Lowest on the list are the dwindling numbers who still carry on with
divide-and-conquer tactics, humiliation, character assassination, and egocentric
drama. Highest on the list are those survivors who have not allowed bitterness
and hopelessness to steal their imagination and their love. There are many
examples of survivors still demonstrating hope, humanitarianism, and
conscience, the most recent of which is a survivor who coordinated the creation
of the November 18th Fund with the San Francisco Food Bank (see story).
Activities such as these exemplify our call to service in Matthew 25 – and on
the Peoples Temple letterhead – and represent the best of what we did in
Peoples Temple and what we can do today.
My upcoming book reveals
how that Jim was an extraordinary copyist: He copied elements of our larger
society that today seem to be leading in the same direction as Jonestown. This
book demonstrates that Peoples Temple was not a cult, but rather a movement
that copied ongoing cult tactics from our larger society. From this
perspective, I believe Peoples Temple was a mirror, and the ways we examine the
Temple should be the ways we examine ourselves. If you find this hard to grasp,
I encourage you to read the book. The release of this book has been delayed, in
part because the last chapter in the book is still being written, and in fact
is still being lived out. I understand how that many survivors have not
regained their ability to have hope and optimism for tomorrow. That is why the
last chapter tells about proven paradigm shift technologies, cures for diseases
and unbelievable energy answers that offer hope for “life more abundant” in our
time.
Upon request I would be
happy to post individual chapters of the book, including “Words and Expressions
Copied from Father Divine and Daddy Grace,” “Society as a Cult,” “Politics and
Religion,” “Bait and Switch and Copycat Leadership,” and the complete text of “Sex
in Peoples Temple.”
The
Mystery Tape by
David Wise
A mysterious tape
(labeled as Q875) was allegedly found at Jonestown by the FBI. What makes this
tape so very mysterious is that it was made after the deaths, as proven by the
radio broadcasts playing in the background. For several years, folks have
thrown out lots of ideas in an attempt to explain this tape. I believe that for
some, my explanation of the tape will answer lots of questions.
I believe the mystery
tape is important physical evidence left by a medical team under the control of
the CIA, whose role was to inject all of the bodies between the shoulder
blades, a location preselected because it is the only place on the body that
humans cannot inject themselves. A leader on the CIA medical team was likely
charged with monitoring the media as events unfolded. He attempted to record
the press coverage off of a radio at Jonestown. Then, due to a hurried
operation, the tape was left behind. This was not a big blunder, in a way,
because there is nothing much on the tape. The only real oversight in leaving
the tape is that the tape was made in Jonestown after the mass deaths, thus
begging the question "by whom?"
There is adequate
evidence that the CIA had been monitoring Jonestown before the mass suicides.
Members of Green Berets who were there confirm that the plan was to go in and
kill any survivors. This was necessary in order to execute a bigger plan, which
was to inject all the bodies in a way that would make it look like mass murder.
This plan did not fit into reality very well, however, since survivors popped
up who had watched the suicides from the jungle and reported how people hugged
and kissed before voluntarily killing themselves. This forced the CIA to
backtrack quickly.
Whether or not there was
a real necessity for the population of Jonestown to have it put upon them to
commit suicide to show their commitment to Liberation Theology is really not
the question. For the CIA the question was, "How do we stop Jim Jones from
making a social statement on behalf of Liberation Theology and the Left?"
After the bodies were all injected, they had a new problem. Reports from
eyewitnesses (such as Stanley Clayton, who had watched from the jungle) and
reports of a "death tape" recorded at the time of the mass suicide
threatened to blow their cover.
The CIA now had to keep
their first plan from backfiring on them. Guyana Coroner Leslie Mootoo's first
official report on the Jonestown deaths said there were needle marks between
the shoulder blades on virtually all of the bodies found there. According one
Jonestown survivor who assisted the coroner in early identifications,
"Mootoo did not seem like the kind of man who would be easily intimidated,
but something really scared him. He said that someone made him change his
story." It was obviously the CIA that pressured Dr. Mootoo into changing
his report. He altered the report to say that only a few people were injected,
thus making the information fit the death tape, witnesses' accounts, etc. This
later report is what became the "Official Report" for the press and
for history.
In my unique search for the truth regarding what really happened at Jonestown for my upcoming book The Jonestown Legacy, I was fortunate to interview one of the Green Berets who landed there shortly after the Jonestown suicides. For the purposes of the book he asked me to call him Scott Hooker, explaining that this name will identify him to the other soldiers who were there. He told me how he pulled Jones' dead body out of his chair and how haunting his hazel-colored eyes were, as they seemed to stare into space. Most shocking of all, he told me in detail how the Green Berets were under instructions to kill the survivors. This was the same story told by Lt. Col. James "Bo" Gritz, the commander in charge of all the Green Berets in Latin and South America at that time. Gritz said openly that he did not know too much beyond the fact that it