Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle 1x3

1. Attention, attention.

2. Every member of the community

3. must come to the pavilion immediately.

4. We may have an invasion.

5. Jim said, "They're coming for our children.

6. "They're coming for our children,

7. and so we need to stand strong."

8. We were all lined up with shovels,

9. and pick axes and whatever other tools were there.

10. We were gonna fight.

11. You don't know what you're missing down here.

12. These are potato chips made from plantain

13. and they're more delicious, they're a combination

14. of a potato chip and a French fry.

15. And radishes. Mm, mm, mm.

16. Here are the people at the table

17. eating an afternoon snack.

18. It's another sunny day. It's interesting,

19. when I walk out, every time I walk out,

20. as the people can verify, the rain will stop.

21. So that's been amazing.

22. I think there were many different reasons

23. people went to Jonestown.

24. It had a lot to do with peer pressure.

25. For many, they were probably hopeful.

26. You know, we can be a happy community again.

27. You all happy? You here?

28. You happy, Tom? Yes.

29. Everybody's happy down here,

30. you can see that that's an obvious fact.

31. The story was, we were going to paradise.

32. The grand utopia.

33. But we were trying to feed over 900 people down there.

34. It was a battle we wouldn't win.

35. And probably, Dad saw that.

36. So the drama just escalated,

37. which only weakened all of us and frightened all of us.

38. And, frankly, drew us more into his own sickness.

39. As time grew on,

40. the difference in Jim Jones was very marked.

41. I think dad was feeling lost in Jonestown.

42. He could no longer parade about

43. and convince himself of how grand he is.

44. His drug use just at that point was off the charts.

45. He's passed out half the time in his cabin.

46. He blows up physically, he's terribly bloated.

47. So, instead of seeing, you know, their god-like leader,

48. it's just a fat, sweaty man.

49. He loses any claim to divinity

50. because they're too close to him now.

51. There's no place for him to go hide.

52. The punishments did get much more severe.

53. They had this hole that they put people in.

54. This item called the box.

55. People were put in there for punishment purposes.

56. A person would be blindfolded

57. and they would be told eels and leeches were in there.

58. Wha— wait.

59. You couldn't trust anyone with any information.

60. Children turned in their parents,

61. so if anyone asked you,

62. "Oh, how do you like Jonestown?"

63. I love it, it's great.

64. Hello, family.

65. Greetings, from a truly promised land

66. pre— prepared by Father.

67. Hello, family, thank Father I have a chance

68. to talk to you and, uh...

69. The mail was definitely censored.

70. I didn't get all the letters that were sent to me.

71. If you were to write,

72. basically your letter consisted of,

73. "So glad I'm here.

74. "Oh, Jim Jones is a wonderful leader

75. and we're building a utopia."

76. That was what you could write.

77. It became extremely repressive.

78. Somewhat like a concentration camp.

79. People say,

80. "Well how could they stay?"

81. And a big reason is they don't have their passports,

82. they don't have money to get home.

83. A huge reason is that

84. they remain dedicated to the cause.

85. And if they do try to get away,

86. there's the jungle.

87. Jim Jones has 'em.

88. While the people inside this Ukiah home

89. say they fear for the lives of their friends and family

90. far away in that Peoples Temple in Guyana.

91. That Reverend Jim Jones works in some very unexpected ways.

92. But they say that talking about it is worth it.

93. Well, yeah, they try to give you

94. the impression that— that, uh,

95. you know, that everything you hear is not the truth

96. and— and that everything is beautiful down there.

97. Somehow, Jim Jones has an ability to—

98. to control their— their minds,

99. and— and as long as those minds are controlled,

100. I—I'm afraid there—

101. there's a potential for— for some danger.

102. The Concerned Relatives was the label

103. for the unhappy ex-members as well as parents,

104. who wanted access to the Temple's members in Guyana.

105. This is not a commune, this is not a church,

106. this is just insanity.

107. They were having no luck

108. getting through to their family members.

109. They were turned away, their letters were sent back

110. with, uh, simplistic, kind of, "go away" messages.

111. These folks were very bothered by that treatment.

112. I really feel,

113. and anybody can question me,

114. I'll submit myself to tests,

115. I'll talk to psychiatrists, whatever.

116. But I believe I was brainwashed.

117. We met with the press.

118. I said, you know, I was there for six years,

119. I said, I know what Jim is capable of.

120. My son, John, obviously was being turned against me

121. and that's when I decided to fight for my son.

122. The courts are called into play

123. as Grace Stoen sues Jim Jones

124. to get custody of John Victor back.

125. And in fact, an arrest order,

126. if he didn't comply, was being issued.

127. Jim Jones and the leadership

128. do not want to let go

129. of John Victor Stoen because symbolically,

130. he represents the ability of anybody Stateside

131. to get any child from Jonestown

132. and bring them back to America.

133. The Guyanese court order precipitated

134. what the settlers later called the six-day siege.

135. Jim said, they're coming for our children,

136. and so we need to stand strong.

137. We were being told that the Guyanese Army

138. was coming in, and we were gonna— to fight.

139. Because, you know, if you take one of us,

140. you have to take all of us kind of thing.

141. I'm sitting there thinking,

142. "I wonder how I'm gonna die today."

143. Are they gonna come with machine guns,

144. and I'ma get shot?

145. I wonder what a bullet feels like.

146. At 20.

147. I didn't think I was gonna see 21.

148. Jim told us that we were under attack by the Guyanese army.

149. And we were up all night, like a human chain

150. with our machetes, there's guns, there's peop—

151. the security is out.

152. We'd stand there and then after a while Jim would say,

153. "Well, they're not gonna come tonight."

154. And then he sends us to bed.

155. And then the next night, it could happen again.

156. It was six days of being told that you're under attack.

157. And you might die at any moment.

158. We weren't getting any rest.

159. People were exhausted.

160. This is the psyche, this is what—

161. this is what he's doing to us,

162. he's constantly preparing us

163. to where we're thinking about our own deaths.

164. Jim Jones started talking about revolutionary suicide.

165. And that if they couldn't stay together

166. because of their enemies, then they would die together

167. in order to show loyalty to one another.

168. He was standing on the steps to the radio room,

169. and the people that were still there,

170. you know, 400 or so,

171. he actually said, "Let's take a vote.

172. How many people here want to commit revolutionary suicide?"

173. Three people raised their hand.

174. Three.

175. And I saw the look of, kind of, disappointment on his—

176. in his eyes, but also a strategic look.

177. Kind of like, hmm, what am I gonna have to do?

178. I'll never forget that.

179. The whole thing was that we were under attack

180. by the Guyanese government. And then, years later,

181. we find out that it was really over the custody battle.

182. So what are you gonna do?

183. So what am I gonna do now?

184. Well, I— you know, I've been fighting

185. this legal case for two years,

186. trying to get John,

187. and I'll just keep on trying and trying.

188. I'm getting John Stoen out of there,

189. no matter what I have to do.

190. This was 1978.

191. I was a legislative counsel

192. to a member of Congress in San Francisco.

193. The Concerned Relatives started writing

194. to members of Congress,

195. Congressman Ryan being one of them.

196. I think the issues in this campaign

197. are pretty much what they are

198. anyplace else in the country.

199. They're concerned about their jobs,

200. they're concerned about the war in Vietnam...

201. Leo Ryan had a reputation

202. as a man who was willing to investigate.

203. When he was warned that there was abuse of prisoners,

204. he got himself anonymously put in prison for a week.

205. When the fate of baby seals was brought to his attention,

206. he went up to defend the seals

207. by throwing his body in front of one of them.

208. The first thing we have to do,

209. is to get in touch with Jonestown.

210. Congressman Ryan had this uncanny ability

211. to look beneath,

212. and he listened to these defectors.

213. Many of them were interviewed,

214. and it became very apparent to him

215. that there was something wrong.

216. I'm trying to find out what the facts are

217. as an absolutely

218. non-committed person. I have...

219. So he decided that he wanted to do

220. a congressional delegation trip

221. to Guyana and visit the Peoples Temple there.

222. In preparation for the trip,

223. I remember sitting in my office listening

224. to audio tapes of interviews from defectors

225. and having this ominous feeling.

226. I did have a premonition about the trip.

227. You know, I did try to warn Congressman Ryan.

228. I don't think anybody heard us

229. and/or, they didn't believe us.

230. You say there's a lot of this and you can't believe that.

231. I'm telling you that you have never met up

232. with a man like Jim Jones.

233. Tuesday, November 14th.

234. Congressman Leo Ryan and his party

235. of people related to cult members, reporters,

236. and cameramen left the United States

237. for Georgetown, Guyana, hoping to get to Jonestown.

238. When Leo Ryan and the Concerned Relatives

239. and the media arrive in Georgetown,

240. they have a couple tough days.

241. Ryan is trying to get permission to enter Jonestown.

242. Jones says no.

243. Harris heard some ominous things about Jonestown

244. in an interview with a former leader

245. of the cult who had defected.

246. If your mother...

247. and your sisters and brother

248. wanted to leave Jonestown, wouldn't they just leave?

249. They can't. Why not?

250. Like, you, uh... they're in a jungle.

251. With guards. With guns.

252. They can't.

253. I was in the radio room on Thursday night.

254. The phone rang, and it was Jones.

255. And he said, "So what do you think?"

256. And I said, "They were expecting to be turned away.

257. I think we should let the congressman in."

258. He said, "This— this is a way to live."

259. And the conversation went on

260. and all of a sudden he just.

261. And he went into 20 minutes of non sequitur sentences,

262. slurring half the time. I was terrified.

263. I mean, I thought,

264. "Oh, my God, the leader has lost his mind.

265. Literally, lost his mind."

266. Did you check... Go over there and see how much...

267. [man 2] Everybody, everybody.

268. Congressman Ryan approached our group and said,

269. "Okay, we have two planes."

270. Um, we have this many seats.

271. The Concerned Relatives groups

272. started kind of fighting over the seats.

273. And I just stepped back, and I said,

274. "I'm not fighting for a seat on the airplane."

275. I was told later, people said that

276. if I had shown up on that airstrip on the way in,

277. they would've killed everybody right then and there.

278. Nobody would've ever even got into Jonestown.

279. There was so much hatred for me.

280. Friday November 17th,

281. Congressman Ryan and his party headed for Jonestown

282. not certain whether they would get there

283. or what they would find.

284. We were told that Leo Ryan was coming

285. because he was a s— part of the CIA.

286. We were drilled and drilled

287. and drilled and drilled and drilled.

288. People were rehearsed

289. and so it was a huge, huge, huge deal.

290. When settlers in Jonestown hear from Jones

291. that there are gonna be people coming,

292. there are people who start to see

293. this might be the time that we leave Guyana.

294. When a congressman comes, surely, you know,

295. nobody's gonna screw with a congressman, you know.

296. You could leave with him, you might be safe.

297. I remember thinking I didn't know how I was gonna leave,

298. but I made that commitment to myself, and my son.

299. I said, "Jakari will not spend another birthday here."

300. Diane Louie, a very close friend of mine,

301. said her boyfriend, Richard Clark,

302. had started to find a way out the moment

303. he arrived in Jonestown.

304. And I told her that I wanted to go.

305. I wanted to leave with Congressman Ryan.

306. I immediately thought,

307. "This is my chance to get out of here."

308. So I was walking down the path and Monica Bagby just says,

309. "Let's get the outta here."

310. And so from then on,

311. we tried to talk to one another,

312. to bolster one another.

313. I'm probably the one who needed the bolstering.

314. Yes, I mean, it sounds crazy, but yes,

315. we have a right to leave, yes, you know,

316. it's okay that we leave.

317. I wrote the note, you know,

318. "Help us get out of Jonestown"...

319. and that was my plan.

320. To hand him the note and ask for his assistance to leave.

321. And it was very much like a prison escape.

322. "You're not walking outta here." That was what Jim said.

323. "You are not leaving here walking.

324. You can be dead in a box, but you're not leaving here."

325. The consequences of conspiring to leave was death... period.

326. I'm Congressman Ryan,

327. I'm from the United States government and we're here to...

328. inquire into the, uh, health and the welfare

329. of the American citizens who are here.

330. I heard a plane overhead on November 17th.

331. That was Friday.

332. A twin-engine plane, and then the alarm sounded.

333. And so I'm excited and I'm scared.

334. First we went on a tour of the commune.

335. And it was impressive.

336. I mean, you are in the deepest, thickest jungle,

337. and yet they had carved out a viable community.

338. Can you go like this? Make a choo-choo train.

339. Make a choo-choo train.

340. Virtually every person we talked to said the same thing.

341. I love it here, I never want to go home.

342. You're happy here?I— I'm very happy here.

343. It's the best place I've ever been.

344. You wanna stay? Definitely.

345. I certainly do.

346. Some people have said that they couldn't leave

347. if they wanted to. Do you think you could?

348. Yeah, if— if I really wanted to, I'm— I'm free to go.

349. If I was really— If I really wanted to, I'd be free to go.

350. They had entertainment that night.

351. Jim Jones was showing the congressman,

352. this is our people.

353. Everything was riding, that night,

354. on Congressman Ryan's acceptance of us.

355. So the atmosphere was extremely tense.

356. There's a huge show being put on for the benefit

357. of the community, but obviously, for us as well.

358. The entertainment is going on.

359. Ryan was invited to get up and talk to everybody.

360. I'm very glad to be here. This is a congressional inquiry.

361. I think that all of you know

362. that I'm here to find out more about—

363. uh, questions have been raised about your operation here.

364. But I can tell you right now, whatever the comments are,

365. there are some people here who believe that this

366. is the best thing that ever happened to them in their whole lives.

367. And the place just exploded in applause,

368. not rehearsed as been printed many, many times.

369. It was, it was loud.

370. My brother told me afterwards that it was the loudest

371. that he'd ever heard Jonestown.

372. But it was manic.

373. There was an artificiality to it,

374. and it didn't just go on for 30 seconds.

375. It went on for minutes and minutes.

376. What I hear is this incredible tension being broken

377. by this... way overenthusiastic clapping.

378. It was during the performance that I thought,

379. "This is my chance to get out of here."

380. The stakes were very high.

381. It was like an all or nothing,

382. do or die, this is gonna work or else...

383. Reporter Don Harris was kinda doing a circle

384. around the crowd in the inside,

385. so he made it possible for me to pass the note.

386. And I put the note in the— kinda the curve of his elbow...

387. but the note fell out on the ground.

388. And this little kid, uh, he was— was ten or something,

389. he started yelling, "He passed a note! He passed a note!"

390. And I picked it up and I said, "I think you dropped something."

391. I hand it back to him, and, um, um, he walked on.

392. I'm exposing myself totally,

393. and I am in pure terror.

394. Don Harris approaches us.

395. And he hands Congressman Ryan a note.

396. And the note had Vern Gosney and Monica Bagby's name on it.

397. And it indicated they wanted to get out of there.

398. So my heart sank.

399. I thought, "Oh, this is it.

400. "It's really true.

401. People are being held here against their will."

402. We hear Vern Gosney has passed a note to somebody,

403. saying he wanted to leave.

404. Diane comes and she says, "We're leaving tomorrow."

405. That was the plan.

406. After the performance,

407. Congressman Ryan came and spoke with me,

408. and he said, "You are the first one to ask to leave,

409. you'll have the first seats on the plane."

410. And I told him, "You're in extreme danger.

411. You need to leave now."

412. He said, "Well, we can't."

413. He didn't have any transportation to leave.

414. He couldn't leave if he wanted to.

415. I remember lying on this top bunk

416. and listening to a torrential downpour

417. that night on this roof.

418. It was staccato sound.

419. And I-I don't know that I got a wink of sleep that night.

420. I was just thinking, "How are we gonna get out of here safely?"

421. We're just a news team.

422. We don't care one way or the other.

423. You're convinced that Jim Jones is a good man?

424. Definitely, yeah. Yes, I should say so.

425. Yes, I mean, I'm 27 years old,

426. black, free, and I make my own choices,

427. and I definitely think Jim Jones is a beautiful— more—

428. he's got more character than I ever seen out of anyone.

429. And I respect him very, very much.

430. On November 18th, it was determined

431. that we were gonna leave.

432. My husband Joe and I have separated.

433. I have Jakari.

434. But that day, Joe shows up, and I'm holding our son.

435. He says, "Where are you going?"

436. I said, "We're going on a picnic."

437. And he goes, "A picnic?"

438. And I'm thinking, "This is the stupidest excuse

439. "you could ever come up with.

440. Okay, we blew it. It's over."

441. Then he just said, "Well, today is not a good day, don't go."

442. That's what he said.

443. Now I'm panicking a little bit.

444. We have to hustle.

445. Richard says, "It's 30-something miles

446. and we got to walk it."

447. And so, we left.

448. And we just started walking down the road.

449. I have Jakari tied to a sheet on my back.

450. And I'm so scared.

451. I am so unbelievably scared, it's hard to breath.

452. I feel like my heart's in my throat.

453. I'm trying to keep from panicking.

454. And I'm just waiting for the bullet.

455. I met with Congressman Ryan and Jackie Speiers.

456. Congressman Ryan said, "You have a congressional shield

457. "of— of protection around you.

458. Nothing can happen to you,"

459. and I just thought, "You're insane."

460. So then I went to say good-bye to my son.

461. And Edith, his caretaker, was in the middle

462. between these two guards.

463. And then I saw my son.

464. I remember him sitting with me,

465. and just being like a typical four-year-old

466. who can't sit still, and just squirming

467. and crawling all around, and then he went back to Edith.

468. It's a moment that I've went over...

469. a million times in my mind.

470. A million times in my mind.

471. But I didn't know what was gonna happen.

472. So, this is when Jones finally showed up at the pavilion.

473. And I was standing off to the side

474. when he was being interviewed by Don Harris of NBC.

475. Harris showed him the note from Vern or Monica,

476. saying they wanted to leave.

477. Last night, someone came and passed me this note.

478. Well, that's who we're talking about.

479. He wants to leave his son here.

480. If Jonestown is such a bad place,

481. why does he want to leave his son here?

482. Doesn't it concern you, though, that—

483. that this man, for whatever reason,

484. one of the people in your group was— People—

485. People play games, friend.

486. They lie.

487. If it's so damn bad,

488. why is he leaving his son here?

489. Can you give me a good reason for that?I'll ask him.

490. I'd take my son— I'd take my son with me.

491. But you could see that he was not right.

492. I mean, uh, I couldn't see how not right he was,

493. but you could see he was not right.

494. The mood in that pavilion was starting to be chaos.

495. And I realized at that moment

496. that there was other people that wanted to leave.

497. Leo, come on.

498. I was quite shocked because those two families

499. came with Jim Jones from Indiana.

500. Miss, Miss...

501. I mean this. Thank you. Thank you.

502. Yeah, I know there is. I know there—

503. People that had been with Jim for decades

504. came up and said, "We wanna go."

505. And all of a sudden, the whole mood changed.

506. I remember there was this screaming match going on.

507. Hold on a second. One second.

508. A couple with a child was pulling on the child.

509. One parent had one arm pulling, she wanted to go,

510. and the other one wanted to stay.

511. And I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, this is..."

512. The intensity of emotion had just skyrocketed.

513. I had tears rolling down my face.

514. It was just— it was so incredibly emotional.

515. But Jones' demeanor changed.

516. I could see the anger growing on his face.

517. In terms of people leaving, it had gone from 7 or 8,

518. to now 13 or 14, and now another 9.

519. We're up over 20 people.

520. It was decided as the group of people

521. who wanted to leave grew...

522. that Congressman Ryan would stay behind,

523. and we would have two airlifts.

524. And I would take the first group out.

525. And all of a sudden,

526. Larry Layton jumps onto the truck.

527. Dale Parks came and said,

528. "Larry Layton is coming with us.

529. "You've gotta watch him. He's a plant.

530. "He's not— he's not a sincere person

531. who wants to leave. We've gotta watch him."

532. And so we all went, got on the truck.

533. We're getting ready to leave,

534. and I remember talking to Don Harris,

535. and we were feeling relieved,

536. like we were getting out of this powder keg.

537. All of a sudden the wind, I mean, literally,

538. out of nowhere, the wind picked up

539. to, like, 35, 40 miles an hour.

540. The sky turned black,

541. and just this torrential downpour happened.

542. What I felt, and I felt it physically,

543. was evil blow into Jonestown.

544. It's like a supernatural force

545. swept in and took over the place.

546. The reason this was so important

547. is because the truck couldn't leave.

548. They kept running the motor and running the motor

549. and couldn't get out of the mud.

550. But what was going through my mind is,

551. "You're not getting out of here.

552. You're not gonna leave."

553. And then there was this eruption from the pavilion.

554. Congressman Ryan is back in the pavilion.

555. He's across from me. He's talking to me.

556. And I noticed a man named Don Sly

557. walking up behind Congressman Ryan.

558. He's shaking like a leaf.

559. And it looks like he's actually crying.

560. And I thought to myself,

561. "Somebody else is leaving," you know?

562. "Oh, well, he's leaving too."

563. And all of a sudden, a knife comes out and he says,

564. "All right, mother, you're gonna die."

565. The knife comes out and he says, "All right, mother, you're gonna die."

566. We all jumped on him and we got the knife away.

567. Congressman Ryan is sitting down

568. and you can see blood on the congressman's shirt.

569. He was obviously shaken up.

570. Somebody just tried to kill him.

571. Personally, what I felt was,

572. "Oh, my God, the leader is a murderer.

573. I've been playing peace and love and he's a murderer."

574. I felt completely naive.

575. By this time, Jones is sitting there.

576. And he's like this and he starts...

577. "I've never felt Jonestown so peaceful."

578. And I got chills all over my body.

579. 'Cause Jonestown had never been more in pain

580. or more agony.

581. It felt, literally, to me like Jonestown

582. was disintegrating in front of my eyes.

583. Out walks Congressman Ryan...

584. and he's got blood stains on his shirt.

585. He gets into the cab of the truck

586. and the truck takes off for the airstrip.

587. I thought, "Oh, my gosh, we are so lucky.

588. I mean, we've just dodged a bullet."

589. There was an attempt on Ryan's life,

590. we've got these defectors,

591. I'm still unsure about why Larry Layton's on this truck,

592. but we'll sort it out when we get to the airstrip.

593. For myself, the feeling on that truck

594. was terror, foreboding.

595. I don't think there was a lot of talking going on.

596. It's six miles to Port Kaituma.

597. The roads are narrow. Thee roads are muddy.

598. It's gonna take a little while to get there.

599. They're gone maybe 10 minutes when a tractor...

600. pulls out of Jonestown after them,

601. and there's a number of men on it—

602. six, seven, eight— all armed.

603. And they disappear too.

604. At this point in time in the pavilion,

605. I'm kind of afraid 'cause I helped save the congressman's life.

606. So I started kind of easing my way out of the pavilion.

607. I walked back to the cottages, and I felt, literally,

608. like there was a target on my back.

609. It felt like I had a sniper's scope on my back.

610. This was so hard.

611. I get back to the cottages and Gloria's there with Malcolm.

612. And she was laying down on the bed.

613. And Malcolm was playing on the floor with his toys.

614. And I said, "Do you know what's happening up there?"

615. And she shook her head, "Yes,"

616. and we just started holding each other,

617. and I said, "I'm afraid we're all gonna die."

618. At Port Kaituma,

619. Ryan, because there's so many people coming,

620. has called ahead asking that an extra plane come,

621. that there would be two planes instead of one.

622. They're still sorting that out

623. when Leo Ryan is going to go ahead

624. and give an interview to the TV crew on the tarmac.

625. Did he say anything when he came up? Yeah.

626. He said something about, uh, rob and choke and kill

627. and, uh— or knife. I don't— I don't know.

628. But the obvi— What he said was,

629. he intended to kill me.

630. Congressman Ryan is talking to some members of the press.

631. I start to board passengers onto planes.

632. And I'm boarding the smaller plane first.

633. Myself and Larry Layton were assigned to the small plane.

634. Congressman Ryan, at this point, has come over,

635. and I says, "You know, I don't trust Larry Layton.

636. I don't want to be on the same plane."

637. One of the press people is there

638. and I said, "Would you just frisk him?"

639. He frisks him.

640. Doesn't find the gun.

641. All of a sudden, in comes the tractor from Jonestown.

642. They're starting to think, "Uh-oh, there's trouble."

643. And all of a sudden, there was this noise.

644. I looked out the window and said,

645. "They're killing everybody. They're killing everybody."