By LAURIE EFREIN KAHALAS © 1998

Do you know how or why close to a thousand people died at Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978? Has anyone ever told you a remotely coherent story? In the following, Laurie Kahalas, a People's Temple survivor, presents us with an account of the events from an insider's perspective. Her new book, Snake Dance: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown, is one of the most significant works on the subject published in the past 20 years.

My name is Laurie Efrein Kahalas, and I was with the Peoples Temple for eight-and-a-half years. I was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck, along with a tiny crew left back in the States for organisational work. While others were wildly shredding documents, I quietly saved them, squireling away documents and files for a later, brighter day. There was nothing there that could incriminate us (for indeed, we were not criminals at all, we were humanitarians); and I realised I held in my hands the keys to some day exculpate my friends. As if such a thing could be possible! But I vowed to try.

I am here to humanise the events at Jonestown, or as the Preface of Snake Dance: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown, says: "To be fully human in the face of infamy." The world spent so much time demonising Jim Jones, there was none left to humanise the people of Jonestown, or to comprehend the terror of their plight.

What was the real story? Were the elements human, political, circumstantial? Preventable, not preventable? Were there demons, villains, heroes?

In fairness to researchers, it has been next to impossible to research, in that Jonestown was one of the worst cases of yellow journalism in the entire history of the American media. It all began with the power of the press.

All "research" goes back to the "original sources," an unseemly amalgam of three components: 1) Ex-member plants in the group; 2) their non-member government-based handlers; and 3) the tiniest handful of aggrieved ex-members who were used as pawns. Of the ex-member group who did not have the earmarks of being government plants, most lost relatives in the tragedy.

The horrendous mass death at Jonestown burst onto the world press in November, 1978, complete with gory details and fingers of blame. Although it was breaking news, all the background, the analyses, the witnesses, the media heroes, were ready-made for the press; nor was there any other candidate for blame but Jim Jones. The people at Jonestown were "brainwashed"; their defenders "apologists"; the only "credible sources" were the people who had "exposed" Peoples Temple a year and more prior to the tragedy.

We say we know the crushing power of the press, but no one knows that in full measure until you experience a Jonestown. So intense and widespread was the deluge, that it never even occurred to those within the press to question whether it may have been the very same people so intent upon destroying the church’s reputation, who had moved to destroy Jonestown physically.

The most notorious precursor of such methods was the Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels, who advised laying down a barrage of bad press to indoctrinate the Germans into exterminating the Jews. "Repeat a lie often enough and people will believe it." With Peoples Temple, it was rendered all too easy, for the group had virtually relocated thousands of miles away, leaving no viable voice to defend the church.

At first, it seemed a great shock, for the church had been "the toast of the town," for its humanitarian service work. A mere six months before Jim Jones’ exodus to Guyana, a Testimonial Dinner featured plaques of commendation from the Mayor of San Francisco, the City Council, the State Senate, and accolades from the Lieutenant Governor, the Police Commissioner, Assemblyman Willie Brown (now Mayor of San Francisco) and many others. Yet in the very first smear, in New West, a fledgling Murdoch publication, a 25-year record of humanitarian service was merely held up, then dumped in the trash, in favour of "What is going on behind closed doors"?

Although Jonestown was the church’s crown jewel accomplishment, an acclaimed breakaway from the inner cities of the United States, with their racism, unemployment, drugs, crimes, substandard housing and more, the destroyers merely used people who had never even been to Jonestown as "sources," and began with "Jonestown: Paradise or Prison?" From that time forward, until the arrival of reporters at the end, no reporter had ever visited Jonestown, yet horror stories from the most suspect people were all the mainstream press would print. By the time the reporters arrived, they had been so manipulated to suspect the worst, they actually wrote that they thought it "odd" that black and white, young and old, were singing and swaying together, and that "I wondered if they had been drugged or hypnotised"! Another reporter broke into a senior women’s residence, saw bunk beds (for building individual cottages was ongoing for a large exodus), and concluded "It looked like a slave ship."

Who lay the groundwork for the Congressman and the press to come to Jonestown? Who led Congressman Ryan into what turned out to be a death trap? More pointedly, who was it who set that trap for him, and how can we be sure?

Jonestown Targeted by Agent Provocateurs

It is time to examine the "valiant crusaders" who "exposed" Peoples Temple in the press and forced the investigatory visit to Jonestown.

Their leaders were a combination of agency plants and provocateurs, as directed by their non-member government handlers. A year-and-a-half smear campaign preceded the tragedy, destroying an acclaimed church in absentia, during which time the Murdoch and Hearst presses blacked out any dissent.

Moreover, no one was who they said they were, and their stated motives were "cover stories," not fact. The story was not "courageous ex-members who dared to step forward," but rather the tiniest handful of vindictive ex-members with suspect personal motives, being used by people with a far-right-wing political agenda.

The leaders of the parade, Elmer and Deanna Mertle (a/k/a Jeannie and Al Mills), were right-wing extremists, veterans of the notorious John Birch Society; and Timothy Stoen, veteran of clandestine spying missions into East Berlin in the early sixties. The Mertles were murdered in February 1980 in their home in Berkeley, California, by people the police surmised "they knew," for there were no signs of forced entry or burglary. The killings of these two, and their daughter Daphene were done very professionally — dum-dum bullets, "execution style," and leaving no traceable clues.

Most tellingly, they were murdered a mere five days after announcing they no longer wanted to speak out against Peoples Temple! Their murders prevented them from posing a life-long liability... but for whom?

Timothy Stoen, former top attorney for the church, and founder of the "Concerned Relatives" group, had no relatives in Jonestown, but aggressively pushed his slander factory to bring Congressman Ryan to Jonestown on false pretences. He deliberately and knowingly pressed a false paternity claim to Jim Jones’ own child, repeatedly threatening to send in mercenaries, as recorded in newspaper editorials and State Department logs. A previous mercenary attack against the community came within a few days after his attorneys had travelled to Jonestown to serve legal papers, with the implicit threat: "Release the child or else violence will ensue." To justify ongoing threats of violence against defenceless families, Stoen meanwhile persuaded Deborah Layton, an ex-member who swore to many lies, to claim that she had personally seen "hundreds of guns," although both Guyanese and American authorities later discovered all of thirty-nine — .22 calibre and none automatic. These people were transparently defenceless.

Within two weeks of the tragedy, Stoen bragged that he would "destroy Jonestown," and specifically that he was "counting on Jim [Jones] to overreact." As America viewed on screen through one of its major networks, ABC, Congressman Ryan addressed the community of Jonestown saying, "I hear many of you saying that this is the best thing that’s ever happened to you!", leaving any motive for assassinating him quite thin. It seems quite unbelievable that a Congressional visit alone, much less a positive one, could possibly create such an "overreaction." Stoen surely knew that his "concentration camp" charges could not stick, so to what would Jim Jones "overreact"? A mere visit? Or an assassination?

It was also Stoen who was later exposed as the one who had continually tried to pushed a non-violent church onto a terrorist course (called an "agent provocateur"), it was Stoen who made all the threats against Jonestown, and it was Stoen who led Congressman Ryan into Jonestown on false pretenses. More tellingly even, Stoen had secretly been a far-right-wing zealot all along, and Congressman Leo Ryan was known to be the most vocal anti-CIA Congressman in the entire United States Congress! We want to bear this in mind when we ponder what is known about the assassination.

Stoen, who had been living communally and was now visibly unemployed, spent huge sums of money on lobbying in Washington, cross-continent travel, and it was discovered that he had several secret bank accounts in foreign countries where the church had done no banking at all.

Other key movers and shakers in the ongoing campaign had never been members at all — not of Peoples Temple, anyway. More like "membership" in the Treasury Department, Interpol, and some dead ringers for ties with both FBI and CIA. Most notable were two shadowy characters by the names of David Conn and Joseph Mazor.

David Conn admitted being close friends with the Mertles all the years they were members, and moreover, of "investigating" the church throughout that time. He claimed he was concerned about "black people being ripped off." (Note: In point of fact, Jim Jones was such a careful steward of the people’s money, Tim Stoen never even made such a charge). Yet he went to Native American leader Dennis Banks, and tried to blackmail him into turning against Jim Jones, or be sent back to his death in a South Dakota prison! So the cover story about caring about minorities was definitely false! Moreover, Conn had bragged to Banks about his ties to the US Treasury Department, which works closely with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and two other sources confirmed Conn as a Treasury Department agent.

Joseph Mazor, who was discovered to be a member of Interpol, housed adjacent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, was an admitted felon, who was mysteriously granted a State investigator’s license fresh out of prison for passing bogus checks — just in time to investigate Peoples Temple! He admitted orchestrating the smear campaign against the church, stating that his employers were outsiders, never members of the church, and he refused to reveal their identities or the source of his funding. Mazor was later to "claim credit for" the mercenary attack against Jonestown, and travelled there to announce that the original plan of the attack had been mass extermination. A community which was already isolated and defenceless now feared the worst — and just weeks before the Congressman arrived!

Influential & Powerful Voice for the Oppressed

What were the motives behind the smears in the press? Peoples Temple Christian Church performed all the work of the church, caring for the poor, the needy, and the disadvantaged. But we were also interracial. We were socialist. Our leader had a powerful, influential voice. Although we had become a political forum for every left-wing leader, advocate, or cause of the day, we were gaining ground in the mainstream. We were even planning to re-relocate to the then-Soviet Union during the Cold War. We "had to be stopped."

Following the tragedy, Joseph Mazor who, like the others, had never revealed any political motivation for opposing the church, now stated flatly, "It was considered that Jim Jones would become a major political force in the Caribbean within five years." It was patently clear that despite the church’s ongoing non-violence, they feared a new Castro in the Caribbean. An American Castro, with citizens free to enter and exit the States at will. Was it possible for the CIA to not be interested in such an international scenario?

And who else might the CIA have an interest in wanting to "stop"? The CIA’s main gadfly at that time was one Leo Ryan, the slain Congressman, who had passed the Hughes/Ryan Bill of 1974, requiring the CIA to report all covert operations to Congress. Indeed, both Jim Jones and Leo Ryan, both threats to the CIA, wound up dead? "Coincidence"?

In any case, we were indeed "stopped" from either any proliferation in the Caribbean, or a move to the then-Soviet Union, in the most tragic manner possible. Yet all the public was ever told was that Peoples Temple was a bizarre violent cult with an insane leader. "Bizarre murder/suicide ritual" was the mantra of the day. Politics was never mentioned.

But it was more. If the story had been exactly as told, it could be left alone. But it never was. Cover-ups and disinformation were, of necessity, rampant. This is, indeed, what has most complicated the present-day task of telling what really happened at Jonestown. The rumour mill has been so widespread, one has to contend with not just facts, but an ingrained belief system, that has all the earmarks of itself being a "cult." People who want to believe that "Jim Jones was CIA," or "Jonestown was a secret CIA mind control experiment," or "Jonestown was MK Ultra," have been more daunting to contend with than people who have simply been uninformed.

No one has ever considered that the disinformation pervading the aftermath of the Jonestown tragedy was perpetuated because Leo Ryan was so known to his aides to be anti-CIA, that to ward off a direct investigation of the CIA for assassinating Ryan, they have to concoct Jim Jones must have been CIA! If even madness has method, here is the simple key to the false and unverified barrage of accusations about Jonestown being a secret CIA mind control experiment and the like. Just blame Jim Jones and call it CIA. If the CIA really did it, no one given that absolutely false clue could ever trace it to the source. It was deliberately designed by dead-end specialists to lead nowhere.

This is what has led to the current approach of dismantling the disinformation. It has not been possible to speak the truth without first dismantling the fabric of lies spread to date, and clarifying why those lies have been spread: their origin, their rationale, their intended purpose. One must first strip away disinformation before having any capacity to see.

Jonestown NOT a CIA Experiment

I want to dismantle the most rampant disinformation first: the absolute lie that "Jim Jones was CIA." Jim Jones would have rather had his eyes gouged out. It was both the measure of, and admittedly, the danger of his character, that rather than do that, he would die. He was the most mission-driven individual I have ever met in my entire life.

Jonestown was NOT a mind control experiment in the mould of "MK Ultra." I personally do not doubt that the CIA might have been glad to use Jonestown as such had they the chance. I am not attempting, understand, to exonerate the CIA! Indeed, I see their footprints all over this disaster. But the mind control experiment story is disinformation 100%.

Jonestown was a beautiful, productive, thriving interracial community, acclaimed as a "paradise," which was the happiest and most fulfilling life that most of its largely-inner city residents had ever known. It was a shining model of how inner city dwellers can thrive and excel on a worldwide stage. It was described by visitors as "a paradise," "a superior society," "like coming to another planet," and " a credit to humanity."

The media who were so eager to smear Jonestown had not even visited! When Congressman Ryan finally did visit, his commentary to the assemblage was that "I hear many of you saying that this is the best thing that has ever happened to you. What is being done here is of great significance, even on a worldwide basis." Obviously, their was no motive for Jonestown residents to assassinate someone who intended to bring back a good report.

Events Leading Up to the Tragedy

I want to approach the catastrophe in two stages: first the assassination at the Port Kaituma airstrip, then the deaths at Jonestown.

First, the reader must realise that this matter was never brought to a court of law. Members of the Jonestown community were convicted of the assassination in the press, naming Jim Jones as the mastermind who "ordered" the assassination. This was accomplished not only with no incriminating evidence, but with considerable exculpatory evidence that was never considered. These were the many factors:

There were no forensics done on the Congressman; no match-up of bullets against guns. Indeed, the assassination was reportedly done with dum-dum bullets, which explode upon impact, rendering them untraceable, and which were beyond the technical capabilities of anyone at Jonestown to manufacture.

The so-called "eyewitness identifications" were bogus — made by (according to the Congressional investigators) Jim Cobb, a man who was not only suing us for millions of dollars at the time, but who did not even know many of the alleged attackers (they had joined the church after he left), admitted being "on the other side of the plane when the shooting started," and then fled for his own life in the other direction! He never even had the shooters in his line of vision!

There were virtually no autopsies done — all of seven, and of even those, the bodies were embalmed before being shipped back to the medical team in the United States! An American doctor lamented that they had not even verified poisoning in a single case! That it would have been very simple — just a little blood or urine, but that with all the hundreds of bodies, it was not done on a single one. Shipments of the dead were nearly not accepted because there had been no death certificates prepared. No one even went to collect the bodies until they had been laying out three days in the tropical sun.

A key piece of evidence did emerge unexpectedly: an on-site film of the assassination had been taken by Bob Brown, an NBC photojournalist who was then himself shot. I first saw this film at the first anniversary of the tragedy in 1979. I was alarmed to see a sophisticated military formation, identified for me as "a squad diamond", not at all within the capability of Peoples Temple. The killings looked very professional, and indeed, Bob Flick, a reporter on site, described the killings as "calm, silent, brutal, methodical" and that the attack had been "carefully planned and mercilessly executed."

At the time, I went to the Congressional investigating committee to demand they blow up the film to confirm that it was not anyone from Jonestown who killed the Congressman. They refused, deliberately botched my transcript, and when I tried to mail the information to the 34 Congressmen on the committee in Washington, only two of my return mailing receipts came back stamped!

I had neither the clout nor the connections to obtain the film at the time, but now at the twentieth anniversary, it has resurfaced, as have other pieces of evidence perhaps considered less dangerous by this late date. I currently have a source in possession of the film, and confirming military opinion that this was a "diamond formation," and a thoroughly professional "hit."

Yet the bias in the United States press continues to the degree that snippets of that film have been played on several television stations, and no one even commented that the shooters were all dressed alike — in Army uniforms! Perhaps the truth, flagrant as it is, may yet surface through the simple channels of common sense.

Next is that the assassins did not arrive on the Temple truck. They barreled on in a second vehicle, as all eyewitnesses confirmed. They were somehow able to rapidly and skillfully disarm the Guyanese police on site before opening fire on the Congressman and his party.

What of the charge that "Jim Jones ordered the assassination"? What was released publicly of "the final tape" made at Jonestown, however severely spliced and abbreviated it was, is unequivocal on that point again and again. Indeed, the identity of the killers was completely unknown to Jim Jones:

1) "I didn’t order the shooting";

2) "I don’t know who shot the Congressman.";

3) "I can’t control these people [who did].";

4) "I waited against all evidence... I tried to prevent all this from happening.";

5) "I wish I could call it back.";

6) "I never wanted to kill anybody.";

7) "How many are dead?... Oh, God Almighty, God help them..."

A letter written to Congress and the President months earlier, had predicted exactly what would happen:

"All that has been done is to get people to believe in society... Our people had been so alienated. All that they can see in this is a set-up, a classic scenario: first muddy our name... whip up attacks in the press, and then: by the time you reach the classic ending, the frame-ups, the ‘kill,’ no one even cares. ...And they think that the press has already done its job with slander and smears, and so no-one will care about the frame-ups..."

Yet when the moment of truth was upon the people of Jonestown, the chaos and confusion was so thick, that panic about an invading force had taken over. Tragically, contingencies had been discussed long since, following the mercenary attack in September, 1977. This was a community that was geographically trapped, militarily defenceless, and so remote and isolated, it did not even have a phone to alert the world or call in help. The great majority of residents had vowed to never be forced back to the inner cities of the United States. The previous military attack had happened in broad daylight, when they were peaceably going about their daily business. Now it was the wake of the assassination of a Congressman, heading towards the middle of the night. How much greater the peril! Thus, when Jim Jones told his assembled community that forces would be closing in for a slaughter, it seemed all too real.

Moreover, Port Kaituma, the location of the airstrip assassination, was seven miles from Jonestown, so no one reported the men in Army uniforms had assassinated the Congressman! But even had they known, that would have heightened the danger, not diminished it.

In my book, Snake Dance: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown, I lay out all the possible post-assassination scenarios whose perpetrators must at all cost cover up. Although I was horrified at the suicides, I am still haunted to this day, what might have happened had they simply waited out the night. Life is precious, and any life that could have been saved would be precious, whatever the overall carnage. But carnage there would have been. There would have to have been carnage to cover their tracks and eliminate anyone with an alibi, differing version, or questions about a frame.

As for the people of Jonestown, they would have been thrilled to survive and live on. They took their own lives not because they were drugged or brainwashed or robots. They genuinely and legitimately feared a slaughter from outside forces.

I know what happened will be controversial forever; and I wept, especially over the loss of children, more times over more years than I can easily admit. But I loved these people, and what has bruised my heart along with the deaths, is the injustice of what happened, that the truth was never told, and that no one has ever spoken on their behalf. They were a role model for how inner city dwellers could thrive and excel on a worldwide stage. They were brave, wonderful pioneers, who deserve far better than to be labelled as "brainwashed," "robots," or even "psychopaths."

Moreover, who will ever dare another Jonestown? Who will break away in self-empowerment and overcome the many social problems which beset minorities in the United States? More than those people were killed. They killed off a hope.

Many people do not care that a thousand people, largely minority and poor, died in some remote jungle. Yet in pressing this matter in the States, I have to assume that people care that the assassination of a United States Congressman was a frame-up, blamed on the wrong people, done to provoke mass death, and that there are many ways this can be proven. We do have an unfortunate record in tracking down the truth about assassinations. Witness John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Bobby Kennedy, and others. But life has put me here, and I take it as a commitment, even an honour, that I can speak for my fallen friends. I have never doubted that it is the right thing to do.

These were people who lived with good cause. From radiant health to beautiful cottages, to a wonderful community school, burgeoning medical facilities, fabulous home-grown food, creative, fulfilling employment, self-empowerment, freedom from all the scourges of poverty, drugs and crime.... and most especially, to harmony between the races, ages, genders, economic classes, the people of Jonestown had an incredible life, a "future life" they treasured. Next to you or me, most of us, and certainly society as a whole, they lived with good, even valiant cause. That is much of why they were put in that position — "that position" being their backs up against the wall! Whether the world will ever comprehend how they met their deaths, it is time to honour the example and sacrifice of their lives.

As for me, I vowed not to live my life as a victim over this, and I am not. I do not live in shame. And in my heart, if not in the eyes of the world all these years, my friends who died at Jonestown do not live on in shame either. Jim Jones? I knew him when he was strong and vibrant, before the deteriorations of illness. He was the most passionate, committed champion for racial and economic equality that I have ever seen or known. He was by nature a pacifist, and only slowly, through extreme trials, did his mettle snap. Was he unbalanced? Of course! How do you live under such threats, and the descent of such a doom (not to mention terminal illness!), without extreme reactions? I am brutally honest in my book about organisational problems, my own conflicts, and Jim Jones’ overbearing, sometimes ruthless personality. But I know he loved those people, and that his very heart would burst rather than willfully inflict that kind of pain.

The final words on "the final tape" were perhaps as redeeming for a community that was unfailingly peace-loving, as they were tragic:

"They are not taking our lives. We are not taking their lives. We are laying down our lives in protest against conditions of an inhumane world. We are a thousand people who don’t like the way the world is."

I don’t much like the way the world is either, though perhaps not in quite the same way, and certainly not with the same remedy. It does not make me want to die. It makes me want to live. To create a future where such travesties as what was done to Jonestown never again happen. Where it is not only accepted, but nurtured and encouraged, for people to live together in peace — all races, all religions, all ages, all backgrounds, in harmony and acceptance of one another. Let us do it, and not have to face a slaughter for the trying. I don’t want to see any more "Jonestowns of death." But I would be thrilled to see more communities in this, our troubled world, with that calibre of life. Let us, Humanity, learn from experience. Finally. Please.

Snake Dance: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown
By Laurie Efrein Kahalas (410 pages; perfect bound).

SNAKE DANCE is at a 180-degree tilt from the official view. Although devastated by a "suicide option" for a community with children, the author courageously reveals the whole, startling truths, so as to prevent future catastrophes. Laurie Kahalas relates to all aspects with searing honesty: traumas, conflicts, cult, philosophical perspective, historical context, the transformative powers of life and death. Written as an autobiography, this book is gripping, compelling, moving, touching, and heart-wrenchingly real.

To order "SNAKE DANCE: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown," go to web site http://www.jonestown.com, which is linked directly into the publisher’s site. Or phone Trafford Publishing in Canada, on 250-383-6864.

© Copyright New Dawn Magazine, http://www.newdawnmagazine.com. Permission granted to freely distribute this article for non-commercial purposes if unedited and copied in full, including this notice.

Picture of Book cover added by Gnostic Liberation Front.

"ABOUT JONESTOWN...."

AN OPEN LETTER TO SCHOLARS, ACTIVISTS,
AND ADVOCATES FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

My name is Laurie Efrein Kahalas. I was a long-time member of Peoples Temple, from 1970 through the tragedy in 1978. By then, I was living in San Francisco, part of a tiny crew left back to process people going overseas, and to counter media attacks in the States.

in my new book, "SNAKE DANCE: Unravelling the Mysteries of Jonestown," I explode every media myth surrounding the Jonestown Tragedy. I replace smears, lies, and cover-ups with the actual chronology, characters, and scenarios which led to the tragic end. I also address every kind of problem we faced internally - for individuals, for the church as a whole, in relation to Jim Jones, in relation to the surrounding culture. I've been searingly honest. But I also loved Peoples Temple, its vision, its breakthrough accomplishments which benefited so many, including those who perished at Jonestown. I am happy to speak for my precious friends.

I know that some have vested great efforts in studying this. They may resist the notion that their efforts may have to be revised. Most have probably just done the best they could in an environment intolerant of dissent. Eventually, people assumed that the official story was simply "so," as the truth slipped completely out of view.

Given the one-sided avalanche of bad press which blanketed the people of Jonestown, I cannot blame the academic community, so long as researchers' efforts have been honest, responsible, without malice or ulterior motive. And I do not doubt that it may come as a shock to suddenly view Jonestown as if in reverse. To learn that what led to the tragic end was not the "exposé" of bad people, but rather the persecution of good people by bad people - people who were dis-honest, ir-reponsible, malicious, and rife with ulterior motives.

You may find this statement incredible, but please be patient, as must I be with you. It took highly-trained, powerful, well-connected operatives to bring Peoples Temple down. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, pervasively, worldwide. I do not expect the terrain to suddenly shift. I do, however, expect that there are people of integrity, who are committed to religious, press, and other liberties, who will have the courage to take such a shift on when the truth be known. I am only one individual, but the issues are far greater than me, or even what happened at Jonestown per se. This is a subject for people of conscience, who care deeply about what happens to our culture as a whole.

I will keep this as simple as possible, as the material is unfamiliar. Please feel free to contact me about any of its premises or details.

There are SEVEN GLARING PROBLEMS pervading all research to date:

1) THERE IS NO MENTION ANYWHERE OF ANY REAL THREAT MOREOVER; WHY.

Peoples Temple and Jonestown have been sanitized into a self-enclosed unit - disconnected from, rather than in dynamic interaction with the world of its time. The reality was that the church had very powerful enemies, who literally drove those people to their deaths. Yet nowhere is there any mention of a smear campaign, government agents, or political persecution, much less a military threat.

There is abundant evidence that threats were ongoing - mercenary threats, an actual mercenary attack, threats of mass extinction, and the like. I was personally either WITNESS to all this, or spoke directly to witnesses, with much documentary back-up. Any story of Jonestown which does not give the matter of REAL THREATS center stage is lacking the most basic rudiments of why people who were inherently peaceful were driven to an extreme such as mass suicide. Without a real threat, the entire event becomes completely incomprehensible.

2) NO ONE HAS EVER TOLD PEOPLES TEMPLE'S STORY FROM THE INSIDE. AS A DEFENDER.

Due to the extreme, unusual circumstance of the smearing of a church in absentia thousands of miles away, with no defense permitted, printed, or even considered, the entire terrain evolved from the standpoint of prosecutor.

If any defendant had been treated this way in a courtroom, we would demand that they be given their first amendment right of free speech, fourth amendment protection against search and seizure (in this case, literal invasion), and all the other rights that we as Americans have fought so hard to secure. Yet what the scholarly community has been viewing as real, is what prosecutors (i.e. persecutors) did to a defendant who was denied counsel, a voice, a motive, even the recognition of real human reactions upon being forced up against a wall with no way out. Not by mindsets, not by belief systems. By circumstances.

Moreover, there were real matters that rightfully would have wound up in a courtroom - namely, the assassinations at the Port Kaituma airstrip. I know based upon evidence, that no one from Peoples Temple killed the Congressman. Even the Court-Appointed Receiver for the Peoples Temple funds, Robert Fabian, said in his report that there was insufficient evidence to implicate Peoples Temple. (The so-called "wrongful death" claims were based upon the poisonings.) Moreover, there was exculpatory evidence that was never aired, mixed in with suspect findings and outright disinformation. The truth is that had there ever been an impartial legal inquiry, there would not have been enough evidence to even bring an indictment.

Yet Peoples Temple was instantly convicted in the press. And eve scholar out there has blindly accepted this kangaroo court as reality. Nor does universal acceptance of Peoples Temple culpability in the assassination qualify as "proof." To the contrary. Legally, morally, constitutionally, logically, every which way.

So I call upon scholars to question. This is not a popularity contest, or an exercise in consensus The prize is supposed to be the truth.

3) PEOPLE TEMPLE WAS DESTROYED IN THE PRESS PRIOR TO ITS PHYSICAL DESTRUCTION, BY WHAT OUGHT CHARITABLY BE CALLED "VERY BAD PEOPLE."

The smear campaign against Peoples Temple was orchestrated by five major characters with all the earmarks of being government agents. Two of them never even set foot in the church, yet were committed to spearheading its destruction.

ELMER AND DEANNA MERTLE, ex-members who renamed themselves "JEANNIE AND AL MILLS," were almost transparently FBI agents. They came from far-right wing backgrounds, joined Peoples Temple claiming a "conversion," and left when their "kind offer to take over management of the entire church" was rebuffed. They were never mistreated, indeed handled with kid gloves; nor did they have any relatives left in the church when they left.

But the real smoking gun was their close friendship with a man named  DAVID CONN  all the years they were with us - a man who later admitted "investigating" Peoples Temple the whole time the Mertles were members! Conn was identified on television as having visited with the Mertles during their Temple years. Several traced this man to the Treasury Department, as is detailed in my book. He was also implicated in trying to bribe and blackmail American Indian Movement leader, Dennis Banks, to pressure him into turning against Jim Jones. Conn also instigated Customs and other investigations, based upon bogus claims. By the second smear, he and the Mertles were already quoting the IRS tax code, chapter and verse, to remove a church's tax exemption.

The Mertles were murdered in their own home in February, 1980, professional execution-style murders using dum-dum bullets, done by people the police surmised "they knew." It was a mere five days after publicly announcing they wanted off the anti-Temple circuit!

The fourth suspect character, JOSEPH MAZOR, was identified as a member of Interpol. His entire history is suspect, and is aired in the book. In the attached article from The Berkeley Barb (September, 1977), Mazor even admitted that his original employers were "not present or past members of Peoples Temple"! It was also Mazor who personally came to Jonestown just weeks prior to the tragedy, claimed credit for the six-day mercenary siege, and said that the original plan had been "to kidnap the children and then kill all the adults, "i.e. mass extermination.

The fifth suspect character was the most damning of all: TIMOTHY STOEN. This one had also been a far-right-wing zealot, unbeknownst to us until we discovered evidence of a spying mission into East Berlin in the early sixties. He departed after trying unsuccessfully to lure Peoples Temple onto a terrorist path, clearing out just before the smear campaign came down, in the classic mode of an agent provocateur. He had been our top attorney - close advisor, strategist, confidante and friend of Jim Jones. Bizarrely, it was his wife who had had a child by Jim Jones, and Stoen used his own false paternity claim in his vendetta, founding the "Concerned Relatives" sham with its own agenda of smears, and luring the Congressman to Jonestown on false pretenses.

One of the co-authors of the original smear in Murdoch's "New West" magazine, Phil Tracy, told Jim Jones point blank, 'The media can make monsters of whomever it chooses - and then did not print a word of the interview! Rebuttals were not only not sought, but blocked out and ignored. This was a massive, deliberate, expensive campaign, orchestrated by people who had never even met us, involving lobbying across continents, duplicate smears placed in the foreign press, travel, hiring mercenaries, etc.

The media's so-called "two source" rule was, in this instance, a travesty. What if your "two sources" are FBI agents? What if your "two sources" were, as in the first press smear of Jonestown, people who had never been to Jonestown at all? What if your "two on site sources" later on (and there were ONLY TWO) were working with government agents and swearing to flagrant ties? What if two people agreed, as did the Stoens, to the fiction that Tim Stoen was the father of Jim Jones' child? What if every journalistic tenet of fair or balanced coverage was routinely trampled under-foot?

More pointedly for our purposes here, WHAT IF THAT WAS ALL THAT WAS LEFT FOR HISTORY

4) NO ONE EVER STATED THEIR REAL REASONS FOR ATTACKING PEOPLES TEMPLE, WHICH WERE POLITICAL.

The breakdown of the attackers was simple. "Grass roots ex-members" was a media ploy, not a reality. There were three groups of people involved: Ex-member government plants, their non-member, government-based "handlers," and a TINY crew of ex-members with personal spites against Jim Jones, who went to work with the government agents. Those so-called "defectors" were not our best people -they were our worst. They lacked social consciousness, moral conscience, or even any awareness that they were themselves being used. Many lost relatives at Jonestown.

Prior to the press smears, Peoples Temple was ACCLAIMED in the United States for its 25,year record of exemplary human service. We got droves of people off welfare onto jobs, youth out of crime and drugs, cared for the elderly, educated the young, reached out to every person or group or cause doing good work in every community in which the church was established. We did THE WORK OF THE CHURCH (i.e. the universal church prototype), and we did it exceptionally well.

Peoples Temple was never attacked because of its failures. It was attacked because of its success. Too much empowerment for poor people and minorities, and from a left-wing base. We were interracial, left-wing, acclaimed, with a powerful leader making inroads into the mainstream. Jim Jones was fearless in taking on corporate America, defending the plight of minorities and the poor, championing social justice, and was a passionate advocate for racial and economic equality as a solution to mankind's ills. Our roster of visitors and guests read like an encyclopedia of progressive politics. We welcomed Angela Davis, Jane Fonda, Laura Allende (widow of the slain Chilean leader), American Indian Movement's leader, Dennis Banks, Daniel Ellsberg, the Soviet Friendship Society, and so many more. Jim Jones even visited with Huey Newton in Cuba. But we also welcomed the Mayor, the Lieutenant Governor, members of the State Assembly, City Councilmen, members of the Board of Supervisors and the like. This was a left-wing church that was gaining respectability in the mainstream for its good works.

This was also bouncing off the sixties, with J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and the CIA’s Cold War. The "ex-members" ploy gave the attackers the exact cover they needed, to mask political persecution. They did not have to state their real motives at all. The very first smear in Mudoch's "New West" took the entire sheath of acclamations from "leftist liberals," as it put it, and tossed it into the trash in favor of, "What is really going on behind closed doors?" The exemplary 25-year record of humanitarian service was never mentioned again. "The story" now became that of "aggrieved ex-members who courageously stepped forward."

Only one conspirator would ever tip his hand. JOSEPH MAZOR, in a interview just days after the tragedy, announced on t.v. that, "It was considered that Jim Jones would become a major political force in the Caribbean within five years."

5) THE TOTAL BLACKOUT OF THE HUMANITARIAN SERVICE WORK OF PEOPLES TEMPLE, ESPECIALLY OF ITS CROWN JEWEL ACCOMPLISHMENT, JONESTOWN.

Contrary to reports, Jonestown had MANY visitors, including virtually every member of the Guyanese Cabinet, plus educators, agricultural experts, doctors, visiting relatives, and many others. Those reports, which are all rave reviews, survive to this day.

Jonestown was a role model for how inner city dwellers could thrive and excel on a worldwide stage. There was full employment in trades and professions of choice; varied, plentiful, delicious food; an advanced educational program for the children; a medical complex which served not only the needs of the community, but the surrounding Amerindian population as well; advanced and varied agriculture; creativity and joy in building homes, electrical generators, landscaping gardens, making clothing, running a saw mill, a cassava mill, raising cows, chickens and pigs; sharing in a rich cultural life. Moreover, there was complete integration not only racially, but by age, senior citizens being treasured, and participating at whatever level they desired, from sharing their wisdom with the young, to complete retirement. Many seniors who had been illiterate in the States were finally taught to read.

Visitors alternately referred to Jonestown as "a paradise," "a superior society," "a credit to humanity," "like coming to another planet." and "a lovely utopia." Only Timothy Stoen's "Concerned Relatives" sham described Jonestown as "a concentration camp," based upon the lying affidavit of ONE PERSON, with no reporter having visited to confirm the scandalous claims. The criteria was not reality, but who was dignified by the press. News of what was happening at Jonestown for the betterment of humanity, was not merely deemed irrelevant, but obliterated. Stoen, the Mertles, and their followers could have any slander or smear printed without the slightest attempt to verify the charges first-hand.

The people of Jonestown, the great majority of them, loved their new lives. They only wanted to be left alone to build in peace. They welcomed visits from anyone, so long as their intent was not to destroy. The truth is that EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF CONGRESS HAD BEEN WRITTEN, AND INVITED TO COME TO JONESTOWN. The only one who arrived, however, was Congressman Leo Ryan, at the behest of Stoen. We had appealed to both the United Nations to come, and Amnesty International, but neither was able. Increasingly desperate appeals to the entire establishment in Washington were ignored.

No one would have tolerated the wholesale destruction of "a paradise," so it was necessary to portray Jonestown as a terrible place, a hellhole, a 'concentration camp." Dehumanizing Jonestown would ensure that the world would "write off" those beautiful people, their magnificent example, the hope they could offer others. They could also be automatically painted as "guilty" for heinous crimes, and "deluded" for following a "crazed" leader to their deaths.

Indeed, the overkill was so effective that on one even questioned whether the entire litany of attacks against Jonestown was substantially false.

6) NO ONE HAS GIVEN ANY MORALLY COMPREHENSIBLE POSITION FOR THE PEOPLE OF JONESTOWN TO TAKE THEIR OWN LIVES.

There has been no reason offered, no logic, no morality, no sanity, no human feeling, not so much as a choice. Only "cultists," "brainwashing," "crazed leader," "paranoia," "robots," even "psychopaths."

I do not defend mass suicide. One always thinks that however dire the circumstances, what if at least a few children could be saved. One-always thinks that, and I am fine with leaving it controversial forever. But the reality at the time was of A GENUINE, EXCRUCIATING MORAL DILEMMA, which has never been articulated:

This was a remote community in the middle of a jungle. Following a six-day mercenary siege in September, 1977, escape routes to Venezuela were investigated and deemed too dangerous. Moreover, in contrast to reports falsely portraying Jonestown as "an armed camp," the community was pathetically under-armed, and cut off from the outside world. Not so much as a telephone. The community had been told by an arch-enemy, namely Joseph Mazor, just weeks before the Congressman arrived at Jonestown, that the original mercenary plan had been to kidnap the children and then kill all the adults, i.e. mass extermination. That was when people were just going about their daily business. How much more the peril in the wake of the assassination of a Congressman!

Some may still say they should have waited to see how terrifying and brutal was the carnage, and then at least a few lives might have been spared. Such people, assuming that they comprehend the realities, should have a voice. But I question, under such circumstances, who shall claim the authority to act as a judge. I am not God, and I assume neither is anyone else.

In ancient Masada, a whole community committed suicide, who did not even expect to be slaughtered. They expected to be dragged away into slavery - to have their homes, their families, their way of life decimated by invaders. Maybe they "did the wrong thing." But the historical view is that their motives were sufficient to have provoked their actions. Certainly no one has referred to them as "baby-killers."

There were people dragged away from Africa in slave ships headed to the United States who deliberately jumped ship and drowned. Tragic, yes. But no one has questioned their "morality" for doing so.

I do not say this to endorse what happened at Jonestown. I do urge, however, that these models, at the least, are used as the basis for historical evaluation, not that of fanatics with no motive, no real threat, a crazed leader on drugs, mindlessly brainwashed, and the like.

7) THE SOURCES ARE UNIFORMLY POLLUTED.

Discriminations must be made so we do not inadvertently cite the work of virtual Nazis as "scholarship." Am I serious? I am very serious. If you were to research the Holocaust, surely you would not cite "Mein Kampf" along with "The Diary of Anne Frank" without comment. Or say that well, one was the scribbles of a teenage girl, but this Mr. Hitler! Well, he has a whole, impressive-looking book!

And what if the Jews had been wiped out and Hitler won? How could that poor little girl with a scribbly little diary possibly counteract what the whole world had accepted as "true"!

Yet that is EXACTLY what the Jonestown research looks like. The lack of any meaningful comprehension of the deaths at Jonestown pervades the scholarly field every bit as much as it dominated the pre-tragedy press. The sources are... POLLUTED. The original sources (from which every scholarly work out there has drawn) portrayed themselves as blameless plaintiffs, when the reality was not only brutally one-sided, but a reality of PERSECUTION, and a frightful, virtually absolute IMBALANCE OF POWER.

To draw a simple analogy, Mr. Potter's vendetta against George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life." Potter stole the money from Uncle Billy, which would not only put the Baileys out of business, but could land them in jail. He stole it, but all the power of the law was on his side. If not for the dramatic bail-out at the end (George Bailey had the advantage of remaining on site with his good works - Peoples Temple had been smeared into oblivion in absentia thousands of miles away), Uncle Billy would have landed in the looney bin, and all George's hard work and sacrifice would have been demolished. Fortunately, George Bailey did not go through with his suicide. But if he had suffered this while separated from his home, in a remote jungle for example, all bets might have been off.

Frank Capra made that wonderful movie so that we could see how such things happen. The people of Jonestown had no such benefit. We all live in "Pottersville" now, perusing the Pottersville libraries for source materials. All those "knowledgeable scholars and respected authors" who have allegedly contributed so much to our understanding of infamy. Like Marshall Kilduff (original press smearer). David Conn (the government agent who orchestrated the smear campaign). Jeannie Mills (the ex-member government plant who coordinated with Conn). Deborah Layton (who used her own personal spite-fest against Jim Jones to smear and slander all of us). The list goes on and on.

I want to SET A NEW STANDARD for Jonestown research. I am asking for the support of the people most intimately concerned, namely the scholars themselves, and activists who have been trying to defuse the "cult mania' in the cult-u-(a)re. It has become all too easy to become brainwashed into buying brainwashing stories. And if smaller, controversial groups, or those who challenge the status quo, are persecuted, especially if for those reasons, then everyone's liberties become endangered.

At the moment, there is ALL THE RESEARCH OUT THERE on one side, and on the other, there is ME. No, I do not feel personally persecuted. To the contrary. I am thrilled that I could live to this day to speak up for my friends. How amazing to finally do this! I am only sorry I could not have done it sooner. I had to await the right timing, the right circumstances, the right vehicle. Everything in its own time and way.

But it is critical to get the lines redrawn. You took at EVERYTHING out there in the way of research, and there is still have ONLY ONE SIDE, with its many variants.

Some may be uncomfortable with what I have to say. But even the poorest defendant with the most miserable legal representation is allowed a day in court. This is not "just one more opinion." I am the only person who has or will walk in the shoes of the dead, and give their unheeded pleas in the throes of real, life-threatening disaster a voice.

I know that Jonestown has generated great interest world wide - many may even consider themselves "experts." It may be hard for some to face that long-held tenets or assumptions might have to be radically revised. No one wants to feel that their efforts have been wasted.

I believe the higher truth is that nothing undertaken with good motives is "wasted." But the truth is a pearl of great price. It is a false assumption that the majority opinion, even of "scholars," has to be right. Great souls were pilloried in times past for claiming that the world was round. Einstein had the whole world accept certain of his theories, then doubted them himself. He did not care about the acceptance - only that it was the truth.

More mundanely, we accept what comes over the news-waves as truth, even when we, as a whole culture, ought to know better. They herded together all those poor relatives who lost their teenage daughters and sons in the crash of TWA flight 800, only to have the FBI show them a fictionalized simulation prepared by the C.I.A., to demonstrate that 244 eyewitnesses (allegedly) didn't see what they saw. (Namely a missile, undoubtedly American, launched up towards the plane prior to the explosion). It was on the front page of the New York Times.

Was there a public outcry? I must have missed it. And what about the relatives? Do they not deserve the truth? Do they not deserve the truth forever? Will anything less than the truth ever compensate for their loss! Yet there are NO "experts" weighing in for the transparently obvious observation that 244 eyewitnesses probably did not all "not see what they saw." Much less questioning why the FBI and the CIA did not claim that even ONE person witnessed the scenario they claimed really happened!

They even killed off someone as prestigious as Pierre Salinger, who tried. They said he must have read some gossip on the internet and mistaken it for reality. Pierre Salinger, John F. Kennedy's press secretary, respected journalist, author, commentator. Useless. Valueless. Killed off. Military wins, populace loses.

In all of the books written since the tragedy at Jonestown, I do not see the slightest trace of real advocacy for Jonestown's tragic plight. It breaks my heart, because I know it would break theirs. My friends were persecuted to their deaths.

I appeal to anyone who cares about religious liberty, about freedom of speech, about freedom from political persecution - even the raw and basic right to live free of military threats! These people had no defense. They were railroaded into their graves, then dehumanized into "brainwashed fanatics," " robots," "psychopaths" or whatever else the traffic might bear. All while the truth was that the community of Jonestown was a magnificent place that had been acclaimed by all visitors, shy of the final media travesty - rave reviews which still survive.

In this context, my book standing alone (though it is VERY well-documented) really does not matter. I have the tools for defense, and no one else has. AND NO CASE IS WON WITH NO DEFENSE.

We've been twenty years in the caves with this one. At the rate it has been going, we could spend 200 years more picking through the artifacts. Something that has been so wrongly based on wrong information from the wrong source people, cannot lead to any conclusion which is right. Moreover, if this was done to Jonestown, it can be done to others.

This is no job for residents of "ivory towers." Scholars may not be investigative journalists, but all are citizens. And moreover, with responsibilities beyond those of ordinary citizens. What survives in libraries is our nation's past, and its future legacy. The lack of challenge of a bullying media, hearsay, rumor, people with tainted motives, and the naivet6 about who wields power in this culture and why, are errors for which we may all be called upon to pay. The whole purpose of scholarship is analysis and criticism, not blind acceptance. This role has, to date, been virtually abdicated with respect to Jonestown.

I trust you will take this to heart. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. Life gave me this responsibility, this entrustment, and I plan to execute it well. I loved my precious friends. I shall give the world their truth.

My heartfelt thanks for listening.

LAURIE EFREIN KAHALAS
(212) 889-6432
e-mail: dkahalas@akula.com

 

JONESTOWN: A Simplified Chronology

On November 18, 1978, headlines exploded worldwide, claiming that a violent little-known cult had performed "a bizarre murder/suicide ritual' in the heart of the Guyanese jungle. LAURIE EFREIN KAHALAS, long-time member of Peoples Temple and author of "SNAKE DANCE: Unraveling the Mysteries of Jonestown," claims that the media reported little right beyond the notorious body count, and that the residents of Jonestown were not the perpetrators, but rather the persecuted.

COULD HISTORY HAVE GOTTEN THIS WRONG? What follows is a chronology of by the insider who had the entire paper trail go through her hands:

1. Prior to the Summer of '77, Peoples Temple was a church known for its 25-year unblemished history of acclaimed humanitarian service. just eight months prior to the departure of Jim Jones for Guyana permanently, the church held a Testimonial Dinner, where Rev. Jones was presented with plaques of commendation by the Mayor of San Francisco, the City Council, and the entire State Senate of the State of California, as well as accolades from the then-Lieutenant Governor, Mervyn Dymally, a man of Caribbean origin who had visited Jonestown and lavished it in praise. Peoples Temple was "the toast of the town."

Jim Jones was also a powerful POLITICAL voice, an indefatigable champion of minorities and the oppressed, a tireless critic of corporate America, an unceasing advocate of racial and economic equality as a higher order of human development. Although the church was unerringly non-violent, Jim Jones was certainly "radical," but with an amazing political acuity for integrating into the mainstream.

Everything done by Peoples Temple in the States had been garnished in praise. And Jonestown, acclaimed with ultra-rave reviews, was surely the crown jewel accomplishment. But it was remote, isolated, far from the U.S. press, and up until the time of the tragedy, no reporter had ever visited.

2. Unbeknownst to Rev. Jones or the membership, the church had been infiltrated by intelligence agency operatives, who had subsequently left the church and spelled trouble. Elmer and Deanna Mertle, who re-named themselves "Jeannie and Al Mills," along with their non-member government handlers, would come to spearhead the smear campaign which would destroy the church's, reputation, prior to the actual physical destruction of the community of Jonestown. It happened exactly as a letter from Jonestown to the Washington establishment had pleaded just months just before the tragedy: 'They [the people of Jonestown] think that the press has already done its work with slander and smears, so no one will care about the frame-ups. "

3. By the Spring of '77, the Mertle/Mills and an outsider named David Conn, whom many traced to the Treasury Department, were poised to launch a full-scale war, beginning with smears in the press. We had no idea at the time of the immense resources, funding or personnel at their disposal, but the building of the church's base overseas became ever more urgent.

The exodus to Jonestown was on.

What led up to this?

4. September, 1973: Politically-based attacks had always been expected at some point, given the church's aggressive inter-racial, left-wing political stance, and the history of death threats, arson and the like, which characterized the era of the civil rights struggle. But the warning knell was struck with the departure of eight young college students financed by the church in September, 1973.

These eight had tried to promote a program of terrorism and guerrilla warfare against "the system" secretly, on their own, which was roundly rejected. Their leader, Jim Cobb, was publicly chastised for organizing a reverse-racism "boot camp" in the church-sponsored dormitories, which violated both the non-violence and the inter-racial unity of the church. The eight had also been entrusted with various secrets, such as the real paternity of the child of our Temple attorney, Tim Stoen's wife Grace, namely Jim Jones, which could be used to discredit and scandalize the church. (They did in fact inflict grave harm later on.)

5 December, 1973: In response to the perceived threat, and more positively, to build an interracial, socialist utopia far from the mean city streets, a tract of land was leased in the Guyanese rain forest, for the community that would be dubbed "Jonestown" for the church's agricultural mission, and a tiny crew was sent overseas to have the land cleared, homes built, agriculture begun, etc. It would serve the dual role of haven in the time of storm and as a role model for how inner city dwellers could thrive and excel on a worldwide stage. It in fact did exactly that. The ultra-rave reviews still survive.

6. July, 1976: Grace Stoen leaves the church. Her son John had been conceived via the following bizarre twist of events: She had complained bitterly to Jim of her husband Tim's transvestite patterns, threatening to leave and smear both Tim, our most prestigious member (Assistant D.A.), and the church. Taking her to bed was a risky maneuver to "pacify" her, which had clearly backfired into a disaster. Grace, found to be a hostile and immature young mother, had not raised her son since he was a year-and-a-half old. She abandoned him upon leaving without even saying good-bye.

Tim Stoen, the "legal father" of the child, was the Temple's top attorney, top strategist, and close, trusted advisor and confidante of Jim Jones - apparently fiercely, even fanatically loyal to the church. He vowed countless times, in the presence of countless witnesses, to protect Jim's paternal rights against Grace, all the more so in that she had abandoned the child. But by the beginning of the smear campaign in the Summer of '77, it was clear that Stoen was also a government agent, of the classic pattern of an agent provocateur. He had tried unsuccessfully for years to steer Peoples Temple onto a terrorist path, and left just as the smear campaign was about to come down.

Stoen was then to become the key force trying to falsely paint Peoples Temple as terrorists, abusers, exploiters, etc. And although he had vowed to never try to destroy Jonestown, or to remove little John (Jim Jones let this deadly dangerous man leave peaceably predicated upon that promise - so much for "not letting people leave"), he immediately moved to Washington to start lobbying Congress against the church.

This would complete the tiny core who would wield massive undisclosed resources to decimate reputable group first in the press, then physically.

7. By the Spring of '77, it had been discovered by spying under the home of David and Donna Conn (government-based outsiders, non-members, who had been, unbeknownst to us, close Mertle friends all their years in the church) that they would begin with a smear campaign to first destroy the reputation of the church, to be followed by agency harassments and the like. Overheard was Donna Conn bragging about their "high priority Treasury Department numbers." Conn also bragged about working with the Treasury Department to Dennis Banks, the then-leader of the American Indian Movement, whom he attempt to blackmail into turning against the church.

8. July, 1977: The group to first attack the Temple via a July, 1977 smear in a Murdoch publication, "New West," was now set: The Mertle-Mills; four of Jim Cobb's group; Grace Stoen and her lover Walter. The remaining two "dissidents" were two elderly black ladies with inane complaints: One was unhappy because her husband, who never came to services wasn't healed of cancer! The other had donated her best watch in an offering long back, and now wanted it back! It was apparent that they were only included to flesh out "the black wing" of the dissidents, which was overwhelmingly white.

Jim Jones had been interviewed at length by Phil Tracy, a co-author of the "New West" smear, who did not use one word, moreover told him point blank that, 'The media can make monsters of whomever it chooses." The 'New West" article tossed the 25-year record of acclaimed humanitarian service into the trash, and it was never mentioned again. Now the tack was, "What is going on behind closed doors?," as though nothing good had ever happened in the church, and all that lurked inside was fraud, coercion and fear.

This wicked outrage would not have succeeded, but Jim Jones and the bulk of the committed membership were already gone, and our legal representation was pathetically weak. No one of any clout or power from Peoples Temple would ever have a voice again.

Meanwhile, the Mertles apparently had no idea that Stoen was also a plant in Peoples Temple. (There was reason to suspect that both the FBI and the CIA had such operations. The case is laid out in "SNAKE DANCE.") He was cited as the "top Temple attorney" in their original smear, also citing numerous legal irregularities which Stoen was apparently responsible for.

9. The smear campaign ballooned unchecked, accusing the church of everything from fraud to murder!! So reckless were the Mertles, their prot~g6s, and the reporters who colluded in the attacks, that the first smear of Jonestown, called "Jonestown" Paradise or Prison" used two alleged "sources," neither of whom had ever been to Jonestown at all! No reporter ever came to interview anyone in the San Francisco headquarters, nor was any material provided to them ever printed. This would be emblematic of the entire campaign.

Moreover, THE CONSPIRATORS NEVER ONCE STATED THE REAL MOTIVES FOR THEIR ATTACKS. The story was supposed to be "fraud," "coercion," and "relatives held hostage," but the real, untold story was politics. The orchestrations of the attacks had no relatives in Jonestown at all. They were political operatives - some of them ex-member plants in the group, others non-member government-based outsiders, with huge sources of undisclosed funding. They bought and controlled the press, every bit as much as they bought and controlled the mercenaries who would later attack Jonestown.

Thus were we smeared in absentia thousands of miles away with no viable defense. Jim Jones and the core of the church had already departed. Jonestown did not even have a phone to talk with the press. Meanwhile, Jim Jones and the people of Jonestown had hoped that their remote locate would afford them protection and insulation from harm, but as it evolved, that was not only not true, but it actually posed an endangerment. Bit by bit, their "lovely utopia" (as a visiting relative called it) was turned into a death trap by outside forces.

10. September, 1977: The conspirators wasted no time. Within weeks after the first smear, duplicate smears, were placed in the foreign press thousands of miles apart, and in cities known to have large concentrations of Guyanese immigrants - such expertise obviously beyond the capacity of a few "disgruntled ex-members" of the church.

Meanwhile, Tim Stoen, who had promised not to ever try and remove John, or to destroy Jonestown, had proceeded to do both, lobbying against the church in Washington. It was he who persuaded Congressman Leo Ryan to come to Jonestown to "retrieve Tim Stoen's son, based upon Stoen's false paternity claim, maliciously pursued to try and drive the leader over the edge. In fact, Ryan was already on Stoen's side at least a year before the tragedy, petitioning the justice Department to intervene and force the child's return. He was turned down.

By September, 1977, Tim had joined forces with Grace, and the various lawsuits against him for having mismanaged, even falsified, the church's legal affairs, were dropped- The Stoens hired an attorney, Jeffrey Haas, to pursue custody of little John.

Just two or three days after Haas traveled to Jonestown to serve papers, the community was attacked by mercenaries from out of the jungle: "the six-day siege." I spoke with three eyewitnesses, two of whom were there when a bullet whizzed by Jim Jones head; and the third who was there when the bullet was picked out of the wall of his cottage, and determined to have come from a Winchester 3030, a type of rifle never found in Jonestown.

The mercenary siege changed everything. From then on in, Jim Jones had no choice about whether or not to return to the States. He, as well as the entire community, was trapped. If Jim returned, little John would be left unprotected and forces would move in to kidnap him and other children. Besides, there was the threat of assassination if he left Jonestown, already well-articulated by the gunfire into his cottage during the six-day siege.

Escape routes through the jungle to Venezuela were investigated and deemed too dangerous. There were no phones, only the ham radio. The community was pathetically under-armed, If the killers came back in force, there was no way to protect a community of families, small children, the elderly. And if a situation were provoked to break up the community, the great m4imity would not have been dragged away willingly, as they loved and cherished their new lives.

Mass suicide was discussed as an option if were there came a time when there was "no way out." Undoubtedly, there was much zealotry and fanaticism, but the actual military threat was not "paranoia," but all too real.

Meanwhile, Jim Jones' health began to deteriorate, through some massive exotic fungus in the lungs, which mysteriously, no one else had appeared to contact. He had been running a daily fever of 103 degrees for many weeks by the time the Congressman arrived at Jonestown.

11. The smear campaign led to many trumped-up investigations, every one of which was dropped for lack of evidence. Harassments ensued, such as the deliberate, illegal cut-off of social security stipends, which had to be reversed through Congressional intervention. Our mail was tampered with, and a notice received of investigation by the IRS.

But however fierce, false, and cruel were the smears of Peoples Temple Stateside, there was still the problem about how to smear Jonestown, in that all the conspirators, save for Tim Stoen, had never lived there. A young woman, Yolanda Crawford, a rare exception who left Jonestown after a couple of months, joined the government conspirators for whatever petty personal motives. Stoen had her draw up an affidavit filled with flagrant lies, which included accusations of closed circuit t.v., barbed wire, armed guards preventing escape, a big cache of guns, and refusal to allow telephone calls to the States There were, of course, no phones to call with. The other charges were entirely false.

Stoen drew up a flyer called "Jonestown Concentration Camp" and distributed it in front of the San Francisco Chronicle, a paper that was regularly printing unsubstantiated innuendoes and smears. Stoen, who had no relatives in Jonestown, then joined forces with Steven Katsaris, father of 24-year-old Maria Katsaris, and Sherwin Harris, father of 22-year-old Liane Harris, to form the "Concerned Relatives" pressure group. Not only were Maria and Liane of age, but Maria had repeatedly accused her father of molestation, and Liane's parents had separated before she was born, she was never raised or supported by her father, and had not even seen him for many years! The only other prominent member of "Concerned Relatives" was Jim Cobb, whose mother and several siblings were in Jonestown completely legally, and happy.

12. The most promising news article of this entire period appeared in The Berkeley Barb, an alternative press. Its author, Art Silverman, had researched the roots of the smear campaign against the church, entitled the article, 'A Conspiracy Behind Peoples Temple Expose?," and sub-titled it, "Are investigators trying to destroy a progressive church?"

It cited both David Conn, the Mertle's handler from the Treasury Department, and Joseph Mazor, one of the most slippery and dangerous characters of all:

Mazor, whose 75-page criminal record we had obtained (be it the real thing - this character was cover-over-cover-over-cover) was, allegedly just months out of prison, granted a State investigator's license in May, 1977 - just in time to investigate Peoples Temple! The State agency in charge of awarding the license said that being a former convict did not bar Mazor even from being bonded (for a felon convicted many times of passing fraudulent checks!) as he had the prerequisite recommendations. Mazor, who had never set foot in the church, also claimed credit in the Barb article for spearheading the smear campaign, with undisclosed sources of funding, and stated that his original employers were "not past or present members of Peoples Temple. " An account executive at an expensive PR firm, Russom, Lowry and Leeper, confirmed that he had been working with Mazor on smearing the church. Our own research identified Mazor Interpol agent, from a document signed by Louis B. Sims, the same agent who had apparently worked to try and discredit Scientology.

Conn for his part, admitted to the reporter that he had been "investigating Peoples Temple all the years that his friends the Mertles were members. " He said it was because he was upset that "Jim Jones was ripping off black people," which was a) an outrageous lie, as Jim Jones was passionate about uplifting black people, poured his heart and soul into fund-raising, and was legend for his own austerity and self-sacrifice; and b) Conn didn't even care about black people. If he cared about minorities, why would he try to blackmail American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks into turning against Jim Jones, under threat of being extradited to his probable death in South Dakota?

13. In May of 1978, Stoen and the Mertle/Mills found someone even better than Yolanda Crawford to smear Jonestown: Deborah Layton Blakey, who had been "inner circle," left Jonestown following being rebuffed by Jim Jones sexually, and abandoning her terminally ill mother to thereafter die of cancer. Stoen had her swear out an affidavit filled with still more flagrant lies, such as being forced to subsist on meager rations of rice, when scores of letters were, in fact, raving about the plentiful and delicious food! She also claimed that people were forced to go to Guyana under threat of capture by the CIA or death in a concentration camp at some unspecified future time. It was malicious, false, and even irrational, for almost no one was left to "force" anything, people were only too happy to go, and thrilled to have a fresh, wholesome new life with education, full employment, excellent medical and social services, great food, individual cottages, a full cultural life, etc., but the Layton version was pushed as gospel in the press. The same for her swearing to have seen "200-300 rifles" in the community, when in fact the Guyanese found only 39 small arms after the tragedy, none automatic, and the Americans 40. This was an especially monstrous lie to propagate, for Me community was being falsely portrayed an "an armed camp" to justify violence against it, and to lay the pathway for a frame.

Equally damaging was Ms. Layton's claim of suicide drills - never mentioning that it never came up at all until after the mercenary attack, and that in the event of a full-scale raid, there was no way out! From then on in, the people of Jonestown were sitting ducks in the jungle. Since we had threatened our own demise (whatever the extremity of circumstance), anything could be done under the cover of jungle, then it could be painted as whatever they wanted the public to believe.

There was never ANYONE but Yolanda Crawford and Debbie Layton Blakey to vouch for the supposed horrors of Jonestown before the Congressman made his trip. The mainstream papers were all provided with firsthand in-person accounts of the beauty and accomplishments of Jonestown, but they wouldn't print a word. We were in effect, given as much free speech as in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. None.

Desperate appeals were sent to the President and all of Congress, the United Nations and Amnesty International, inviting all to visit, but the latter two claimed no time on their schedules, and Congress never gave any response except for Leo Ryan, who was solidly in Stoen's camp.

14. By late summer of 1978, we were steamrolled by smears to the point of panic, and Stoen was working to bring the Congressman to Jonestown. Negotiations were also underway to re-relocate to the then-Soviet Union, Soviet news agency TASS having visited the community and enthusiastically praising what they saw.

Stoen, eager to force the Congressional visit ahead, and emboldened by the success of the smear campaign, lodged his threats to invade Jonestown with mercenaries, in both newspaper editorials and State Department logs. Meanwhile, for all our desperate pleas, the church had had no success in rallying effective support. All our high-level friends when we were based in San Francisco scattered, for we hadn't the skilled personnel Stateside to rally their support.

Then came the arrival of so-called "conspiracy theorist," attorney Mark Lane. It was he who befriended the slippery Mazor, who offered to turn against Stoen and aid us. It was, of course, as became bitterly clear, all a sham. Jim Jones, relying upon second-hand reports, but desperate for a counteroffensive to save Jonestown, acceded to Lane's request to bring Mazor to Jonestown to (so Mazor had claimed) give the goods on Stoen - namely, his purported ties with the CIA.

There was an additional nasty surprise. Mazor had told Lane that he was claiming credit for having led the mercenary, raid against Jonestown in September, '77. His tale (I heard the tape) was that they were sent there to kidnap various children, but when they arrived and saw no barbed wire, and a peaceable community, they just sniped for a few days and left. Then he announced that the original plan had been to "kidnap the children and then kill all the adults," i.e. mass extermination. Jim Jones believed him. Mazor was rushed to Jonestown and "spilled" all kinds of purported information about Stoen to Jones and the leadership assembled there. Now it seemed sure: that given the right provocation, they would resort to slaughtering the people of Jonestown.

Whether Mazor's account was true or false, or merely a brutal, inhumane attempt to intimidate innocent people and frighten them to death, it succeeded.

Lane rushed back to San Francisco, raved about Jonestown, announced that "Jim Jones is a saint, 11 and telling the press that he was about to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit against several agencies of the government. That, of course, never happened.

Our main attorney, Charles Garry, also seduced by Mazor, claimed that "there's no conspiracy, that Stoen had just ripped off a million dollars on the way out of the church (an insanely false charge), and that Jonestown was so beautiful, that all we had to do was invite everyone in and all criticism would cease. He threatened to quit if we did not welcome the Congressman in, which would have left us without legal counsel, save for the newcomer Lane. We seemed to have no choice. We told Ryan not tocome. We told him as late as his arrival in the capital city, Georgetown. We told him that the leader was very ill (which was true), and please not to come. But it was like talking to the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. The move was on.

By the time the Congressman arrived at Jonestown, the church's pristine reputation had already been destroyed - not via facts or evidence, but via the press!! Anything, however wrong, false, or in callous disregard of human life, could now be lodged against the church, and accepted as "true." We had been smeared into oblivion in absentia thousands of miles away.

15. November, 1978: Leo Ryan came, accompanied by reporters and ex-members, including Jim Cobb, for whom Stoen was now pressing a multi-million dollar lawsuit by suing his own former client based upon smears and lies. All the conspirators, of course, as well as many of the original news people who smeared the church, knew that the real father of the child Ryan came to "rescue" was Jim Jones, but no one had the decency to volunteer the truth.

Ryan was impressed by Jonestown, but his words never reached the U.S. press.

The issue of "defectors" was extremely volatile, not because we wanted anyone there who did not fit in (many people were in and out of Peoples Temple in the States, with no issue) but because the last set of defectors, Ms. Crawford and Ms. Layton, brought down such horrendous pressure on the community from smears and lies, that it was perilous to have people go back to the States to whip up yet more havoc - investigations, or even the disbandment of Jonestown, which the great majority of people loved and to which they were fiercely loyal.

Times like these can bring out the best in people, but also the worst. We did have two "loose cannons," Larry Layton who took a gun to the airstrip, and Don Sly (called "Ujara" in the community), who attempt to knife the Congressman just before he left. Larry was despondent because of what his sister Debbie had done to the group, and that she had abandoned their ill mother, who subsequently died. Ujara was an ex-Marine who had confessed to the community that he had fantasies of being a hit man. They were both tone vigilantes, and there was never any evidence that they had any coordination whatsoever with others. It did, however, make for a confusing and treacherous scenario for the community to decipher once all havoc broke loose.

16. I have examined copious evidence, and I KNOW that Peoples Temple was framed for the assassination of the Congressman. There was not only no evidence to prove Temple culpability (which was even confirmed by Robert Fabian, the Court-appointed Receiver for the Temple funds), but also much exculpatory evidence to demonstrate that it could not have been anyone from Peoples Temple who assassinated the Congressman:

The official story was that "Jim Jones ordered the assassination of the Congressman and then led the suicides." Yet the final tape made at Jonestown definitively discounts that Jim Jones ordered the assassination - to the contrary, he was horrified, panicked, and desperate that it meant an ensuing slaughter of the residents of Jonestown. Moreover, without that alleged planning and preparation for the assassination by a supposed hit team from Jonestown , it would have been a group of hot-headed vigilantes who had done the deed, which every eyewitness account, including those of adversarial journalists, discounts as impossible:

First the tape: Clearly heard from Jim Jones:

1) "I didn't order the shooting";

2) "I don't know who shot the Congressman.",

3) "I can't control these people [who did].";

4) "I waited against all evidence... I tried to prevent all this from happening.";

5) "I wish I could call it back.";

6) "I never wanted to kill anybody.";

7) "How many are dead?... Oh, God Almighty, God help them..."

It was evident that Jim Jones did NOT order any killing, nor was there any military training in Jonestown whatsoever. This would mean that if it had been members of the community who attacked the Congressman's party, it would have been ad hoc, spontaneous hotheads, going off half-cocked, untrained, in a rage - uncoordinated, yelling, chaotic.

Yet all the journalist eyewitnesses describe the killers as "calm, silent, merciless, methodical." This was obviously a professional team of assassins - not anyone from Peoples Temple at all. Moreover, VIOLENCE WAS OBVIOUSLY ALWAYS ON THE OTHER SIDE. THE PEOPLE WHO SENT IN MERCENARIES A YEAR EARLIER WERE THE VIOLENT ONES, NOT THE PEACEFUL COMMUNITY OF JONESTOWN.

There is also the evidence of the actual filming of the assassination made by Bob Brown, who was filming up until the moment he was killed, which showed up on t.v. at the first anniversary. It revealed a perfectly-symmetrical military formation disembarking from a second vehicle that had barrelled on in. They were indeed calm silent, brutal, merciless, expertly-coordinated and efficient. A professional hit teams of assassins - not some wild-eyed anarchists from Peoples Temple, to be sure!

Indeed, the "government eyewitness," who was none other than Jim Cobb, bragged to the media that the reason he was not shot was because he was on the other side of the plane when the shooting erupted! He never even had the shooters in his line of vision! Then he fled for cover into the jungle.

17. Congressman Ryan, for his part, was notably the most anti - C.I.A. Congressman at the time. At the time of his assassination, he was pursuing the volatile matter of CIA infiltration of domestic groups, which is strictly illegal. He had been lead into Jonestown by Stoen, under completely false pretenses, the false paternity claim. But unbeknownst to the Congressman, Stoen was a far-rightwing zealot who had made clandestine spying missions into East Berlin in the early sixties - hardly an opponent of the CIA at all! Indeed, Stoen may have been one of the very infiltrators that Ryan would have wanted to expose, had he not been so tragically misled.

Jim Jones, as well, passionately denounced the CIA, and the CIA certainly feared his radical political clout, compounded by the successful establishment of a community of ex-patriated, largely poor and black Americans in the Third World, cultivating ties with both Cuba and the Soviet Union as well. Indeed, arch-enemy Mazor got on t.v. just days following the tragedy, to say that, "It was considered that Jim Jones would become a major political force in the Caribbean within five years." An obvious intelligence assessment.

The people of Jonestown had no motive whatsoever for harming Ryan, which would have led to the disbandment of the community at the least. The only people with the motives to do away with both Leo Ryan and Jim Jones was the CIA

The assassination of Congressman Ryan had been the provocation used to force the destruction of the community. The people of Jonestown genuinely and legitimately feared an ensuing slaughter following the assassination. They had already been attacked from out of the jungle when they were just going about their daily business. How much more the peril in the wake of the assassination of the Congressman! Indeed, Tim Stoen vowed just days before the tragedy to "destroy Jonestown, " and that he was "counting on Jim Jones] to overreact. "

18. I should add a personal note that I do not defend mass suicide. One always thinks that however dire or extreme the circumstances, or however trapped the people involved, maybe at least a few children could have been saved. One always thinks that. But the public MUST COMPREHEND that the circumstances at the end were indeed dire, desperate, and extreme, and that their fears of an imminent slaughter were genuine, legitimate and justified, not "paranoia." Moreover, they were militarily defenseless, geographically trapped, and cut off from communications with the outside world.

19. Following the tragedy, whitewashes, cover-ups and disinformation were rampant, and there were even murders to keep people silent. First the disinformation:

The aide who accompanied Ryan to Jonestown, Jackie Speier, was injured but not killed in the ambush. She insistently speculated that Richard Dwyer, the escort from the American Embassy, was CIA because when the shots rang out, instead of falling face down in a natural protective maneuver, he fell face up. She speculated it was so as to be recognized by the shooters, who were also CIA

With Congressman Ryan's bent against the CIA, there was a threat that both aides and family of Ryan would pursue the suspicion of a CIA assassination team. Thus came the bizarre and false disinformation, told to Joseph Holsinger, another Ryan aide, and the Ryan children, that "Jim Jones was C.L.A." They were told that the CIA plant in Jonestown was one Philip Blakey, and that Philip had recruited mercenaries for the 1975 Angolan Civil War. The reality was that Philip was one of the tiny original crew sent to Jonestown, and his post, running supplies up and down the river, was indispensable. The disinformation was completely foul. Moreover, it emerged that that Congressman's original expose of the CIA, made through newsman Daniel Schorr, was that the CIA. had hired mercenaries for the 1975 Angolan Civil War. Obviously no "coincidence."

Undoubtedly, it was believed that accusing Peoples Temple of involvement in the same CIA operation that Leo Ryan had exposed, would so inflame the Ryan entourage, that they would look nowhere else. This proved true, the false, preposterous claims appearing in the Ryan family lawsuit against the federal government! It was augmented by an equally preposterous charge that Jonestown was being secretly used by the CIA in a mind control experiment, which had been another ongoing investigative interest of Ryan.

Further inflaming the Ryan contingent, were anonymous death threats made by phone to a Ryan aide the very evening the Congressman was assassinated - a man no one in Peoples Temple even knew of, nor did we have any confirmation of the shooting! In retrospect, it raises massive questions about who was really responsible for all the terrorist tactics, but as always with the many "dirty tricks" pulled along the way, Peoples Temple was falsely blamed, and the Ryan entourage bought the slander. They were ripe to believe anything any government agent might tell them - including the insane charge that "Jim Jones was CIA"

20. Meanwhile, the Mertle/Mills, now "cult deprogrammers," began to soften. They were taking in Peoples Temple survivors and claiming that there was no "hit squad" out to kill them. Then, in February, 1980, they announced publicly that they wanted off the anti-Temple circuit completely. A MERE FIVE DAYS LATER, they were found murdered in their own home, execution style with dumdum bullets, by people the police surmised they knew, for there was no sign of forced entry or burglary. The press, of course, tried to blame it on the mythical Temple "hit squad," but even the police would not buy that, and left the murders unsolved. No one ever explored in whose interest it may have been to have this couple permanently silenced, rather than to allow them to abandon their cover of "cult deprogrammers."

21. A young woman who survived Jonestown, Paula Adams, went on to marry Lawrence Mann, the then-Guyanese Ambassador to the United States. I later learned that both of them and their infant child had been brutally murdered. The report claimed that Ambassador Mann was severely despondent about the suicides (he wasn't even a member - this made no sense) and that he had up and killed his wife and newborn, and then himself. The story stank, but I never had the resources to track it down further. It would appear they may have been getting too close to the truth.

22. Congress, for its part, had the House Foreign Affairs Committee prepare a whitewash report, which never investigated the assassination at all, but merely chastised the State Department for not doing enough to stop "the terrible Jim Jones." They were undoubtedly never even told about "the terrible mercenaries" who had tried to kill Jim Jones and the rest of us as well! They simply assumed that Peoples Temple was "guilty as charged," and that there was no other view to be had. After the shock of seeing the living assassination on t.v., finally knowing for certain that it was professional assassins, not Peoples Temple, who had attacked the Congressman's party, I went to tell them the truth, and to demand re-examination of the film. My testimony was blocked from reaching the Congressmen in flagrant and disturbing ways.

23. THERE WAS NEVER ANY EVIDENCE TO INDICT ANYONE FROM PEOPLE TEMPLE FOR THE ASSASSINATION OF THE CONGRESSMAN. Moreover, the Guyanese coroner, Leslie Mootoo, was roundly condemned by a national association of coroners in the U.S. for flagrant negligence and suspicious practices. Indeed, there was much exculpatory evidence that Peoples Temple could not have committed the assassination, that has never been examined.

24. It is way past due to give a scorching reality cheek to the lies, the plants, the set-ups and frame-ups which convicted Peoples Temple in the press sans hearing or trial. PEOPLES TEMPLE WERE NOT THE PERPETRATORS. THEY WERE THE PERSECUTED. Justice is way overdue for those brave pioneers who accomplished so much, and sacrificed their very lives in the process.

LAURIE EFREIN KAHALAS
(212) 889-6432
e-mail: dkahalas@akula.com

 

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