Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History (27 page)

The money behind Jonestown was never fully examined or recovered. The court receivership only collected a fraction, the bulk went to pay back military operations and burial costs. Families of the dead were awarded only minimal amounts.
²⁷⁷
Some filed suit, unsuccessfully, to learn more about the circumstances of the deaths, and who was responsible. Joe Holsinger, Leo Ryan’s close friend and assistant, studied the case for two years and reached the same unnerving conclusions — these people were murdered, there was evidence of a mass mind-control experiment, and the top levels of civilian and military intelligence were involved.
²⁷⁸
He worked with Ryan’s family members to prove the corruption and injustice but they could barely afford the immense court costs and case preparation. Their suit, as well as a similar one brought by ex-members and families of the victims, had to be dropped for lack of funds.
²⁷⁹

The international operations of World Vision and the related evangelical groups continue unabashed. World Vision official John W. Hinckley, Sr. was on his way to a Guatemalan water project run by the organization on the day his son shot at President Reagan.
²⁸⁰
A mysterious “double” of Hinckley, Jr., a man named Richardson, followed Hinckley’s path from Colorado to Connecticut, and even wrote love letters to Jodi Foster. Richardson was a follower of Carl McIntyre’s International Council of Christian Churches, and attended their Bible School in Florida. He was arrested shortly after the assassination attempt in New York’s Port Authority with a weapon, and claimed he intended to kill Reagan.
²⁸¹

Another World Vision employee, Mark David Chapman, worked at their Haitian refugee camp in Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas. He was later to gain infamy as the assassin of John Lennon in New York City.
²⁸²
World Vision works with refugees worldwide. At the Honduran border, they are present in camps used by American CIA to recruit mercenaries against Nicaragua. They were at Sabra and Shatilla, camps in Lebanon where fascist Phalange massacred the Palestinians.
²⁸³
Their representatives in the Cuban refugee camps on the east coast included members of the Bay of Pigs operation, CIA-financed mercenaries from Omega 7 and Alpha 66.
²⁸⁴
Are they being used as a worldwide cover for the recruitment and training of these killers? They are, as mentioned earlier, working to repopulate Jonestown with Laotians who served as mercenaries for our CIA.
²⁸⁵

Silence in the face of these murders is the worst possible response. The telling sign above the Jonestown dead read, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
²⁸⁶
The genocide will come home to America. How many spent time studying the rash of child murders in Atlanta’s Black community or asked the necessary questions about the discrepancies in the conviction of Wayne Williams?
²⁸⁷
Would we recognize a planned genocide if it occurred under similar subterfuge?

Leo Ryan’s daughter, Shannon, lives among the disciples of another cult today, at the new city of Rajneeshpuram in Arizona. She was quoted in the press, during the recent controversy over a nationwide recruiting drive to bring urban homeless people to the commune, saying she did not believe it could end like Jonestown, since the leader would not ask them to commit suicide. “If he did ask me, I would do it,” she said.
²⁸⁸
Homeless recruits, who had left since then, are suing in court because of suspicious and unnecessary injections given them by the commune’s doctor, and a liquid they were served daily in unmarked jars that many believe was not simply “beer.” One man in the suit claims he was drugged and disoriented for days after his first injection.
²⁸⁹

The ultimate victims of mind control at Jonestown are the American people. If we fail to look beyond the constructed images given us by the television and the press, then our consciousness is manipulated, just as well as the Jonestown victims’ was. Facing nuclear annihilation, many see the militarism of the Reagan policies, and military training itself, as the real “mass suicide cult.” If the discrepancy between the truth of Jonestown and the official version can be so great, what other lies have we been told about major events?
²⁹⁰

History is precious. In a democracy, knowledge must be accessible for informed consent to function. Hiding or distorting history behind “national security” leaves the public as the final enemy of the government. Democratic process cannot operate on “need to know.” Otherwise, we live in the
1984
envisioned by Orwell’s projections, and we must heed his warning that those who control the past control the future.
²⁹¹

The real tragedy of Jonestown is not only that it occurred, but that so few chose to ask themselves why or how, so few sought to find out the facts behind the bizarre tale used to explain away the death of more than 900 people, and that so many will continue to be blind to the grim reality of our intelligence agencies. In the long run, the truth will come out. Only our complicity in the deception continues to dishonor the dead.

1
.
Hold Hands and Die!
John Maguire (Dale Books, 1978), p. 235 (Story of the Century);
Raven,
Tim Reitzerman (Dutton, 1982) p. 575 (citing poll result).

2
. The standard version first appeared in two “instant books,” so instant (12/10/78) they seemed to have been written before the event!
The Suicide Cult,
Kilduff & Javers (Bantam Books, 1978);
Guyana Massacre,
Charles Krause (Berkeley Pub., 1978). Other standard research works on the topic include:
White Night,
John Peer Nugent (Wade, 1979);
Raven,
op cit., and
Hold Hands and Die!,
op cit.;
The Cult That Died,
George Klineman (Putnam, 1980);
The Children of Jonestown,
Kenneth Wooden (McGraw-Hill, 1981);
The Strongest Poison,
Mark Lane (Hawthorn Books, 1980);
Our Father Who Art in Hell,
James Reston (Times Books, 1981);
Journey to Nowhere,
Shiva Naipaul (Simon & Schuster, 1981);
The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan & The Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy, Report, House Committee on Foreign Affairs
(GPO, May 15, 1979). Personal accounts by members of People’s Temple and survivors of Jonestown:
Six Years with God,
Jeannie Mills (A&W Publ., 1979);
People’s Temple, People’s Tomb,
Phil Kerns (Logos, Int., 1979);
Deceived,
Mel White (Spire Books, 1979);
The Broken God,
Bonnie Theilmann (David Cook, 1979);
Awake in a Nightmare,
Feinsod (Norton, 1981);
In My Father’s House,
Yee & Layton (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981).

3
. “The People’s Temple,” William Pfaff,
New Yorker,
12/18/78;
Hold Hands,
p. 241-7 (cults)
and Journey to Nowhere,
p. 294 (period);
The Family,
Ed Sanders (Avon Press, 1974) (Charlie Manson);
Snapping,
Flo Conway (brainwashing);
Ecstasy & Holiness,
Frank Musgrove (Indiana Univ. Press, 1974).

4
. “Inside People’s Temple,” Marshall Kilduff,
New West,
8/1/77;
Hold Hands,
p. 100.

5
. “Rev. Jones Became West Coast Power,”
Washington Post
(WP), 11/20/78.
Hold Hands,
p. 130 and
Journey to Nowhere,
p. 47.

6
. “Rev. Jones Accused of Coercion,”
New York Times
(NYT), 4/12/79;
NYT,
11/27/78 (warning letter to Ryan, 6/78).

7
. Assassination of Leo J. Ryan, pp. 1-3; “Ryan to Visit,” Kilduff,
San Francisco Chronicle
(SFC), 11/8/78.

8
. “A Hell of a Story: The Selling of a Massacre,”
Wash. Jrn. Rev.,
Jan-Feb. 1979.

9
.
Raven,
p. 576 (Layton charges).

10
.
Hold Hands
, p. 216.

11
.
Helter Skelter,
Bugliosi (Norton, 1974).

12
.
Hold Hands,
pp. 215-16.

13
.
New York Post,
11/21/78 (headline);
WP,
11/21/78,
San Francisco Examiner
(SFE), 11/22/78,
Guyana Daily Mirror,
11/23/78,
NYT
, 11/22/78 (flee to jungle);
NYT,
11/21-23/78 (estimated 4-500 missing);
White Night,
pp. 224-6 and
NYT,
11/23/78 (U.S. search with loudspeakers).

14
.
Boston Globe,
11/21/78,
Baltimore Sun,
11/21/78, NYT, 11/20/78 (est. 11-1200);
White Night,
p. 228 (Jones says 1,200),
Guyanese Daily Mirror,
11/23/78 (1,000).

15
.
WP,
11/21/78 (passports);
White Night,
p. 230 (809 visa applications), and
Hold Hands,
p. 146 (800 on buses to Florida);
Children of Jonestown,
p. 202 and NYT, 11/26/78 (children, 260 dead at site, 276 at Dover).

16
.
White Night,
p. 223;
NYT,
11/21/78 (408, Guyanese “pick way” to count), 11/22/78 (409, U.S. Army teams), 11/23/78 (400, Maj. Helming, U.S.), 11/24/78 (409, still).

17
.
White Night,
p. 231 and
Hold Hands,
pp. 226-34,
NYT,
11/25/78 (775, P. Reid, Guyana), 11/26/78 (over 900, U.S. “final” 910, AF or 914, Reuters; 11/29/78 (900, Lloyd Barker, Guyana), 12/1/78 (911, U.S. Air Force), 12/4/78 (911, Dover AFB, Del.)

18
.
Guyana Daily Mirror,
11/23/85.

19
.
White Night,
pp. 229-30 (can’t count);
NYT,
11/25/78 (State Dept. Business, “rough”), 11/25/78 (American official disagrees, says Guyanese count “firm”);
Children of Jonestown,.
p. 196 (poking).

20
.
White Night,
p. 229 (pavilion story), 230 (“mounds of people,” Maj. Hickman);
SFE,
11/25/78 (adults covered children);
NYT,
11/25/78 (“layered,” Ridley, Guyana, but U.S. soldier, “only one layer”).

21
.
Baltimore Sun,
11/21/78 (82 children, 163 women, 138 men first count).

22
. Photographs appear in most of the standard reference works, see fn 2. Also, good pictures in the following: “Jonestown: the Survivors’ Story,”
NYT Magazine,
11/18/79; “Death in the Jungle,” 11/27/78 and “Cult of Death,” 12/4/78 in
Newsweek;
“Cult Massacre,” 11/27/78 and “Cult of Death,” 12/4/78 in
Time;
“Cult of Madness,” 12/4/78 and “Bloody Trail of Death,” Tim Cahill,
Rolling Stone,
1/25/79’ “Questions Linger about Guyana,” Sidney Jones,
Oakland Times,
12/9/78; “Cult Defectors Suspect U.S. of Cover-up,”
Los Angeles Times,
12/18/78.

23
.
White Night,
p. 229 (quoting State Dept. Bushnell), and
Hold Hands,
p. 233 (doubts);
NYT,
11/23/78 (U.S. searching, Carter); 11/24/78 (“in vain”), 11/29/78 (“none”), and 12/1/78 (30-40 in Venezuela).

24
.
WP,
11/21/78 (“Cult Head Leads 408 to Death”);
NYT,
11/20-22/78, (searching, pick up Lane & Garry);
White Night,
p. 239 (Burnham sends in “his boys”).

25
.
White Night,
p. 224 (over 300 U.S. troops, 11/20);
Guyana Daily Mirror,
11/23/78 (325 U.S. troops);
Hold Hands,
p. 200 (200 for clean up) and
NYT,
11/23/78 (239 to evacuate). What was the function of nearly 100 additional U.S. forces? “Jocks in the Jungle,”
London Sunday Times,
11/78 (British Black Watch troops).

26
. Photographs, see fn 22.
Strongest Poison,
p. 194 (Lou Gurvich, “dragged and laid out”).

27
. “Mystery Shrouds Jonestown Affair,”
Guyanese Daily Mirror,
11/23/78;
NYT,
11/24 and 11/29/78 (missing in jungle disappear, Guyanese say “none,” Barker).

28
.
SFE,
11/20/78 (headline), also
WP,
11/21/78
or NYT,
11/28/78.