Raven

by Reiterman, Tim

  Although most Temple members remained unwilling to forfeit their material possessions, the congregation probably did not object to the principles of voluntary Christian communal experience, or even a class-less society. For instance Archie Ijames, a strong anticommunist, saw merit in living communally. But even this extremely loyal man nearly abandoned the Temple when Jones first expressed a philosophy of total pragmatism, namely, that the ends justify the means.

  Ijames’s moment of decision arrived when Jones and Beam defended the right of a Temple woman to lie about a trip she had taken. Ijames was outraged. “I never thought I would be with a group of people who would lie and justify it.” Jones managed to restrain Ijames from leaving long enough to cite a passage in which Paul says, “If by any means....” Eventually Ijames retracted his decision, because he felt the good in the Temple outweighed the bad. The Temple represented his best opportunity to live his principles.

  Jones was an enigma to his closest aides. He was their inspiration and curse, their strength and weakness. With his help, they would blind themselves to his failings, minimize or rationalize his emotional storms. In fall of 1961, as their leader became more paranoid and worried, they observed a number of his collapses; once he fell down some steps at the church. Jones called these recurring seizures heart attacks. He may have been faking them, using them to hide the fact that he was suffering a mental breakdown. He may have managed to hide this breakdown even from his physician, Dr. E. Paul Thomas, who had been treating him for an ulcer brought on by stress.

  Upset and fearful about racial harassment, Jones had been calling the black doctor to complain about attacks against him. Finally, in October, the human rights director was hospitalized for a week; this hospital stay was described to the public as a checkup. In fact, the real and imagined harassment had left Jones distraught and had aggravated his ulcer condition. Dr. Thomas prescribed treatment and rest but noted no evidence of psychotic behavior or withdrawal from reality.

  While hospitalized, Jones continued to garner publicity as human rights director. “The Rev. Jones ‘Integrates’ Hospital While a Patient,” read the headline in the weekly black newspaper, the Indianapolis Recorder, on October 7, 1961. In actuality, Jones had wound up in a black ward by mistake; officials had assumed that any patient of a black doctor would himself be black. Jones refused attempts to move him to a white ward, and proceeded—in a symbolic but rather peculiar gesture—to make the beds and empty the bedpans of his fellow black patients. To his credit, this incident pressured hospital officials to desegregate the wards. The episode, with embellishments, became Temple lore.

  Mounting pressures from the human rights post, his vicious cycle of fears, the Temple’s organizational demands and his own internal difficulties proved too great a burden for Jones. He needed an escape from his own labyrinth. Yet inside the Temple, where he had begun to exalt himself, he could not admit his frailties. He had to find some other excuse to get away....

  During a service one day, Ijames and Case were sitting on the pulpit platform quietly discussing a certain type of tree that had been dropping a tremendous number of seeds around town that autumn. Case speculated that the species was making an extra effort to ensure survival during a long and difficult winter. He wondered aloud: was God preparing the trees for some great natural disaster or tragedy?

  Jones overheard snatches of the conversation. On taking the microphone, he dramatically revealed an “ancient prophecy.” He proclaimed that something terrible was bound to happen when seeds proliferated as they were now. Case was disgusted; he thought that Jones had filched his story and messed it up in the telling. But almost certainly Jones had calculated the distortion. He kept building on it during the fall, pumping the faith and gullibility of his aides to provide himself a pretext for an escape.

  In October 1961, Jones apparently was “hearing” what he had told Ijames were voices from extraterrestrial beings. One day as he strode into the house and started up the stairway, he had wheeled around suddenly, holding his eyes. He had seen a big flash of light, he told his people: a vision of a nuclear explosion in Chicago that burned down within miles of Indianapolis. Indianapolis too would come under attack. To religious people, this vision of apocalypse summoned up terrible images of hell on earth, of the judgment day, of fear. Coming from Jim Jones, one who had healed and revealed so expertly in the past, the warning assumed prophetic proportions.

  Shortly after the “vision,” the church custodian came up to Case and confided, “Brother Case, did you know that Jim had a vision of Indianapolis in great holocaust?”

  Case fell for Jones’s vision. Thinking the interracial church must be preserved, he said, “It would seem to me that it would be a course of wisdom to move the church to a position of safety.” Case began to promote a move to another area, and got Ijames’s endorsement for the plan. Though Jones had started the whole thing, he acted at first as though he did not take the idea very seriously He quipped once from the pulpit—while shooting a grin at his two assistants—that there were “two boys” who wanted to “run away to a safer place.” Adroitly he had shifted blame for his “escape” on to others.

  Within days, Jones took a walk with Case. The pastor seemed pensive. “Ross, you know that idea about relocating the church? I think we ought to do that. I think we’ll move a hundred at first, and bring the rest later.”

  On what would become a two-year sojourn, Jones traveled far and wide. He briefly visited Georgetown, British Guiana, on the northeast shoulder of South America. Jones did some healing and attracted some news media attention, but not much. He made page seven of the Guiana Graphic by accusing churches—and thieving American missionaries and evangelists—of being largely responsible for the spread of communism. Entering politically volatile South America, he seemed to want to put himself on the record as an anticommunist. To compatriots back home, he reported that a communist in Guiana had told him, “If all Christians were like you, I wouldn’t have become a communist.” And he stated, enigmatically, without advocating it: “If we go to Guiana, a man can have two wives.”

  Jones later took off alone in a plane for Hawaii later, ostensibly to scout for a new site for Peoples Temple. But he also could get a much-needed rest, far from most of his responsibilities; he had resigned as human rights director and had turned over his pastorship to Russell Winberg, on a temporary basis. Yet he brought along his emotional problems, and large questions about his future and the future of his church.

  In Honolulu, Jones explored a job as a university chaplain. Though he did not like the job requirements, he decided to stay on the island for a while anyway, and sent for his family. First, his wife, his mother and the children, except for Jimmy, joined him. Then the Baldwins followed with the adopted black child. It amounted to a family vacation, since Hawaii was a poor choice as a long-term haven. It was an expensive place to resettle; and with its explosive history—Pearl Harbor—and military installations, it was probably a more likely target for nuclear warfare than Indianapolis. During the couple of months in the islands, Jones seemed to decide that his sabbatical would be a long one. He signed over his power of attorney to his mother, so that she could oversee the family’s financial interests and keep a measure of control of church finances in Indiana. He did not want to lose his church, his life’s work, yet he was not certain he wanted ever to return to Indiana.

  In January 1962, Esquire magazine published an article listing the nine safest places in the world to escape thermonuclear blasts and fallout—a timely article in that era of backyard fallout shelters. The article’s advice was not lost on Jones. Soon he was heading for the southern hemisphere, which was less vulnerable to fallout because of atmospheric and political factors. The family planned to go to Belo Horizonte, an inland Brazilian city of 600,000.

  On a stopover in California, Jones called Ijames and asked him to come to Mexico City to brief him on recent developments in the Indiana church. Jones had intended that Ijames keep close tabs on Wi
nberg, the acting pastor and treasurer. In Mexico City, Ijames reported that Winberg was turning the Temple into a more traditional Pentecostal church—and might have a takeover in mind. He said Winberg brought in outside evangelists, and his wife Wilma reemphasized the Bible in teaching at the church school. Winberg had been thwarted thus far because Ijames had moved in and taken control of the youth group—and now the young people were resisting any deemphasis of social goals. But Ijames cautioned that he could not hold the fort forever. He wanted his pastor to return.

  SEVEN

  Asylum

  He was a little man of about five feet seven, well knit at about 140 pounds. But he prided himself on his fierceness of spirit, developed in part during a difficult childhood in the Roaring Twenties in the wilds of Chicago. In his west side neighborhood, he learned to steal whiskey, shoot craps, play poker. Called “Halfpint” because of the whiskey bottle in his back pocket, he and his buddies idolized gangsters and battled other gangs of kids. After a few months in a juvenile home, Halfpint hopped trains, hoboing around the country. By his twentieth birthday, he had lost all control over his drinking.

  Then, after brushes with some good Christians and a vision of Jesus, he converted. One day, the Lord spoke to him as he passed a church; inside he found a young blond woman praying. They married eventually, and Edward Malmin went on to Aimee Semple McPherson’s Los Angeles theological seminary, and to an Assemblies of God school in Costa Mesa, California.

  In 1958, a Japanese immigrant ship carried Rev. Malmin, his wife Judy, a son Mark, and a teen-age daughter Bonnie to Brazil. On orders from God, the balding and bespectacled minister had journeyed there to bring Christ to the Brazilian interior, about a hundred miles east of Paraguay. There, in widely scattered areas, the hearty missionaries set up several churches and established an orphanage. Then after three and a half years, Rev. Malmin brought his family to Belo Horizonte—a city with a large missionary colony—to raise more money for missionary work.

  Belo Horizonte had been built at the turn of the century as the first of Brazil’s synthetic cities, part of the industrial triangle formed by Belo, Rio and São Paulo. With steel mills on the outskirts and skyscrapers downtown, Belo blended old and new architecture and swaths of greenery. Despite the language barrier, the city’s size, prosperity and bustling charm made the transition easier for many North American visitors.

  One day early in 1962, Rev. Malmin stopped by the post office, where a clerk asked him to return a parcel left on a table by an American customer. The American, who was just across the room, spoke only English and the clerk spoke only Portuguese. Malmin carried the parcel over to a robust-looking man in his early thirties. Courteously thanking the missionary, the stranger introduced himself as Jim Jones, an Indiana preacher in Brazil for a rest. Malmin invited Jones to bring his family to dinner. So began an unforgettable relationship.

  At first, Malmin could not understand the young minister’s deep feelings of persecution. But after various get-togethers with Jones’s “rainbow family,” the anxieties made a little more sense. Jones said that, back in Indiana, people shot at him and put poison in his food. Marceline told of the times people shouted “nigger lover” at her and spat upon her and her black baby. Rev. Jones explained that such pressures drove him toward a complete emotional and mental breakdown.

  The Joneses, after a brief stay in a Belo hotel, had rented a modest three-bedroom home with a veranda in the suburb of San Antonio. While Jim did advance work for the Indiana congregation, he tried to put his thoughts and emotions in order. He was in a tortured state of mind. During the day, he would tend to business in town and each night would take long thoughtful walks. He appeared wracked with indecision. He did not know what direction to take his life, his family, his church. As a thirty-year-old man with responsibilities, he entered a more serious phase of his life, the years when he could make a mark on the world. Yet he was lost, adrift in a new land, an unfamiliar setting, a preacher who could not preach because he did not speak the language.19

  Distraught, he sought out advice from his mother-in-law, who had flown down for a six-week visit in early 1962. Once he confessed, “Mom, I don’t know what to do. Should I give up the struggle for the poor and needy and black people? It seems that I put my family through so much.”

  When the Joneses first came to the Malmin home for dinner, Malmin’s teen-age daughter Bonnie stayed in her room, avoiding the guests until the meal was ready. The pretty young lady who affected sexiness and adopted Brigitte Bardot as a role model knew all too well the condescending attitudes of white missionaries; some were scandalized that she wanted to marry her Brazilian boy friend. She presumed the new missionary family would be no different, but this time Bonnie was surprised. She found the Jones children of all colors delightful, their parents refreshingly free of racial prejudices and judgmental moral attitudes. They did not even blink at mention of Bonnie’s Brazilian boy friend.

  In the ensuing days, Bonnie gravitated toward the Joneses, in part because she was skirmishing with her parents over dress and dating habits. The somewhat rebellious girl was happy to be exposed to new thoughts and new people. She took the children on outings to the park across from the post office. She helped the family get settled in the country, translating for them and providing a practical education about Brazil. Finally, Bonnie got her parents’ permission to move in with the Joneses for several months—until September, when she would enter Bible school in Minnesota.

  The Joneses lived simply, supported almost exclusively by the Indiana church and nursing homes. Instead of meat, they relied on rice and beans as staples. They seldom entertained guests. Jim and Marceline showered love on the children. Marceline would bathe the three boys together, standing back to admire them, one black, one white, one yellow, all splashing. The whole family helped toilet-train Jimmy, applauding his successes.

  The parents always impressed upon their children the gap between the rich and the poor, and taught them to appreciate their relative comfort. Each night, Marceline made a huge pot of rice to dish out to a dozen or so children who lined up along the curb. She served the poor the same evening meal as the family. To Bonnie, this was further evidence that the Joneses were humanitarians, unlike the sanctimonious missionaries who warned that feeding stray children was like feeding stray cats.

  In her admiration and affection for the couple, Bonnie began to consider the Joneses temporary adoptive parents. Selfless Marceline, who tied her hair in a ponytail and seldom left the house, replaced Bardot as Bonnie’s idol. Despite the age difference they became companions, windowshopping, buying groceries together, taking in movies, going to the beauty parlor. At home, they sometimes played around girlishly, dancing the Charleston to a tinny transistor radio. Bonnie, looking ahead to the day when she would marry, found Marceline’s devotion to Jim absolutely inspiring—Marceline always excitedly awaited her husband’s return home after his day-long outings downtown, and when it rained, she invariably rushed to the bus stop with an umbrella to meet him.

  Bonnie idolized Jim too. His talk of the hypocrisy of organized religion rang true to her, and she could understand his apparent difficulty integrating religious beliefs and social activism. As a young rebel, she appreciated his courageous defense of unfortunates and outcasts.

  Troubled though not usually morose, Jones studied and thought, trying to map out his life. Often he read for almost the entire day, studying, analyzing the news which Bonnie translated from Brazilian newspapers. At this time, the Brazilian political picture was taking some leftward turns, though Jones worried about the military and the right wing. Before President Janio Quadros resigned in 1961, he had moved closer to Fidel Castro and to the Soviet Union. His leftist vice-president, Joao Goulart, had succeeded him after twelve days of instability and a brief military coup.

  A few preoccupations emerged in Jones’s daily routine. He remained obsessed with the prospect of nuclear war, and with the balance of world power. He read everything available
about military hardware. He ranted about the Bomb whenever he saw a pointed shape, such as a church steeple, that resembled a missile. “Man is out to destroy himself,” he would say.

  Researching Belo as a resettlement site occupied much of his time. Jones studied the local economy, the availability of land and the general receptiveness to racial minorities. Though severely hampered by language barriers, he would journey downtown on many days and introduce himself to government officials.

  Jones repeated to neighbors his standard tale about racism in the United States and garnished his life’s story with some untruths. He described himself as an ex-Marine who had fought for his country and said he currently worked in a laundromat in a nearby town. And he piqued their curiosity when he sometimes left his home at night with a dark-skinned woman and came back late. Perhaps the woman was the family’s Brazilian housekeeper; or perhaps she had responded to an ad Jones had placed in a journal called Estado de Minas (State of Mines) asking that people come to his home for spiritual guidance. Jones apparently was interested in testing the religious waters, in finding how receptive the native population would be to his ministry.

  Jones frequently aired concerns about the world situation during visits with Rev. Malmin. He sought out Malmin, then forty-six, as an older minister with more experience in Brazil. Jones loved to bring his family to the Malmin place, which he once considered buying for a Temple sanctuary. While the children played inside and the wives talked or cooked, Jones and Malmin usually chatted on the veranda, drinking lemonade under a cool canopy of leaves. There, Jones let a self-censored version of his troubles pour out. He professed to trust Malmin—he even claimed the Holy Spirit had informed him of Malmin’s trustworthiness. But after sizing up Malmin’s rather conservative views, Jones naturally was selective and guarded, though he did talk quite frankly about his nervous breakdown. The Indiana preacher put his psychological problems in the context of persecution by Indiana bigots and the attempts on his life.