There were loud noises and yells of support from the crowd.
“Please do not move from the ranks,” Jones screeched, his voice raw from overuse. “We still do not know if you are friend or foe, and it could cause someone to act rashly. If you need to go to the bathroom, ask one of the stewards or stewardesses to assist you. If you need medical help, you know the procedure to follow. Do not take moves that aren’t planned. Because, if you’re wandering about, something could happen that would be just chaos. We must behave as pacifists. This may be an attempt to get us to make an offensive move that would destroy the years of pacifism that we have built for. Do you understand me?”
Loud cheers.
“I cannot hear the left field.” Cheers. “Center field!” Cheers. “To the back.” Cheers.
“The people have formed a perfect circle,” a woman told Jones.
The siege continued. Time became a blur. Caught in a furious rush of events, few slept. Fear and confusion outweighed their exhaustion. At one point, Jones trucked about fifty people into Port Kaituma and began loading them into the boat for Cuba. As people rushed to clamber aboard, one woman fell off the side and broke her hip. People began crowding around Jones, including one who had faithfully thought to bring along a tape recorder.
“My God,” Jones said. “If they won’t let us all go, none of us go. ... I won’t go without you.”
“Thank you, Father,” came the response from a dozen voices. Jones continued: “They’ll let me and my family in and a few leaders, but no one else. The rivers are blocked to the rest of us. I say the hell with it. I wouldn’t be a leader worth a tinker’s shit if I just went. Those miserable sons of bitches [in Cuba] are afraid to stand up to the United States.”
“Thank you, Father,” they cried.
“If I’m the only socialist alive, then I’ll die a socialist.” Cheers.
This “escape” was little more than a stunt. But in the emotional frenzy, no one thought to ask Jones why he went so far as to load the boat just to proclaim his political purity and his loyalty to his people.
By September 8, the fourth day since shots were fired, Stephan Jones was wondering about the validity of the crisis. Things did not add up. During the day, his father would send some people back to work, then suddenly call another alert so that people would have to run back to the defense line. They were no longer grabbing their cutlasses and pitchforks with the same urgency. And Stephan, equally jaded, was making a game out of surprising people on the Temple trucks.
It seemed that every time he stepped into the shower, his father’s voice would burst forth from the loudspeakers again. Once, his friend Mark Cordell came running in. “They’re trying to get Father,” he cried. “I saw it.” Cordell was hysterical, and Stephan slapped him. With the shampoo still on his scalp, Stephan had Cordell show him where the bullets hit. From the trajectory, it appeared that someone had fired from the nearby bushes. Jones told Stephan to charge into the jungle and start shooting.
Taking off with an M-1 carbine, he ran barefoot through the windrows, braving snakes and spiders. Cordell followed with a shotgun. Once in the bush, Stephan fired off a few rounds at the invisible attackers then returned.
He was confused. He looked again at the ground to the point of impact and figured a rough trajectory. It did not make sense. If the bullets had been fired from long range, they would not have entered at that angle. The gunman had stood very nearby—not in the jungle.
Back in Georgetown, oblivious to the impact of his visit, Jeff Haas awaited Jones’s next move. The unserved writ had ordered Jones to bring John Victor Stoen to Justice Bishop’s court on September 8. Not surprisingly, neither showed up. As his next step, Justice Bishop decreed that the writ could be served simply by posting it in three Jonestown locations or by handing a fourth copy to a Jones assistant. Haas made plans to fly out the next day to post the writ.
When Jones learned from his Georgetown aides that Haas was coming, he made preparations. On the morning of September 9, he asked his son Stephan to clear a concealed place in the bush. Taking John and an umbrella to shield them from the sun, Jones went into hiding. Several security guards followed with his wooden chair and a metal strongbox, which Stephan Jones assumed contained gold and the Temple’s vital banking information.
The whole community heard the noise and looked up. An old twin-engine, ten-passenger GDF airplane made a pass, dropping some papers. When Christine Lucientes bent for one, people screamed, “Don’t pick them up!” Someone might be taking pictures from the plane—and picking them up might constitute “service.”
Haas brought along extra backup. This time, Marshal Blackman was joined by Tony London, Guyana’s superintendent of police, and a Port Kaituma constable. At the gate, they noticed that the security shack, with its radio antenna, had been camouflaged with branches and leaves. London pocketed a pistol.
As they approached Jonestown, hostility charged the air. This time, Haas saw no children or old people milling around. About thirty pairs of eyes peered from the community center. Young toughs glared from the steps. One big guy in jungle fatigues walked by and grunted at him. Haas was glad to have the police with him.
After a few taut minutes, Joyce Touchette and Harriet Tropp came running up. Haas recognized Tropp as the American “tourist” who had befriended him back in Georgetown. She and Touchette screamed at the Guyanese officials that “two whites” had shot at Jones last Tuesday. They all but accused Haas himself, yet policeman London was unimpressed. When Tropp demanded to know their business, Marshal Blackman stepped forward again, as he had three days earlier. He identified himself and said he had come to serve legal papers. He wanted the person in charge.
“I’m in charge,” said Joyce Touchette. “My husband is in the fields.” Blackman asked to see Jones. Tropp interrupted: “On the advice of our attorney, we are not authorized to accept service.”
Blackman drew himself up to his full height and read the judicial order aloud. As he tried to hand it to Tropp, she withdrew, letting it fall to the ground. He laid it at her feet. But she angrily kicked it away.
“Okay,” said Blackman, “if that’s the way you want to have it....” He proceeded to nail the order on the freshly painted buildings. A young man in jungle fatigues—Stephan Jones—got up menacingly and ripped them down. “You have no right to deface our property.”
“Shut up,” Tropp snapped at Jones. The last thing she wanted was to provoke a weapons search or arrest. Mr. Muggs could not be so easily disciplined; he tried to urinate on Blackman while the marshal nailed up the order. But Haas and his escorts got their job done, turned and left.
Shortly thereafter, Jim Jones emerged from his hiding place, leading little John Victor Stoen by the hand. When Touchette and Tropp told him what had happened, he was pleased that his son had yelled at the invaders. Then he and the others laughed as the confrontation was recounted—how everyone had postured in high school-style, how Tropp had kicked the papers and so on. The immediate danger had passed, but the laughter died quickly. The siege was not yet over.
The action once again shifted to the courtroom. On September 10, 1977, the day after the marshal and Haas visited Jonestown, Justice Bishop issued his third, and most serious, order:
“... IT IS ORDERED that a Bench Warrant be issued for the arrest of the infant JOHN VICTOR STOEN now in custody of the Respondent, and that the said child be made a ward of the court and that leave is hereby granted for contempt of Court on JIM JONES....”
Georgetown aides immediately relayed the news to Jim Jones in Jonestown. No longer was it simply a matter of the child. Now the GDF could march in and arrest Jim Jones—legally. And his friends in the government—Ministers Reid, Mingo and Wills—were still out of the country. The radio traffic between Guyana and San Francisco crackled. The tone was desperate. It was the sixth day of “the siege,” and this day Jones’s mood darkened. No longer would Jones’s people make a stand in defense of their land, children and principles.
Now, unless they were given asylum one way or another, they would all die by suicide. The concept of “revolutionary suicide” had been enlarged since 1975, when the wine had been poured for his trusted circle. Now he extended self-destruction to the entire Jonestown congregation. Jones was throwing the ultimate tantrum, because he had no other place to go, no other option. His enemies were cornering him....
Marceline Jones awoke September 10 in her small apartment at the San Francisco temple, where she was trying to keep the U.S. movement together in Jones’s absence. She headed almost at once for the radio room. The radio connection was poor, with static drowning out words and bending voices, making them sound eerie and disembodied.
“As you know,” her husband informed her, “there’s been an order for my arrest.... People are conspiring. We are going to have to make a stand. We are prepared to die. Do you copy?”
“Roger, roger.”
“The last few days has been nothing but harassment. People shooting at us.”
“Roger, roger. But can I say just one thing? Give us time to let us work something out. Please do it.”
“We will give people as much time as we can afford. We’ve been lied to and deceived. The foreign minister of this country promised us we’d have complete sanctuary. We’ve also gotten the promise of Dr. Reid. I can’t imagine them going back on their word.... I can be arrested at any moment.”
“Roger, roger. But surely they can stop that from happening. Please, please give it some time.” Her voice cracked and she broke down into uncontrollable sobbing.
Jones reproved her: “If you don’t get control of your emotions, you can destroy the greatest decision in history. We will not allow any of us to be taken. We will die unless we are given freedom from harassment and asylum somewhere—Tanzania, Libya, even Uganda—that chap [Amin] seems to be able to stand up for what he believes.”
The death threat had been issued. Marceline knew her husband was desperate enough to carry it out. Somehow she had to calm him, restrain him, salve his paranoia. It would not be easy. To Jones, the threat was immediate and palpable. He had been living with it, most likely without sleep and with the assistance of drugs, for days, perhaps for a week or two.
Jones came on the radio again. Matters had become critical. He no longer would remain silent, as his attorney Charles Garry had advised him. With the audacity of a monarch, he ordered a doomsday press conference to be held in San Francisco, with invitations issued only to sympathetic reporters.
Jones then put Jimmy and Stephan on the line. Neither son would buck his father.
“Hello, Ma, this is Jimmy. I want to die....”
“Jimmy, it was not too bad a few days ago. If you and your dad could kind of hang on there. The other’s so final, Jimmy.” Marceline started crying again.
Stephan then came on: “Mom, don’t get too emotional. Dad loves all of you there. We’re the ones standing here, and he’s holding up. He’s trying as hard as possible, and you don’t have to worry about me, because as I’ve told you before ... all I’ve ever done in my eighteen years is to anticipate what would happen ... and I know this is the way I want it.”
“Okay, I sure love you. Let me talk to the other boys, but let me tell Jimmy I love him too ... I’m sorry for being so emotional, but it’s hard not to be.”
Sandy Bradshaw sat along with Marceline in the tiny radio room, waiting breathlessly for the words coming from the small ham radio set. Also present were Teri Buford and Mike Carter, the radio operator. It was the first time that Carter, a gawky nineteen-year-old with glasses, had heard anything about guns or threats of suicide. He was shocked and utterly helpless to save his wife and baby in Jonestown.
The other three knew more. Buford seemed genuinely scared. Marceline Jones was hysterical. Bradshaw did not know whether Jim Jones was bluffing or not, but she thought it a forceful strategy to get the Guyanese government to withdraw its arrest warrant and contempt charge. And if the group did die for its beliefs, would not that at least show the world how seriously the church took socialism?
The four of them took shifts to hold the radio connection twenty-four hours a day. They also tried to keep a lid on the crisis, but word leaked out. Soon the fifty people living in the San Francisco temple were aware of it. Their whispering and somber faces heightened the already tense atmosphere.
Jim Jones was growing more insistent. Not only did he want a press conference, he also wanted his leftist friends to address his troops via radio. San Francisco members searched frantically for Carlton Goodlett, Dennis Banks, Yvonne Golden, Angela Davis and Huey Newton that Saturday afternoon. “We might not be alive much longer,” Jones instructed in his sternest voice. “Perhaps that might make them come over a little more quickly than they would have ordinarily. Make this very clear.”
Marceline Jones, desperate to save the movement, redoubled her efforts to resolve the crisis. More than fifty phone calls had gone from San Francisco to the Midwest in an effort to reach visiting Guyanese Deputy Prime Minister Ptolemy Reid and get his assurance that the government would not arrest Jim Jones or take away the child.
Jones was on the radio with Marceline again: “Well, we’re gonna die if anyone comes to arrest anyone. That’s a vote of the people. We’ll die because we’ve done no crime. I offered to go, to make that painful sacrifice, Marceline, but the people said no The morale would not stand it. I don’t mind chains. But it’s an illegal arrest order based on an illegal proceeding.... Our people, as you can tell, have surrounded the perimeter of our property.... They have cutlasses and are ready to defend themselves.” He turned his attention to those hearing his voice over the pavilion sound system. “You are the most beautiful people in the world.”
Then he thundered: “TURN THAT LIGHT OFF!! KEEP DOWN!! KEEP DOWN!! I have said you would hear everything that’s going on. I’ve told you everything about my life. I’ve told you everything about my beliefs. You’ve known that I’ve been a Marxist from the beginning, have you not?”
“YES,” the crowd cried. And they cheered and cheered as he asked the question again and again.
Perhaps the sound of the cheering crowd made Marceline Jones realize the desperation of her own pleas for Jonestown’s survival; not only her own sons but also the populace were ready to carry out Jones’s instructions. She never had been able to successfully stand up to Jones —not even in person—so it was now impossible to do so, by radio, six thousand miles away. If she started to protest, he could simply switch off her voice. There was really no choice but to be with him, or to be silent. She would not desert him now, in perhaps his final moment. She would play the good wife, the public wife.
“I want to say a few words,” she told him, her voice breaking.
“Yes, my good wife.”
“I just want to say that I am your wife. I’ve been your wife for twenty-eight years. And I know the pain and suffering you’ve gone through for socialism, for complete economic and racial equality....”
Marceline had collapsed into weeping, but Jones wanted her to repeat her message. “I missed your copy, darling.... I want to tell you that I’ve been glad being married to you. You’ve been a very faithful wife, but most important, you’ve been a true humanitarian.... I love you very much.”
Marceline repeated her previous statement, and then went on: “And as far as my children are concerned, I guess I love children about as much as anybody could love children....” Again, her voice halted while she wept. “I do love children. As much as it’s hard for me to be away from everybody there, I wouldn’t have them back here. I want them to be with you....”
After hours of delicate negotiations and complicated logistics, the stage was set for radio phone patches that would cheer the seven hundred front-line warriors. First the voice of the Temple’s favorite black communist was carried from the United States to Jonestown and broadcast over the loudspeakers.
“This is Angela Davis. I’d like to say to the Rev. Jim Jones and to all my sisters and brothe
rs from Peoples Temple to know that there are people here ... across the country who are supporting you. I know that you’re in a very difficult situation right now and there is a conspiracy. A very profound conspiracy designed to destroy the contributions which you have made to the struggle. And this is why I must tell you that we feel that we are under attack as well.... We will do everything in our power to ensure your safety....”
Jim Jones asked his people to respond. The crowd’s roar, audible even through the radio to San Francisco, lasted twelve seconds. “I guess you can hear the ovation of the people, Angela,” Jones broke in, “all races, all backgrounds, that appreciated this more than words could possibly [express].”
The next phone patch was with Huey Newton, the Black Panther leader whom Jones had visited in Cuba. Newton’s cousin Stanley Clayton was among the Jonestown residents listening as Newton delivered a pep talk through heavy interference:
“I want the Guyanese government to know that you’re not to be messed around with. Keep strong and we’re pulling for you.”
The third and final phone patch was with Dr. Carlton Goodlett, who was reached in New York. He gave Jones some advice: “You knew there was going to be pressure from the U.S., and if the Guyana government is that weak-kneed, you aren’t running anywhere.... You ought to demand that the government protect you as an American citizen and preserve your rights, and forget the matter of friendship—it is more a matter of international law.”
“As always, my good doctor, you are very wise,” Jones responded. “I offered to be arrested; it doesn’t matter anything to me.... it is much easier to die for [your people] than to live for them.”
Though the crisis was in its sixth day, Pat Richartz, aide to Charles Garry, had been notified of the Guyana developments only that morning when she was awakened at 4:30 A.M. by a weeping Teri Buford.
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