My neck muscles swelled with adrenalin. I felt an overwhelming need to see for myself, to be there to support Ryan. At that moment, we were as one—the outsiders, the enemy. Distinctions among reporters, the congressman, the relatives fell away. Our only hope in a crisis was sticking together.
But Johnny Brown, backed by a group of husky young men, instructed us to turn back. When we did not budge, he said, as had Harris, that the congressman was all right. “Please go back to the truck,” he said firmly, over and over. The situation was volatile, he said, and our presence might touch off more trouble. “People are uptight.”
His impassioned pleas and the mass of glaring faces behind him finally convinced us to go back. Once we reporters, including Harris, had scaled the truck sides again, the vehicle began to lumber down the road.
In the distance, a long-legged white boy came flying out of the pavilion, hollering for all he was worth. He hurdled crops in the field and charged toward us pell-mell along the roadbank. He quickly overtook us and stopped the driver. As usual, those of us in the back could not hear above the rapping diesel exhaust pipe.
Then, like an apparition through the exhaust, Leo Ryan came down the road, his blood-spattered shirt torn open to his beltline, his pants soiled around the knees, his briefcase in one hand. Jim Cobb hurried up the road to greet him, as the congressman was escorted toward us by a Temple security guard, Tim Carter and a worried-looking Mark Lane, with Embassy official Dick Dwyer bringing up the rear. Ryan’s normally ruddy face was as white as his untanned belly, his brow deeply furrowed, his thatch of gray hair matted. After trudging to the truck, Lane helped him into the cab. To an apparent apology, Ryan said, “No problem.” His face taut, Ryan seemed greatly relieved to be there, to be alive. Yet he looked, in a pitiful way, victorious, like a boy who had taken some licks yet won the fight.
Back at the pavilion just a few minutes earlier, the departure preparations had been proceeding uneventfully. Charles Garry and some of Jones’s aides had been standing around the minister as the Ryan party finished boarding the truck. Under the metal pavilion roof, Larry Layton had come forward to join the congressman’s group of defectors. His wife Karen was hysterical. “I don’t understand this,” she cried. “I don’t understand. Larry, what is this all about?” Layton, sullen and silent, ignored her and hugged Jones good-bye. After Ryan straightened out his paperwork for him, he headed for the truck.
All seemed to be going smoothly and amicably. Ryan thanked the Temple lawyers for their help, said it was a pleasant visit and assured Jones that his report to Congress would show fairness. Then, after Ryan asked Jones to make it easier for people to leave on their own, a husky man named Don Sly walked up behind him without warning. Sly threw his arms around Ryan and said, “Congressman Ryan, you motherfucker....” Ryan felt a point pushing at his throat, and at first believed that it was a pin and that someone was joking. But Sly’s left hand was prodding the congressman’s jugular with a homemade knife.
As Lane went for the weapon, Garry grabbed Sly’s neck and Ryan pitched backward with his assailant. Tim Carter joined the scuffle on the ground and eventually wrested away the knife. When the men disengaged themselves, they found that Ryan, whose shirt was dotted with blood, was unhurt. But Sly accidentally had been cut between the thumb and index finger on one hand.
When Ryan picked himself up, he was angry. Then he composed himself. Jones stood to one side, silently, as if in a trance; he had not lifted a hand or protested in any way, and did not apologize now. He only listened as Ryan promised that his recommendation and report to Congress would remain unchanged, providing the attacker was arrested. Jones agreed to call the police only after the lawyers instructed him to do it.
Drawn to the area by the commotion and gathering crowd, Dwyer evaluated the situation and thought Ryan’s continued presence might be unwise. The diplomat urged the congressman to abandon his plan to stay overnight to process more potential defectors. Volunteering to stay in his place, Dwyer said he would take Ryan to Port Kaituma, then come right back. With Lane as an escort, both Ryan and Dwyer left the pavilion, hurrying to overtake the departing truck.
In a light rain, with Ryan and Dwyer aboard, the truck rolled again, with a belch of black smoke. There was some comfort in heading away from Jonestown—though the defectors privately believed that we would be ambushed and killed before reaching Kaituma. We outsiders, though ignorant of those fears, still could hardly take comfort in the fact that someone had tried to slit the throat of a U.S. congressman, the man we had considered our shield.
The severe bouncing and slippery footing forced us to flex our knees to absorb the shock and to keep balance. As the tiresome position became numbing, Jim Cobb grabbed my shoulder and took my head to whisper, “Larry Layton’s in front of you. There’s no way he’s a defector; he’s too close to Jones. These people say that Layton’s been desperate, depressed, since his mother died a few months ago. They think he’s got a gun and is going to try something. Watch him.” I nodded my thanks. At that moment, Jim Cobb was as earnest as a human being can be. His manner and voice said: our lives might depend on it.
He repeated a similar message to Bob Flick, and the two of us held positions behind and to either side of Layton, with Flick on the left, me on the right and Cobb behind us. With all of us well over six feet tall and 200 pounds, it seemed we could overcome the diminutive Layton if his hand dipped under his poncho for a weapon.
Next to Layton, up on the tailgate, perched a Temple escort named Wesley Breidenbach; he had stayed close to Jones in the final hour or two of our visit, seemingly acting as a security guard. This bushy-haired handsome man in his early twenties, a former pitcher at Opportunity High, probably could be overcome too, I thought. He was a thin six feet one, but his rubber raincoat broke over something at the back of his waistband. When he bent forward to look around the side of the truck, I tried to brush it with my hand to see if it was a gun. But he straightened up.
While keeping one eye on the taciturn Layton, I struck up a conversation with Breidenbach. Like Tropp and McElvane, he said with sadness that the defectors could have left Jonestown at any time. But my comments about the beauty of the terrain, the openness and freedom of the land, seemed to relax him. And when he talked of the spectacular sunsets, the land full of wildlife and fertility, I wondered momentarily whether perhaps some of Jones’s paranoia had not rubbed off on us.
But Breidenbach, though very likable, betrayed a nervousness that kept me uneasy. He seemed to know my eyes were trained on Layton, the silent one. Layton’s right hand had inched down the boards, lower than chest level. If it went much lower and disappeared under his poncho, I would have to act.
FIFTY-FOUR
Holocaust
When Stephan Jones awoke Saturday morning, November 18, the Lamaha Gardens house was quieter than it had been for the past week. The Ryan party, the Temple attorneys, the press were all in Jonestown, and there was little to do in the Temple house but wait.
As he walked down the narrow hallway to the living room area, Stephan felt better than he had for a long, long time. He was happy about the positive radio reports from Jonestown the previous night. Leo Ryan had announced that many people told him that Peoples Temple was the best thing in their lives. And Stephan thought that once Jonestown had weathered the visit, the openly rebellious basketball team-security squad could return to Jonestown and perhaps do something about Jim Jones. Perhaps they could move him aside gently, or somehow contain his madness.
Stephan also was keyed up from the basketball game the night before. He had lied when he radioed the score to Jonestown. In fact, the team had lost—not won—by ten points. Still, it had felt good to hear the ovation from the crowd in the pavilion.
Once the players were up and dressed, they took team photos, then the day was theirs. Stephan and Lee Ingram went over to the gym for some one-on-one basketball. When they got back to Lamaha Gardens, Sharon Amos’s ex-husband Sherwin Harris was there, visiting
his twenty-one-year-old daughter, Liane. Stephan did not want Harris to think the team had come to intimidate him—which Harris did—so he suggested the ballplayers take in a Georgetown matinee, a John Saxon movie about hit men.
Harris, after trying to see his daughter for several days, finally had been invited to the Temple house at two o’clock that day. He wound up spending the afternoon and early evening with her. At about four thirty, as Harris and Liane were strolling outside, he noticed something strange: Mike Touchette went storming out of the house shouting, “Bullshit!” Harris wondered what had upset him so much.
Sharon Amos had been hunched over the radio downstairs when the bad news started coming from Jonestown. Richard Dwyer earlier had radioed, asking her to call the U.S. Embassy: there were so many defectors that another airplane was needed to bring them out of the jungle. Amos knew as well as anyone the critical meaning of even one defection. When Mike Carter, the Jonestown operator, got back on the radio, Amos asked him, “Is this for real?” Carter told her it very definitely was.
“Who are they?” she wanted to know, tension edging her voice. Carter told her the names of the traitors.
“Oh, my God,” she uttered. Then she put out a call for the Temple security squad members in town.
Stephan Jones never saw the end of the John Saxon movie. His brother Tim was tapping on his shoulder: Stephan and the others were wanted back at the house, urgently. As they responded to the emergency order, none knew what had happened in Jonestown. When their car pulled up in front of the house, Stephan jumped out and raced into the radio room. Sharon still was bent over the radio receiver. Since she wore headphones, Stephan could not hear the Jonestown end of the conversation. Suddenly she turned to him, trembling. “He wants us to go out and get revenge.” The coded message began to spell out the weapons—KNI. ... Jones wanted them to use knives; there were no guns in Georgetown.
Stephan’s stomach did a reverse. Every muscle jerked taut. The message meant: go out and kill Temple enemies. Something catastrophic was about to happen in Jonestown. But what?
“Hold it,” said Stephan, trying to slow his racing mind. “We’ve got to talk.” He needed to take stock of the situation, to stall for time. Had the day finally come? Was Jim Jones really calling on the Jonestown security squad to avenge the death of a movement? If so, it was hardly a crack unit. Torn by doubts and disillusionment, Stephan, his brothers and friends were no longer ready to carry out such extreme orders unquestioningly.
He had to consult his brother Tim. As they walked outside to the iron gate at the front of the house, Debbie Touchette followed. “I know how you guys feel, and I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “But you better get back in the house or Sharon will go out of her mind.”
Stephan’s head still spun. He did not know exactly what to avenge, though he was fairly certain it involved the Ryan party. While no one had identified any targets, Tim Stoen at the Hotel Pegasus had to rank high on the list. Stephan knew Jones was given to issuing irrational orders or falsely creating life-and-death situations, but somehow this had the feel of a more authentic crisis. If another White Night really had been called in Jonestown, what were the implications? Did it mean his mother, Marceline, would die? His girl friend, Michelle? His best friend, Albert? How could he know whether his people had been attacked by real enemies, or whether his father had gone irretrievably mad, or whether this was another elaborate hoax? As things stood now, his instructions were ludicrous.
“Look, we’re not just going out there,” Stephan said, finally. “We’ve got to get some weapons. We’ve got to have a plan or we won’t get anything done. And what are we supposed to use, butter knives?”
Tim Jones and Johnny Cobb were no less confused. They decided to head for the Pegasus Hotel—but not to take revenge on the Concerned Relatives there. They wanted to see whether the relatives had any more information than they did. By that act alone, they would be disobeying the orders of Jim Jones.
In San Francisco, meanwhile, everyone was gathered around the radio on the second floor of the temple waiting anxiously for news from Jonestown. Sandy Bradshaw, Jean Brown and Tom Adams had been ecstatic the night before when they heard about Ryan’s positive appraisal. Bradshaw reasoned that if Ryan came home saying good things about Jonestown, their troubles would disappear. Then they could get back to the work of socialism, helping people and building the mission. Bradshaw knew that enough lumber had arrived on the dock in Port Kaituma that week to erect one hundred new cottages. She did not know the poison had arrived too.
When San Francisco reached Jonestown on the radio Saturday morning, Jonestown was reluctant to talk openly because the Ryan party was still there. The radio room was next to the pavilion, and they were afraid of being overheard. Mike Carter, the Jonestown operator, finally tapped out a message in Morse code: Carolyn Layton wanted to talk to Sandy Bradshaw. As they tried to get both parties on the line, Jonestown said San Francisco should move to the top of its radio frequency. That meant an urgent message was coming. San Francisco moved to fifteen meters, the band it normally used for Morse code, and tuned it to the top frequency. After a wait, San Francisco moved to the twenty-meter band. Still, there was no answer. It was noon, San Francisco, 5:00 P.M. Guyana.
As we rode out from Jonestown, I pondered the shape my story would take. My mental review of the visit told me to describe the place as physically impressive and the people as generally appearing happy and healthy. The accusations of the policeman and people like Leon Broussard would be balanced with the denials and assertions of Jim Jones himself. Jones’s words would speak for themselves. Though the attack on Ryan had marred the visit, it sounded like a freak incident, perhaps the act of an unbalanced individual.
The sun burst through the clouds as we neared the Temple gate. Six or eight persons were posted in and around the guard shack, far more than for either of our trips in. They halted the truck, and two men came around to the rear. One was James Edwards, the other Joe Wilson, the mean-faced head of security. Edwards stood with his legs apart, one hand fingering something in his pocket. Wilson demanded that we crowd to the sides of the truck bed. “Let me see who you got in there,” he snapped impatiently. Supposedly he was looking for his wife and baby, who had walked away from Jonestown that morning. That escape by the security chief’s wife was not a good omen, and some people had seen a gun in Wilson’s waistband. As the two men stood there, I had a momentary fear —and so did the defectors—that they would open fire, and we would be trapped in the tall-sided truck bed, like cattle in a corral. If the suspicious defector—Layton—and the tailgate escort—Breidenbach—jumped down and joined them, we could be mowed down by bullets as we scrambled over each other to escape.
After what seemed an eon, the truck begin to move. Wilson was hanging on the side, just behind the cab. A wave of relief passed over me as I watched the Peoples Temple welcoming sign shrink in the distance and disappear.
As usual in sleepy Port Kaituma, a few children and nondescript dogs wandered along the roadside. A few adults waved out of habit, but no one waved back. Our faces were taut. After splashing and bouncing through a few more puddles and over rocky stretches, the vehicle turned onto the airstrip. Several soldiers who were lolling around the disabled Guyanese airplane looked up as we passed and continued a few hundred yards to a metal passenger shack.
After helping each other and the defectors off the truck, we reporters accompanied Ryan to the corrugated metal waiting shack. It was about four thirty. Though he still looked sapped, he had pulled himself together somewhat on the ride. His silvery hair was tousled, as if he had been running his fingers through it. His bloodied shirt was buttoned. He squatted on a piece of luggage and tried to rub the weariness from his eyes. Veins bulged in his hands as he clasped them, loosely but nervously. Dispassionately, but with sweeping arm gestures and graphic language, he described the attempt on his life.
Greg Robinson snapped off frame after frame as Ryan hunkered there in the
shack, his thick hands folding and unfolding. At the end of his story, Ryan announced he was finished, stood up, then went to the back half-wall of the shack where he leaned out, looking into the jungle for a moment of reflection.
A while later, Ryan did an airstrip interview with Don Harris that covered not only the knife attack but also his impressions of Jonestown, which he summed up, saying, “It was very different from what I thought I’d find, in both positive and negative ways.”
By then, a six-seater Cessna had landed, followed a moment later by the larger Guyana Airways Otter. Both were ready for boarding, but we were several seats short. It was decided—logically so—that the defectors would be the first to go.
But Jackie Speier announced that some of us newsmen would have to remain behind for another plane. We reporters huddled to discuss who would stay, and it was decided generally that those of us with daily deadlines and stories to file would fly out first. Before we had resolved our seating problems entirely, I noticed the Temple dump truck and the red tractor with a trailer, pulled side by side about 150 to 200 yards down the airstrip. Puffing anxiously on a cigarette pinched between thumb and forefinger, Don Harris stood stiff-legged watching them, like a field general. As I sidled up to Harris, he said with finality, “I think we’ve got trouble.”
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