by Jeff Guinn
BREAKDOWN
In 1961, at the height of his success in Indianapolis, Jim Jones met his childhood friend Max Knight for lunch. Jones talked about how many businesses in the city he’d managed to integrate and reminded Knight that, back in Lynn, Max had encouraged him to become a minister. Knight congratulated Jones on all he’d achieved and asked what was next, expecting to hear about more plans for integration in Indianapolis. He was stunned when Jones replied that he wanted to move his ministry out of that city—Indianapolis, with its nonconfrontational, everybody-get-along ways, “wasn’t wide open.” Jones said he could accomplish only so much there. The West Coast was “where real social church ministries are needed. In California, there would be no limits.” Being in Indianapolis, trying to get things done, was frustrating and took a physical and psychological toll. Throughout 1961, Jones rose before sunup and worked all day and most of the night. Sometimes he’d ask Ron Haldeman to come with him to lunch because he needed to get away from all of the pressure, and then, over the spicy food he loved, Jones would talk incessantly about something in Indianapolis that needed to be changed and how he was going to change it. So far as Haldeman could tell, Jones never took even an afternoon off.
There was too much for one man to do, but Jones wouldn’t delegate. Marceline remained his trusted behind-the-scenes partner in Temple outreach programs, and Walter and Charlotte Baldwin came from Richmond to help with the nursing homes. Jones still came by these facilities on a daily basis, talking one-on-one with clients there, promising he’d personally look into any problems they had. He had a handpicked team of associate pastors—Russell Winberg, Ross Case, Archie Ijames—but didn’t trust them to lead Temple services in his absence. When Jones absolutely had to be away on a Sunday, he always asked Ron Haldeman to preside in his place. Haldeman said that “Jim suspected they might be a lot like he was with Father Divine, waiting for the leader to die or be gone so they could take over.”
Jones’s paranoia extended to the Temple congregation. In any growing church with an outspoken, controversial leader, there were bound to be some who joined for a while and then chose to leave. Other ministers accepted this inevitable attrition, but not Jones. He made a point of knowing every member and tried to forge a personal bond with each. Anyone could call on Father Jim for help or counsel, anytime. But much was also asked of those belonging to Peoples Temple. They were expected to attend every Sunday service without fail, and to participate in all extracurricular activities as well as put in volunteer hours at church social service programs. In these, and also in every aspect of their personal lives, members had to follow socialist principles as espoused by Jones—no superior airs, no obsession with material possessions. They were instructed to watch each other and report transgressions. Jones held regular “corrective fellowship” sessions, where individual members stood before their peers and were criticized for any wrongdoing. There was always something each person needed to do better.
For some, it was too much and they stopped coming, thinking that was the end of it until Jones inundated them with letters and phone calls beseeching them to return. It wasn’t just what he wanted, Jones stressed—it was God’s Will that they remain part of the congregation. If there was something about Jones’s demands on his followers that they didn’t understand, it shouldn’t be questioned—God didn’t want them doing that, either. To challenge Jim Jones was to challenge the Lord, and God would respond accordingly.
In an undated, handwritten letter to Earl Jackson on “Peoples Nursing Home” stationery, Jones declared,
My beloved brother in Christ, concern for you kept me up praying the entire night! I’m going to speak sincerely and frankly! God sent you to Peoples Temple and you must not release yourself. I know that there are things about the Message that you may not see but it is God. As long as we love Christ we have unity and understanding to compensate for all the little things you & I might disagree on. Earl you will be making a serious mistake if you leave our Temple that God has ordained and declared you to be part of. Don’t go out to see the proof of what I just said. Hear me as a voice crying to you from the depths of love & fondness for you. “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.” Don’t go back on the light! I know you wouldn’t [do that] intentionally but if you leave the place that Christ has set you in much sorrow and heartache will be the result. God impressed my mind strongly in every prayer in the early hours before dawn that you would be making a terrible mistake to leave. Please hear my counsel which I give with a heart full of love for you! Yours in Him, Pastor James Jones.
P.S. I called last night but you were asleep. I’ll be in contact by person or phone with you soon! My prayers and love go all out for you!
Even as he obsessed about the loyalty of individual Temple members, Jones also had to reckon with oversight and criticism from his affiliate denomination. For Jones, the Disciples of Christ had two specific attractions: commitment to racial and economic equality, and a general hands-off attitude toward individual member churches. But there was still oversight. Observers from the Disciples regional office attended some Sunday services at the Temple, and afterward informed Jones that he talked too much about current social issues and “didn’t preach Jesus enough.” Jones was furious. He retorted that “Jesus preached whatever needed to be said.” Temple members, Jones said, felt powerless. These downtrodden people were exactly who he wanted in his congregation, and he knew what they needed to hear. Bible stories about the life of Christ paled compared to His command that there should be love and fairness toward all. Jones would emphasize “the words of Jesus” in terms of modern-day oppression that Temple members could relate to in their own lives.
Jones’s response curtailed denominational criticism of his sermons, but he had another, more serious concern. All affiliate churches were required to submit annual reports citing membership, income, and the percentage of that income contributed to denominational programs. Then and afterward, Jones wanted control of every cent raised by Peoples Temple, whether from contributions by members or gifts from outside organizations and benefactors. The idea of sharing any of it with the Disciples distressed him. So the reports submitted by Peoples Temple routinely misrepresented church membership and income. As many as seven hundred people regularly attended Sunday services. Annual Temple membership was reported at 264 in 1960, and at 233 in 1961. Fewer reported members meant less reported income. Other member churches routinely contributed a minimum of 10 or 15 percent to the Disciples, some sent as much as half. Peoples Temple gave 3 percent, totaling no more than a few hundred dollars, and Jones begrudged even that.
The Disciples regional office had the authority to audit Temple books. Its observers could have demonstrated that Temple membership far exceeded what its annual report indicated. But the continued participation of Peoples Temple was vital to the denomination: its social outreach programs exemplified what Disciples wanted its other churches to do. The appropriateness of sermons and veracity of annual reports were secondary.
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To Jones, it was critical that his followers believe he worked tirelessly to improve their lives at great risk to his own. That was the best assurance of their loyalty. It was a given, particularly in the Deep South, that white integration activists were always in physical peril. No integrationist in Indianapolis had ever been attacked, until Jim Jones began calling police to report attempted assaults. The earliest of these were minor, rocks thrown at his house, and in one instance the perpetrators were even caught. They turned out to be black teenagers breaking windows at random—Jones hadn’t been selected as a specific target. He was still offended and told them that he was the last one they should be harassing, since he was trying to do so much for their people.
As Jones’s reputation grew, the nature of the attacks he reported also escalated. There were anonymous threats of armed violence against him and his family, he told police—he bought guns of his own so he could defend his loved ones. Not much later, a shot was heard outs
ide his house in the middle of the night. Jones was in the kitchen. Everyone else had been asleep. Jones told his family that it was an assassination attempt. Someone fired at him, but missed; the bullet hadn’t come through the window. He insisted they go outside and see where the shot had hit, and, sure enough, there was a bullet hole in a porch pillar. The police were summoned. The Jones family had three dogs; investigating officers thought it odd that none of the dogs barked when the perpetrator approached the house and opened fire. The angle of the bullet hole in the pillar was curious, too. The shot appeared to be fired away from, rather than toward, the house. In his next sermon and for several Sundays after that, Jones told the story to his congregation. People wanted to kill him because of what he was trying to do for Peoples Temple and the oppressed everywhere. He was alive only because God was protecting him.
Jones told family and a few friends that the pressure was becoming too much. Besides being in constant danger, everyone he met wanted something from him. For the first time, though only in private, he began incrementally revealing the considerable divide between the Bible-based religion he still preached and his true beliefs. Jones talked about reincarnation—not only his faith in it, but his conviction that “Jim Jones” was simply the latest physical manifestation of a spirit previously occupying the earthly bodies of other great men, all of them dedicated to equality and justice. Those closest to him, Jones declared, had been his helpers and confidants in previous lives. They were together again to move humanity forward. Jones’s love of history came in handy when he offered specifics. Joe Phillips, who had become a devoted follower after Jones apparently cured his young son of heart disease, was told that he was the current incarnation of Ashoka, a distinguished emperor in India and a devout disciple of the Buddha. Jones, of course, had been the Buddha in that previous life. Now Phillips was back to serve Jones once again. Phillips believed it, just as he believed in Jones’s powers as a healer. Whatever Jim said must be true.
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Near the end of October 1961, Jones began telling Temple associate pastors about a terrible prophetic vision. Jones claimed to his subordinates that it had been revealed to him America would soon be under nuclear attack, and Indianapolis and everyone living there would be obliterated.
In 1961, many Americans lived in fear of nuclear holocaust, and had since November 1955 when Russia successfully tested a thermonuclear bomb. Jim Jones was one of them. As the Cold War escalated, advances in science resulted in nuclear weaponry as much as 750 times more lethal than the atomic bombs America dropped on Japan to end World War II. Bomb paranoia swept the United States. After his election in November 1960, President John F. Kennedy suggested that public school basements would be the best shelter option in the event of nuclear war. In a June 1961 nationally televised address in response to recent Soviet threats, Kennedy said Americans should be prepared: “In the event of [a nuclear] attack, the lives of those families which are not hit in a nuclear blast can still be saved if they can be warned to take shelter, and if that shelter is available.”
Jones’s Temple staff was prepared to accept the validity of any Jones prophecy, but because of the widespread obsession with nuclear war, this one especially struck home. Jones offered details: the attack, presumably by the Soviets, would target several major American cities, including Chicago. Indianapolis would be leveled by fallout from the Chicago blast. It would come on the sixteenth of some month, which Jones believed but could not be certain was September. He also didn’t know what year, but the time would be 3:09, either a.m. or p.m.—the vision hadn’t specified. But the upshot was that for the safety of its members, Peoples Temple must relocate somewhere far from potential nuclear targets. Jones would use his physician-mandated sabbatical to find the right place. Since his absence would now be quite extended, he formally named Russell Winberg to take charge of the Temple until his return. Ross Case, Archie Ijames, and Jack Beam would serve as Winberg’s assistants.
Then Jones left Indianapolis. His only previous foreign trip had been to Cuba following the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro, going before the American government forbade its citizens to travel there. He believed that he would find many potential Cuban recruits for the Temple, socialist-leaning Hispanics eager to join his Indianapolis whites and blacks. But Jones was disappointed by the apparent lack of interest from the new revolutionary government.
Now he visited British Guiana on the northeast coast of South America. He found the country, currently moving toward formal separation from the British Empire, to be interesting. The majority of its people were based along the gradually eroding coast; only Amerindians lived in the wild, dense jungle that covered much of the rest of the country. British Guiana’s population seemed primarily black, and English was the national language. Once it was an independent nation with a stable, hopefully socialist government, it might prove worthy of consideration. But not yet.
Jones’s next stop was Hawaii. The rest of his family joined him, with the exception of Lynetta. Jones wanted his mother back in Indianapolis, keeping an eye on the nursing homes. He and Marceline loved the lush islands, so much so that in December 1961 Jones applied for an unspecified job at Honolulu’s Church of the Crossroads, renowned in evangelistic circles for its large mixed-race congregation and social outreach programs. It was undoubtedly Jones’s hope to bring his Temple followers into Crossroads membership, then eventually take personal leadership of the combined churches. Rev. Katharine Kent of Crossroads was sufficiently impressed with the applicant to send queries back to Jones’s references in Indianapolis. Audrey E. Howard, secretary of the Human Rights Commission, responded with a flowery testimonial:
[Jim Jones] is one of the most dedicated persons I have ever known and his broad experience with ethnic groups would certainly provide the skills required by any service agency. In addition, his devotion to every cause beneficial to mankind is the most unselfish I have ever observed. His morals, executive ability—as exemplified in the two nursing homes, the interdenominational church, first local church to integrate—would compare favorably in any type of inquiry. . . . I am certain that the trust we place in him would be exemplified wherever he goes.
Despite the glowing recommendation, Jones wasn’t hired. He and his family returned to Indianapolis, where he insisted that the threat of imminent nuclear annihilation still loomed. Jones’s assistant pastors expected him to do something about it. So did those rank-and-file Temple members who’d heard rumors that their leader had predicted something catastrophic was going to happen. New relocation possibilities were suggested by an unexpected source: Esquire magazine, written for Americans seeking informed, sophisticated information on world affairs, politics, sports, literature, and fashion. Jim Jones was a dedicated Esquire reader, and for him its January 1962 issue (which reached newsstands in December 1961) could not have been timelier. One lead story, touted on the cover, was titled “9 Places in the World to Hide,” the cities and/or regions where inhabitants had the best odds of survival following nuclear war. Reporter Caroline Bird dramatically declared, “Now a shift has come about in some of the world’s thinking: war will destroy much of the life on this planet, but not all. And what this means, if it is true, is that your security depends not so much on who you are or what you believe or even what kind of fallout shelter you build, but where you live.” Based on projections of wind, weather, and geographic quirks, Bird identified nine places where post-nuclear survival was considered by many expert scientists and military leaders to be most likely. These included Eureka, California; Cork, Ireland; Guadalajara, Mexico; Chile’s Central Valley; Mendoza, Argentina; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Tananarive, Madagascar; Melbourne, Australia; and Christchurch, New Zealand.
Jones was still attracted to California, but governments outside the United States seemed more likely to support relocation and growth of a socialism-based church. Relocating to a foreign land would also increase Jones’s daily control of his followers, since they would be isolated from relatives an
d nonmember friends who might lure them away from Temple attendance and activities. South America seemed likeliest, and of the options listed there by Esquire, Brazil appeared to have the most potential, based on a government that seemed less dictatorial than Argentina’s and more commodious than the Central Valley of Chile. Most Temple members were American city folk. Belo Horizonte was a center of agriculture and mining in the eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. American missionaries based there found great numbers of potential converts from among Brazil’s indigenous population, as well as the poor who thronged the city. Jones had complained to Max Knight that Indianapolis wasn’t sufficiently “wide open.” Even its ghetto population was limited. Belo Horizonte was the opposite. In that city, there seemed to be no discernible limits for someone with the energy and vision to pursue socialist dreams. How could he not succeed?
Jones made hurried arrangements. Russell Winberg would continue as acting pastor of Peoples Temple. Lynetta Jones and the Baldwins would manage the Temple nursing homes. Money from Temple accounts would regularly be sent to finance new programs initiated by Jones in Belo Horizonte. When Jones was sufficiently established, church members would begin emigrating and a new Peoples Temple would be founded there. Finally, Jones resigned as director of the Human Relations Commission. With high hopes, he took his wife and children to Brazil.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BRAZIL
Jones’s journey began inauspiciously. Instead of rushing to Belo Horizonte, he stopped off in Mexico on the way. Archie Ijames met him there, and reported that Russell Winberg was already changing the nature of services at Peoples Temple. In his sermons, Jones had emphasized social issues. Winberg presented traditional Bible-based preaching. He’d invited other evangelists to offer guest sermons, when Jones had always wanted to restrict outside influence as much as possible. Ijames said that Winberg might be plotting to take control of the Temple for himself—Jones should return to Indianapolis right away.
