The Road to Jonestown

by Jeff Guinn

  About ninety of the remaining Temple members were persuaded. In the early summer of 1965, Jones preached a final Peoples Temple service, saying he and his people were leaving Indianapolis for California to escape persecution. One day, they would go even farther than California, to a place where everyone could be happy. Most assumed that he meant heaven. Imminent nuclear holocaust was not mentioned.

  As soon as the service was over, Jones and his followers embarked on a car caravan to their new California home. It was a jolly journey. They stopped at supermarkets in towns along the way, buying loaves of bread, packs of lunch meat, and then enjoying picnics in shady roadside spots. There were long delays at gas stations as people took turns using the restrooms. Everyone was excited; their leader’s enthusiasm was contagious.

  Then they arrived in Ukiah, and the newcomers’ collective good mood quickly faded. Jones had planned for everything but a place that didn’t want them.

  PART TWO

  CALIFORNIA

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  REDNECK VALLEY

  Ukiah and Redwood Valley initially seemed as much of a haven as Jones had promised. It was a quiet, relatively remote area, far enough removed from the spectacular Mendocino County coast that tourists rarely ventured there. But this interior region still had its geographic charms, including rolling hills and a few lakes.

  Peoples Temple didn’t arrive as indigents. Marceline Jones stunned a local banker with a deposit of $100,000. But with the church back in Indianapolis essentially closed down, careful husbanding of funds was necessary. After finding work, members were expected to donate every spare dollar. Jones himself took employment as a junior high and high school teacher—civics and American history were his subjects. Marceline was hired by the state of California as an inspector of hospitals and nursing homes. Lynetta Jones got a job with the Red Cross.

  In July 1965, Jones filed articles of incorporation with the state of California on behalf of “Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ,” emphasizing the denominational affiliation. The stated purpose of the organization was “to further the Kingdom of God by Spreading the Word.” A few months later, the state’s Franchise Tax Board formally recognized the Temple as nonprofit: “Contributions made to you are deductible by the donors” who followed proper reporting procedures. Temple directors were identified as Jones, Marceline, and Archie Ijames.

  Messages went back to Temple members in Indiana who’d so far refused to make the trip west: Come out here. It’s paradise, just as Father described. Fifty or sixty more were persuaded. They received effusive greetings upon arrival, and were congratulated on saving themselves from the coming nuclear conflagration. It was impossible not to be impressed by Father’s services in a building on the Golden Rule grounds. During Jones’s last months in an Indianapolis pulpit, his messages had been menacing. Now in rural California he seemed more positive again, affirmative rather than alarming. Life was going to be good.

  Then came a glimmer of potential concern. Dan McKee, city editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal, instructed reporters to look into this new church and its members. Was there anything about them that might prove troublesome in their conservative community? Journal reporters began asking questions, and soon Jones was alerted. Within days of his staff’s first inquiries, McKee remembers, Jones “swept into” the newspaper office and had a long, closed-door meeting with the publisher and executive editor. Afterward, McKee was told by his bosses that there would be no further investigation of Peoples Temple or Jim Jones. Instead, Temple officials would begin submitting articles to the Journal about their church and its activities. These were to be published promptly, unedited. In Indianapolis, Jones had learned to deal with big-city newspapers. Charming the bosses at a small town paper was no real challenge.

  But small-town racism couldn’t be so easily overcome. The population of Ukiah and its surrounding hill country communities was about fifteen thousand, almost universally working-class whites who lived far away from urban areas on purpose. In summer 1965, many major American cities were in turmoil because of civil rights protests or growing numbers of protesters against the Vietnam War. Though most residents of Ukiah and Redwood Valley were suspicious of the federal government, they were fervently patriotic in a more general sense. To them, antiwar demonstrators were traitors and communists—the terms were interchangeable. Outraged blacks were ungrateful Negroes who didn’t appreciate what they had, and whose genetically programmed propensity for violence represented a terrible threat to law-abiding whites. The Church of the Golden Rule didn’t alarm locals. Its members were white and they mostly stayed out of sight up in the hills. Peoples Temple was different. They shoved their way into what had previously been nice, quiet neighborhoods, and some of these interlopers were black.

  When the first Peoples Temple car caravan arrived, this wasn’t the case. Only a few blacks, notably Archie Ijames and his family, came in the first Temple wave. But another dozen or so blacks were among those coaxed into following them, and they stood out starkly in Ukiah—“like flies in a bowl of milk” was a common description. White Ukiahans knew what the arrival of Negroes meant. Even if they weren’t violent, no decent white family in town wanted to live anywhere near them. A Negro presence instantly lowered property values. Yet Jim Jones, the leader of this Peoples Temple bunch, rented houses around town and stuck his followers in them, black folks included, without regard for or permission from people already living on the same street. Once this second wave of Temple settlers arrived, local hostility toward all its members commenced. Temple children were ignored by classmates. No one invited them home to play, or to birthday or teen dance parties. Their parents were served in local shops and cafés with stony, minimal courtesy. Temple members soon nicknamed their new home “Redneck Valley.” There was real danger that many would decide to return to Indiana.

  So Jones resumed his message of imminent nuclear war. Based on the vision he’d originally reported, it was less than two years away. Anyone going back to Indianapolis was likely to die there under hellish circumstances. He’d led them to Mendocino County to save them from that fate, and now Jones announced that he’d done even more. He and several other Temple leaders had explored the hills north of town and discovered, thanks to Father’s powers, an amazing cave, one sufficiently deep to provide protection from nuclear fallout and vast enough to accommodate every Temple member plus the supplies necessary to sustain them until the danger was past. Then they would emerge not only to survive, but thrive, in the post-nuclear world. This plan required some alteration of Jones’s previous assurance that Ukiah was well outside any danger zone, that simply moving there would be protection enough. Now, Russian bombs intended for San Francisco might fall too far north, or winds counted on to protect Mendocino County might change. When nuclear war came, taking shelter in the cave would guarantee complete safety. There were no caves back in Indianapolis.

  Jones described the local cave in detail, but never took rank-and-file followers to see it for themselves. They were told that it was too isolated to be easily reached. When the time came, Father and Archie Ijames and the few others who knew its location would lead them there. Meanwhile, it was being stocked with provisions.

  Later, some former Temple members decided that Jones lied about there being a cave. But there was one, much too small to accommodate more than perhaps a few dozen people at once, yet still there deep in the hills north of town. Jones, Ijames, Joe Phillips, Jack Beam, Mike Cartmell (Patty Cartmell’s teenage son), and a few others found and explored it. In this instance, as he often did, Jones exaggerated actual fact. It was unlikely any followers would call his bluff, but had that happened, he could have taken a few skeptics out to see the entrance. It was possible to get into the cave only by dangling descent via rope, and it would have been easy for Jones to find some excuse not to subject the doubters to that.

  But the cave and threat of looming nuclear war were only stopgaps. Jones had prophesized that Russian missiles would strik
e America in July 1967. If that didn’t happen, disgruntled followers would have no reason for remaining in Ukiah or Redwood Valley. It was not Jones’s way to plan too far ahead. In a talk at Bucknell University in 2013, Jones’s son Stephan said, “[It was ascribed] to my father a level of planning and forethought and diabolical intent and orchestration” that he did not deserve. Jones frequently spoke and acted on impulse, trusting himself to concoct some persuasive justification afterward.

  Whether Jones himself believed in most or even any of his publicly proclaimed visions and prophecies, he made them frequently and many did not come true. But Jones’s ability to improvise, to divert followers when necessary toward a different social mission or outside threat, kept most believing that their leader was infallible. Jones himself quickly realized that moving the Temple to Redwood Valley was a mistake. Quietly, among his inner circle he began discussing moving yet again—Vancouver, Canada, and Guadalajara, Mexico, were considered prime possibilities, Vancouver for its perceived liberal civic attitudes and Guadalajara because it, like Eureka in Northern California, was mentioned as a safe fallout zone in Esquire. Jones said that he and Joe Phillips would personally make scouting trips to both cities. Other Temple members weren’t immediately told of another potential exodus so soon after arriving at their supposedly permanent new home in Northern California. Instead, Jones stressed safety from fallout, describing in Sunday sermons the horrors of radiation poisoning and the safety of the nearby cave.

  At the same time, Jones sought to ingratiate the Temple with locals. If their enmity couldn’t be entirely overcome, perhaps it could be mitigated. As a first step, donations were made to local charities, and Jones aggressively sought meetings with elected officials. Whenever these were granted, Jones stressed his church’s intention of contributing in every possible way to its new community. The Temple was comprised of honest, hardworking people. All they wanted was to be accepted.

  In Indianapolis, with its sprawling city and county government offices and hundreds of officials, lack of contact or poor relationships with some didn’t matter, so long as Jones and the Temple were on good terms with a majority. In sparsely populated Mendocino County, each official was critical. When none appeared to be immediately won over, Jones and his followers attempted to wear them down with gestures of appreciation. Lists of prominent area leaders were compiled, including all available information about them, plus whatever gossip Jones’s followers picked up around courthouses or city halls. Soon, some Temple members were assigned writing duties. Anytime a school board member cut a ribbon, whenever a county lawman made a public talk or presentation, he or she would receive a letter of thanks—at least one or two, sometimes a dozen or more, depending on Jones’s evaluation of their importance. Even a general reputation for almost any political or social stance warranted a handwritten letter, in which the recipient was first praised, then informed that Peoples Temple and its pastor were of like mind:

  Dear Judge Broaddus:

  I am writing to express my appreciation for the work you are doing to deal with the drug problem.

  As a member of Peoples Temple Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, Redwood Valley, California, Rev. James W. Jones, Pastor, I have heard many good things about efforts you are making in this field. Our own program, which provides financial aid to the families of slain police officers and which tries to improve community understanding, is enhanced by leaders such as you who are concerned about the needs of our community.

  Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to search for solutions to the problems that cause criminal behavior.

  Each letter was reviewed by Jones or another Temple leader before being mailed. After the initial letter came follow-up notes, and then, perhaps on the official’s birthday or some other celebratory occasion, a cake, accompanied by a card expressing the admiration of “the Ladies’ Aid Society of Peoples Temple Christian Church.” It eventually became a source of competition—one local judge might brag to another that in the past six months he’d received two cakes from Peoples Temple, while his fellow jurist got only one. Jones and Temple leadership termed it “cake diplomacy,” and reveled in responses like a note from the wife of Ukiah city councilman Sterling Norgard, thanking the Temple “for the gracious letter to my husband. It is gratifying to hear that one’s efforts, whatever they may be, are appreciated. We also thank you so much for the most delicious cake. . . . I surely hope to have the pleasure of meeting your Pastor and his wife and family—and perhaps attend one of your services in the near future.”

  Once informal, cordial connections were established, Jones would personally call the individual, building a relationship, discussing some shared critical concern—better local school curriculums, the need for cleanup around a local lake—and offering the Temple’s help if ever the church’s new friend required it. After hanging up from one such conversation, Jones beamed and boasted to the associates around him, “I never played chess, but to me, all of this is like chess. You move pieces around.”

  The Temple also kept local mailmen busy delivering letters to ordinary citizens. Congratulatory notes went out for births, marriages, and graduations. Sympathy was expressed when appropriate. Even those who openly opposed the Temple and its members were contacted. Colleen Rickabaugh, a lifelong area resident, remembers, “It’s hard to admit, but my father did not want to live with blacks. We lived on a dead-end street [in Ukiah] and Jones got an old house on it. Black people moved in. We had nothing to do with them or their Temple. Then my mother passed away, and we got letters of condolence from [Jones’s] church members. They said that they would help with anything in our time of loss. All we had to do was let them know what we wanted.”

  Jones knew the minds of most locals couldn’t be changed. But it was important at least to blunt as much animosity as possible while he sought out a more hospitable place for the Temple. After these first few discomforting months in Northern California, it was time to start expanding the Temple membership. Congregational stagnation, let alone attrition, wasn’t acceptable. Peoples Temple had become a power back in Indiana; its purpose was bringing about socialist progress. More members meant more influence and, of course, more income, which was vital to establishing outreach programs. The methods of recruiting new members—the right kind of people, everyone committed sufficiently to the cause, and to Jones himself—weren’t as obvious as back in Indianapolis. Ukiah and Redwood Valley had no ghettos filled with downtrodden black people prime for recruitment. Politically conservative white residents seemed unlikely converts. With a full-time teaching job as well as Temple obligations during off-hours and on weekends, Jones couldn’t preach on the West Coast revival circuit and attract new members from outside Mendocino County with prophecy and miracles.

  Still, there were ways, and Jim Jones was resourceful.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DEAD END

  Garry Lambrev was typical of many white, idealistic young Americans in the mid-1960s. Raised by liberal parents, he was appalled by what he believed was inherent national racism and warmongering. Lambrev also had a wide spiritual streak and believed he had visions. One involved “Jesus coming back as an ordinary person. Then I had a dream of a nuclear war, and a leader saying. ‘We’re going down in the cave.’ ” He began participating in antiwar protests; wanting to help lift up the disenfranchised, he became a social worker, drifting awhile before taking a job as a welfare counselor in Ukiah. He considered his new home to be “a cow town. I knew I was going to feel isolated there.”

  One Wednesday morning in March 1966, Lambrev was on his way to the Ukiah courthouse when “a huge woman in a passing car” dropped a package of leaflets on the street, apparently by accident. Lambrev picked them up and returned them. The woman identified herself as Patty Cartmell, and told Lambrev that she and her church group were new to the area. She’d lost the leaflets while taking her California driver’s test. Her pastor had prophesized she’d pass the test—she did—but that somethi
ng would happen in the middle of it. That accounted for the leaflets. After chatting a little longer, Cartmell said that she and some friends were getting together that Friday night—would he like to join them? Lambrev didn’t think it sounded very promising; he was dubious of most churches. But since he had no other Friday night social options, he agreed to drop by.

  It was a small gathering, just Lambrev, Cartmell, her teenage son Mike, nineteen-year-old Joyce Beam, Archie Ijames, and Joe Phillips. Lambrev was told that their church came to Ukiah to escape persecution in Indiana, “a corn belt culture of fundamentalists.” He was urged to talk about himself and his beliefs; only later would Lambrev realize that he was being carefully screened. He thought that it was amazing how like-minded he and these people were, similarly concerned with racism and unjustified war. After a while, someone suggested they move on to a larger party with more members of their church—Peoples Temple, it was called. Lambrev was told this was a party for church teens. Kids danced while adults chaperoned. Lambrev found himself chatting with another man; within minutes, he felt he was having “the most extraordinary conversation of my life. I’d express a thought, and wham, he’d respond to it perfectly, like he knew me completely and agreed with everything I believed. I finally said to him, ‘I missed your name,’ and he replied, ‘Jim.’ He was the pastor.”

  Jim invited Lambrev to the Peoples Temple Sunday service, and provided directions to the schoolhouse where they met on the hill property of the Church of the Golden Rule. He added modestly, “We’re a very backward group of simple-minded people. You have everything to offer us, and we have nothing to offer you.” Lambrev went. He counted eighty-two there, almost all white except for the Ijames family, several children of Jim and Marceline Jones, and a few others. All were welcoming. Lambrev was amazed at how everyone shared his values. He returned every Sunday after that. Temple services took up the entire day, with the morning program lasting three or four hours, and then a Sunday service beginning at 7 p.m. and extending until 10:30 or 11. Jones always spoke movingly of equality for all, and denounced the evils of racism and war. Lambrev recalls, “He was dynamic, totally dedicated to social change. Energy radiated from him. I felt that I had entered a new world. [Jones] seemed to have powers and an almost unfathomable understanding of the evils in the world and the need to set an example so that everyone could see how to rise above them. In my experience, there was no one else like him, nothing else like Peoples Temple.”