The Road to Jonestown

by Jeff Guinn

  After the program, when all the non-Temple guests were gone, Jones convened his followers. He said that the dinner had gone well—government agencies, especially the IRS, would never dare “call us in after this display of brotherhood.” The media was under Temple control, too: “Newsmen will back us up if we’re in trouble.”

  A few weeks later, Mayor Moscone offered Jones a place on the city Housing Authority, and he accepted. On the surface, this position had less potential for high-profile action than the Human Rights slot Jones had scorned. But he understood what few others in San Francisco government yet had. The city had made great strides in diversity. Moscone kept his campaign pledge to involve minorities, gays, and lower-income citizens in leadership. But political influence so far had had little effect on where the newly empowered could live. From the first meeting Jones attended, the nature of the board changed dramatically. Previously, its members discussed and debated mostly in private because few citizens or members of the media bothered attending their meetings. Jones swooped in with an entourage of Temple members to cheer his every utterance and bodyguards to ward off potential assassins. The bodyguards never had to do anything, but their presence ratcheted up tension considerably. Temple press releases touted blatant mistreatment of the poor and minorities who could not afford decent places to live, and reporters began in-depth coverage of the Housing Authority, confident that Jones could always be counted on for colorful quotes. Within a few months, Moscone named Jones chairman, and the authority became Jones’s personal fiefdom.

  Right away, the Housing Authority voted to use over a $1 million in federal community development funds to acquire, through eminent domain, the decrepit International Hotel from a development group that wanted it razed and replaced with new, more profitable construction. In recent years the International had become a run-down, last-ditch home to elderly poor who could afford nothing better. Now they were in danger of being thrown into the street. Courts upheld the International’s current ownership’s right to dispose of the property as they wished. Thanks to publicity generated by Jones, thousands of marchers ringed the hotel, doing their best to thwart evictions. Temple members comprised a large percentage of the protesters. But it was all in vain. After numerous hearings, the authority’s claim of eminent domain was finally denied. The International’s ragged tenants were evicted, but Jones was once again acclaimed in the press as a spokesman for the downtrodden.

  Only a month after Jones’s gala testimonial dinner in San Francisco, the California State Senate in Sacramento also lauded Jones. Its Rules Committee passed a resolution citing him and Peoples Temple for “exemplary display of diligent and devoted service to, and concern for, their fellow man, not only in this state and nation, but throughout the world.” When in October Democratic vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale made a quick campaign stop in San Francisco, Jones was one of several dignitaries invited to meet him. Jones later received a courtesy letter from Mondale avowing that “knowing of [your] congregation’s deep involvement in the major social and constitutional issues of our country . . . is a great inspiration to me.” After the Carter-Mondale ticket was elected, Jones was quick to show the new vice president’s letter to officials in Guyana.

  It was no great leap for Jones to begin imagining a new role for himself. Showing more restraint than usual, he didn’t immediately declare new ambitions, but set the stage with a few coy interviews. An article in the Ukiah Daily Journal noted, “Though many have asked him to do so, Rev. Jones has adamantly refused to consider running for public office” because Peoples Temple remained his priority. Jones didn’t rule out a future run for office. For a man who already considered himself God or at least godlike, a campaign for the California State Assembly, mayor of San Francisco, lieutenant governor or governor of California, or something even higher, wasn’t beyond consideration. If things kept going well for Peoples Temple, and for him personally, there need be no limit to Jones’s political aspirations.

  A certain new level of cockiness became evident in his sermons and Planning Commission machinations. When Steven Katsaris, the former Greek Orthodox priest, began complaining to friends in Mendocino County that his daughter, Maria, was being held virtually captive by Peoples Temple, Jones convened a Planning Commission meeting to discuss how to deflect the accusation. The consensus, orchestrated by Jones, was that if Katsaris approached government officials or the press for help, Maria would testify that her father had sexually molested her. It wasn’t true, but since Jones wanted her to say it, Maria was agreeable. This stoked Jones’s ego even more. His young lover was prepared to tell a ruinous lie about her own father just to protect Jones and the Temple.

  In private Temple meetings, Jones was even disdainful of President-elect Jimmy Carter. There was no more mention of him supposedly offering Jones a government post. On November 12, Jones called Carter “a source for concern. He is not going to save our people. He is going to lead us to hell. Treachery and infamy are around us everywhere.”

  For the most part, Temple members responded positively to all that Jones said and did. They were caught up in the ongoing success. Jones even allowed his older sons and their friends to observe the tricks involved in his healings. Far from being disappointed, they enjoyed the entire process, especially when the healings were completed.

  Jones’s oldest sons were confident enough in the future of Peoples Temple to form their own plan for its future leadership, though they never explored it with their father. “After [Dad], we thought it could be Stephan in Redwood Valley, Lew in Seattle, I’d get L.A., and Tim gets San Francisco,” Jim Jones Jr. says. “You had someone extremely driven in Tim, Stephan who wanted to reach out and touch people, Lew just a good guy, and the one with the ability to get along with everybody, that was me. Agnes really wasn’t with our family though she was in the Temple, and Suzanne was intelligent, but no girl was going to run something. [Dad] talked [gender] equality but for him, it was always his sons.”

  On November 1, the Temple board voted to move the Temple offices from Redwood Valley to San Francisco. Eight days later, it authorized spending $310,000 for major Jonestown-related purchases, including two diesel trucks and a cargo ship—it was confidently expected that soon Jonestown crops would result in food surpluses that could be shipped up and down the South American coast to communities in need.

  For perhaps the only time in his life, Jones seemed almost content, even a little overwhelmed by his success. During the Temple Thanksgiving service in San Francisco, a choir soloist sang the ballad “A Place for Us” from the Broadway musical West Side Story, alluding to Jonestown as the Promised Land, and the whole chorus followed with a powerful rendition of a rewritten slavery-era spiritual, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, Nobody Knows But Father.” Jones dropped his head in his hands and sobbed. Many of his followers, greatly moved, cried, too.

  Jones spent the last few days of December in Guyana. Besides Tim Stoen, who had a happy, if brief, reunion with John Victor, Jones brought with him Lieutenant Governor Dymally, who joined Jones in meetings with Prime Minister Burnham. Jones had the expectation of being treated as a fellow head of state; since all was going so well with building the Jonestown mission, and in light of Jones’s apparent close relationship with the American president, Burnham obliged him. When Jones and his party arrived back at the San Francisco airport late on December 31, Jones blurted to Stoen, “This has been our year of ascendency.”

  In 1976, Peoples Temple and Jim Jones reached their apex. The following year would be different.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  NEW WEST

  For the children of Peoples Temple, 1977 began as usual with Christmas presents. Jones preached against the way well-to-do outsiders celebrated the holiday, buying their offspring dozens of expensive gifts while poor children had to do without. Each Temple kid got one gift worth $16 and received the present following New Year’s so money could be saved by purchasing toys during after-Christmas sales. Their parents
or guardians did not present the gifts. That pleasure was reserved for Jones, who would call the youngsters up during an early January service and hand each one a package wrapped with newspaper and string, since holiday wrapping paper and ribbon were expensive bourgeois affectations.

  That annual ceremony brought Jones less pleasure than usual. He began the year beset by a personal family problem. His daughter Suzanne and son-in-law Mike Cartmell had separated. Both felt increasingly alienated from the Temple, but each considered the other a potential spy who might tattle to Jones if they talked about it. Jones had arranged their marriage. How dare they not enjoy a perfect union? Most of his fury was directed at Suzanne. As his daughter, she should always obey her father’s wishes, and though he wished her to reconcile with her husband, Suzanne wouldn’t.

  There were numerous unhappy marriages within the Temple, often because of Jones’s matchmaking. Even the happiest unions involved members whose first loyalty was to Jones rather than to each other. Marriages to outsiders were never approved. Jones had expected Suzanne and Mike to set a happy example. They were a disappointment to him.

  So was his wife, in two significant ways. In early 1977, Marceline’s health broke down. During a visit with her parents in Indiana, she had to be hospitalized for several weeks after suffering severe respiratory problems. Back home in San Francisco, she gave up her health agency job at the insistence of her doctors. So far as everyone but a few Temple insiders knew, the Jones family depended entirely on Marceline’s income. The board met and voted an immediate $30,000 annual salary for Jones, who made a show of reluctantly accepting.

  Marceline also infuriated Jones when she helped Stephan find an apartment separate from any Temple roommates. To Jones, Stephan was already too independent. His solution was to send Stephan to Jonestown. Jones may have meant it as a lesson, but instead it proved a blessing for Stephan. He loved it there, and at the same time escaped proximity to his demanding father.

  Jones made a return trip to Cuba in January in the company of Dr. Carlton Goodlett and other dignitaries considered sympathetic by the Cuban government. The group was taken on tours of factories and schools, and Jones bragged that when he had last been in the country, he supported Castro in “the throes of revolution.” But the Cuban leader declined a private meeting with the Temple leader, who was greatly offended.

  February proved no better for Jones. Mike Cartmell defected on February 18, and about the same time Grace Stoen filed for divorce from Tim and requested custody of their son, John Victor. She’d warned Stoen that she was about to “take action,” and Jones responded by sending Tim Stoen to Jonestown, where he could be with the child and also be effectively isolated from U.S. courts. Then Suzanne left the Temple, too, refusing further contact with her father and talking only intermittently to Marceline, who unsuccessfully begged her daughter to return.

  The news was still good from Guyana. The Pioneers continued to clear jungle, plant crops, and build cabins in preparation for the first wave of settlers. There were only about fifty Temple members there. The cabins they built were ergonomic wonders, designed to house a family of four downstairs, and with small attics where one nonclaustrophobic person could sleep. There was no need for kitchens—meals would, of course, be communal—or bathrooms, since multi-hole outhouses and communal showers would also be utilized. Inspectors from the Guyanese government made occasional visits to ensure that all provisions of the lease agreement were being followed. They were impressed, as were officials from the American embassy in Georgetown, who also felt obligated to periodically check on the settlement. Embassy deputy chief Wade Matthews reported, “The people talked as though they were enthusiastic about their work, and, from outward appearances, seemed happy enough. There were a number of children who acted normally and who accompanied my own children down to a large and well-built cage to see their chimpanzee, which had been brought from California.” Mr. Muggs was one of Jonestown’s first residents.

  Jonestown’s original purpose was to serve as a self-sustaining agricultural mission, but as soon as it was habitable by a small number of settlers it became the Temple refuge for its most troublesome members, most of them teens, and a few older street toughs like Chris Lewis, who’d recently been cleared of murder charges in California. Tom Grubbs and Don Beck were dispatched to set up Jonestown classrooms. They did so without realizing that Guyana required all schools to conform to its own educational system—there would be grave repercussions later. Under the supervision of Gene Chaikin, now serving as Jones’s lead Temple attorney in Tim Stoen’s absence, the Temple had impoverished biological parents and legal guardians “sign permission for the kids to go to the PL [Promised Land] with whoever [in the Temple] was keeping them.” Juvenile courts required annual reviews of custody matters. For minors now in Guyana, Chaikin explained, “If the court wants to see the child, [and] the [legal] guardian has no funds with which to [send the child] back to the U.S. at that time, does the court wish to send the money? [Of course not.] At this point, even if the parents object, what are their alternatives to effectively get their child back if [the child doesn’t] want to come?” Chaikin assured Jones that “the possibility of child stealing charges at that point in time is remote.”

  Chaikin was wrong. Already, a San Francisco private investigator named Joseph Mazor had been contacted by parents who’d allowed their children to be temporarily brought into the Temple, only to find that the kids weren’t coming back. It was, at first, a small thing to Mazor, but then he heard from a few other parents and sensed an opportunity for a big case. Mazor began poking around, and it was only a matter of time before he learned about the divorce/custody case initiated by Grace Stoen. Legal clocks had begun ticking.

  Elmer and Deanna Mertle were active, too. They weren’t the first disillusioned members to quit the Temple, convinced they’d been effectively robbed of their possessions by Jones and his church. But they were the first to attempt contacting authorities about it, additionally alleging that other crimes were being committed. They eventually spoke with a Treasury Department agent, claiming—correctly—that the Temple was smuggling guns into Jonestown, with the weapons hidden in secret compartments built into wooden supply crates. Jones had long promised followers that they would fight if outside forces attacked. It held true in Guyana as in America. They also accused Temple members of traveling on forged passports and other crimes. The Mertles’ charges coincided with numerous Temple members applying for travel visas to Guyana—Jonestown was ready for its first few hundred settlers. That was enough for the U.S. Customs Service to covertly launch an investigation. A few Temple shipments to Jonestown were opened and inspected, but Jones was apparently tipped off and no weapons were found. The gun smuggling resumed after the investigation was closed.

  Defeated mayoral candidate John Barbagelata, still a member of the Board of Supervisors, continued to claim that invalid Temple votes had decided the 1975 election. Barbagelata didn’t give up. He’d heard that foster kids taken in by the Temple were being shipped off to Jonestown and that public funds intended to support the children were being used on other expenses there. San Francisco Chronicle reporter Marshall Kilduff thought Barbagelata’s new charge might be worth looking into, but Kilduff’s editor turned down the request. That only made the reporter more determined. The Chronicle allowed its writers to accept outside freelance assignments, and in March 1977 New West magazine, a respected regional publication, accepted Kilduff’s proposal to write an investigative piece on Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. Once again, Jones’s sources alerted him. Temple members met with New West’s editor, and convinced him that a negative article would irreparably harm the church’s reputation and outreach programs. Kilduff’s deal was canceled. But then that New West editor was replaced, and the incoming editor thought Kilduff’s idea was worth pursuing. The story assignment was reinstated, and, by April, Kilduff was hard at work.

  Jones was concerned, but not panicky. New West was a monthly magazine, not a major
daily newspaper. If Kilduff repeated a few claims by John Barbagelata, so what? While keeping an ear out for news of Kilduff’s research progress, if any, Jones turned his attention to more immediate Temple business.

  Peoples Temple purchased a residence in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown. Jones considered it vital that his people have constant access to government leaders. Forty-one Lamaha Gardens, two-story stucco and painted sunshine yellow, was located in one of Georgetown’s few reasonably upscale neighborhoods. In addition to rooms suitable for offices and space for ham radio equipment, there were also a half dozen bedrooms, meaning some two dozen followers could live there. A spacious living area lent itself to entertaining; lots of male Guyanese officials, single or married, enjoyed chatting and dancing with pretty young Temple women—Jones made certain there were several of these ladies on hand at all hours. They limited themselves to flirting except for Paula Adams, who continued her affair with Guyanese ambassador to the United States Bonny Mann, doing her best not to let Jones or other Temple members realize that the affection Mann demonstrated toward her was mutual. As Jones hoped, Mann proved to be a constant source of inside information about Prime Minister Burnham and his cabinet.

  During the day, Temple members living at Lamaha Gardens either went about specific Jonestown business—finding and purchasing equipment, arranging medical and dental appointments in Georgetown for the jungle mission residents, or buying and shipping the food needed by Jonestown’s growing population. The settlement was nowhere near self-sustaining. Experiments were in progress there to determine which crops could be grown. Meanwhile, Georgetown members bought sides of beef and bags of oranges, shipping them by boat from the capital to Port Kaituma, where they were picked up and trucked the rest of the way to the mission. They sent fish, too. Fishing boats working out of Georgetown allowed Temple members to gather up and keep the dregs of their daily catch. These fish were taken to a dockside business where they were flash-frozen and shipped to Jonestown along with meat and fruit. The Temple also established a secondhand store in the capital to sell clothing and other possessions that newly arrived members didn’t need in the jungle.