Seductive Poison (2 page)

Because he had absolute control over his own followers, Jones could, and did, produce legions of campaign workers for favored candidates, then made sure their supporters got to the polls on Election Day. Shiva Naipaul, whose book
Black and White
is, in many ways, the best examination of the politics of the Peoples Temple, describes the peculiar political culture in which it thrived. Among his many questions, Naipaul asked Jones’s political allies if they felt they had been taken in by him.

Strangely enough, what Naipaul found was that Willie Brown and most of the others with whom he talked were unapologetic, even a year after having lost more than nine hundred of their constituents to cyanide poisoning in the Guyanese jungle. How could they have known? Did they have an obligation to find out? These were questions that didn’t seem to register with Brown and the others.

Jim Jones was always a charlatan. But his delusions and paranoia grew more pronounced as he grew more powerful. The same could be said for the jungle retreat in Guyana. Whatever its initial reason for being, over the years it evolved into a terrible charade where appearances and reality grew further and further apart.

To the outside world, Jonestown was portrayed as a kind of multiracial kibbutz populated by willing pioneers determined to forge a new life in one of the world’s most remote and inhospitable environments. Visitors, including consular officers from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, Guyana’s fetid capital, were fooled into believing that Jonestown’s residents were well fed and well cared for.

In the end, it was the press, that other reviled institution protected by the First Amendment, not the prosecutors or the political establishment, which finally began to pierce the veil and reveal the truth about the Peoples Temple. Only then did Jim Jones flee California for Guyana, setting in motion the awful tragedy that would soon follow.

To me, that tragedy—the mass suicide-murder of more than nine hundred of Jim Jones’s followers and the bloody ambush that preceded it—seems as if it happened yesterday. I can still remember, vividly, the call from my editors in Washington several days before, telling me that a congressman from California, Leo J. Ryan, would be leaving California the next day to investigate “some crazy cult group” in Guyana.

I was in Caracas, interviewing voters and politicians for a story I was writing on Venezuela’s upcoming presidential election. The trip and the coverage had been approved, but now it could wait, I was told. We want you to meet up with the congressman. “It sounds like a more interesting story.”

I wasn’t entirely convinced. But the next day, I flew from Caracas to Trinidad, where the congressman’s flight from San Francisco and New York would stop en route to Guyana. It was nearly 10 P.M. as we took off on the final leg of that flight to Georgetown. For the next hour, I was told chilling stories about Jonestown.

According to a group of concerned relatives aboard the plane with Congressman Ryan, the Jonestown commune was a hellhole where armed guards, torture, tranquilizers, sleep deprivation, and, above all, misplaced faith had combined to trap hundreds of innocent people against their will. Jones was described as a good man gone bad, a charismatic figure who’d led his followers astray, a sadist, a megalomaniac, the Devil incarnate. People were starving in Jonestown, I was told; there wasn’t enough food, water, or medicine. Anyone who complained or expressed doubts was beaten or worse.

I listened. But I was skeptical. How could nearly a thousand Americans be tricked into leaving California for Guyana? How could they not have known what they were getting into? Could any of what I was being told possibly be true?

For three days, the congressman, his staff, the concerned relatives, and a small brigade of journalists, my colleagues, waited in Georgetown. Jones and his lawyers, Mark Lane and Charles Garry, did whatever they could to stop us from reaching the jungle commune, which was located about three hundred miles from the capital near a tiny Guyanese village called Port Kaituma.

Finally, on Friday, November 17, frustrated by what he perceived to be stalling tactics, the congressman announced that we would fly to Port Kaituma that afternoon and try to enter Jonestown, with—or without—Jones’s permission.

Yes, Jonestown was technically private property and, yes, the Peoples Temple was technically a religious institution located in a sovereign country. But the congressman said Jim Jones had no right to stop a United States congressman from determining for himself whether anyone in Jonestown was being seriously mistreated or held there against his or her will.

What I didn’t know at the time was that much of the congressman’s information, and urgency, was the result of an affidavit Debbie had written shortly after she escaped from Jonestown the previous May; in effect, it was Debbie who had convinced Congressman Ryan that the situation was serious enough that he should investigate, and the longer Jones stalled, the more determined the congressman became to reach Jonestown.

At about 4 P.M. that Friday, we boarded a tiny Guyanese Airways plane that had been specially chartered for the hourlong trip. There was room for no more than two dozen passengers, so most of the relatives were forced to remain behind. Although they didn’t think so at the time, in many ways they were fortunate. Just twenty-four hours later, the congressman and three of the journalists aboard the plane would be dead, and most of the rest of us wounded—victims of the mass hysteria that was about to ensue.

The airstrip at Port Kaituma was nothing more than a clearing in the jungle: no terminal or tower, no lights in case of darkness, and no mechanic in case of trouble. The landing strip wasn’t even paved—it was mud, like everything else in the rain forest.

Once on the ground, the congressman, his staff, and the two Temple lawyers were taken immediately to the commune, about five miles away. The rest of us were held at gunpoint by the local sheriff for about an hour, until Jones sent another dump truck to the airstrip; the relatives and all but one of us journalists would be allowed to proceed.

I will never forget my first impressions of Jonestown as we made our way through the simple wooden gate and continued down the long muddy road toward the central Pavilion. What I saw reminded me of a Southern plantation before the Civil War, not so much because of the architecture but because of the scene. To one side of the large wooden Pavilion was a communal kitchen where women, mostly black, were cooking large vats of stew; others were baking bread. Young children were playing in what appeared to be a schoolyard. Still other members of the Temple, black and white, young and old, were eating their dinner in and around the Pavilion, which served as both an open-air dining hall and a meeting place.

At the center of the Pavilion, seated at the head of a long table, was the white master, Jim Jones. He was an arresting man, his hair dyed jet black. Although he had a kind of commanding stature, it also quickly became clear that he was unnerved by our presence; as we journalists gathered round to ask questions, he responded rationally one minute, emotionally and irrationally the next.

“Threat, threat, threat of extinction,” he bellowed in response to a question about Debbie Layton and others who had defected. “I wish I wasn’t born at times. I understand hate; love and hate are very close. I wish I wasn’t born sometimes.”

Those were his words, recorded and played back many times since. Yet despite his odd behavior, there was no visible evidence of starvation, torture, or, initially at least, that Jonestown’s residents were desperate to leave. We saw no guns or signs of the kind of intimidation that the concerned relatives talked so much about. Considering its location, Jonestown itself was rather impressive.

But those first impressions would not last.

Jones refused to allow the journalists to remain in Jonestown overnight, so we were sent back to Port Kaituma to sleep on the wooden floor of a tiny bar. That night, as we drank beer and rum, we learned from the sheriff (the same sheriff who had held us captive at the airstrip just hours before) that there were indeed guns in Jonestown and that several members of the Temple had tried to escape. Some of the escapees, he told us, had been covered with bruises that could have been the result of torture.

We also learned that Jones’s worst fears were coming true; at least one family had secretly told the congressman they wanted to leave with us the next day.

We were back in Jonestown early, and it was immediately clear the mood had changed. NBC correspondent Don Harris was preparing to begin a tough interview with Jones, asking about the guns we’d been told about, the allegations of torture, and the family that wanted to leave. Meanwhile, I heard muffled coughing from a large wooden building that looked like a tobacco shed; inside, a group of elderly women, most of them black, were living in clean but extremely cramped and primitive quarters. It was a side of life in the commune Jones had not wanted us to see.

Tension built as the day wore on. There were crying and hysteria at the Pavilion; families were being torn apart as some of their members told the congressman they wanted to stay while others wanted to leave. Jones himself, said to be running a fever, looked and sounded as if he were a defeated man.

Then, toward midafternoon, after most of us were already aboard the dump truck that was to take us back to the airstrip, one of the Temple loyalists attempted to stab Congressman Ryan. There was more screaming. As several of us rushed toward the Pavilion, Ryan emerged uninjured. But his shirt was covered with blood. He was okay, he told us. The blood belonged to his would-be assassin, who had been stabbed after someone grabbed him from behind.

Finally, at about 3 P.M. that Saturday, we were ready to leave Jonestown. As we made our way slowly toward the airstrip, it seemed as if the worst was over. And even then, I was unconvinced that Jonestown was as bad as it had initially been described. Yes, some twenty members of the Temple had decided to leave with us, but more than nine hundred others had decided to stay. Yes, conditions were harsh, but there was no evidence of malnutrition or serious physical abuse. Yes, Jones seemed psychotic, but despite everything, he appeared to have many devoted followers.

Two planes were waiting for us at the airstrip, where we had arrived less than twenty-four hours before. Because the “defectors,” as we called them, were fearful, the loading began almost immediately. They couldn’t believe Jones would allow them—and us—to leave in peace.

They were right.

Suddenly, without warning, a tractor pulling a hay wagon appeared at the end of the airstrip; there was near panic as the defectors rushed to get on board the two planes.

The tractor began moving toward us.

I was standing by the door of the larger of the two planes, trying to help the defectors get aboard, when I saw the tractor crossing the runway. I still wasn’t sure what was happening or why it was moving toward us. Then I heard
pop, pop, pop!

It was then I realized that people were running, diving for cover, screaming. The popping sounds were gunshots, and they were becoming louder as the tractor moved ever closer. Death was making its way across the runway. I understood instinctively that it would soon reach me.

The gunmen were now rounding the front of the plane, so I ran toward the tail. There, I was faced with a life-or-death choice. If I ran straight, I would have to cross the broad open expanse of the landing strip. It seemed better to turn left, where, out of the corner of my eye, I could see others were taking cover behind a wheel of the plane.

I threw myself down behind the wheel. But within minutes, seconds maybe, the shots were coming from behind. The gunmen had circled from the other side of the plane. Now they were directly behind the wheel where we had sought protection, and they were going to kill the rest of us.

Dirt sprayed onto my face as the bullets tore into the earth nearby. My only thought was, If I lie very still, maybe they’ll think I’m already dead.