1962; Graduate University of West Indies; Medical Residency: CT Valley Hospital, Psychiatry; Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, MD, Psychiatrist practicing in Montclair, NJ., [doctor.com]
February 1974, The Realist, The SLA Is The CIA, Part I, by Mae Brussell, part II, part III, part IV,
March 1, 1974, Daytona Beach Morning Journal - AP, page 14A, 'Exorcists' Use Modern Methods,
March 1, 1974, Sarasota Herald-Tribune - AP, page 3-B, Exorcism Daily Occurrence at Miami’s Jackson Hospital,
November 29, 1978, New York Times, Doctor Sees Danger in Cult Survivors' Deep Despair; 6 More Members Released, by Joseph B. Treaster,
December 2, 1978, N.Y. Times News Service - Lawrence Journal-World, page 12, Doctor cites cult danger,
December 4, 1978, Observer Reporter - AP, page D1, Jonestown Survivors Will Never Escape Horror, by George Esper,
December 11, 1978, Time Magazine, Nation: Paranoia And Delusions, The survivors describe the dementia of Jim Jones, [Text]
August 11, 1979, Daytona Beach Morning Journal - AP, page 9-B, Jonestown Survivors Idealistic,
August 20, 1979, Medical World News, Cult Expert Says Jonestown Survivors Need Psychotherapy,
October 12, 1979, New York Times - The Lakeland Ledger, page 13A, Adjustment hard for survivors of Jonestown,
November 16, 1979, The Victoria Advocate [Texas] AP, page 4C, Survivors Warn of Church’s Revival, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
November 16, 1979, Spartanburg Herald - AP, page A3, The Jonestown Survivors: Linked In Search For Peace, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
November 16, 1979, AP - The Victoria Advocate [Texas] page 4C, Survivors Warn of Church’s Revival, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
November 16, 1979, Minnesota Daily, Vol. 81, No. 71, Jonestown Cult Lives, Survivors Say,
November 20, 1979, Titusville Herald - AP, page 4, Those Who Lived, by Frances D’Emilio,
1986; US Chapter of the UWI Medical Alumni Association, founded by Sir George "Champ" Alleyne, and Drs. Neville Gibbs, Hardat Sukhdeo, and Andre Williams,
March 29, 1992, Palm Beach Post, Guru Ma: Saintly Or Sinister?, by Jenny Vogt, Staff Writer,November 8, 1998, San Francisco Examiner, Utopian Nightmare, by Larry Hatfield,
January 13, 1999, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Man Charged, by Gregory Lewis, Examiner Staff,
March 23, 2002, Florida Today, Ashram shares reputation as cult, sanctuary; Former members tell tales of control, by Billy Cox,
November 2005, Volume 7, [September 9, 2006, 1st web capture] The Jonestown Report, FOIA Lawsuit Results in Release of Thousands of Documents, by Rebecca Moore,
September 9, 2006, [1st web capture] FOIA Lawsuit Results in Release of Thousands of Documents, by Rebecca Moore,
August 20, 1979, Medical World News, Cult Expert Says Jonestown Survivors Need Psychotherapy,
October 12, 1979, New York Times - The Lakeland Ledger, page 13A, Adjustment hard for survivors of Jonestown,
November 16, 1979, The Victoria Advocate [Texas] AP, page 4C, Survivors Warn of Church’s Revival, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
November 16, 1979, Spartanburg Herald - AP, page A3, The Jonestown Survivors: Linked In Search For Peace, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
November 16, 1979, AP - The Victoria Advocate [Texas] page 4C, Survivors Warn of Church’s Revival, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
November 16, 1979, Minnesota Daily, Vol. 81, No. 71, Jonestown Cult Lives, Survivors Say,
November 20, 1979, Titusville Herald - AP, page 4, Those Who Lived, by Frances D’Emilio,
1986; US Chapter of the UWI Medical Alumni Association, founded by Sir George "Champ" Alleyne, and Drs. Neville Gibbs, Hardat Sukhdeo, and Andre Williams,
March 29, 1992, Palm Beach Post, Guru Ma: Saintly Or Sinister?, by Jenny Vogt, Staff Writer,November 8, 1998, San Francisco Examiner, Utopian Nightmare, by Larry Hatfield,
January 13, 1999, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Man Charged, by Gregory Lewis, Examiner Staff,
March 23, 2002, Florida Today, Ashram shares reputation as cult, sanctuary; Former members tell tales of control, by Billy Cox,
November 2005, Volume 7, [September 9, 2006, 1st web capture] The Jonestown Report, FOIA Lawsuit Results in Release of Thousands of Documents, by Rebecca Moore,
September 9, 2006, [1st web capture] FOIA Lawsuit Results in Release of Thousands of Documents, by Rebecca Moore,
March 25, 2007 [1st web capture] "Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple", by Jim Hougan,
October 2, 2008, [1st web capture] Jonestown and The Social Psychology of Accepted Truth, by David Godot,
July 6, 2011, The Paradise Reporter. 1978: Jonestown, Guyana Massacre: A Planned Military "Distraction" & "Cover", diigo,
October 12, 2012, In Search of Black Assassins, A Case for Genocide: Black Manchurian Candidates- Donald David Defreeze, Yusuf Bey IV & The Deliberate Destruction and Deconstruction of Black Institutions,________________________________________________________________________________
March 1, 1974, Sarasota Herald-Tribune - AP, page 3-B, Exorcism Daily Occurrence at Miami’s Jackson Hospital,
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October 12, 1979, New York Times - The Lakeland Ledger, page 13A, Adjustment hard for survivors of Jonestown,
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... environment is difficult, they might turn to just ending their lives," says Dr. Hardat A S Sukhdeo, chief of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark.
December 4, 1978, AP - Observer Reporter, page D1, Jonestown Survivors Will Never Escape Horror, by George Esper, AP Writer,
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Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyanese-born psychiatrist who still counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors — including four witnesses to ...
November 16, 1979, AP - The Victoria Advocate [Texas] page 4C, Survivors Warn of Church’s Revival, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
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March 1, 1974, AP - Daytona Beach Morning Journal, page 14A, ‘Exorcists’ Use Modern Methods,
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November 16, 1979, AP - Spartanburg Herald, page A3, The Jonestown Survivors: Linked In Search For Peace, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
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1962, Graduate University of West Indies; Medical Residency: Ct Valley Hospital, Psychiatry; Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, MD, Psychiatrist practicing in Montclair, NJ., [doctor.com]
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, Montclair, NJ Psychiatrist
www.doctor.com/Dr-Hardat_Sukhdeo
Detailed profile of Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Psychiatrist in Montclair, NJ. See health insurances he accepts. Read ratings and reviews from other patients.
Biography: Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, MD is a Psychiatrist practicing in Montclair, NJ. He has not yet shared a personalized biography with Doctor.com.
Basic Information Specialties: Psychiatrist
Gender: Male
Languages Spoken: English
Accepts New Patients: Yes
Education & Training:University Degree: Graduated University Of West Indies- Fac Medical Science- Kingston- Jamaica (566-01 Eff 1/71)
Area of Focus: Other Degree: 1962
Medical Residency: Hospital Name: Ct Valley Hospital, Psychiatry
Year Completed: Not Specified
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Other Professional Web Sites: Medical
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo MD Montclair NJ - Psychiatry & Neurology
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NPI Profile, Ratings, and Contact information for Psychiatry & Neurology Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo MD in MONTCLAIR New Jersey.
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, MD in Montclair, NJ, 07043 - Psychiatry ...
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Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo specializes in Psychiatry . Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo is accepting patients in office at 36 Brookfield Rd, Montclair, NJ 07043.
Dr. Hardat Arjune S Sukhdeo - CarionLTD
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Hardat Arjune S Sukhdeo - Psychiatry, Psychiatry - Montclair - NJ - 856-795-1966.
Psychiatrists in Montclair (NJ Psychiatry) - UCompareHealthCare
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Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo
Psychiatry
36 Brookfield Rd
Montclair, NJ 07043
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December 11, 1978, Time Magazine, Nation: Paranoia And Delusions, The survivors describe the dementia of Jim Jones, [Text]
November 29, 1978, New York Times, Doctor Sees Danger in Cult Survivors' Deep Despair; 6 More Members Released, by Joseph B. Treaster,
Photo caption: Jakarri Wilson, 3 years old, thought to be the youngest survivor of the People's Temple in Guyana, with his mother, Leslie, in Georgetown,
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov. 28 -- A New Jersey psychiatrist who specializes in treating former cult members of the People's Temple were "suffering from severe depression which, if not treated, could lead to suicide."
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, deputy chairman of the psychiatry department at the New Jersey College of Medicine, said the survivors "are coming out of the brainwashing and, if they do not get help, most of them will not be able to adjust to society."
"These people are very much used to being given directions," he said, "and they're going to go through a process of real socialization."
6 More Members Released
In other developments, as the authorities in Guyana investigating the Jonestown deaths released six more members of the cult from custody, Police Commissioner Lloyd A. Barker disclosed that the more than 900 killings and suicides at the jungle commune in Jonestown on Nov. 18 had stretched over a span of five hours and that an examination of the bodies showed no sign of physical struggle.
The Commissioner said the police found a stack of rifles at one end of the pavilion where members of the cult drank a soft drink laced with cyanide.
He also said he was convinced that the Rev. Jim Jones, the leader of the cult, and about 60 of his security guards had died in the final hours of the bizarre evening.
The Commissioner said that the police also found plates of grilled cheese sandwiches peppered with cyanide, and that investigators had obtained "information that all the food and drink prepared that night had cyanide in it," adding, "It seems that the intent was to make sure that people did not survive."
Some Injected Poison
Mr. Barker said there were indications that some of the security guards drank the potions like most of the others, but that some had also injected the poison directly into their veins.
He said the matter of whether Mr. Jones had killed himself with a gun or had been murdered was still being studied, but added that the police had evidence that a gun had been held close to the cult leader's head, as in a suicide.
The Commissioner also said investigators had failed to find any evidence that several dozen bursts of automatic rifle fire ricocheted through the commune on the night of the killing, as reported by Mark Lane, one of two American lawyers who was at the commune on Nov. 18.
Mr. Barker added that he had no reason to believe that many members of the People's Temple commune were still in the rain forest surrounding Jonestown, and said that, while there may be a few stragglers, there was no search for possible survivors now.
He refused to discuss the details of the investigation into the deaths of Representative Leo J. Ryan, three newsmen and an American woman at an airport near the commune 10 days ago, and the subsequent murder and suicide of more than 900 members of the cult, but said he expected that evidence now being collected would be presented to a magistrate within two weeks for possible additional charges. Mr. Ryan, a California Democrat, had gone to Jonestown to investigate the cult.
One man has been charged with the murder of Mr. Ryan, the newsmen and the woman, who was apparently trying to escape, and another man has been accused of slashing the throat of the cult's public relations officer and her three children.
A 'Protective Gesture'
Dr. Sukhdeo, a Guyanese citizen who received his medical degree from the University of London and taught at Yale University for several years before going to the New Jersey College of Medicine in Newark, said he believed that the most important factor in the disintegration of the cult was not the visit by Mr. Ryan to Jonestown, but the departure of two families that had become disaffected with life in the commune.
"The fact that two families, not individuals, but two families, volunteered to leave was very traumatic to the cult," Dr. Sukhdeo said. "This made it possible for some of the others to see what they were doing, triggering a hidden desire in their minds that they should leave. I'm sure Jones knew that as he decided to make that the beginning of the end of the cult."
Dr. Sukhdeo said he believed that Mr. Jones regarded his followers as an extension of himself and that after the cult leader decided that the only course for himself was death, he ordered the others to join him in a kind of "protective gesture."
"He thought it was better for him to die," Dr. Sukhdeo said of Mr. Jones, "and if that was the case it was better for the others to die, too."
Dr. Sukhdeo said one factor that may have made it more possible for a mass suicide to occur at the commune was that "many of the people were from a sub-culture of violence."
He said he believed that many people had been happy in the cult because, under the totalitarianism of Mr. Jones, their lives---perhaps for the first time---had a structure, however harsh it might have been. It was probably the violent destruction of this structure, as much as anything, Dr. Sukhdeo said, that plunged some of the cult members into deep despair.
'Feeling Dead Inside'
Dr. Sukhdeo said one cult member he talked to, a former drug addict who escaped after the others began drinking the poison, "complained that he was feeling dead inside."
"When you hit him with what he will do when he goes back, he gets afraid," Dr. Sukhdeo said. "There are no support systems for a man like this. Without support, he will become addictive again."
In the last few days, a small army of reporters has been interviewing and reinterviewing about 30 of the survivors housed at the Park Hotel here. Dr. Sukhdeo said he believed that the reporters had had an impact similar to that of a team of therapists.
Dr. Sukhdeo also said he paid for the trip to Guyana himself and had come to study the survivors partly because it offered an opportunity for him to "see a whole group of people who were suddenly cut off from a cult."
Cabinet Meeting on Jonestown
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov. 28 (UPI) --- Prime Minister Forbes Burnham called a cabinet meeting today to decide the future of the 3,000-acre Jonestown commune.
Government sources said the cabinet was expected to commission the military to exploit the commune as an agricultural station and to harvest the crops of beans, tapioca, bananas, pineapples, oranges and other tropical fruit hanging ripe on the trees.
The sources said it was not likely that Guyanese settlers or National Service volunteers could be persuaded to move into the commune, in a jungle clearing 150 miles northwest of Georgetown.
Mr. Burnham has not made any public statement on the suicides and murders at Jonestown except to say that he will hang Larry Layton, a People's Temple member charged in the murder of Representative Leo J. Ryan of California and four other Americans, if he is found guilty.
Mr. Burnham also has said that there will be no extradition of any Americans charged here.
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December 2, 1978, Lawrence Journal-World - N.Y. Times News Service, page 12, Doctor cites cult danger,
November 16, 1979, Minnesota Daily, Vol. 81, No. 71, National: Jonestown Cult Lives, Survivors Say,
San Francisco---For some who survived Jonestown, grief has grown with reports of efforts to revive the People Temple cult that spelled doom for more than 900 people in the jungles of Guyana last Nov. 18. Many friends and relatives of the Jonestown victims, struggling to remake their lives, refused to speak with reporters. They say the press forgot them and their troubles after graphically recounting the fantastic events of Jonestown and the bizarre dreams of its founder, the Rev. Jim Jones.
Those who did speak were eager to warn others that the germs of a new church---or efforts to resurrect the old---may be spreading. "They've called me up and said, 'It's 6 o'clock. Let's meditate,'" said one middle-aged woman. "They still believe Jim Jones will be reincarnated. I've told them, 'Don't call me again.'"
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyanese-born psychiatrist who still counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors---including four witnesses to the suicides---said his clients "feel very uncomfortable in society." The survivors sense, Sukhdeo said, that people consider them freaks. "One girl registering for college was told 'if you were in Guyana, you'd have to be crazy,'" Sukhdeo said. "There is some bitterness but not so much as other people would have felt. Jim Jones prepared them for society's rejection. It makes them wonder that Jones was right about some things---like society's uncaring."
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November 20, 1979, Titusville Herald - AP, page 4, Those Who Lived, by Frances D’Emilio,
Dr Hardat Sukhdeo a Guyanese-born psychiatrist who counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors --- including four witness to the suicides --- said his clients "feel very uncomfortable in society."
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August 11, 1979, Daytona Beach Morning Journal - AP, page 9-B, Jonestown Survivors Idealistic,
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March 23, 2002, Florida Today, Ashram shares reputation as cult, sanctuary; Former members tell tales of control, by Billy Cox,
In itemizing humanity's efforts to comprehend divinity, World Christian Encyclopedia editor David Barrett reported recently that 9,900 "separate and distinct religions" have been identified in 238 countries. Faced with the emergence of as many as two to three new movements each day, sociologists anticipate an explosive proliferation in the 21st century, primarily from sects mutating away from the major religions.
If history foreshadows the future, some of those new religious movements will inevitably clash with mainstream institutions, secular and theological. And just as inevitably, many of these movements will be branded as cults, capable of brainwashing adherents into destructive behavior.
Already, a group that monitors new religious movements called the American Family Foundation estimates 5-10 million Americans have been "transiently involved with cults," and that 1,000 sects in the United States alone meet some ominous criteria for cultic behaviors, which usually include:
The judge reunited Rousseau with his parents, but did not deal with the issue of whether Kashi was a cult. In fact, there is no legal definition for what constitutes a cult, or brainwashing, in America. That question was at the center of some pre-trial preparation for divorce proceedings, also involving Kashi, which was settled out of court Thursday.
In that case, Richard Rosenkranz, 60, former public relations spokesman for Kashi, claimed Bhagavati manipulated him into a sham marriage. Rosenkranz had split up with his wife, Gina, who is a monk at the ashram, in 1999.
Although a court showdown was averted when Rosenkranz agreed on an alimony settlement, he also had lined up witnesses to testify about misuse of nonprofit funds, and intimidation through beatings ordered by Bhagavati.
As a countermove, Gina Rosenkranz' attorney, Russell Petersen of Vero Beach, planned to use a landmark ruling known as U.S. vs. Fishman.
Stephen Fishman was a former member of the Church of Scientology facing federal indictment on mail fraud charges. In 1990, Fishman told the U.S District Court of Northern California his crimes were the result of cult brainwashing, but the court stated "theories regarding the coercive persuasion practiced by religious cults are not sufficiently established to be admitted as evidence."
The Cult Awareness Network -- which offered deprogramming services to the victims of religious groups -- was convicted of violating the civil rights of a member of the United Pentecostal Church. That verdict bankrupted CAN, which then was purchased by a number of institutions it had criticized, including the Church of Scientology.
Filling CAN's vacuum today is the American Family Foundation, a small, 21-year-old nonprofit network that lacks the former's media visibility. Its cult recovery specialist is Rosanne Henry, who resorted to a court order and law enforcement agents to remove her daughter from Kashi Ashram in 1989.
Unlike CAN, AFF executive director Dr. Michael Langone, says his group doesn't keep cult watch lists. Langone, who also is editor of the Cultic Studies Journal, warns that brainwashing is real and dangerous.
"Fishman was the first case in which defenders prevented testimony from being heard," says Langone from his office in Bonita Springs. "Proponents wave it around like it's a Supreme Court ruling, which it's not. Expert opinions and testimony have been accepted and prevailed in other cases since Fishman."
Petersen planned to call religious scholar Dr. Gordon Melton as an expert witness for Gina Rosenkranz. Melton runs the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., and is the author of books such as The Cult Experience, Why Cults Succeed Where the Church Fails and The Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults.
"But thinking of Richard Rosenkranz as brainwashed is ridiculous. There are some mousy people out there who don't mind having their lives run by someone else, but that's not Richard."
Rosenkranz says analysts such as Dr. Paul Martin can prove it.
Martin, a psychologist, runs a halfway house for recovering cult members called Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany, Ohio. After interviewing some 25 disaffected Kashi followers, Martin says many voiced fears of retribution. Violence, illegal drug use, and brainwashing at the ashram are among the allegations he's been hearing.
"One of the great myths about cults and thought reform is that they're always heavy-handed and repressive," Martin says. "The reality is, you don't need compounds, you don't need guards. People don't necessarily stick with it because they've been forcibly coerced; the group is fulfilling some deep psychological need. And I'm convinced this is a group that exercises an excessive degree of influence over people through social control and social boundaries."
Whether propelled by charismatic leaders such as the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Guru Maharaj Ji, or dispersed through legions of avid recruiters such as the Hare Krishnas, the phenomenon competed for headlines during the 1976 brainwashing trial of Patty Hearst. The worst fears of mindless obedience to a charismatic leader manifested in 1978, with Jonestown's 900 murder-suicides.
"The fact is, we don't really have the analytical tools to label a cult until, tragically, after something terrible happens, like Jonestown," insists Dr. Nathan Katz, chairman of the Religious Studies at Florida International University in Fort Lauderdale.
"But when you're dealing with something as psychologically potent as overcoming the limits of ego -- which most religions try to do -- then you're potentially open to abuse. And that certainly doesn't exempt the major religions."
Ross has followed Kashi's controversies, and says Bhagavati's status as an omniscient guru "has problems."
"When you're dealing with an all-powerful leader, the real issue is accountability. Who does she answer to?" Ross asks. "When you claim to have had a divine revelation, who's to question what you say? When you're able to dictate the sex lives of your members, even married couples, that's absolute authority."
Kashi members practice meditation, vegetarianism and celibacy, even in marriage, unless the goal is strictly procreation. Gordon Melton says he doesn't pretend to understand all of Kashi's customs. But he says joining or leaving a religious community mirrors marriage.
"When you say 'I do,' you make a whole host of choices, many of which you weren't aware of at the time. Ten years later, you may say, 'I really didn't choose to do that.' Where it really gets complicated is when you throw children into the mix. The group is part of the child's extended family, and when the parents begin having problems, you're looking at a new set of complex issues."
Still, FIU's Katz, who's been visiting the ashram since 1999, says he's impressed by Kashi's "open doors." Labeling Bhagavati's ashram a cult amounts to "theological name-calling."
Scrutiny rarely occurs unless things go wrong. But cults that turn deadly are hardly unique to America. Witness Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, whose followers attacked Tokyo's subway system with lethal nerve gas in 1995, or the Order of the Solar Temple, where suicide murders left 74 bodies strewn across France, Canada and Switzerland from 1991-97.
Brevard Community College professor of world religions Dr. Lin Osborne says America remains a boilerplate for alternative religions "because this is such a godless society. We're brainwashed by our own culture. We don't allow God in our institutions, so we're all in danger of being duped by our own ignorance."
Osborne says the term cult is often facile and expedient.
"A cult is simply an exclusive group. Most religions are cultic," he says. "Catholics don't worship with Protestants, Baptists don't even worship with other Baptists. Any community is better than playing solitaire, particularly if it's a community that thinks like we do. But let's not call it a religious group, because it is by nature exclusive."
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December 11, 1978, Time Magazine, Nation: Paranoia And Delusions, The survivors describe the dementia of Jim Jones, [Text]
Posted Monday, Dec. 11, 1978
The survivors describe the dementia of Jim Jones
He would force a child to eat his own vomit. He banned sexual activity between Peoples Temple members but was voraciously bisexual himself and obsessed with bragging about the size of his penis. He was addicted to drugs and had nurses bleed him and provide him with oxygen for imagined illnesses.
These examples of the Rev. Jim Jones' paranoia and delusions surfaced last week in a 215-page manuscript that was made public by former temple member Jeannie Mills in San Francisco and in further interviews in Guyana with stunned survivors of the mass suicide at Jonestown.
After he moved his church from Indiana to California in 1965, Jones' mental condition seemed to deteriorate rapidly. In 1973, eight members fled the commune because of his ban against sex between cult members. Calling 30 associates to his home, Jones declared: "Something terrible has happened. Eight people have defected. In order to keep our apostolic socialism, we should all kill ourselves and leave a note saying that because of harassment, a socialist group cannot exist at this time." He did not go ahead with the plan, but from that time on, Jones periodically conducted fake suicide rituals.
The ban on sex did not apply to Jones; he would brag about his own conquests, male and female. He once boasted that he had sex with 14 women and two men on the same day. He claimed that he detested homosexual activity and was only doing it for the male temple adherents' own good—to connect them symbolically with himself. Some indeed shared his view: the cult's doctor in Guyana, Larry Schacht, used to brag about having intercourse with Jones. Jones took pleasure in forcing female followers to ridicule their husbands' sexual ability.
Temple Attorney Charles Garry says Jones was obsessed with a custody fight for a boy he claimed was his own. The child, John, was born in 1972 to Grace Stoen, who with her husband Timothy was one of Jones' top associates. At Jones' behest, Timothy Stoen signed an affidavit declaring that he had personally requested that the child be sired by "the most compassionate, honest and courageous human being the world contains." The Stoens now deny that Jones was the father and won legal custody of the child last year after a court fight. But Jones refused to let him leave Guyana. Just before Jones' death he told a newsman that the fear of losing the child prevented him from returning home. After the suicides, the child was found dead next to Jones' body.
Jones first visited Guyana in 1962 on his way to Brazil, where he lived for two years. When his paranoia, fueled by unfavorable press reports, led him to move his community from San Francisco in 1977, Guyana was a logical choice. Its socialism matched what he conceived to be his own communal-agrarian ideals. Prime Minister Forbes Burnham told TIME last week: "I feel what may have attracted him was that we had said we wanted to use cooperatives as the basis for the establishment of socialism, and maybe his idea of setting up a commune meshed with that." Guyana had its own motives in making the commune welcome: it wanted immigrants to develop its hinterland and fortify its border with Venezuela. For the Americans, Guyana offered the additional advantage of being an English-speaking country.
One of the temple's strong advocates within the Guyanese government was Viola Burnham, the Prime Minister's wife. According to diplomats in Georgetown, Guyanese officials seemed to find it was in their best interest politically to offer assistance to the cult and even contribute financially. Medicine, building materials, U.S. currency and guns were imported for the commune with little interference from local customs officials.
Jones increasingly claimed that he was physically ill, and he stressed his health problems in a document prepared for Prime Minister Burnham. Attorney Garry was told by Jones' personal doctor that the cult leader suffered from recurrent temperatures of 105° and a fungus in his lungs. But several survivors, including Tim Carter, a Jones lieutenant, say his complaints were lies. The result of the autopsy conducted by Guyanese officials on Jones has not been released. But Guyanese-born Dr. Hardat A. Sukhdeo, deputy chairman of clinical psychiatric services at New Jersey Medical School, who flew to Jonestown to help counsel survivors, says the report shows no evidence of disease. Says Dr. Sukhdeo: "The complaints were all part of Jones' progressively suicidal depression." According to survivors, Jones regularly dosed himself with tranquilizers and painkillers, including Valium and morphine sulphate. Tim Carter told Dr. Sukhdeo that the night before the massacres and suicides, Jones was babbling incoherently.
One of Jones' final delusions was that he would move his cult to the Soviet Union. A delegation from the commune talked twice with Feodor Timofeyev, the Soviet press attache in Georgetown, about a possible move, but a memo of that meeting shows the Russians offered little encouragement. Russian consular officials and a Russian doctor also visited Jonestown, which was the object of a favorable report by Tass. In the past few months, Russian language classes were held at the commune. Members had to recite Russian phrases, like "good morning," before receiving their rice-and-gravy meals.
On the day of the suicides, Jones' secretary ordered Carter and two other close aides to take a suitcase containing $500,000 in small bills and a letter to the Russian embassy. Because the case was too heavy, Carter says they buried it in the jungle. They later gave themselves up to Guyanese police, who now have possession of the money and letter.
Jones' dream of moving the commune to Russia may have stemmed from his delusion that he was the reincarnation of Lenin. Indeed, he once told Jeannie Mills in California: "Lenin died with a bullet in his body and so will I."
Here, however, we are concerned with the initial reports of the massacre. And, in particular with those responsible for labeling the disaster a "mass suicide"---contrary to the evidence being gathered by Dr. Mootoo. The person who seems to have been most responsible for spinning the story in that way was Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist.
Dr. Sukhdeo is, or perhaps was, "an anti-cult activist" whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) were "homicide, suicide, and the behavior of animals in electro-magnetic fields." His arrival in Georgetown on November 27, 1978 came only three weeks after he had been named as a defendant in a controversial "deprogramming" case. [32] [32. Sukhdeo was named with "deprogrammer" Galen Kelly in a suit brought by the Circle of Friends on behalf of Joan E. Stedrak. The suit is believed to have been filed on November 6, 1978.] It is not entirely surprising, then, that within hours of his arrival in the capital, Dr. Sukhdeo began giving interviews to the press, including the New York Times, "explaining" what had happened.
Jim Jones, he said, "was a genius of mind control, a master. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have never seen anything like this...but the jungle, the isolation, gave him absolute control." Just what Dr. Sukhdeo had been able to see in his few minutes in Georgetown is unclear. But his importance in shaping the story is undoubted: he was one of the few civilian professionals at the scene, and his task was, quite simply, to help the press make sense of what had happened and to console those who had survived. Accordingly, he was widely quoted, and what he had to say was immediately echoed by colleagues back in the States.
That Sukhdeo's opinions were preconceived, rather than based upon evidence, however, seems obvious. Even so, it is clear that he was aware of the work that Dr. Mootoo had done---which, as we have seen, contradicted Sukhdeo's statements about "mass suicides."
In an interview with Time, Sukhdeo refers to an "autopsy" that had been performed on Jim Jones in Guyana. This can only have been a reference to Dr. Mootoo's somewhat cursory examination, in which Jones's body was slit open on the ground. It is difficult to understand how Sukhdeo could have been aware of that procedure without also knowing of Mootoo's finding that most of the victims had been murdered.
Dr. Sukhdeo was himself a native of Guyana, though a resident of the United States. He claimed at the time that he'd come to Georgetown at his own expense to counsel and study those who had survived. But that is in dispute.
According to his attorney, Robert Bockelman, Dr. Sukhdeo retained him to prevent his having to testify at the Larry Layton trial in San Francisco. (Layton was a member of the Peoples Temple who participated in the events at the Port Kaituma airstrip.) Dr. Sukhdeo's primary concern, according to Bockelman, was that it should not be revealed that the State Department had paid his way to Guyana. You see the issue: was Doctor Sukhdeo there to help the survivors---or to debrief them on behalf of some other person or agency? [33] [33. Asked about this in a recent interview, Sukhdeo continued to insist that he paid his own way to Guyana.]
Nor was this all. Prior to retaining counsel in San Francisco, Dr. Sukhdeo had himself been retained by Larry Layton's defense attorneys and family. (Indeed, he testified in Layton's trial in Guyana, where "most of his testimony concerned cults in general and observations about conditions at Jonestown.") [34] [34. United States v. Layton, Federal Rules (90 F.R.D. 520/1981), pp. 521-22, in re a "Memorandum and Order Denying Plaintiffs Motion to Compel Production of Sukhdeo Tapes."] During the time that he was helping Layton's defense, it appears that Dr. Sukhdeo was also meeting ---surreptitiously, according to his own lawyer---with FBI agents. Asked about this, Sukhdeo says that at no time during these meetings did he disclose any confidential communications between himself and Layton. [35] [35. Ibid.]
The suggestion that Dr. Sukhdeo may have secretly "debriefed" Jonestown's survivors on behalf of the State Department (or some other government agency) may seem unduly suspicious. On the other hand, a certain amount of suspicion would seem to prudent when discussing the unsolved deaths of more than 900 Americans who, in the weeks before they died, were preparing to defect en masse to the Soviet Union. The government's interest in this matter would logically have been intense.[36] [36. The CIA has stated that, in deference to its Charter, which prohibits the Agency from collecting information on Americans, it took no notice of the Temple's approaches to Communist Bloc organizations in Guyana. The disclaimer is widely disbelieved.]
It is true, of course, that not every psychiatrist agreed with Dr. Sukhdeo's analysis. Dr. Stephen P. Hersh, then assistant director of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), commented that "The charges of brainwashing are clearly exaggerated. The concept of 'thought control' by cult leaders is elusive, difficult to define and even more difficult to prove. Because cult converts adopt beliefs that seem bizarre to their families and friends, it does not follow that their choices are being dictated by cult leaders." [37] [37. Associated Press, story by Chris Connell, November 21, 1978.]
That said, there is more at stake here than public perceptions. Investigators of the Guyana tragedy have a responsibility to both the living and the dead: to find out what actually happened, and to make certain that it cannot happen again.
February 1974, The Realist, The SLA Is The CIA, Part I, by Mae Brussell, part II, part III, part IV,
References
Aronson, Elliot, Wilson, Timothy D., & Akert, Robin M. (2005). Social Psychology, 5th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Barker, Eileen (1996)."The Freedom of the Cage." Society, Vol. 33 Issue 3, pp. 53-59.
Guerin, Bernard & Miiyazaki, Yoshihiko (2006). The Psychological Record, Vol. 56, pp.23-24.
Hougan, Jim (1999). "Jonestown. The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue." Lobster, Vol. 37, pp.2-20.
Joslyn, Mark R. (1997). Political Behavior, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 337-343.
Judge, John (1985). "The Black Hole of Guyana: The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre." In Keith, Jim (Ed.), Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History. Portland, OR: Feral House.
McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Schnepper, Jeff A. (1999). "Jonestown Massacre: The unrevealed story." USA Today Magazine, Vol. 127 Issue 2644, p26.
Subbotsky, Eugene (2001). British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Vol. 19, pp.23-46.
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November 8, 1998, San Francisco Examiner, Utopian Nightmare, by Larry Hatfield,
James Warren Jones was born May 13, 1931, in a tattered town called Crete in Indiana. He was different from the beginning--a Holy Roller preacher as a child, selling spider monkeys on the streets of Indianapolis to buy food as a young student and modeling himself after Father Divine, whose Peace Mission drew a cult following at the time.
In a credo that would refine and warp itself until the end, he developed a set of professed beliefs, sometimes called "apostolic socialism," that ignored God while deifying social justice and worshipping the slavific power of socialism. He became a student minister at an Indiana Methodist church in 1952. He left the Methodists because the church wouldn't desegregate, and in the 1950s founded the movement that would take various names as it evolved into Peoples Temple.
In 1965, Jones and his wife, Marceline, brought the nascent temple and a handful of the faithful to California, the promised land for alternative religions.
A CHURCH IN REDWOOD VALLEY
The Joneses and their rainbow family of adopted children and about 70 followers set up in the sylvan Redwood Valley near Ukiah where relations between them and the laidback locals were uneasy but generally peaceful. Jones quickly relocated his church to the bigger and more lucrative markets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. He moved Peoples Temple into an abandoned synagogue in The City's Fillmore district.
While attracting a growing congregation of urban blacks, he used his considerable intellectual and acting skills to bring onto his bandwagon many of San Francisco's leading politicians. Current Mayor Brown was one of Jones' biggest cheerleaders, hailing him as a blend of Martin Luther King, Einstein and Mao. Then-Lt. Gov. Mervyn Dymally was another. Mayor George Moscone was still another, naming Jones to head his Housing Commission and, some said, owing his razor-thin election to the few hundred illegal voters Jones allegedly and other seekers were hearing from Jones' pulpit. …But the politics of the day also fed the paranoia in Jones. He believed the government was conspiring to continue the war in Vietnam and spy on such groups as the Black Panthers. The government was not to be trusted. The government also was working covertly against Jones and the temple, seeking to short-circuit the drive for a better society.
Jones believed all this and so, to an almost universal extent, did the Temple congregation. So Jones moved the temple and 1,000 or so followers to Guyana's outback, winning a 25-year lease on 3,852 acres in the Orinoco River basin near the disputed border with Venezuela. A small group of temple pioneers moved in 1974 to what was to become Jonestown, far from the hostile attacks of media, government and others. The lease from the Guyana government required the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project to "cultivate and beneficially occupy" at least one-fifth of the land by 1976. Temple members raised livestock and grew pineapple, cassava, eddoes and other tropical fruits and vegetables. Charles Garry, Peoples Temple's San Francisco lawyer, called it a paradise.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
But there was trouble in paradise. The camp never became agriculturally self-sustaining and the swift tropical diseases of the jungle ran rampant. At the end, only a third of the residents were able-bodied. Worse, critics said, it was a prison camp--people were not allowed to leave. Abusive practices such as beatings and forced sex, long-rumored but little-reported at the San Francisco church, escalated. Jones' deteriorating mental stability made him increasingly erratic and he demanded utter, unquestioning loyalty. Agencies from the State Department and the CIA to the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Service were investigating or taking legal action against Peoples Temple for mail fraud, wresting Social Security checks from members, arms and narcotics trafficking, and other crimes, real or imagined. Aiding and abetting the conspiracy in the eyes of Jones and his followers were the few temple defectors and families of members who were getting attention from the hostile North American media. Against this background, Jones, who was white, and his predominantly white inner circle had faithful followers practice mass suicide in a series of "white nights." Such a drastic end was the only possible response to the vast and growing outside threat, Jones preached. The people believed him.
CONGRESSMAN'S VISIT
The final act began to unfold when Ryan, a respected Democratic congressman from San Mateo County with a taste for headlines, lead a delegation of newsmen and a group of family members called the Concerned Relatives to Jonestown to investigate allegations of thought control, imprisonment, drug- and gun-running. Ryan was knifed--superficially--during the visit. When he was ready to leave, several Jonestown residents asked to leave with him, an action that apparently triggered the subsequent massacre of Ryan, Robinson and the others at Port Kaituma. The incredible scene of mass death quickly followed at Jonestown. "We died because you would not let us live," wrote temple insider Annie Moore in her suicide note. Among those who survived was Jim Jones' son, Stephan, who was away with the camp's basketball team. It was left to the younger Jones, who had broken with his father and since has denounced him repeatedly, to declare Jim Jones' most durable epitaph. In a recent ABC television visit to Jonestown, Stephan Jones said simply, "My father was a fraud." While no one denies that Jones was a madman, some feel the people of Jonestown have been unfairly characterized as mindless zombies. "The people who died in Jonestown were sweet, altruistic people. One the of the tragedies of Jonestown is that people haven't paid attention to that," says Timothy Stoen, whose son, John Victor, died at Jonestown. Stoen played a pivotal role in a custody battle with Jones that helped precipitate the murder-suicides. Among Ryan's reasons for going to Guyana was the custody fight. "No single theory could possibly explain the many complex and related issues that led the members of the Peoples Temple to leave family, friends and church communities and take residence in the jungle of Jonestown," says Archie Smith Jr., professor of pastoral psychology at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. "Labeled by many as sick, dysfunctional or disadvantaged, (they) were seeking an alternative to the status quo, new and just ways of living and being in the world." "Amidst all the attention that was focused on Jim Jones, the people were accorded scarcely any respect as thinking, feeling, caring human beings....The dehumanizing of the victims of Jonestown by the journalistic community was tantamount to the withholding of permission to grieve."
TRAGIC CHANGE IN DIRECTION
Maaga says the lessons of Jonestown are to be learned by trying to figure out why the committed veered so tragically from their vision of a better world. "I think things went right earlier in the movement," Maaga says, pointing to the temple's successful social programs in San Francisco. "What we should be talking about is what went right and when did it go wrong," she said, suggesting the answers might prevent similar tragedies. "I don't think Peoples Temple was a singular example of a self-righteous religion gone horribly awry. "What was important about it was what they (the members) were--as people--not just how they died." Rebecca Moore, a University of North Dakota professor of religion and philosophy, lost her sisters Carolyn Layton and Annie Moore at Jonestown, as well as her nephew, Jim-Jon Prokes. She says some of the still-unexplored questions are whether people in San Francisco could have prevented the tragedy by reining in Jones before he was all-powerful and crazy; what responsibility Willie Brown and others had before and after the catastrophe; and the role of the black church. "At times I despair that we've learned nothing," Moore says. "By that I mean that people continue to demonize (Jones) and forget the others. "As a society we fail to take seriously the very strong and powerful desire, or hunger, for community, a community of people working for social change. The people in Jonestown were trying to create a Utopian society, racial justice and social equality. Granted, there were internal contradictions, but they were one of the few groups intentionally addressing the problem of racism and trying concretely to do something about it." The media, Moore says, almost always dwells on the dead bodies and on Jones himself; the government has swept under the rug all understanding of Jonestown and of its own role. No official inquiry was held in the United States and the Guyanan investigation was almost laughably superficial. Jonestown, Berkeley's Smith warns, "was not an anomaly. Rather, it was a product of the evolving ethos of our time, an ethos that tends to repress and trivialize the essentially religious impulse. The social and historical forces that gave rise to Jonestown 20 years ago operate today."
A CENTRAL LESSON UNLEARNED
"Perhaps the biggest heartache of all," Sawyer says, "is that our country and our churches still have not sought an answer to the question of why the people joined this movement, and so still have not discerned the central lesson of Jonestown. Why, indeed, were white idealists and black Christians drawn to a movement that promised them sanctuary from America's failure to honor her promises of equality and justice? "Churches, like the public, were so horrified they psychologically needed to distance themselves...to handle the reality of it. Most people know what Jonestown is but if you say Peoples Temple, people will have a blank look. They don't know there was a longstanding social change movement. "And they're no more informed today than they were 20 years ago. I hope this anniversary will not be just a replay of Jim Jones as a crazy man but that there is some conscientious effort to make America understand. It takes two or three decades before people start asking the right questions....There hasn't been that kind of soul-searching. "It's important to do this. We have to have sense of the wounds that are still there."
"What should we be talking about?" asks Jackie Speier, who was elected to the California Assembly after the tragedy and on Tuesday was elected to the state Senate. "We should be talking about the fact that the menace of cults still lingers. Cults are still around. They're all around us. Many continue to operate under the guise of being religious, under the guise of religiosity and the First Amendment, violating state and federal laws (while) the government again looks the other way." Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born psychiatrist who treated Jonestown survivors, says the conditions that created Peoples Temple could create a similar movement. People joined the temple because "they needed to have this type of togetherness and leadership and somebody to tell them what to do and when to do it," said Sukhdeo, of Rutgers University. Sukhdeo sees the majority of temple members, mostly black, as largely alienated and at sea. The Peoples Temple was more of a place to improve their own lives than to achieve the societal do-goodism espoused by young whites who joined.
"They wanted something like the cult to say, 'Yes, we know the truth. Yes, we have the answers.' They were lost, they were angry and they didn't feel they belonged to society." Nothing has changed, he says: Groups such as Branch Davidian and Heaven's Gate prove that the attraction to cults remains.
A DISTRUST OF RELIGION
The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey, rector of San Francisco's Trinity Episcopal Church, says that a "sad part of Jonestown is it has sent a message of distrust of religion, particularly the small sect religions....(There is) a sense of 'if you're religious, this is what might happen to you.' "But on the positive side, people are looking more critically before getting involved in religious programs, especially the more fringe type of things. Look at the kind of scrutiny now given to Hare Krishna, Scientology and the like. That's as it should be."
Timothy Stoen also warns of the dangers of cults. "There are a lot of Jim Jones wannabes out there," said Stoen, who recently moved to Colorado Springs from Mendocino. "...You can't wish them away...(but) one hopefully can learn from (Peoples Temple) that these things can be lethal and there comes a point early on when you can do something about it." The psychological isolation that leads people to seek groups like Peoples Temple still exists, he says, urging families of cultists to ask questions, challenge the groups and otherwise get involved. "People just have to take an even-handed look that this is kind of a sign of our times--people need structure, community, etc. If mainline churches don't provide it, there'll be cults. Those cults will be there serving some sort of need."
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August 20, 1979, Medical World News, Cult Expert Says Jonestown Survivors Need Psychotherapy,
A New Jersey psychiatrist who has treated 35 survivors of the mass suicide of People’s Temple adherents (MWN, December 11, 1978, p. 10) has asked the National Institute of Mental Health for $28,000 to bring cult members and relatives out of deep depression. Paranoid and suicidal, afraid and ashamed to re-enter society, the followers of Rev. Jim Jones and their kin won't be able to shake mental demons without extensive counseling, says Dr. Hardat A.S. Sukhdeo, a professor of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark. Dr. Sukhdeo has asked NIMH to set up local mental health clinic psychologist George Peterson as chairman of an aid committee for the survivors, most of whom live here.
Guyana-born Dr. Sukhdeo, a cult expert, flew to Georgetown to study survivors soon after the Jonestown tragedy. "I'd gained their trust after living 10 days with them," he says. "But when we got back to the States the government wouldn't let me go on deprogramming them. Now they're scattered from Alabama to Idaho."
NIMH paid Dr. Sukhdeo to travel here in February and April to treat survivors and to mobilize mental health professionals to continue their care. He returned on his own to spend July treating them. Of 35 survivors, seven to 57 years old, he has treated, 23 can't work or go to school, he says. "They have no friends except other People's Temple members. They feel ashamed about having been taken in by Jones. They have nightmares about the deaths. One committed suicide; others may follow. Some have turned to prostitution or drug addiction. It's late, but not too late, to help them."
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October 2, 2008, [1st web capture] Jonestown and The Social Psychology of Accepted Truth, by David Godot,
July 6, 2011, The Paradise Reporter. 1978: Jonestown, Guyana Massacre: A Planned Military "Distraction" & "Cover", diigo,
October 12, 2012, In Search of Black Assassins, A Case for Genocide: Black Manchurian Candidates- Donald David Defreeze, Yusuf Bey IV & The Deliberate Destruction and Deconstruction of Black Institutions,________________________________________________________________________________
March 1, 1974, Sarasota Herald-Tribune - AP, page 3-B, Exorcism Daily Occurrence at Miami’s Jackson Hospital,
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October 12, 1979, New York Times - The Lakeland Ledger, page 13A, Adjustment hard for survivors of Jonestown,
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... environment is difficult, they might turn to just ending their lives," says Dr. Hardat A S Sukhdeo, chief of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark.
December 4, 1978, AP - Observer Reporter, page D1, Jonestown Survivors Will Never Escape Horror, by George Esper, AP Writer,
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Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyanese-born psychiatrist who still counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors — including four witnesses to ...
November 16, 1979, AP - The Victoria Advocate [Texas] page 4C, Survivors Warn of Church’s Revival, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
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March 1, 1974, AP - Daytona Beach Morning Journal, page 14A, ‘Exorcists’ Use Modern Methods,
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November 16, 1979, AP - Spartanburg Herald, page A3, The Jonestown Survivors: Linked In Search For Peace, by Frances D'Emilio, AP Writer,
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Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, Montclair, NJ Psychiatrist
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Biography: Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, MD is a Psychiatrist practicing in Montclair, NJ. He has not yet shared a personalized biography with Doctor.com.
Basic Information Specialties: Psychiatrist
Gender: Male
Languages Spoken: English
Accepts New Patients: Yes
Education & Training:University Degree: Graduated University Of West Indies- Fac Medical Science- Kingston- Jamaica (566-01 Eff 1/71)
Area of Focus: Other Degree: 1962
Medical Residency: Hospital Name: Ct Valley Hospital, Psychiatry
Year Completed: Not Specified
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December 11, 1978, Time Magazine, Nation: Paranoia And Delusions, The survivors describe the dementia of Jim Jones, [Text]
Jones increasingly claimed that he was physically ill, and he stressed his health problems in a document prepared for Prime Minister Burnham. Attorney Garry was told by Jones' personal doctor that the cult leader suffered from recurrent temperatures of 105° and a fungus in his lungs. But several survivors, including Tim Carter, a Jones lieutenant, say his complaints were lies. The result of the autopsy conducted by Guyanese officials on Jones has not been released. But Guyanese-born Dr. Hardat A. Sukhdeo, deputy chairman of clinical psychiatric services at New Jersey Medical School, who flew to Jonestown to help counsel survivors, says the report shows no evidence of disease. Says Dr. Sukhdeo: "The complaints were all part of Jones' progressively suicidal depression." According to survivors, Jones regularly dosed himself with tranquilizers and painkillers, including Valium and morphine sulphate. Tim Carter told Dr. Sukhdeo that the night before the massacres and suicides, Jones was babbling incoherently._________________________________________________________________________________
November 29, 1978, New York Times, Doctor Sees Danger in Cult Survivors' Deep Despair; 6 More Members Released, by Joseph B. Treaster,
Photo caption: Jakarri Wilson, 3 years old, thought to be the youngest survivor of the People's Temple in Guyana, with his mother, Leslie, in Georgetown,
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov. 28 -- A New Jersey psychiatrist who specializes in treating former cult members of the People's Temple were "suffering from severe depression which, if not treated, could lead to suicide."
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, deputy chairman of the psychiatry department at the New Jersey College of Medicine, said the survivors "are coming out of the brainwashing and, if they do not get help, most of them will not be able to adjust to society."
"These people are very much used to being given directions," he said, "and they're going to go through a process of real socialization."
6 More Members Released
In other developments, as the authorities in Guyana investigating the Jonestown deaths released six more members of the cult from custody, Police Commissioner Lloyd A. Barker disclosed that the more than 900 killings and suicides at the jungle commune in Jonestown on Nov. 18 had stretched over a span of five hours and that an examination of the bodies showed no sign of physical struggle.
The Commissioner said the police found a stack of rifles at one end of the pavilion where members of the cult drank a soft drink laced with cyanide.
He also said he was convinced that the Rev. Jim Jones, the leader of the cult, and about 60 of his security guards had died in the final hours of the bizarre evening.
The Commissioner said that the police also found plates of grilled cheese sandwiches peppered with cyanide, and that investigators had obtained "information that all the food and drink prepared that night had cyanide in it," adding, "It seems that the intent was to make sure that people did not survive."
Some Injected Poison
Mr. Barker said there were indications that some of the security guards drank the potions like most of the others, but that some had also injected the poison directly into their veins.
He said the matter of whether Mr. Jones had killed himself with a gun or had been murdered was still being studied, but added that the police had evidence that a gun had been held close to the cult leader's head, as in a suicide.
The Commissioner also said investigators had failed to find any evidence that several dozen bursts of automatic rifle fire ricocheted through the commune on the night of the killing, as reported by Mark Lane, one of two American lawyers who was at the commune on Nov. 18.
Mr. Barker added that he had no reason to believe that many members of the People's Temple commune were still in the rain forest surrounding Jonestown, and said that, while there may be a few stragglers, there was no search for possible survivors now.
He refused to discuss the details of the investigation into the deaths of Representative Leo J. Ryan, three newsmen and an American woman at an airport near the commune 10 days ago, and the subsequent murder and suicide of more than 900 members of the cult, but said he expected that evidence now being collected would be presented to a magistrate within two weeks for possible additional charges. Mr. Ryan, a California Democrat, had gone to Jonestown to investigate the cult.
One man has been charged with the murder of Mr. Ryan, the newsmen and the woman, who was apparently trying to escape, and another man has been accused of slashing the throat of the cult's public relations officer and her three children.
A 'Protective Gesture'
Dr. Sukhdeo, a Guyanese citizen who received his medical degree from the University of London and taught at Yale University for several years before going to the New Jersey College of Medicine in Newark, said he believed that the most important factor in the disintegration of the cult was not the visit by Mr. Ryan to Jonestown, but the departure of two families that had become disaffected with life in the commune.
"The fact that two families, not individuals, but two families, volunteered to leave was very traumatic to the cult," Dr. Sukhdeo said. "This made it possible for some of the others to see what they were doing, triggering a hidden desire in their minds that they should leave. I'm sure Jones knew that as he decided to make that the beginning of the end of the cult."
Dr. Sukhdeo said he believed that Mr. Jones regarded his followers as an extension of himself and that after the cult leader decided that the only course for himself was death, he ordered the others to join him in a kind of "protective gesture."
"He thought it was better for him to die," Dr. Sukhdeo said of Mr. Jones, "and if that was the case it was better for the others to die, too."
Dr. Sukhdeo said one factor that may have made it more possible for a mass suicide to occur at the commune was that "many of the people were from a sub-culture of violence."
He said he believed that many people had been happy in the cult because, under the totalitarianism of Mr. Jones, their lives---perhaps for the first time---had a structure, however harsh it might have been. It was probably the violent destruction of this structure, as much as anything, Dr. Sukhdeo said, that plunged some of the cult members into deep despair.
'Feeling Dead Inside'
Dr. Sukhdeo said one cult member he talked to, a former drug addict who escaped after the others began drinking the poison, "complained that he was feeling dead inside."
"When you hit him with what he will do when he goes back, he gets afraid," Dr. Sukhdeo said. "There are no support systems for a man like this. Without support, he will become addictive again."
In the last few days, a small army of reporters has been interviewing and reinterviewing about 30 of the survivors housed at the Park Hotel here. Dr. Sukhdeo said he believed that the reporters had had an impact similar to that of a team of therapists.
Dr. Sukhdeo also said he paid for the trip to Guyana himself and had come to study the survivors partly because it offered an opportunity for him to "see a whole group of people who were suddenly cut off from a cult."
Cabinet Meeting on Jonestown
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Nov. 28 (UPI) --- Prime Minister Forbes Burnham called a cabinet meeting today to decide the future of the 3,000-acre Jonestown commune.
Government sources said the cabinet was expected to commission the military to exploit the commune as an agricultural station and to harvest the crops of beans, tapioca, bananas, pineapples, oranges and other tropical fruit hanging ripe on the trees.
The sources said it was not likely that Guyanese settlers or National Service volunteers could be persuaded to move into the commune, in a jungle clearing 150 miles northwest of Georgetown.
Mr. Burnham has not made any public statement on the suicides and murders at Jonestown except to say that he will hang Larry Layton, a People's Temple member charged in the murder of Representative Leo J. Ryan of California and four other Americans, if he is found guilty.
Mr. Burnham also has said that there will be no extradition of any Americans charged here.
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December 2, 1978, Lawrence Journal-World - N.Y. Times News Service, page 12, Doctor cites cult danger,
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San Francisco---For some who survived Jonestown, grief has grown with reports of efforts to revive the People Temple cult that spelled doom for more than 900 people in the jungles of Guyana last Nov. 18. Many friends and relatives of the Jonestown victims, struggling to remake their lives, refused to speak with reporters. They say the press forgot them and their troubles after graphically recounting the fantastic events of Jonestown and the bizarre dreams of its founder, the Rev. Jim Jones.
Those who did speak were eager to warn others that the germs of a new church---or efforts to resurrect the old---may be spreading. "They've called me up and said, 'It's 6 o'clock. Let's meditate,'" said one middle-aged woman. "They still believe Jim Jones will be reincarnated. I've told them, 'Don't call me again.'"
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyanese-born psychiatrist who still counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors---including four witnesses to the suicides---said his clients "feel very uncomfortable in society." The survivors sense, Sukhdeo said, that people consider them freaks. "One girl registering for college was told 'if you were in Guyana, you'd have to be crazy,'" Sukhdeo said. "There is some bitterness but not so much as other people would have felt. Jim Jones prepared them for society's rejection. It makes them wonder that Jones was right about some things---like society's uncaring."
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November 20, 1979, Titusville Herald - AP, page 4, Those Who Lived, by Frances D’Emilio,
Dr Hardat Sukhdeo a Guyanese-born psychiatrist who counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors --- including four witness to the suicides --- said his clients "feel very uncomfortable in society."
The survivors sense, Sukhdeo said, that people consider them freaks.
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August 11, 1979, Daytona Beach Morning Journal - AP, page 9-B, Jonestown Survivors Idealistic,
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March 23, 2002, Florida Today, Ashram shares reputation as cult, sanctuary; Former members tell tales of control, by Billy Cox,
In itemizing humanity's efforts to comprehend divinity, World Christian Encyclopedia editor David Barrett reported recently that 9,900 "separate and distinct religions" have been identified in 238 countries. Faced with the emergence of as many as two to three new movements each day, sociologists anticipate an explosive proliferation in the 21st century, primarily from sects mutating away from the major religions.
If history foreshadows the future, some of those new religious movements will inevitably clash with mainstream institutions, secular and theological. And just as inevitably, many of these movements will be branded as cults, capable of brainwashing adherents into destructive behavior.
Already, a group that monitors new religious movements called the American Family Foundation estimates 5-10 million Americans have been "transiently involved with cults," and that 1,000 sects in the United States alone meet some ominous criteria for cultic behaviors, which usually include:
- Excessively zealous members with an uncritical commitment to an idea, leadership or group identity.
- Manipulation of members through deceit to create dependencies.
- Posing a danger to harm members, their families and/or society.
Custody Fight
Shortly thereafter, in 1982, the Rousseaus appealed to Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo of the New Jersey Medical School for an evaluation to help them regain legal custody. Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist who worked with survivors of the 1978 mass-suicide in Guyana, told the court Bhagavati "and her manipulative behavior very closely resembles Jim Jones and his behavior toward the people in his church."The judge reunited Rousseau with his parents, but did not deal with the issue of whether Kashi was a cult. In fact, there is no legal definition for what constitutes a cult, or brainwashing, in America. That question was at the center of some pre-trial preparation for divorce proceedings, also involving Kashi, which was settled out of court Thursday.
In that case, Richard Rosenkranz, 60, former public relations spokesman for Kashi, claimed Bhagavati manipulated him into a sham marriage. Rosenkranz had split up with his wife, Gina, who is a monk at the ashram, in 1999.
Although a court showdown was averted when Rosenkranz agreed on an alimony settlement, he also had lined up witnesses to testify about misuse of nonprofit funds, and intimidation through beatings ordered by Bhagavati.
As a countermove, Gina Rosenkranz' attorney, Russell Petersen of Vero Beach, planned to use a landmark ruling known as U.S. vs. Fishman.
Stephen Fishman was a former member of the Church of Scientology facing federal indictment on mail fraud charges. In 1990, Fishman told the U.S District Court of Northern California his crimes were the result of cult brainwashing, but the court stated "theories regarding the coercive persuasion practiced by religious cults are not sufficiently established to be admitted as evidence."
Repercussions
That opinion generated repercussions that continue to reverberate.The Cult Awareness Network -- which offered deprogramming services to the victims of religious groups -- was convicted of violating the civil rights of a member of the United Pentecostal Church. That verdict bankrupted CAN, which then was purchased by a number of institutions it had criticized, including the Church of Scientology.
Filling CAN's vacuum today is the American Family Foundation, a small, 21-year-old nonprofit network that lacks the former's media visibility. Its cult recovery specialist is Rosanne Henry, who resorted to a court order and law enforcement agents to remove her daughter from Kashi Ashram in 1989.
Unlike CAN, AFF executive director Dr. Michael Langone, says his group doesn't keep cult watch lists. Langone, who also is editor of the Cultic Studies Journal, warns that brainwashing is real and dangerous.
"Fishman was the first case in which defenders prevented testimony from being heard," says Langone from his office in Bonita Springs. "Proponents wave it around like it's a Supreme Court ruling, which it's not. Expert opinions and testimony have been accepted and prevailed in other cases since Fishman."
Petersen planned to call religious scholar Dr. Gordon Melton as an expert witness for Gina Rosenkranz. Melton runs the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., and is the author of books such as The Cult Experience, Why Cults Succeed Where the Church Fails and The Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults.
Suspect Tactics
Melton, who favorably profiled Kashi Ashram in a 1990 study, says brainwashing is a suspect legal tactic. "I know Richard, and I like him personally," Melton says. "He's made some serious accusations that the leadership may have to confront."But thinking of Richard Rosenkranz as brainwashed is ridiculous. There are some mousy people out there who don't mind having their lives run by someone else, but that's not Richard."
Rosenkranz says analysts such as Dr. Paul Martin can prove it.
Martin, a psychologist, runs a halfway house for recovering cult members called Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center in Albany, Ohio. After interviewing some 25 disaffected Kashi followers, Martin says many voiced fears of retribution. Violence, illegal drug use, and brainwashing at the ashram are among the allegations he's been hearing.
"One of the great myths about cults and thought reform is that they're always heavy-handed and repressive," Martin says. "The reality is, you don't need compounds, you don't need guards. People don't necessarily stick with it because they've been forcibly coerced; the group is fulfilling some deep psychological need. And I'm convinced this is a group that exercises an excessive degree of influence over people through social control and social boundaries."
Cult Calling
The ascension of cults in America can be traced to the early 1970s, Melton says. That's when evangelical Christians employed the term to slam the westward migration of counter-cultural new religions steeped in Eastern philosophies.Whether propelled by charismatic leaders such as the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Guru Maharaj Ji, or dispersed through legions of avid recruiters such as the Hare Krishnas, the phenomenon competed for headlines during the 1976 brainwashing trial of Patty Hearst. The worst fears of mindless obedience to a charismatic leader manifested in 1978, with Jonestown's 900 murder-suicides.
"The fact is, we don't really have the analytical tools to label a cult until, tragically, after something terrible happens, like Jonestown," insists Dr. Nathan Katz, chairman of the Religious Studies at Florida International University in Fort Lauderdale.
"But when you're dealing with something as psychologically potent as overcoming the limits of ego -- which most religions try to do -- then you're potentially open to abuse. And that certainly doesn't exempt the major religions."
Does Kashi Qualify as a Cult?
Rick Ross of Jersey City, N.J., is an intervention specialist qualified as an expert cult witness in six states. It was his deprogramming of United Pentecostal Church member Jason Scott that led to Scientology's acquisition of CAN, although Ross is quick to point out "they've never been able to stop me from doing my work."Ross has followed Kashi's controversies, and says Bhagavati's status as an omniscient guru "has problems."
"When you're dealing with an all-powerful leader, the real issue is accountability. Who does she answer to?" Ross asks. "When you claim to have had a divine revelation, who's to question what you say? When you're able to dictate the sex lives of your members, even married couples, that's absolute authority."
Kashi members practice meditation, vegetarianism and celibacy, even in marriage, unless the goal is strictly procreation. Gordon Melton says he doesn't pretend to understand all of Kashi's customs. But he says joining or leaving a religious community mirrors marriage.
"When you say 'I do,' you make a whole host of choices, many of which you weren't aware of at the time. Ten years later, you may say, 'I really didn't choose to do that.' Where it really gets complicated is when you throw children into the mix. The group is part of the child's extended family, and when the parents begin having problems, you're looking at a new set of complex issues."
Still, FIU's Katz, who's been visiting the ashram since 1999, says he's impressed by Kashi's "open doors." Labeling Bhagavati's ashram a cult amounts to "theological name-calling."
'Ma is a guru'
"Ma is a guru, and there's a very special, intimate relationship between a teacher and disciples, which is very difficult for outsiders to appreciate. Taking vows of obedience is something we accept in Orthodox Judaism and Christian monasteries, and it doesn't draw the same scrutiny."Scrutiny rarely occurs unless things go wrong. But cults that turn deadly are hardly unique to America. Witness Japan's Aum Shinrikyo, whose followers attacked Tokyo's subway system with lethal nerve gas in 1995, or the Order of the Solar Temple, where suicide murders left 74 bodies strewn across France, Canada and Switzerland from 1991-97.
Brevard Community College professor of world religions Dr. Lin Osborne says America remains a boilerplate for alternative religions "because this is such a godless society. We're brainwashed by our own culture. We don't allow God in our institutions, so we're all in danger of being duped by our own ignorance."
Osborne says the term cult is often facile and expedient.
"A cult is simply an exclusive group. Most religions are cultic," he says. "Catholics don't worship with Protestants, Baptists don't even worship with other Baptists. Any community is better than playing solitaire, particularly if it's a community that thinks like we do. But let's not call it a religious group, because it is by nature exclusive."
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December 11, 1978, Time Magazine, Nation: Paranoia And Delusions, The survivors describe the dementia of Jim Jones, [Text]
Posted Monday, Dec. 11, 1978
The survivors describe the dementia of Jim Jones
He would force a child to eat his own vomit. He banned sexual activity between Peoples Temple members but was voraciously bisexual himself and obsessed with bragging about the size of his penis. He was addicted to drugs and had nurses bleed him and provide him with oxygen for imagined illnesses.
These examples of the Rev. Jim Jones' paranoia and delusions surfaced last week in a 215-page manuscript that was made public by former temple member Jeannie Mills in San Francisco and in further interviews in Guyana with stunned survivors of the mass suicide at Jonestown.
After he moved his church from Indiana to California in 1965, Jones' mental condition seemed to deteriorate rapidly. In 1973, eight members fled the commune because of his ban against sex between cult members. Calling 30 associates to his home, Jones declared: "Something terrible has happened. Eight people have defected. In order to keep our apostolic socialism, we should all kill ourselves and leave a note saying that because of harassment, a socialist group cannot exist at this time." He did not go ahead with the plan, but from that time on, Jones periodically conducted fake suicide rituals.
The ban on sex did not apply to Jones; he would brag about his own conquests, male and female. He once boasted that he had sex with 14 women and two men on the same day. He claimed that he detested homosexual activity and was only doing it for the male temple adherents' own good—to connect them symbolically with himself. Some indeed shared his view: the cult's doctor in Guyana, Larry Schacht, used to brag about having intercourse with Jones. Jones took pleasure in forcing female followers to ridicule their husbands' sexual ability.
Temple Attorney Charles Garry says Jones was obsessed with a custody fight for a boy he claimed was his own. The child, John, was born in 1972 to Grace Stoen, who with her husband Timothy was one of Jones' top associates. At Jones' behest, Timothy Stoen signed an affidavit declaring that he had personally requested that the child be sired by "the most compassionate, honest and courageous human being the world contains." The Stoens now deny that Jones was the father and won legal custody of the child last year after a court fight. But Jones refused to let him leave Guyana. Just before Jones' death he told a newsman that the fear of losing the child prevented him from returning home. After the suicides, the child was found dead next to Jones' body.
Jones first visited Guyana in 1962 on his way to Brazil, where he lived for two years. When his paranoia, fueled by unfavorable press reports, led him to move his community from San Francisco in 1977, Guyana was a logical choice. Its socialism matched what he conceived to be his own communal-agrarian ideals. Prime Minister Forbes Burnham told TIME last week: "I feel what may have attracted him was that we had said we wanted to use cooperatives as the basis for the establishment of socialism, and maybe his idea of setting up a commune meshed with that." Guyana had its own motives in making the commune welcome: it wanted immigrants to develop its hinterland and fortify its border with Venezuela. For the Americans, Guyana offered the additional advantage of being an English-speaking country.
One of the temple's strong advocates within the Guyanese government was Viola Burnham, the Prime Minister's wife. According to diplomats in Georgetown, Guyanese officials seemed to find it was in their best interest politically to offer assistance to the cult and even contribute financially. Medicine, building materials, U.S. currency and guns were imported for the commune with little interference from local customs officials.
Jones increasingly claimed that he was physically ill, and he stressed his health problems in a document prepared for Prime Minister Burnham. Attorney Garry was told by Jones' personal doctor that the cult leader suffered from recurrent temperatures of 105° and a fungus in his lungs. But several survivors, including Tim Carter, a Jones lieutenant, say his complaints were lies. The result of the autopsy conducted by Guyanese officials on Jones has not been released. But Guyanese-born Dr. Hardat A. Sukhdeo, deputy chairman of clinical psychiatric services at New Jersey Medical School, who flew to Jonestown to help counsel survivors, says the report shows no evidence of disease. Says Dr. Sukhdeo: "The complaints were all part of Jones' progressively suicidal depression." According to survivors, Jones regularly dosed himself with tranquilizers and painkillers, including Valium and morphine sulphate. Tim Carter told Dr. Sukhdeo that the night before the massacres and suicides, Jones was babbling incoherently.
One of Jones' final delusions was that he would move his cult to the Soviet Union. A delegation from the commune talked twice with Feodor Timofeyev, the Soviet press attache in Georgetown, about a possible move, but a memo of that meeting shows the Russians offered little encouragement. Russian consular officials and a Russian doctor also visited Jonestown, which was the object of a favorable report by Tass. In the past few months, Russian language classes were held at the commune. Members had to recite Russian phrases, like "good morning," before receiving their rice-and-gravy meals.
On the day of the suicides, Jones' secretary ordered Carter and two other close aides to take a suitcase containing $500,000 in small bills and a letter to the Russian embassy. Because the case was too heavy, Carter says they buried it in the jungle. They later gave themselves up to Guyanese police, who now have possession of the money and letter.
Jones' dream of moving the commune to Russia may have stemmed from his delusion that he was the reincarnation of Lenin. Indeed, he once told Jeannie Mills in California: "Lenin died with a bullet in his body and so will I."
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March 25, 2007 [1st web capture] "Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple", by Jim Hougan,
Jim Jones - Jim Hougan.com
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I.4 DR. SUKHDEO AND DR. HERSH
Still, we're not done with CIA. Its relationship to Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, and therefore to the Jonestown massacre, is an important issue that will be discussed in subsequent pages.
March 25, 2007 [1st web capture] "Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple", by Jim Hougan,
Jim Jones - Jim Hougan.com
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I.4 DR. SUKHDEO AND DR. HERSH
Still, we're not done with CIA. Its relationship to Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, and therefore to the Jonestown massacre, is an important issue that will be discussed in subsequent pages.
Here, however, we are concerned with the initial reports of the massacre. And, in particular with those responsible for labeling the disaster a "mass suicide"---contrary to the evidence being gathered by Dr. Mootoo. The person who seems to have been most responsible for spinning the story in that way was Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist.
Dr. Sukhdeo is, or perhaps was, "an anti-cult activist" whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) were "homicide, suicide, and the behavior of animals in electro-magnetic fields." His arrival in Georgetown on November 27, 1978 came only three weeks after he had been named as a defendant in a controversial "deprogramming" case. [32] [32. Sukhdeo was named with "deprogrammer" Galen Kelly in a suit brought by the Circle of Friends on behalf of Joan E. Stedrak. The suit is believed to have been filed on November 6, 1978.] It is not entirely surprising, then, that within hours of his arrival in the capital, Dr. Sukhdeo began giving interviews to the press, including the New York Times, "explaining" what had happened.
Jim Jones, he said, "was a genius of mind control, a master. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have never seen anything like this...but the jungle, the isolation, gave him absolute control." Just what Dr. Sukhdeo had been able to see in his few minutes in Georgetown is unclear. But his importance in shaping the story is undoubted: he was one of the few civilian professionals at the scene, and his task was, quite simply, to help the press make sense of what had happened and to console those who had survived. Accordingly, he was widely quoted, and what he had to say was immediately echoed by colleagues back in the States.
That Sukhdeo's opinions were preconceived, rather than based upon evidence, however, seems obvious. Even so, it is clear that he was aware of the work that Dr. Mootoo had done---which, as we have seen, contradicted Sukhdeo's statements about "mass suicides."
In an interview with Time, Sukhdeo refers to an "autopsy" that had been performed on Jim Jones in Guyana. This can only have been a reference to Dr. Mootoo's somewhat cursory examination, in which Jones's body was slit open on the ground. It is difficult to understand how Sukhdeo could have been aware of that procedure without also knowing of Mootoo's finding that most of the victims had been murdered.
Dr. Sukhdeo was himself a native of Guyana, though a resident of the United States. He claimed at the time that he'd come to Georgetown at his own expense to counsel and study those who had survived. But that is in dispute.
According to his attorney, Robert Bockelman, Dr. Sukhdeo retained him to prevent his having to testify at the Larry Layton trial in San Francisco. (Layton was a member of the Peoples Temple who participated in the events at the Port Kaituma airstrip.) Dr. Sukhdeo's primary concern, according to Bockelman, was that it should not be revealed that the State Department had paid his way to Guyana. You see the issue: was Doctor Sukhdeo there to help the survivors---or to debrief them on behalf of some other person or agency? [33] [33. Asked about this in a recent interview, Sukhdeo continued to insist that he paid his own way to Guyana.]
Nor was this all. Prior to retaining counsel in San Francisco, Dr. Sukhdeo had himself been retained by Larry Layton's defense attorneys and family. (Indeed, he testified in Layton's trial in Guyana, where "most of his testimony concerned cults in general and observations about conditions at Jonestown.") [34] [34. United States v. Layton, Federal Rules (90 F.R.D. 520/1981), pp. 521-22, in re a "Memorandum and Order Denying Plaintiffs Motion to Compel Production of Sukhdeo Tapes."] During the time that he was helping Layton's defense, it appears that Dr. Sukhdeo was also meeting ---surreptitiously, according to his own lawyer---with FBI agents. Asked about this, Sukhdeo says that at no time during these meetings did he disclose any confidential communications between himself and Layton. [35] [35. Ibid.]
The suggestion that Dr. Sukhdeo may have secretly "debriefed" Jonestown's survivors on behalf of the State Department (or some other government agency) may seem unduly suspicious. On the other hand, a certain amount of suspicion would seem to prudent when discussing the unsolved deaths of more than 900 Americans who, in the weeks before they died, were preparing to defect en masse to the Soviet Union. The government's interest in this matter would logically have been intense.[36] [36. The CIA has stated that, in deference to its Charter, which prohibits the Agency from collecting information on Americans, it took no notice of the Temple's approaches to Communist Bloc organizations in Guyana. The disclaimer is widely disbelieved.]
It is true, of course, that not every psychiatrist agreed with Dr. Sukhdeo's analysis. Dr. Stephen P. Hersh, then assistant director of the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), commented that "The charges of brainwashing are clearly exaggerated. The concept of 'thought control' by cult leaders is elusive, difficult to define and even more difficult to prove. Because cult converts adopt beliefs that seem bizarre to their families and friends, it does not follow that their choices are being dictated by cult leaders." [37] [37. Associated Press, story by Chris Connell, November 21, 1978.]
That said, there is more at stake here than public perceptions. Investigators of the Guyana tragedy have a responsibility to both the living and the dead: to find out what actually happened, and to make certain that it cannot happen again.
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Sep 17, 2009 – In a recent interview with this author, Dr. Sukhdeo confirmed that Jones ... According to Sukhdeo, he has repeatedly asked to see Jones's medical file from the Institute, ... Jonestown's foremost psychiatric interpreter, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo. ... At 8:15 P.M., a Department of Defense MEDEVAC was requested by
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Sep 17, 2009 – In a recent interview with this author, Dr. Sukhdeo confirmed that Jones ... According to Sukhdeo, he has repeatedly asked to see Jones's medical file from the Institute, ... Jonestown's foremost psychiatric interpreter, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo. ... At 8:15 P.M., a Department of Defense MEDEVAC was requested by
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October 12, 2012, In Search of Black Assassins, A Case for Genocide: Black Manchurian Candidates- Donald David Defreeze, Yusuf Bey IV & The Deliberate Destruction and Deconstruction of Black Institutions,
Dr. Isidore Weiss was a Stockton, California psychiatrist born August 20, 1906 in Kalnyk, Ukraine, and died Jun 8, 1984 in Stockton, California. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1913. Dr. Weiss went to medical school in Scotland.[43] During WWII, Dr. Weiss had been an Army Psychiatrist Major.[44]
Dr. Malcolm A. Sowers of Castro Valley, CA graduated from UC-San Francisco School of Medicine in 1946. In 1950, he completed his residency at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute of San Francisco, CA.[45] [45] CIA Involvement in SLA Discussed
In regards in Langley Porter in SF, the following is interesting to note:
In a recent interview with this author, Dr. Sukhdeo confirmed that [Jim] Jones had been treated at the Langley-Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco during the 1960s. According to Sukhdeo, he has repeatedly asked to see Jones's medical file from the Institute, but to no avail. "I have asked (Langley-Porter's Dr.) Chris Hatcher to see the file several times," Sukhdeo told this writer. "But, each time, he has refused. I don't know why. He won't say. It's very peculiar. Jones has been dead for more than 20 years."
"The nation's leading center for brain research," Langley-Porter is noted for its hospitality to anti-cult activists such as Dr. Margaret Singer <who worked for MK-UILTRA> and, also, for experiments that it conducts on behalf of the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). While much of that research is classified, the Institute has experimented with behavioral modification techniques involving a wide variety of stimuli — including hypnosis-from-a-distance. Virtually every survivor of the Jonestown massacre was treated <de-briefed?> at Langley-Porter. This occurred as a consequence of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone's request that Dr. Hatcher "undertake a study" of the Peoples Temple while counseling its survivors.[46] [46]
CIA Involvement in SLA Discussed
According to Dr. Sukhdeo, "The nation's leading center for brain research," Langley-Porter is noted for its hospitality to anti-cult activists such as Dr. Margaret Singer and, also, for experiments that it conducts on behalf of the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). While much of that research is classified, the Institute has experimented with electromagnetic effects and behavioral modification techniques involving a wide variety of stimuli—including hypnosis-from-a-distance.[47] [47] Headley, Lake, Vegas P.I., Thunder Mouth Press, NY (1993) pg. 126
Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, "an anti-cult activist" whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) were"homicide, suicide, and the behavior of animals in electro-magnetic fields."[48] [48] Id.
Langley Porter was also involved with sponsoring Stanford Research Institute’s SRI) CIA remote (temporal lobe) viewing experiments led by Scientologists.[49]
_______________________________________________________________________________October 12, 2012, In Search of Black Assassins, A Case for Genocide: Black Manchurian Candidates- Donald David Defreeze, Yusuf Bey IV & The Deliberate Destruction and Deconstruction of Black Institutions,
Dr. Isidore Weiss was a Stockton, California psychiatrist born August 20, 1906 in Kalnyk, Ukraine, and died Jun 8, 1984 in Stockton, California. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1913. Dr. Weiss went to medical school in Scotland.[43] During WWII, Dr. Weiss had been an Army Psychiatrist Major.[44]
Dr. Malcolm A. Sowers of Castro Valley, CA graduated from UC-San Francisco School of Medicine in 1946. In 1950, he completed his residency at Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute of San Francisco, CA.[45] [45] CIA Involvement in SLA Discussed
In regards in Langley Porter in SF, the following is interesting to note:
In a recent interview with this author, Dr. Sukhdeo confirmed that [Jim] Jones had been treated at the Langley-Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute in San Francisco during the 1960s. According to Sukhdeo, he has repeatedly asked to see Jones's medical file from the Institute, but to no avail. "I have asked (Langley-Porter's Dr.) Chris Hatcher to see the file several times," Sukhdeo told this writer. "But, each time, he has refused. I don't know why. He won't say. It's very peculiar. Jones has been dead for more than 20 years."
"The nation's leading center for brain research," Langley-Porter is noted for its hospitality to anti-cult activists such as Dr. Margaret Singer <who worked for MK-UILTRA> and, also, for experiments that it conducts on behalf of the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). While much of that research is classified, the Institute has experimented with behavioral modification techniques involving a wide variety of stimuli — including hypnosis-from-a-distance. Virtually every survivor of the Jonestown massacre was treated <de-briefed?> at Langley-Porter. This occurred as a consequence of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone's request that Dr. Hatcher "undertake a study" of the Peoples Temple while counseling its survivors.[46] [46]
CIA Involvement in SLA Discussed
According to Dr. Sukhdeo, "The nation's leading center for brain research," Langley-Porter is noted for its hospitality to anti-cult activists such as Dr. Margaret Singer and, also, for experiments that it conducts on behalf of the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). While much of that research is classified, the Institute has experimented with electromagnetic effects and behavioral modification techniques involving a wide variety of stimuli—including hypnosis-from-a-distance.[47] [47] Headley, Lake, Vegas P.I., Thunder Mouth Press, NY (1993) pg. 126
Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, "an anti-cult activist" whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) were"homicide, suicide, and the behavior of animals in electro-magnetic fields."[48] [48] Id.
Langley Porter was also involved with sponsoring Stanford Research Institute’s SRI) CIA remote (temporal lobe) viewing experiments led by Scientologists.[49]
February 1974, The Realist, The SLA Is The CIA, Part I, by Mae Brussell, part II, part III, part IV,
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SPACESHIPS AND KNIGHTS OF THE BLACK SUN, THEY MAKE ...
mindcontrolblackassassins.com/.../spaceships-and-knights-of-the-black-s...
Sep 28, 2012 – Virtually every survivor of the Jonestown massacre was treated ...Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, “an ...
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Scientology | In Search of Black Assassins
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Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, "an anti-cult activist" whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) ..
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In Search of Black Assassins | Just another WordPress.com weblog ...
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Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, “an anti-cult activist” whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) ...
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[PDF] The cult phenomenon: fad or fact? -New York University School of Law
www.law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv2/...of.../ecm_pro_072677.pdf
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New York University Law Review Journal
* Portions of this paper appear in revised form in Prison or Paradise? The New
Religious Cults, by A. James Rudin and Marcia R. Rudin, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980.
48. Testimony of Rabbi Laurence Gevirtz at The Assembly of the State of New York Public Hearing on Treatment of Children by Cults, Aug. 9, 1979, Vol. n, at 110 [hereinafler ciled as Public Hearing].
71. Testimony of Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, Public Hearing, supra note 48, vol. Ill, at 10._________________________________________________________________________________
Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown - Page 163 - Google Books Result
books.google.com/books?isbn=025321632X
David Chidester - 2003 - Religion
Dr. Hardat A. Sukhdeo, Guyana-born chief of psychiatry at Rutgers Medical School, interviewed survivors in Georgetown and subsequently maintained contact ...
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2008, Secret suppressed II [electronic resource]: banned ideas and hidden history, edited by Adam Parfrey, Kenn Thomas, Feral House,
Page 192 - Google Books Result
... on such remarkably generous terms. Today, Rabbi Davis is a prominent anti-cult activist, a sometime deprogrammer, and an associate of Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo.
________________________________________________________________________________
October 2, 2008, [1st web capture] Academic Writing, Jonestown and The Social Psychology of Accepted Truth, by David Godot,
Everybody "knows" what happened in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. At the behest of their charismatic leader, all the members of the Peoples Temple religious cult—the residents of Jonestown—"lined up in a pavilion in front of a vat containing a mixture of Kool-Aid and cyanide" and "drank willingly of the deadly solution" (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005, pp.4-5). That citation is taken from a popular Social Psychology textbook, and is a resounding demonstration of the phenomenon that this paper will attempt to explore: you see, the authors of that textbook feel so secure in their knowledge of the events surrounding the deaths in Jonestown that they feel no need to provide a reference for it. It is entered into the student consciousness as common knowledge. The fact that the popularly-accepted truth that Aronson, et al are parroting in this example is plainly false is almost beside the point, although this paper will provide a brief examination of some of the evidence which contradicts that accepted truth. The problem is much broader than the debunking of a single myth, and demands that some very important and difficult questions receive systematic evaluation: how is it that entire populations "know" things that contradict all available evidence, and what can be done to mediate this effect?
In considering the events of Jonestown, we might do well to start out by questioning our own credulity. What do we actually know about Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, and from what sources? Does our understanding of the events stand up to logical scrutiny? Furthermore, as social psychologists, let us ask ourselves this very important question: In light of our current understanding of the power of social influence, do we believe it is plausible that 900 people took their own lives, simply because they were asked to? If so, are we willing to believe that we would behave in the same manner if subjected to similar social influences? As Aronson, et al (p.14) point out in their discussion of the Peoples Temple, "it is tempting and, in a strange way, comforting to write off the victims as flawed human beings. Doing so gives the rest of us the feeling that it could never happen to us." The problem is that they use this rationale to imply that people would behave in a way that no empirical evidence has verified. Theirs is an argument from paranoia, having arisen out of its conclusion and stating as truism that which is both counterintuitive and unsupported. The idea here is not merely to pick on the authors of a textbook, but to pinpoint a mindset that is pervasive enough that it remains largely invisible in our society.
As Eileen Barker, the President of the Society for Scientific Study of Religions, has noted, "the belief in irresistible and irreversible mind-control techniques is so widespread that the democratic societies of Western Europe and North America appear to give 'permission' to citizens to carry out criminal attacks on someone merely on the grounds that he or she is a member of an unpopular religious group" (1996). Her research, however, does not support this belief. Furthermore, although there is very little research into the matter aside from her own, a small number of academics have taken up careers as "expert witnesses," providing fervent yet unsubstantiated support to the idea. In the case of Jonestown, that man's name was Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo. Jim Hougan writes:
Dr. Sukhdeo is, or was then, "an anti-cult activist" whose principal interests (as per an autobiographical note) are "homicide, suicide, and the behavior of animals in electro-magnetic fields." His arrival in Georgetown on November 27, 1978 came only three weeks after he had been named as a defendant in a controversial "deprogramming" case. It is not entirely surprising, then, that within hours of his arrival in the capital, Dr. Sukhdeo began giving interviews to the press, including the New York Times, "explaining" what had happened.
Jim Jones, he said, "was a genius of mind control, a master. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have never seen anything like this…but the jungle, the isolation, gave him absolute control." Just what Dr. Sukhdeo had been able to see in his few minutes in Georgetown is unclear. But his importance in shaping the story is undoubted: he was one of the few civilian professionals at the scene, and his task was, quite simply, to help the press make sense of what had happened and to console those who had survived. He was widely quoted, and what he had to say was immediately echoed by colleagues back in the States. (1999)
The idea that a charismatic individual can completely overtake the decision-making power of random victims and use their mindless bodies to do his bidding even to the point of inciting a uniform mass suicide, with 600 adult individuals willfully—even joyously—killing themselves and their children is startling, anxiety-provoking, ambiguous, and enticing. It is, in short, good material for conversation. It is precisely the stuff of which rumors, gossip, and urban legends are made (Guerin & Miyazaki, 2006). It is not a realistic causal evaluation of plausible events, but is rather a good example of what is called "magical thinking," the type of credulity typically associated with the pre-rational thought processes of young children. However, research indicates that people tend to abandon magical beliefs in word only as they mature. "Indeed, in their general patterns of judgments, actions and justifications, adult participants seem to be prepared to respect both scientific and non-scientific causal explanations to an equal extent" (Subbotsky, 2001). By sharing rumors with amongst ourselves in the course of conversation and by receiving fantastical official versions through the media, this tendency toward fascination becomes manifest. Wherever mass media is the source of the information, we must also take into account the social component of individual judgement, which is a considerable influence (Joslyn, 1997). For, as McLuhan noted, sociality of mass media is profoundly experienced—when we watch television, we are influenced not only by the content of the programming but also by the knowledge that a large number of our peers are watching as well (1964).
This may help to explain why so many of us have accepted a version of the Jonestown events that are implausible. In addition to the psychological discrepancies we have already noted, let us observe that death by cyanide poisoning is a painful and grotesque affair. Central nervous system signals become scrambled, causing both voluntary and involuntary muscular systems to spasm violently. Twisted, contorted limbs and a terrible grimace known as cyanide rictus are typical of this cause of death (Jaffe, 1983 as cited in Judge, 1985). However, none of the more than 150 available photographs of the victims reveal these symptoms. Furthermore, the victims were laid out in neat rows, and some of the closer range photos reveal drag marks on the ground, indicating that the corpses were arranged in this way after their death. Based on an investigation that included the testimony of Dr. Leslie Mootoo, the top Guyanese pathologist who served as Chief Medical Examiner for the case and who personally examined many of the Jonestown bodies, a Guyanese grand jury concluded that only two of the 913 dead had committed suicide. Dr. Mootoo found fresh needle marks near the left shoulder blades of the vast majority of the victims he inspected, with some others exhibiting gunshot wounds or strangulation as the likely cause of death. The gun with which Jones himself is purported to have shot himself in the head was found lying nearly 60 feet from his body (Judge, 1985; Hougan, 1999; Schnepper, 1999). It is evident, then, that the supposed "mass suicide" was actually a massacre—but who would slaughter nearly a thousand U.S.citizens, nearly all of whom were African Americans, women, and underprivileged children?
There is a substantial body of evidence connecting Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple to the covert operations of the United States government intelligence community, not least of which are his longstanding ties with CIA operative Dan Mitrione, his adeptness at infiltrating and exploiting local governments, the suspicious circumstances surrounding the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan in Guyana the evening before the massacre (whose escort was a high-ranking CIA officer), and the enormous cache of psychiatric drugs found on the premises of the Peoples Temple colony—all of the type being experimented with at that time under the CIA's MKULTRA mind-control project (Judge, 1985; Hougan, 1999). Additional evidence of U.S.government involvement in the affair involves the self-proclaimed "anti-cult activist" psychiatrist Dr. Sukhdeo, whose own attorney has stated that his trip to Guyana was funded by the U.S. State Department.
The possibility exists that Jonestown, Guyana was indeed one of the many government experiments in mind-control of the 1970s. If it is, however, it would seem that the experimental subjects included not only the members of the Peoples Temple, but also the public at large. Regardless of intention, we have here a clear case of a governmental bureaucracy producing and disseminating misinformation for one reason or another, and the public—including the scientific community—accepting it without question, repeating it with authority, and even using it as a basis for social theory. The danger that this presents to free society is unspeakably enormous, and the need for a concerted scientific effort to understand its limits and to develop safeguards is equally enormous.
SPACESHIPS AND KNIGHTS OF THE BLACK SUN, THEY MAKE ...
mindcontrolblackassassins.com/.../spaceships-and-knights-of-the-black-s...
Sep 28, 2012 – Virtually every survivor of the Jonestown massacre was treated ...Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, “an ...
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Scientology | In Search of Black Assassins
mindcontrolblackassassins.com/category/scientology/
Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, "an anti-cult activist" whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) ..
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In Search of Black Assassins | Just another WordPress.com weblog ...
mindcontrolblackassassins.com/page/2/
Interestingly, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist, is, or perhaps was, “an anti-cult activist” whose professional interests (according to an autobiographical note) ...
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[PDF] The cult phenomenon: fad or fact? -New York University School of Law
www.law.nyu.edu/ecm_dlv2/...of.../ecm_pro_072677.pdf
Cached
New York University Law Review Journal
* Portions of this paper appear in revised form in Prison or Paradise? The New
Religious Cults, by A. James Rudin and Marcia R. Rudin, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980.
48. Testimony of Rabbi Laurence Gevirtz at The Assembly of the State of New York Public Hearing on Treatment of Children by Cults, Aug. 9, 1979, Vol. n, at 110 [hereinafler ciled as Public Hearing].
71. Testimony of Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, Public Hearing, supra note 48, vol. Ill, at 10._________________________________________________________________________________
Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown - Page 163 - Google Books Result
books.google.com/books?isbn=025321632X
David Chidester - 2003 - Religion
Dr. Hardat A. Sukhdeo, Guyana-born chief of psychiatry at Rutgers Medical School, interviewed survivors in Georgetown and subsequently maintained contact ...
______________________________________________________________________________
2008, Secret suppressed II [electronic resource]: banned ideas and hidden history, edited by Adam Parfrey, Kenn Thomas, Feral House,
Page 192 - Google Books Result
... on such remarkably generous terms. Today, Rabbi Davis is a prominent anti-cult activist, a sometime deprogrammer, and an associate of Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo.
________________________________________________________________________________
October 2, 2008, [1st web capture] Academic Writing, Jonestown and The Social Psychology of Accepted Truth, by David Godot,
Everybody "knows" what happened in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. At the behest of their charismatic leader, all the members of the Peoples Temple religious cult—the residents of Jonestown—"lined up in a pavilion in front of a vat containing a mixture of Kool-Aid and cyanide" and "drank willingly of the deadly solution" (Aronson, Wilson, & Akert, 2005, pp.4-5). That citation is taken from a popular Social Psychology textbook, and is a resounding demonstration of the phenomenon that this paper will attempt to explore: you see, the authors of that textbook feel so secure in their knowledge of the events surrounding the deaths in Jonestown that they feel no need to provide a reference for it. It is entered into the student consciousness as common knowledge. The fact that the popularly-accepted truth that Aronson, et al are parroting in this example is plainly false is almost beside the point, although this paper will provide a brief examination of some of the evidence which contradicts that accepted truth. The problem is much broader than the debunking of a single myth, and demands that some very important and difficult questions receive systematic evaluation: how is it that entire populations "know" things that contradict all available evidence, and what can be done to mediate this effect?
In considering the events of Jonestown, we might do well to start out by questioning our own credulity. What do we actually know about Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, and from what sources? Does our understanding of the events stand up to logical scrutiny? Furthermore, as social psychologists, let us ask ourselves this very important question: In light of our current understanding of the power of social influence, do we believe it is plausible that 900 people took their own lives, simply because they were asked to? If so, are we willing to believe that we would behave in the same manner if subjected to similar social influences? As Aronson, et al (p.14) point out in their discussion of the Peoples Temple, "it is tempting and, in a strange way, comforting to write off the victims as flawed human beings. Doing so gives the rest of us the feeling that it could never happen to us." The problem is that they use this rationale to imply that people would behave in a way that no empirical evidence has verified. Theirs is an argument from paranoia, having arisen out of its conclusion and stating as truism that which is both counterintuitive and unsupported. The idea here is not merely to pick on the authors of a textbook, but to pinpoint a mindset that is pervasive enough that it remains largely invisible in our society.
As Eileen Barker, the President of the Society for Scientific Study of Religions, has noted, "the belief in irresistible and irreversible mind-control techniques is so widespread that the democratic societies of Western Europe and North America appear to give 'permission' to citizens to carry out criminal attacks on someone merely on the grounds that he or she is a member of an unpopular religious group" (1996). Her research, however, does not support this belief. Furthermore, although there is very little research into the matter aside from her own, a small number of academics have taken up careers as "expert witnesses," providing fervent yet unsubstantiated support to the idea. In the case of Jonestown, that man's name was Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo. Jim Hougan writes:
Dr. Sukhdeo is, or was then, "an anti-cult activist" whose principal interests (as per an autobiographical note) are "homicide, suicide, and the behavior of animals in electro-magnetic fields." His arrival in Georgetown on November 27, 1978 came only three weeks after he had been named as a defendant in a controversial "deprogramming" case. It is not entirely surprising, then, that within hours of his arrival in the capital, Dr. Sukhdeo began giving interviews to the press, including the New York Times, "explaining" what had happened.
Jim Jones, he said, "was a genius of mind control, a master. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have never seen anything like this…but the jungle, the isolation, gave him absolute control." Just what Dr. Sukhdeo had been able to see in his few minutes in Georgetown is unclear. But his importance in shaping the story is undoubted: he was one of the few civilian professionals at the scene, and his task was, quite simply, to help the press make sense of what had happened and to console those who had survived. He was widely quoted, and what he had to say was immediately echoed by colleagues back in the States. (1999)
The idea that a charismatic individual can completely overtake the decision-making power of random victims and use their mindless bodies to do his bidding even to the point of inciting a uniform mass suicide, with 600 adult individuals willfully—even joyously—killing themselves and their children is startling, anxiety-provoking, ambiguous, and enticing. It is, in short, good material for conversation. It is precisely the stuff of which rumors, gossip, and urban legends are made (Guerin & Miyazaki, 2006). It is not a realistic causal evaluation of plausible events, but is rather a good example of what is called "magical thinking," the type of credulity typically associated with the pre-rational thought processes of young children. However, research indicates that people tend to abandon magical beliefs in word only as they mature. "Indeed, in their general patterns of judgments, actions and justifications, adult participants seem to be prepared to respect both scientific and non-scientific causal explanations to an equal extent" (Subbotsky, 2001). By sharing rumors with amongst ourselves in the course of conversation and by receiving fantastical official versions through the media, this tendency toward fascination becomes manifest. Wherever mass media is the source of the information, we must also take into account the social component of individual judgement, which is a considerable influence (Joslyn, 1997). For, as McLuhan noted, sociality of mass media is profoundly experienced—when we watch television, we are influenced not only by the content of the programming but also by the knowledge that a large number of our peers are watching as well (1964).
This may help to explain why so many of us have accepted a version of the Jonestown events that are implausible. In addition to the psychological discrepancies we have already noted, let us observe that death by cyanide poisoning is a painful and grotesque affair. Central nervous system signals become scrambled, causing both voluntary and involuntary muscular systems to spasm violently. Twisted, contorted limbs and a terrible grimace known as cyanide rictus are typical of this cause of death (Jaffe, 1983 as cited in Judge, 1985). However, none of the more than 150 available photographs of the victims reveal these symptoms. Furthermore, the victims were laid out in neat rows, and some of the closer range photos reveal drag marks on the ground, indicating that the corpses were arranged in this way after their death. Based on an investigation that included the testimony of Dr. Leslie Mootoo, the top Guyanese pathologist who served as Chief Medical Examiner for the case and who personally examined many of the Jonestown bodies, a Guyanese grand jury concluded that only two of the 913 dead had committed suicide. Dr. Mootoo found fresh needle marks near the left shoulder blades of the vast majority of the victims he inspected, with some others exhibiting gunshot wounds or strangulation as the likely cause of death. The gun with which Jones himself is purported to have shot himself in the head was found lying nearly 60 feet from his body (Judge, 1985; Hougan, 1999; Schnepper, 1999). It is evident, then, that the supposed "mass suicide" was actually a massacre—but who would slaughter nearly a thousand U.S.citizens, nearly all of whom were African Americans, women, and underprivileged children?
There is a substantial body of evidence connecting Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple to the covert operations of the United States government intelligence community, not least of which are his longstanding ties with CIA operative Dan Mitrione, his adeptness at infiltrating and exploiting local governments, the suspicious circumstances surrounding the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan in Guyana the evening before the massacre (whose escort was a high-ranking CIA officer), and the enormous cache of psychiatric drugs found on the premises of the Peoples Temple colony—all of the type being experimented with at that time under the CIA's MKULTRA mind-control project (Judge, 1985; Hougan, 1999). Additional evidence of U.S.government involvement in the affair involves the self-proclaimed "anti-cult activist" psychiatrist Dr. Sukhdeo, whose own attorney has stated that his trip to Guyana was funded by the U.S. State Department.
The possibility exists that Jonestown, Guyana was indeed one of the many government experiments in mind-control of the 1970s. If it is, however, it would seem that the experimental subjects included not only the members of the Peoples Temple, but also the public at large. Regardless of intention, we have here a clear case of a governmental bureaucracy producing and disseminating misinformation for one reason or another, and the public—including the scientific community—accepting it without question, repeating it with authority, and even using it as a basis for social theory. The danger that this presents to free society is unspeakably enormous, and the need for a concerted scientific effort to understand its limits and to develop safeguards is equally enormous.
References
Aronson, Elliot, Wilson, Timothy D., & Akert, Robin M. (2005). Social Psychology, 5th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Barker, Eileen (1996)."The Freedom of the Cage." Society, Vol. 33 Issue 3, pp. 53-59.
Guerin, Bernard & Miiyazaki, Yoshihiko (2006). The Psychological Record, Vol. 56, pp.23-24.
Hougan, Jim (1999). "Jonestown. The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue." Lobster, Vol. 37, pp.2-20.
Joslyn, Mark R. (1997). Political Behavior, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 337-343.
Judge, John (1985). "The Black Hole of Guyana: The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre." In Keith, Jim (Ed.), Secret and Suppressed: Banned Ideas and Hidden History. Portland, OR: Feral House.
McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Schnepper, Jeff A. (1999). "Jonestown Massacre: The unrevealed story." USA Today Magazine, Vol. 127 Issue 2644, p26.
Subbotsky, Eugene (2001). British Journal of Developmental Psychology, Vol. 19, pp.23-46.
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November 8, 1998, San Francisco Examiner, Utopian Nightmare, by Larry Hatfield,
James Warren Jones was born May 13, 1931, in a tattered town called Crete in Indiana. He was different from the beginning--a Holy Roller preacher as a child, selling spider monkeys on the streets of Indianapolis to buy food as a young student and modeling himself after Father Divine, whose Peace Mission drew a cult following at the time.
In a credo that would refine and warp itself until the end, he developed a set of professed beliefs, sometimes called "apostolic socialism," that ignored God while deifying social justice and worshipping the slavific power of socialism. He became a student minister at an Indiana Methodist church in 1952. He left the Methodists because the church wouldn't desegregate, and in the 1950s founded the movement that would take various names as it evolved into Peoples Temple.
In 1965, Jones and his wife, Marceline, brought the nascent temple and a handful of the faithful to California, the promised land for alternative religions.
A CHURCH IN REDWOOD VALLEY
The Joneses and their rainbow family of adopted children and about 70 followers set up in the sylvan Redwood Valley near Ukiah where relations between them and the laidback locals were uneasy but generally peaceful. Jones quickly relocated his church to the bigger and more lucrative markets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. He moved Peoples Temple into an abandoned synagogue in The City's Fillmore district.
While attracting a growing congregation of urban blacks, he used his considerable intellectual and acting skills to bring onto his bandwagon many of San Francisco's leading politicians. Current Mayor Brown was one of Jones' biggest cheerleaders, hailing him as a blend of Martin Luther King, Einstein and Mao. Then-Lt. Gov. Mervyn Dymally was another. Mayor George Moscone was still another, naming Jones to head his Housing Commission and, some said, owing his razor-thin election to the few hundred illegal voters Jones allegedly and other seekers were hearing from Jones' pulpit. …But the politics of the day also fed the paranoia in Jones. He believed the government was conspiring to continue the war in Vietnam and spy on such groups as the Black Panthers. The government was not to be trusted. The government also was working covertly against Jones and the temple, seeking to short-circuit the drive for a better society.
Jones believed all this and so, to an almost universal extent, did the Temple congregation. So Jones moved the temple and 1,000 or so followers to Guyana's outback, winning a 25-year lease on 3,852 acres in the Orinoco River basin near the disputed border with Venezuela. A small group of temple pioneers moved in 1974 to what was to become Jonestown, far from the hostile attacks of media, government and others. The lease from the Guyana government required the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project to "cultivate and beneficially occupy" at least one-fifth of the land by 1976. Temple members raised livestock and grew pineapple, cassava, eddoes and other tropical fruits and vegetables. Charles Garry, Peoples Temple's San Francisco lawyer, called it a paradise.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
But there was trouble in paradise. The camp never became agriculturally self-sustaining and the swift tropical diseases of the jungle ran rampant. At the end, only a third of the residents were able-bodied. Worse, critics said, it was a prison camp--people were not allowed to leave. Abusive practices such as beatings and forced sex, long-rumored but little-reported at the San Francisco church, escalated. Jones' deteriorating mental stability made him increasingly erratic and he demanded utter, unquestioning loyalty. Agencies from the State Department and the CIA to the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Service were investigating or taking legal action against Peoples Temple for mail fraud, wresting Social Security checks from members, arms and narcotics trafficking, and other crimes, real or imagined. Aiding and abetting the conspiracy in the eyes of Jones and his followers were the few temple defectors and families of members who were getting attention from the hostile North American media. Against this background, Jones, who was white, and his predominantly white inner circle had faithful followers practice mass suicide in a series of "white nights." Such a drastic end was the only possible response to the vast and growing outside threat, Jones preached. The people believed him.
CONGRESSMAN'S VISIT
The final act began to unfold when Ryan, a respected Democratic congressman from San Mateo County with a taste for headlines, lead a delegation of newsmen and a group of family members called the Concerned Relatives to Jonestown to investigate allegations of thought control, imprisonment, drug- and gun-running. Ryan was knifed--superficially--during the visit. When he was ready to leave, several Jonestown residents asked to leave with him, an action that apparently triggered the subsequent massacre of Ryan, Robinson and the others at Port Kaituma. The incredible scene of mass death quickly followed at Jonestown. "We died because you would not let us live," wrote temple insider Annie Moore in her suicide note. Among those who survived was Jim Jones' son, Stephan, who was away with the camp's basketball team. It was left to the younger Jones, who had broken with his father and since has denounced him repeatedly, to declare Jim Jones' most durable epitaph. In a recent ABC television visit to Jonestown, Stephan Jones said simply, "My father was a fraud." While no one denies that Jones was a madman, some feel the people of Jonestown have been unfairly characterized as mindless zombies. "The people who died in Jonestown were sweet, altruistic people. One the of the tragedies of Jonestown is that people haven't paid attention to that," says Timothy Stoen, whose son, John Victor, died at Jonestown. Stoen played a pivotal role in a custody battle with Jones that helped precipitate the murder-suicides. Among Ryan's reasons for going to Guyana was the custody fight. "No single theory could possibly explain the many complex and related issues that led the members of the Peoples Temple to leave family, friends and church communities and take residence in the jungle of Jonestown," says Archie Smith Jr., professor of pastoral psychology at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. "Labeled by many as sick, dysfunctional or disadvantaged, (they) were seeking an alternative to the status quo, new and just ways of living and being in the world." "Amidst all the attention that was focused on Jim Jones, the people were accorded scarcely any respect as thinking, feeling, caring human beings....The dehumanizing of the victims of Jonestown by the journalistic community was tantamount to the withholding of permission to grieve."
TRAGIC CHANGE IN DIRECTION
Maaga says the lessons of Jonestown are to be learned by trying to figure out why the committed veered so tragically from their vision of a better world. "I think things went right earlier in the movement," Maaga says, pointing to the temple's successful social programs in San Francisco. "What we should be talking about is what went right and when did it go wrong," she said, suggesting the answers might prevent similar tragedies. "I don't think Peoples Temple was a singular example of a self-righteous religion gone horribly awry. "What was important about it was what they (the members) were--as people--not just how they died." Rebecca Moore, a University of North Dakota professor of religion and philosophy, lost her sisters Carolyn Layton and Annie Moore at Jonestown, as well as her nephew, Jim-Jon Prokes. She says some of the still-unexplored questions are whether people in San Francisco could have prevented the tragedy by reining in Jones before he was all-powerful and crazy; what responsibility Willie Brown and others had before and after the catastrophe; and the role of the black church. "At times I despair that we've learned nothing," Moore says. "By that I mean that people continue to demonize (Jones) and forget the others. "As a society we fail to take seriously the very strong and powerful desire, or hunger, for community, a community of people working for social change. The people in Jonestown were trying to create a Utopian society, racial justice and social equality. Granted, there were internal contradictions, but they were one of the few groups intentionally addressing the problem of racism and trying concretely to do something about it." The media, Moore says, almost always dwells on the dead bodies and on Jones himself; the government has swept under the rug all understanding of Jonestown and of its own role. No official inquiry was held in the United States and the Guyanan investigation was almost laughably superficial. Jonestown, Berkeley's Smith warns, "was not an anomaly. Rather, it was a product of the evolving ethos of our time, an ethos that tends to repress and trivialize the essentially religious impulse. The social and historical forces that gave rise to Jonestown 20 years ago operate today."
A CENTRAL LESSON UNLEARNED
"Perhaps the biggest heartache of all," Sawyer says, "is that our country and our churches still have not sought an answer to the question of why the people joined this movement, and so still have not discerned the central lesson of Jonestown. Why, indeed, were white idealists and black Christians drawn to a movement that promised them sanctuary from America's failure to honor her promises of equality and justice? "Churches, like the public, were so horrified they psychologically needed to distance themselves...to handle the reality of it. Most people know what Jonestown is but if you say Peoples Temple, people will have a blank look. They don't know there was a longstanding social change movement. "And they're no more informed today than they were 20 years ago. I hope this anniversary will not be just a replay of Jim Jones as a crazy man but that there is some conscientious effort to make America understand. It takes two or three decades before people start asking the right questions....There hasn't been that kind of soul-searching. "It's important to do this. We have to have sense of the wounds that are still there."
"What should we be talking about?" asks Jackie Speier, who was elected to the California Assembly after the tragedy and on Tuesday was elected to the state Senate. "We should be talking about the fact that the menace of cults still lingers. Cults are still around. They're all around us. Many continue to operate under the guise of being religious, under the guise of religiosity and the First Amendment, violating state and federal laws (while) the government again looks the other way." Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born psychiatrist who treated Jonestown survivors, says the conditions that created Peoples Temple could create a similar movement. People joined the temple because "they needed to have this type of togetherness and leadership and somebody to tell them what to do and when to do it," said Sukhdeo, of Rutgers University. Sukhdeo sees the majority of temple members, mostly black, as largely alienated and at sea. The Peoples Temple was more of a place to improve their own lives than to achieve the societal do-goodism espoused by young whites who joined.
"They wanted something like the cult to say, 'Yes, we know the truth. Yes, we have the answers.' They were lost, they were angry and they didn't feel they belonged to society." Nothing has changed, he says: Groups such as Branch Davidian and Heaven's Gate prove that the attraction to cults remains.
A DISTRUST OF RELIGION
The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey, rector of San Francisco's Trinity Episcopal Church, says that a "sad part of Jonestown is it has sent a message of distrust of religion, particularly the small sect religions....(There is) a sense of 'if you're religious, this is what might happen to you.' "But on the positive side, people are looking more critically before getting involved in religious programs, especially the more fringe type of things. Look at the kind of scrutiny now given to Hare Krishna, Scientology and the like. That's as it should be."
Timothy Stoen also warns of the dangers of cults. "There are a lot of Jim Jones wannabes out there," said Stoen, who recently moved to Colorado Springs from Mendocino. "...You can't wish them away...(but) one hopefully can learn from (Peoples Temple) that these things can be lethal and there comes a point early on when you can do something about it." The psychological isolation that leads people to seek groups like Peoples Temple still exists, he says, urging families of cultists to ask questions, challenge the groups and otherwise get involved. "People just have to take an even-handed look that this is kind of a sign of our times--people need structure, community, etc. If mainline churches don't provide it, there'll be cults. Those cults will be there serving some sort of need."
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August 20, 1979, Medical World News, Cult Expert Says Jonestown Survivors Need Psychotherapy,
A New Jersey psychiatrist who has treated 35 survivors of the mass suicide of People’s Temple adherents (MWN, December 11, 1978, p. 10) has asked the National Institute of Mental Health for $28,000 to bring cult members and relatives out of deep depression. Paranoid and suicidal, afraid and ashamed to re-enter society, the followers of Rev. Jim Jones and their kin won't be able to shake mental demons without extensive counseling, says Dr. Hardat A.S. Sukhdeo, a professor of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark. Dr. Sukhdeo has asked NIMH to set up local mental health clinic psychologist George Peterson as chairman of an aid committee for the survivors, most of whom live here.
Guyana-born Dr. Sukhdeo, a cult expert, flew to Georgetown to study survivors soon after the Jonestown tragedy. "I'd gained their trust after living 10 days with them," he says. "But when we got back to the States the government wouldn't let me go on deprogramming them. Now they're scattered from Alabama to Idaho."
NIMH paid Dr. Sukhdeo to travel here in February and April to treat survivors and to mobilize mental health professionals to continue their care. He returned on his own to spend July treating them. Of 35 survivors, seven to 57 years old, he has treated, 23 can't work or go to school, he says. "They have no friends except other People's Temple members. They feel ashamed about having been taken in by Jones. They have nightmares about the deaths. One committed suicide; others may follow. Some have turned to prostitution or drug addiction. It's late, but not too late, to help them."
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Jim Jones and their kin won't be able to shake mental demons without extensive counseling, says Dr. Hardat A.S. Sukhdeo, a professor of psychiatry at the New ...
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Mar 20, 2000 – Two hundred seventy-six of the 913 who died at Jonestown, Guyana...... Testimony of Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo at The Assembly of the State of New ...
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U.S. v. LAYTON - June 3, 1987. - Leagle.com
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The most damaging statements made by Layton were contained on tapes of several interviews with Dr. Hardat Arjune Sukhdeo. In those interviews, which took ...
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FindACase™ | UNITED STATES v. LAYTON
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FindACase™ | UNITED STATES v. LAYTON
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UNITED STATES v. LAYTON - January 11, 1982.
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The Sukhdeo materials. Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, Chief of Psychiatry at Jersey Medical School in New Jersey, interviewed Layton within a short period of time after ...
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Behind The Blue Wall: 2007/05
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Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born psychiatrist who treated Jonestown survivors, says the conditions that created Peoples Temple could create a similar ...
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March 29, 1992, Palm Beach Post, Guru Ma: Saintly Or Sinister?, by Jenny Vogt, Staff Writer,
She moves among her followers in a heavy cloud of perfume, her long black hair framing the red Hindu tilak spot on her forehead. Intricate tattoos circle her ankles and adorn her wrists. A diamond glitters in her right nostril.
Behold Ma Jaya Bhagavati Cho, guru, lover of humanity, angel of mercy, saint. Or egomaniacal, child-obsessed cult priestess. It depends on whom you ask.
To her followers, who have included folk singer Arlo Guthrie and the late Kimberly Bergalis, she is simply Ma. Earlier in life she was Joyce Green Difiore, a Jewish housewife from Brooklyn with little education, lots of chutzpah and a vision of Christ.
"She has the heart of Mother Teresa with the mouth of Bette Midler," a follower said.
Now, she is a flamboyant spiritual leader teaching a hybrid of Eastern and Western religion to more than 150 earnest followers who view her as a living deity and themselves as her chosen people. Most live on or near a secluded, 41-acre ashram or ranch in Indian River County.
But Cho, 51, is not the saint she seems to her disciples, say law enforcement officials, cult experts and eight former followers. To them, she is an ego-driven tyrant whose mind-control tactics make people willing to do anything to win her favor, including giving up their money, personal identities, families, free will-- even their newborn babies.
Cho called the claims "nonsense" and said they are the opinions of former followers who were upset because they didn't receive enough attention from her.
"They threaten to leave. They threaten to destroy me. I don't care," Cho said. "I'm here on earth to serve humanity. That's all I know."
An attorney who represented two former followers trying to retrieve their teenage son and adult twin daughters from Cho in the early 1980s said the group is destructive.
"You don't know what you're getting into once you start dealing with this cult. It's entering the danger zone," said attorney Joe Gersten, a Miami-Dade Metro commissioner.
Cho's Kashi Church Foundation Inc. is tax-exempt and non-profit. It operates a licensed, unaccredited kindergarten-to-12th grade school for about 75 students, a third of whom live off the ranch.
Kashi means "city of light" in Hindu.
Residents live semi-communally in large houses and apartments on the ranch. Most have jobs off the ranch. They share meals and child care. They co-host the annual Indian River Festival, which is Saturday in Vero Beach.
A single resident pays roughly $700 a month for a private room at the ranch, said attorney John Evans, one of 21 disciples employed on the ashram. Cho's charitable work, which emphasizes feeding and caring for the sick, takes her to Palm Beach County, Los Angeles and elsewhere. The work is supported by donations and the sale of her abstract expressionist artwork, Evans said.
Birth certificates list Cho and her husband SooSe Cho as the parents either together or individually of four children born between 1978 and 1982. Cho initially said she had adopted the children, including a 13-year-old boy she said is her grandson. Later, she said she had adopted only two of the children. The remaining two, whose parents still live at the ranch, are "like foster children that I raised," Cho said.
Followers Gina and Richard Rosenkranz, birth parents of one of the "foster children" raised by Cho, said they asked Cho to raise their child for them in 1982 because they felt unable to do so themselves. Gina said she impulsively signed Cho's name to the birth certificate to make it easier for Cho to assume the role of mother to the boy, now 9.
"You have to understand I was so freaked out at the time," said Gina, 33. "I was crazed. I was young and I didn't know what to do. I knew I didn't want to have a baby."
In 1990, the Rosenkranzes changed the names on their child's birth certificate so they would be listed as the parents, but Cho still remains the primary caretaker, they said.
Follower Karen Chappelear, the natural mother of the second of the two "foster children," said the name of SooSe Cho, Cho's husband, appears on her child's birth certificate, but he is not the natural father. She said SooSe Cho agreed to have his name appear on the certificate because Chappelear was unmarried and did not know who the father of her child was.
Chappelear, 39, said she asked Ma Jaya Bhagavati Cho to raise her daughter, now 9, because she did not want to do so herself. Cho remains the child's primary caretaker, she added.
"I was very insistent I didn't want to have the child myself and eventually she said she would help me to raise the baby," Chappelear said.
Both Chappelear and the Rosenkranzes said they were never approached by Ma to give their children up to her, but did so of their own volition.
Cho said she had the parents' consent to raise the two children, but she said she was unaware her name was on the birth certificates.
Evans would not allow an interview with the parents of Cho's grandson.
Rosanne Henry, a former follower now living in Colorado, tells a different story. Henry said she and her husband and the three other sets of natural parents were coerced or pressured into giving up their newborn children to Cho in the early 1980s. She said Cho directed all four mothers to deliver at different hospitals and sign Cho's name-- or her maiden name-- as the natural mother on the birth certificate.
Four residents who lived on the ranch at the same time as Henry corroborated her story. Three of them insisted that they remain anonymous.
"It was about the cruelest thing you can do to someone other than murdering your child," Henry said.
Cho denies Henry's story, calling her "just a very sad, depressed woman."
"I was in my 40s. There was no way I wanted to have children," Cho said. "In some cases, the parents were having a very hard time together. There was no money. They didn't want the children. They were going to put them up for adoption. One said that if I would take the child she would have it, but if not she would abort."
The Kashi Church Foundation Inc. has many similarities to Jim Jones' People's Temple, said Dr. Hardat A.S. Sukhdeo, a retired psychiatrist and cult expert who counseled survivors of the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, massacre.
"Her (Cho's) manipulative behavior very closely resembles Jim Jones and his behavior toward the people in his church," Sukhdeo wrote in a 1982 letter to a Miami circuit judge who decided the child custody suit Gersten was involved in. "The (Kashi) cult is dangerous and destructive."
But Cho has staunch allies, including numerous AIDS patients, their families and caretakers. She has devoted herself to AIDS ministry in the last two years.
Kimberly Bergalis, the Fort Pierce woman who attracted national attention after contracting the AIDS virus from her dentist, was close to Cho before she died in December. Bergalis visited the ranch and Cho visited her at her home. George Bergalis credits Cho with helping make his daughter's last year easier to endure. "I think Ma is the ultimate leader," George Bergalis said. ' I think the area needs to feel privileged to have someone like her and that facility."
He said he had never heard any of the allegations against Cho. "We've heard nothing but good things," he said.
Cho's critics see her community service work as a public relations ploy.
"Jim Jones was once the greatest care-giver for the poor and aged," Sukhdeo said. Cult leaders "get more and more powerful (through community service). . . . The more power they get, the more dangerous they get."
When Ma Jaya Bhagavati Cho came to Florida in 1976, she said she thought it was to die.
"I thought I had a brain tumor, and they gave me three months to live," recalled Cho, in her heavy Brooklyn accent. "I wanted to die very dramatically, so I closed my ashrams in California, New York and Colorado and had them all come here.
"After three months, I said, `How embarrassing. I'm not dead.' "
Her band of followers has grown from 18 to more than 150 who live on the ranch and in the area near Sebastian. Eight disillusioned devotees who left the ranch say Cho gave them new names, expected large donations, frequently deprived them of sleep, publicly admonished them for personal failures, left them with phobic fears of leaving the ranch and arranged marriages among her followers.
"What you're telling me is nonsense," Cho said. "When you're in the public eye, someone is always going to throw mud at you."
And stories persist that Cho was obsessed with acquiring people's children. "The more children she has, the happier she is," said former follower Michele Rousseau. In 1981, Rousseau fought to regain custody of her then-16- year-old son from Cho, who she said wrested him away.
Rousseau, 60, and her husband, Jean, moved from Toronto to the Kashi ranch in 1977, taking their son Paul, then 12. Older twin daughters came to live on the ranch later.
Rousseau said she and her family were persuaded to give all their money to Cho. They said they also were deprived of sleep and publicly humiliated. They put up with it, she said, because they thought Cho was God and their key to salvation.
The worst was Cho's attempt to sever the family's ties, Rousseau said. It began when Cho exiled her from the ranch in 1978 after she openly disagreed with the guru's command to move out of the room she shared with her husband and son and into a garage on the ranch. Jean Rousseau soon followed his wife off the ranch, but the three children refused to leave.
The Rousseaus sought legal advice in 1981 from Gersten, then a state senator.
The Rousseaus "were real, literal victims whose family was destroyed by this so-called Ma and the cult," Gersten said. "The Rousseaus felt their children had been kidnapped. It was pretty hard to dispute it."
Paul Rousseau, now 27, is an applied physics graduate student at Stanford University. He said Cho brought him into her inner circle of favorites and counseled him to oppose any efforts to remove him from the ranch. Cho even made plans for him to marry a ranch resident to circumvent his parents' guardianship, he said.
"It's amazing to what lengths they went to, to keep me there," he said. "I guess I would have become a good source of cheap labor for the rest of my life had I never left the ranch."
He said Cho emphasized the importance of youthful followers because they were easier to indoctrinate than adults: "For her, children will make much better disciples in the long run."
The Rousseaus regained custody of their son on Dec. 11, 1981, after a nine-member team from the Miami-Dade Police Department descended on a home Cho used as a retreat in Miami and took him into custody under a court order. The twin daughters were no longer minors and therefore beyond the court's reach. They declined to be interviewed for this story.
Paul Rousseau said he was directed to run away from home, publicly accuse his mother of raping him and to break everything in his parents' home.
"I'm not going to answer questions about people from years and years ago," Cho said of Rousseau. "I don't even remember what happened. All I know is I bless everyone."
Five painful years passed before all three Rousseau children severed ties with the Kashi ranch. All were withdrawn and needed extensive therapy, but now are recovered, their mother said.
"I think it's probably even worse when you look at the children," Paul Rousseau said. "The children born in the sect, they don't have a chance in hell. . . . It all makes me terribly sad to think about it. It's kind of like living as a domesticated animal."
Rosanne Henry said she gave her daughter up to Cho just hours after her birth in 1981. It took eight years and a lot of therapy before Henry and her husband finally retrieved their child, she said.
While living on the ranch in 1980, Henry and her husband got Cho's permission to have a baby, Henry said. Midway through the pregnancy, Cho's confidants approached them and at least four other couples expecting babies and asked them to give their children to Cho, she said.
"Wouldn't it be great if you gave your child to Ma?" Henry recalled being asked. "These children are to be her successors."
Henry's husband readily agreed. "I was totally committed to her (Cho)," he said. "She was the most important thing in the world and I would have done almost anything for her. . . . She was giving our child a chance to be the son or daughter of God."
Henry said Cho ordered her to dye her light brown hair black before going to the hospital and pass herself off as Cho so Cho's name would appear on the birth certificate. A handwriting analysis ordered by the Indian River County Sheriff's Office confirmed the "Joyce Cho" signature on the birth certificate is Henry's, said Lt. Mary Hogan, in charge of the department's criminal investigations.
Cho promised Henry and the three other families who had agreed to give up their babies that they could be involved in the children's upbringing. But she made them promise that all four children were to believe Cho and her husband were their natural parents, Henry said.
Cho denied all of Henry's allegations. "I never directed anybody to do anything."
Another former follower who lived on the ranch at the same time, but declined to be identified, said the families were "coerced, cajoled, teased and tricked."
Cho "has a brilliant ability to read people's strengths and weaknesses and needs and then take advantage of that for . . . whatever it is she wants," said the ex-disciple.
When Henry began trying to get her child back in 1989, Lt. Hogan investigated and confirmed Henry's story. But pursuing criminal charges after eight years would have been "extremely difficult," she said.
"Do lay people believe that brainwashing can take place? I say yes, it can," Hogan said. "Is it happening (on the Kashi ranch) now? I can't tell you that. Did it happen in the `80s? Yes. I believe it did."
Cho initially allowed Henry to care for her daughter, named Ganga Chen Cho. But Henry said she and her husband left in 1982 after Cho abruptly banned her from the nursery.
On July 19, 1989, a five-member SWAT team from the sheriff's office went to the Kashi ranch with a court order and removed Ganga Chen Cho. State officials determined that Henry and her husband were fit parents, and the child returned home with them.
Cho dropped her custody petition because "I didn't want to put my baby through that. My first thing in life is the child . . . I just want children to be happy everywhere."
Henry said she believes the Chos dropped their petition because court proceedings would have opened the group up to scrutiny. The court file includes 57 letters in support of Cho, including notes from Arlo Guthrie and an Indian River County commissioner.
Ganga Chen Cho had been emotionally traumatized during her years with the Chos, according to a state Health and Rehabilitative Services psychological evaluation performed shortly after the child left the ranch.
"She shows an especially strong need for maternal affection and for individual attention in general, clearly feeling that she has been basically ignored and that her `adoptive' parents (the Chos) are controlling rather than loving," the HRS report said. She "has been deprived of a chance to develop a full range of emotions," it said.
The report also said the girl believed Cho was God. When she first came home, Henry said, her daughter prayed to Cho at the dinner table.
"I didn't even look at the HRS report," Cho responded. "I just wanted the best for Ganga."
Henry said her daughter, now 10, is thriving in her natural family in suburban Denver, but still has occasional nightmares about life on the ranch. Cho said she and her husband raised Henry's daughter because she asked her to do so.
"It was just a matter of parents who wanted to abort the baby at a very, very late time," Cho said. "They asked me if I would take the child or they were going to abort it."
A former follower who lived on the ranch in 1981 recalled Cho telling the same story during a group meeting.
"I was sitting there thinking, `Who the hell are you kidding?' " the follower said. "Ninety percent of us who were there knew what was going on, that Rosanne did not want an abortion. It really made me angry, but nobody said anything, and I knew I couldn't say anything."
Hogan speculated that few people have been able to stand up to Cho over the years.
"She (Cho) must have never had any expectation that anyone would break from the fold and realize something wasn't right in paradise."
If you are lonely, she will be your friend. If you are hungry, she will feed you. If you are unhappy, she will make you laugh.
Cho switches easily back and forth between the roles of comedian and ministering angel to the 175 residents of the Palm Beach County Home & General Care Facility.
Strutting through the corridors like a fashion model working a runway, her charisma makes her 5-foot-8 frame appear 6 feet tall. She spots a man in a wheelchair sitting alone in a hallway.
Doing a little dance in her high-top tennis shoes and matching green top and capri pants, she starts singing loudly and off-key: "You are my desire . . . "
"I tell you," Cho continues in a stage whisper, "I'm a little busy now, but when you have the time, I have the body."
The man glows in response, eagerly downing a cookie from the plate Cho offers.
The 10 people in her entourage stay carefully in the background, hurriedly handing her plates of food when she commands. One carefully shadows her every step with her favorite drink, a diet Pepsi, at the ready.
"We think she's the greatest," said county home Director Doris L. Orestis. "She just wants to give." Cho has never tried to recruit people or solicit donations for the ranch, she added.
Last year, the Palm Beach County Commission gave Cho a certificate of appreciation for her work at the county home. She also makes weekly visits to several other Palm Beach County social services agencies, including Connor's Nursery for babies with AIDS.
She is hands-on with AIDS patients, especially infants. She tells anyone who will listen that the disease is not transmitted by hugging, kissing or touching, all of which she does with fervor.
"My main objective is to teach of service and the sacredness of the human touch. . . . What we love to do more than anything else is to touch where no one else will touch and to feed where there is hunger," Cho said.
Most agree that receiving Cho's attention is heady stuff. She impresses with her ability to remember dozens of people's names and backgrounds. She makes people feel they are special to her.
Former followers recall Cho being at the center of their universe. They say they were eager to do almost anything to get her to smile on them.
"It was basically do anything to get five seconds with Ma," Paul Rousseau said.
But former followers say Cho does not hesitate to use guilt, coercion and threats.
A former disciple now living in New England said Cho, a black belt in tae kwon do, once kicked her in the forehead when she was angry with her. Sandy Schneider said the incident occurred during darshan, the ranch's nightly spiritual gatherings.
"It didn't really hurt," said Schneider, who had been called to sit before Cho. "But it knocked me backward. I was so hurt that she had humiliated me. . . . That's what she does: She strips you of all self- esteem."
Darshan is the forum where Cho's control is most evident. She sweeps through a sea of rapt followers, who clasp their hands and bow to her as she takes her position on an animal skin-draped couch in the center of the room.
Everyone sinks to the floor and sits lotus-style at her feet. Cho dons rhinestone-rimmed glasses to read questions submitted by disciples on everything from what to name the new family pet to what community service work to pursue. She blows kisses to her audience. Parents approach with babies in their arms and Cho kisses the infants with the gusto of a politician.
After bantering with the crowd for a few minutes, Cho closes her eyes, flickers her lids and delivers a soliloquy on the importance of the human touch in her teaching. Finally, she recites a long, rambling poem about a river in India.
Cho also used darshan as a tool to deprive her followers of sleep and thus break their wills, the former followers said. She would often call the rituals late at night and keep them going until sunrise, they said.
Cho denied she ever deprived disciples of sleep. "I wouldn't stay up all night."
Another stage where Cho rules is the weekly yoga and darshan session with students from the ranch's River School. As in nightly darshan, she admonishes the children for various misdeeds while their schoolmates look on.
"Don't cry," she tells one little girl who weeps when Cho orders her to stop talking fresh to her teachers. "You were disrespectful."
Cho knows this because of what she describes as a "rat list" provided by school principal Marie Cirillo. The method is highly effective tool for motivating children, Cirillo said.
As proof, Cirillo pointed to a glowing report by a Rutgers University team who visited the school for six days in 1990. The report, which cost the Kashi Foundation $25,000, called the use of guilt to motivate children "well within the limits of superego mechanisms commonly used by families, religions and authorities everywhere to enhance compliance."
Former followers said visitors to the ashram saw only that part of ranch life that Cho wanted them to see.
Former disciples also said Cho made them feel guilty for wanting to see their families off the ranch.
"It was like, `How could you bear to leave her (Cho)? She's everything. Your (own) mother is nothing,' "one said.
Cho also warned against trying to leave the ranch permanently, they said. To do so, they were told, meant risking sudden misfortune.
"She told me if I left I would go blind," a former follower recalled.
Neville Gibbs; Andre Williams; Sir George Alleyne; Nabin Bodonaik;
Gerald Groves; TBI; TBI; Vasil Persaud (deceased); Barbara Noel (partially hidden); Peter Fletcher.
Starting an alumni association is a challenging yet rewarding experience, which grows out of a desire to build a long lasting relationship with your colleagues following your University experience. It embodies a wish for a long-term commitment to your Alma Mater that goes way beyond the college years, and becomes a way of life.
As our history demonstrates, choosing to form and develop such an Association shows a great deal of commitment on the part of its founders.
We thank and acknowledge all our pioneers, who spent much time, effort and money to bring about the premier alumnus organization in the University of the West Indies.
1984; Canada Chapter founded
1985; First Canadian Chapter Board of Directors created, and they conceptualized the Conference in 1988 to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of UWI Drs. Karl Massiah; Pam DaCamara; Robert Ogilvie; Premdath "Raj" Ramphal
1986; US Chapter founded Sir George "Champ" Alleyne; Drs. Neville Gibbs; Hardat Sukhdeo; Andre Williams Jamaica Chapter founded Professor Gerald Grell (Dominica); Dr. R.E. David Thwaites and Professor Peter Fletcher
However, the Life and Development of UWIMAA, truly began when these Chapters came together in November 1988 for Reunion 1, held in Jamaica, at The Americana Hotel, Ocho Rios.
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UWI Notebook Headlines | Marketing and Communications Office ...
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The presenters will be Dr. Beryl Allen, Head IDU and Ms Meta Bogle formerly ... of Stethoscopes will be done by Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, President, USA Chapter.
[PDF] UWI Connect March - May 2009 - The University of the West Indies ...
www.cavehill.uwi.edu/news/periodicals/UWI_Connect_Mar_May_09.pdf
May 24, 2009 – Dr. Winston Mitchell - USA Tri-State. Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo - USA Tri-State. Dr. Kathleen Watson - USA Tri-State. UWIGNA (Canada) - President ..
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Santa Fe New Mexican, Thursday, November 15, 1979, Page 45
newspaperarchive.com › ... › Thursday, November 15, 1979
Nov 15, 1979 – ... jungle before reaching safety Dr Hardat Sukhdeo a psychiatrist who still counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors ..
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November 29, 1978, NBC News, Jonestown Survivors May Have to Deal with Severe Mental Strains,
Stock Footage, 8:18,
www.nbcuniversalarchives.com/nbcuni/clip/5112574069_s11.do
www.nbcuniversalarchives.com/nbcuni/clip/5112574961_s07.do
newspaperarchive.com › ... › Friday, November 16, 1979
Nov 16, 1979 – ... 1979, Kokomo, Indiana 12 Tribune Friday Nov 16 1979 Jonestown ...in the jungle before reaching safety Dr Hardat Sukhdeo a Guyanese ..
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July 6, 2011, The Paradise Reporter. 1978: Jonestown, Guyana Massacre: A Planned Military "Distraction" & "Cover", diigo,
Jul 6, 2011 – These were the factors which led directly to the Jonestown tragedy –Today, Rabbi Davis is a prominent anti-cult activist, a sometime deprogrammer, and an associate of Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo.
See: The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue" by Jim Hougan
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November 20, 1978, San Francisco Chronicle
November 22, 1978, San Francisco Chronicle
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November 8, 1998, San Francisco Examiner, Utopian Nightmare, by Larry Hatfield,
JONESTOWN, GUYANA -- "My father was a fraud." - Stephan Gandhi Jones, son of Jim Jones
A lone palm tree stands where Jim Jones exhorted his followers to die for him, but the jungle encroaches even as time shrouds memories of Jones, his Peoples Temple and his followers' quest for a better world.
Jonestown was to have been a Utopian dream, free of racism, a haven for justice.
Yet on Nov. 18, 1978, in Guyana, it became the scene of unspeakable horror as Jones led his Bay Area flock into the worst mass murder/suicide in modern history. In a cataclysmic episode, more than 900 people, most of them children or elderly, drank or were forced to drink cyanide-spiked fruit punch at the behest of Jones, a once-charismatic monomaniac who had curried favor with San Francisco's left-leaning political elite.
Others, children among them, died in murder-suicides in a Georgetown hotel room. Jones himself, by then drug-addicted and mentally ill, died of a bullet to the head by an unknown hand.
It was the end of Peoples Temple, but just the beginning of the darkness: Nine days later, with San Francisco still reeling in disbelief, the nightmare of Jonestown was punctuated by the City Hall assassinations of MayorGeorge Moscone and SupervisorHarvey Milk.
In the days and years immediately following these events, national attention turned to the dangers of cults and San Francisco politics turned to the center. SupervisorDianne Feinstein became the mayor who would lead The City out of darkness and ultimately leave San Francisco for the U.S. Senate.
Dangers of extremism
Feinstein says the incidents showed the dangers of extremism.
"The long-term lesson is politics in San Francisco is a very sensitive art. People do not respond to political muscle .‚.‚. I don't think San Francisco does well when the political pendulum goes to either end."
Willie Brown, at that time an assemblyman and today mayor of San Francisco, is loathe to discuss Jones or Jonestown.
"That's not something I want to talk about. It's too painful," Brown says. "Everybody knows the lessons about cults and dying. What's the need to talk about it? (Jim Jones) was a cultist, not recognized by me or anybody else."
Twenty years later, do Jonestown and the Peoples Temple make sense? And have any lessons been learned?
Many say the primary impressions of Jonestown are the madness of Jim Jones and the mounds of bodies.
Little attention has been paid to the real people who died at Jonestown and why they were there. Peoples Temple did not start as a cult, some say, and most of those who died were decent people hoping to improve the human condition.
And, say others, too little attention has been paid to the fact that the needs that attracted people to Peoples Temple and the forces that helped turn it from a social movement into a paranoid and abusive cult still exist.
If there is a fundamental lesson in Jonestown, it's that
"the menace of cults still lingers; it's as real today as it was 20 years ago," says Jackie Speier, a survivor of the Port Kaituma, Guyana, ambush that killed her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, NBC correspondent Don Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown and temple defector Patricia Parks. "No one should ever be so arrogant as to believe it couldn't happen again," Speier says.
Timothy Stoen, a former San Francisco assistant district attorney who played a pivotal role in the life and death of Peoples Temple, says there is a thin line between legitimate religious and social organizations and dangerous cults.
"The fact is there probably will be some future Wacos if not future Peoples Temples," Stoen says, referring to the fiery end of David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult that claimed 81 lives in Texas in 1993.
"There are people out there all over the place who would like to be another Jim Jones."
James Warren Jones was born May 13, 1931, in a tattered town called Crete in Indiana. He was different from the beginning - a Holy Roller preacher as a child, selling spider monkeys on the streets of Indianapolis to buy food as a young student and modeling himself after Father Divine, whose Peace Mission drew a cult following at the time. In a credo that would refine and warp itself until the end, he developed a set of professed beliefs, sometimes called "apostolic socialism," that ignored God while deifying social justice and worshiping the salvific power of socialism.
He became a student minister at anIndiana Methodist church in 1952. He left the Methodists because the church wouldn't desegregate, and in the 1950s founded the movement that would take various names as it evolved into Peoples Temple. In 1965, Jones and his wife, Marceline, brought the nascent temple and a handful of the faithful to California, the promised land for alternative religions.
A church in Redwood Valley
The Joneses and their rainbow family of adopted children and about 70 followers set up in the sylvan Redwood Valley near Ukiah where relations between them and the laid-back locals were uneasy but generally peaceful.
Jones quickly relocated his church to the bigger and more lucrative markets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. He moved Peoples Temple into an abandoned synagogue in The City's Fillmore district.
While attracting a growing congregation of urban blacks, he used his considerable intellectual and acting skills to bring onto his bandwagon many of San Francisco's leading politicians.
Current Mayor Brown was one of Jones' biggest cheerleaders, hailing him as a blend of Martin Luther King, Einstein and Mao. Then-Lt. Gov.Mervyn Dymally was another. Mayor Moscone was still another, naming Jones to head his Housing Commission and, some said, owing his razor-thin election to the few hundred illegal voters Jones allegedly produced.
America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and particularly its radical-chic nation-state of San Francisco, were ideally suited for the rise of a charismatic power-seeker such as Jones. The civil rights movement was still alive and the emerging politics of the day exalted the quest for social justice and equality - exactly the things older religious blacks, idealistic young whites and other seekers were hearing from Jones' pulpit.
But the politics of the day also fed the paranoia in Jones. He believed the government was conspiring to continue the war in Vietnam and spy on such groups as the Black Panthers. The government was not to be trusted.
The government also was working covertly against Jones and the temple, seeking to short-circuit the drive for a better society. Jones believed all this and so, to an almost universal extent, did the Temple congregation.
So Jones moved the temple and 1,000 or so followers to Guyana's outback, winning a 25-year lease on 3,852 acres in the Orinoco River basin near the disputed border with Venezuela.
A small group of temple pioneers moved in 1974 to what was to become Jonestown, far from the hostile attacks of media, government and others. The lease from the Guyana government required the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project to "cultivate and beneficially occupy" at least one-fifth of the land by 1976.
Temple members raised livestock and grew pineapple, cassava, eddoes and other tropical fruits and vegetables. Charles Garry, Peoples Temple's San Francisco lawyer, called it a paradise.
Trouble in paradise
But there was trouble in paradise. The camp never became agriculturally self-sustaining and the swift tropical diseases of the jungle ran rampant. At the end, only a third of the residents were able-bodied. Worse, critics said, it was a prison camp - people were not allowed to leave. Abusive practices such as beatings and forced sex, long-rumored but little-reported at the San Francisco church, escalated. Jones' deteriorating mental stability made him increasingly erratic and he demanded utter, unquestioning loyalty.
Agencies from the State Department and the CIA to the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Service were investigating or taking legal action against Peoples Temple for mail fraud, wresting Social Security checks from members, arms and narcotics trafficking, and other crimes, real or imagined.
Aiding and abetting the conspiracy in the eyes of Jones and his followers were the few temple defectors and families of members who were getting attention from the hostile North American media.
Against this background, Jones, who was white, and his predominantly white inner circle had faithful followers practice mass suicide in a series of "white nights." Such a drastic end was the only possible response to the vast and growing outside threat, Jones preached. The people believed him.
Congressman's visit
The final act began to unfold when Ryan, a respected Democratic congressman from San Mateo County with a taste for headlines, led a delegation of newsmen and a group of family members called the Concerned Relatives to Jonestown to investigate allegations of thought control, imprisonment, drug- and gun-running.
Ryan was knifed - superficially - during the visit. When he was ready to leave, several Jonestown residents asked to leave with him, an action that apparently triggered the subsequent massacre of Ryan, Robinson and the others at Port Kaituma.
The incredible scene of mass death quickly followed at Jonestown.
"We died because you would not let us live," wrote temple insider Annie Moore in her suicide note.
Among those who survived was Jim Jones' son, Stephan, who was away with the camp's basketball team. It was left to the younger Jones, who had broken with his father and since has denounced him repeatedly, to declare Jim Jones' most durable epitaph. In a recent ABC television visit to Jonestown, Stephan Jones said simply, "My father was a fraud."
Jones was a madman, some feel the people of Jonestown have been unfairly characterized as mindless zombies.
"The people who died in Jonestown were sweet, altruistic people. One of the tragedies of Jonestown is that people haven't paid attention to that," says Timothy Stoen, whose son, John Victor, died at Jonestown. Stoen played the pivotal role in a custody battle with Jones that helped precipitate the murder-suicides. Among Ryan's reasons for going to Guyana was the custody fight.
"No single theory could possibly explain the many complex and related issues that led the members of the Peoples Temple to leave family, friends and church communities and take residence in the jungle of Jonestown," says Archie Smith Jr., professor of pastoral psychology at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. "Labeled by many as sick, dysfunctional or disadvantaged, (they) were seeking an alternative to the status quo, new and just ways of living and being in the world."
Mary Sawyer, an Iowa State Universityreligion professor who worked for Dymally at the time, blames much of the image on sensationalized media coverage.
"Most of America quickly was persuaded that those who had followed Jim Jones to Guyana .‚.‚. had to have been naive and gullible people at best, and demented radicals at worst," Sawyer says in a treatise titled, "My Lord, What a Mourning - 20 Years since Jonestown."
"Amidst all the attention that was focused on Jim Jones, the people were accorded scarcely any respect as thinking, feeling, caring human beings. .‚.‚. The dehumanizing of the victims of Jonestown by the journalistic community was tantamount to the withholding of permission to grieve."
The Rev. Mary McCormick Maaga, a Jonestown scholar and a United Methodist pastor in Sergeantsville, N.J., has produced a new book, "Hearing the Voices of Jonestown."
"Not to underplay the tragedy and loss of life, but I hope we can now step one step back and look more at the community of people who were involved and ask ourselves what went wrong in a more sophisticated way," Maaga says.
Social, political organization
"I think if we only talk about Jim Jones and his influence on the community, we don't get to ask the broader questions. .‚.‚. Remember, Peoples Temple in the middle years was primarily a social and political organization, not religious," Maaga says. "The members cared about caring for the elderly, the disenfranchised and so on. They were not just blindly following."
Using the turn-of-the-century German theologian Ernst Troeltsch's division of church, sect and cult, Maaga said the temple's sect was the 70 or so white members who followed Jones from Indianapolis to California, then to Guyana, adapting their ideology to his. The cult was the small group of young white Utopians who primarily formed the leadership. The church was by far the majority - the urban blacks with Christian backgrounds who wanted a better life for the world and themselves.
"But they all shared a belief in racial justice, redistribution of wealth and working to perfect society," Maaga says. "Somewhere along the line all that was lost.
"Peoples Temple at some point lost its ability to look self-critically at itself and to challenge the decisions of the leadership - not just Jim Jones. And Jones lost his ability to lead because of his drug addiction and mental illness."
It wasn't just Jones' deterioration that pushed Jonestown toward its doom, Maaga argues: Crop failures, disease and other factors helped.
Nor was Jones solely responsible for leading his flock to destruction, Maaga says:
"It took Marceline Jones, Carolyn Layton, Maria Katsaris, Harriett Tropp, Jim McElvane and the others in positions of responsibility and influence at Jonestown to embrace the idea of suicide for the rank-and-file members to have been willing to drink the poison. Jones had become too ravaged by drug addiction and paranoia to have planned the suicides on his own or to have inspired people to take their own lives through his encouragement alone."
Tragic change in direction
Maaga says the lessons of Jonestown are to be learned by trying to figure out why the committed veered so tragically from their vision of a better world.
"I think things went right earlier in the movement," Maaga says, pointing to the temple's successful social programs in San Francisco.
"What we should be talking about is what went right and when did it go wrong," she said, suggesting the answers might prevent similar tragedies. "I don't think Peoples Temple was a singular example of a self-righteous religion gone horribly awry.
"What was important about it was what they (the members) were - as people - not just how they died."
Rebecca Moore, a University of North Dakota professor of religion and philosophy, lost her sisters Carolyn Layton and Annie Moore at Jonestown, as well as her nephew, Jim-Jon Prokes.
She says some of the still-unexplored questions are whether people in San Francisco could have prevented the tragedy by reining in Jones before he was all-powerful and crazy; what responsibility Willie Brown and others had before and after the catastrophe; and the role of the black church.
"At times I despair that we've learned nothing," Moore says. "By that I mean that people continue to demonize (Jones) and forget the others.
"As a society we fail to take seriously the very strong and powerful desire, or hunger, for community, a community of people working for social change. The people in Jonestown were trying to create a Utopian society, racial justice and social equality. Granted, there were internal contradictions, but they were one of the few groups intentionally addressing the problem of racism and trying concretely to do something about it."
The media, Moore says, almost always dwells on the dead bodies and on Jones himself; the government has swept under the rug all understanding of Jonestown and of its own role. No official inquiry was held in the United States and the Guyanan investigation was almost laughably superficial.
Jonestown, Berkeley's Smith warns, "was not an anomaly. Rather, it was a product of the evolving ethos of our time, an ethos that tends to repress and trivialize the essentially religious impulse. The social and historical forces that gave rise to Jonestown 20 years ago operate today."
He believes black churches in particular have a responsibility to learn and teach the lessons. So does Iowa State's Mary Sawyer: "America's religious community - that vast potential reservoir of pastoral care - was unable to facilitate a proper grieving, either on the part of the families immediately affected or on the part of the nation, because they, too, did not know the people involved."
The churches, including white Protestant and Catholic churches that were so involved in the civil rights movement, failed as well, Sawyer says.
A central lesson unlearned
"Perhaps the biggest heartache of all," Sawyer says,
"is that our country and our churches still have not sought an answer to the question of why the people joined this movement, and so still have not discerned the central lesson of Jonestown. Why, indeed, were white idealists and black Christians drawn to a movement that promised them sanctuary from America's failure to honor her promises of equality and justice?
"Churches, like the public, were so horrified they psychologically needed to distance themselves .‚.‚. to handle the reality of it. Most people know what Jonestown is but if you say Peoples Temple, people will have a blank look. They don't know there was a longstanding social change movement.
"And they're no more informed today than they were 20 years ago. I hope this anniversary will not be just a replay of Jim Jones as a crazy man but that there is some conscientious effort to make America understand. It takes two or three decades before people start asking the right questions. .‚.‚. There hasn't been that kind of soul-searching.
"It's important to do this. We have to have sense of the wounds that are still there."
"What should we be talking about?" asks Jackie Speier, who was elected to the California Assembly after the tragedy and on Tuesday was elected to the state Senate.
"We should be talking about the fact that the menace of cults still lingers. Cults are still around. They're all around us. Many continue to operate under the guise of being religious, under the guise of religiosity and the First Amendment, violating state and federal laws (while) the government again looks the other way."
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born psychiatrist who treated Jonestown survivors, says the conditions that created Peoples Temple could create a similar movement.
People joined the temple because "they needed to have this type of togetherness and leadership and somebody to tell them what to do and when to do it," said Sukhdeo, of Rutgers University.
Sukhdeo sees the majority of temple members, mostly black, as largely alienated and at sea. The Peoples Temple was more of a place to improve their own lives than to achieve the societal do-goodism espoused by young whites who joined.
"They wanted something like the cult to say, "Yes, we know the truth. Yes, we have the answers.' They were lost, they were angry and they didn't feel they belonged to society."
Nothing has changed, he says: Groups such as Branch Davidian and Heaven's Gate prove that the attraction to cults remains.
A distrust of religion
The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey, rector of San Francisco's Trinity Episcopal Church, says that a "sad part of Jonestown is it has sent a message of distrust of religion, particularly the small sect religions. .‚.‚. (There is) a sense of "if you're religious, this is what might happen to you.'
"But on the positive side, people are looking more critically before getting involved in religious programs, especially the more fringe type of things. Look at the kind of scrutiny now given to Hare Krishna, Scientology and the like. That's as it should be."
Timothy Stoen also warns of the dangers of cults.
"There are a lot of Jim Jones wannabes out there," said Stoen, who recently moved to Colorado Springs from Mendocino. ".‚.‚. You can't wish them away .‚.‚. (but) one hopefully can learn from (Peoples Temple) that these things can be lethal and there comes a point early on when you can do something about it."
The psychological isolation that leads people to seek groups like Peoples Temple still exists, he says, urging families of cultists to ask questions, challenge the groups and otherwise get involved.
"People just have to take an even-handed look that this is kind of a sign of our times - people need structure, community, etc. If mainline churches don't provide it, there'll be cults. Those cults will be there serving some sort of need."
Episcopal Church, lamented recently that the "sad part of Jonestown is it has sent a message of distrust of religion, particularly the small sect religions .‚.‚. But on the positive side, people are looking more critically before getting involved in .‚.‚. the more fringe type of things.
With the court-ordered participation of a dozen other federal agencies, the FBI has released thousands of previously-withheld pages in its files on Jonestown and Peoples Temple. As a result of those releases - most of which occurred within the last 12 months - court filings and government documents in the lawsuit McGehee & Moore v. U.S. Department of Justice now fill a twenty-four inch file box.
The lawsuit was filed in September 2001 in order to compel the FBI to provide an index to materials it released to us in 2000. But the case is both more complex, and yet more simple, than that. It is more complex in that the initial release of 48,000+ documents on three compact discs led to a number of other legal issues; and it is more simple in that it comes down to meeting the basic requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
While the case is not yet as complicated, or lengthy, as Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Dickens' Bleak House, it does entail a number of considerations. First, of course, is the lack of an index which would enable people using the discs to locate the records they were looking for. Second, the FBI had referred a number of documents in its possession to various government agencies, thus avoiding evaluation and release of their contents. Third, the FBI and other agencies withheld a number of documents by claiming a variety of exemptions which range from national security to privacy. Fourth, the thoroughness of the initial search which comprises the three CDs is now in question, given the recent release to us of documents which apparently do not appear on them (though, without an index to the CDs' contents, it is hard to tell). Finally, the illegibility of some documents makes their release meaningless, for all practical purposes.
This article examines each of these issues in turn. It reports on the progress of the case after four years in litigation. But first, it presents the background and events leading up to its filing.
Background
In October 1998 we filed a FOIA request with the FBI asking for a copy of all lists it had used to compile the final tally of Peoples Temple members who died in Jonestown. A month and a half later the FBI replied that it had located 48,738 pages of material "which may or may not be related" to the request. The agency said it would duplicate the pages at the cost of $.10 per page (although the first 100 pages would be free). As an alternative, we could examine the documents at no cost in the FBI Reading Room in Washington, D.C. Since neither $4,863.80 nor a trip to D.C. was feasible, we wrote to several members of Congress asking for help. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) interceded on our behalf. After a series of negotiations, the FBI agreed to put all of the documents onto compact disks, thus maximizing the release of documents while lowering the cost to requesters.
In the meantime, we had filed a number of additional FOI applications. These included a request for documents on my sister Carolyn Moore Layton; a request for "Dear Dad" letters collected in Jonestown; a request for documents used in preparing for trials against Larry Layton, who was accused of conspiracy to kill Congressman Leo Ryan; a request for records on seven Peoples Temple leaders; and other assorted issues.
In May 2000 the FBI sent us three CDs at no charge and a cover letter which stated that all of our requests were being addressed with this release. No index accompanied the CDs. Further, because the documents had been stored as graphic files (PDF) - in order to preserve their integrity as individual documents - the CDs were not computer-searchable. The FBI did provide an inventory folder to view the PDF contents of each CD, but an inventory is not the same as an index. In other words, a user might find an FBI inventory listing of "Cuban contacts," but have to search each individual page in order to find an individual's name - whether it was Fidel Castro or a Temple member who might have made such contacts - or a particular topic within the FBI designation.
At the same time, the FBI informed us that there were no main file records on a number of Temple leaders, including Carolyn Layton, Eugene Chaikin, Larry Schacht, Maria Katsaris, or Michael Prokes, among others.
Within a week we appealed the FBI's use of the (b)(6) exemption to the FOIA, which allows agencies to withhold "files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." For one thing, as we noted in our appeal letter, more than a dozen key figures were dead, from U.S. Ambassador John Burke, to Guyana Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. For another, many people had waived their right to privacy by writing books or going public in the media with denunciations of the Temple, such as Deborah Layton Blakey, George Klineman, or Tim Stoen. More than ninety people were interviewed on the record by Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs for the book Raven, and we provided their names and the page numbers of their statements. Other people voluntarily gave news media interviews, and still others involuntarily had their names appear in published reports. For all of these individuals we argued that - at least to the extent of their involvement Peoples Temple - they could not claim any privacy rights.
We also appealed the FBI's use of the (b)(7) exemption which allows withholding of records compiled for law enforcement purposes. Since the only person ever tried and convicted of a crime connected with Jonestown was Larry Layton, and since he was incarcerated at the time, we considered law enforcement issues to be moot. In addition, since the Temple had declared bankruptcy in December 1978, and its assets distributed within a few years - and 20 years before we filed our requests - we believe there were no further civil or criminal causes which warranted continued protection.
In response to these two appeals, the FBI sent a letter in September 2000 which affirmed its earlier decisions and denied both of our appeals. It did release two pages, however - a newspaper article from the Ukiah Daily Journal and one from the Sun Reporter - which should not have been classified in the first place.
The misuse of exemptions prompted us to file a FOIA suit against the FBI a year later. The release of thousands of documents in an inexpensive format was an initial step toward being responsive to those wanting to learn more about government interest in Peoples Temple and Jonestown. At the same time, however, without an index or searchable format, the CDs effectively hide information rather than revealing it by inundating requesters with an abundance of riches. Furthermore, the fact that the FBI responded to our appeals (dated May and July respectively) within a few months (September) indicated that the agency either had a searchable index which it wasn't telling us about; or, more likely, that it did not review each and every use of the exemptions, as required by law.
We also pointed out that some documents had been initially reviewed in 1979 and the early 1980s, and while the use of the exemptions at that time - especially concerning privacy - might have been legitimate, the passage of time should open all documents for review. The FBI had conducted a second review in the early 1990s, undoubtedly in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the Church of Scientology, which had resulted in the release of 40,000 additional pages, primarily information relating to its investigation of Leo Ryan's assassination; however, many of the pages we sought weren't even identified, much less considered, in that review. In the meantime, President Clinton had issued an Executive Order in 1994 calling for increased openness under the FOIA. In some respects, the creation of the CDs responded to this directive. In others, however, it did not, because FOIA staff at the FBI failed to recognize that more than twenty years had elapsed since Jonestown, and had declined to review exemptions accordingly.
Thus, on 30 August 2001 we filed a complaint for injunctive relief in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on the issues of exemptions and a usable index to the documents. We drew Judge John Garrett Penn on the bench. Our attorney was, and is, James H. Lesar.
Referrals to Other Agencies
A number of motions, counter-motions, and legal maneuvering occurred in the three years before Judge Penn issued an order on 23 November 2004 requiring the Department of Justice to file a report on the referrals of documents the FBI had made to other agencies. The case had grown from its challenge to the FBI's exemptions and the request for an index, to incorporate several additional issues.
For one thing, we had challenged the adequacy of the FBI's search for records. Although a FOIA caseworker at the FBI declared in November 2001 that the FBI had no lists of people who died in Jonestown, we received such a list from the FBI in January 2002. Thus, our FOIA request of October 1998 was finally answered.
Lesar concluded from this that not only had the FBI attempted to narrowly construe our request, but that its initial searches were inadequate. He also noted to the court that the FBI had failed to account for the many referrals made to other agencies (and thus, the de facto withholding of information), in contravention of previous court decisions in this matter. Judge Penn agreed, and on 6 June 2003 allowed our suit to be amended to examine the adequacy of the FBI's search and the issue of referrals, as well as its original request for a review of exemptions and an index.
We received a two hundred-page handwritten inventory the FBI had prepared in 1994 and 1995 that listed all of the records it felt belonged to other agencies - or at least required their permission prior to FBI release. It also recorded exemptions the FBI applied to the documents. By the end of this year we will have received all of the items noted, and then some, since the final tally is greater than that appearing in the 1994 and 1995 inventory.
The referrals presented an interesting challenge. They are identified on the CDs merely as items referred; but they are not described in any way other than to note the originating agency. What emerged from the release of these items is that a number of documents are not even mentioned on the CDs, such as documents from the White House. Still others did not appear on the inventory sheets provided by the FBI. In other words, according to the FBI's own records, the material presented on the CDs was incomplete.
Many, if not most, of these documents duplicate material already made public by other federal offices, such as the State Department, for example, and the Air Force. There were few surprises among the hundreds of cables released. Some helpful information emerged, however, in the form of various lists. The roll of people living in Jonestown who had registered as permanent residents of Guyana will clarify to a certain extent who exactly was living there. Numerous catalogs of survivors, those who died, those identified in the mortuary, and so on will help update and correct various rosters that appear on our website.
Reviewing these releases in conjunction with material already in the public domain will broaden society's understanding of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. It will also help set the historical record straight by providing factual information in the form of names, dates, times, places, and actions. For instance, a cable from the Defense Department to the FBI dated 24 November 1978 states that all 405 bodies found in Jonestown would be evacuated on that day; a short time later, a second cable states that many more dead were found under the bodies just removed. Other cables show that intensive efforts were made to search for survivors, including offering rewards to Amerindians for any information about the whereabouts of residents of Jonestown.
The Question of Exemption
The referring agencies applied their own exemptions to the release of material, to which the FBI added its own, in a contradictory and conflicting manner. Some items reveal the names of those who survived the tragedy of 18 November; some items withhold them under a privacy exemption. Given the fact that the names were released by the State Department to various news agencies in 1978, and that comprehensive lists were published in The New York Times and other news outlets, these privacy protections seem arbitrary and capricious. Another example: Dr. Joseph Lowery, then-president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is mentioned by name in one document as attending the Black Church Consultation on the Implications of Jonestown in February 1979, while in another document his name is withheld. There are many examples of this kind of inconsistency in application of the exemptions.
Even when referring agencies released all information, the FBI applied its own exemptions. Still more disturbing is that the documents have a declassification date of 25 years from the date of review, rather than the date of the original document. This means that a cable originating within the State Department dated 18 December 1978 - and released by the State Department pursuant to this lawsuit - has a declassification date of 5 May 2029. That's because on 5 May 2004, when the FBI reviewed State's recent decision to release the cable, it applied the (b)(1) national security exemption, and thus started the 25-year clock ticking.
It is also clear from the referrals, as well as from the initial CD released by the FBI, that neither State Department nor the FBI has considered the itemized log of people we have identified who no longer, if ever, merit (b)(7) privacy considerations. Newly-applied exemptions that withhold information on 25-year-old documents result in classification as if this disaster happened last week, or last year, or perhaps on 11 September 2001. This lack of historical perspective - the failure to consider Peoples Temple and Jonestown in light of the end of the Cold War, the fall of Communism, and changing politics within the Western Hemisphere - explains why national security and privacy exemptions are made, but it does not justify them.
The release of these documents under court order raises several perplexing problems. First, to which agency do requesters file appeals regarding exemptions: to the FBI? or to the originating agency? Second, will they now be scanned and added to the CDs? These are questions the court may have to resolve.
Scope of Search
Our amended complaint also challenged the adequacy of the FBI's search for documents responsive to our request. In May 2000, the FBI said it had no "main file" records on Carolyn Moore Layton, Laurence Schacht, Maria Katsaris, and a number of other key figures who died in Jonestown. But in response to the lawsuit, the FBI was able to find a number of documents, both on CD (e.g., Maria Katsaris and Mike Prokes) and apparently not on CD. Individual hardcopies of items sent to us revealed a number of FBI interests.
One report indicated that the government spied on Larry Schacht in 1965 when he participated in an antiwar peace vigil outside the LBJ Ranch in Texas. The report noted his marijuana use, and his connection with the Houston Citizens for Action in Vietnam. It also mentioned its failed attempt to "get" him through his draft board in Houston. Richard Tropp ran afoul of the government by being party to a class action suit filed in Nashville in 1968 which asked for an injunction against National Guard units being sent to the troubled city. (The injunction was denied.) Eugene Chaikin's father and mother were born in Russia, and his father, David Wolff Chaikin, had subscribed to The People's World in 1942, and was a member of the Los Angeles Communist Party in 1951. Of course, since various FBI documents spell his name Chalkin - or Chaikan or, in one instance referenced a Fonoa Charkin - it's hard to tell if it's the right person. This party was under surveillance on suspicion of espionage: he was working at Hughes Aircraft.
Surprisingly, the FBI said it did not find anything on my sister Ann Elizabeth Moore, although the archives of the California Historical Society and the San Diego State University Library both have extensive documents - received under previous FBI FOIA requests - which she either wrote, is referenced, or have her signature on. The same is true for Jann Gurvich, who also reportedly had no documentation. Furthermore, are there no case files on the FOIA lawsuit Moore v. FBI which in 1983 challenged the national security exemptions made in the file on my sister Carolyn Layton? The file released to us in 2004 gave us even less than the initial release.
There is other evidence that the original search was inadequate. Documents on the CDs start and stop in the middle. There are gaps which show an incomplete search, such as the journal kept by Temple member Edith Roller. The diary extends over hundreds of pages, following Roller's activities in San Francisco and her move to Guyana. But bits and pieces of the journal appear scattered across separate CDs, and several months are missing. In addition, Roller notes the arrival of about 130 people between September 1977 and June 1978, but the meticulously-maintained Temple logs are gone, as are agricultural reports from the same time period.
Thus we remain skeptical about claims that the search which generated the CDs was as comprehensive as has been claimed. It does not appear that files the FBI may have maintained on individuals in Peoples Temple are necessarily on CD; there are significant gaps in the materials provided; and there are a number of duplicate items on disk. Nevertheless, the agency may proffer the CDs, and not conduct a search, in the mistaken belief that that is sufficiently responsive.
Legibility of the CDs
A final problem, and one not addressed thus far in the case but which pertains to adequacy of the FBI's response, is the fact that many of the items released on CD, as well as in hardcopy, are illegible. It is clear that the person preparing the documents for CD, which are scanned in PDF to retain their integrity as documents, either gained experience from the first disk to the second and third, or someone else took over: there is a noticeable difference in quality from the first to the last disks. This renders many of the documents, especially on the first CD, useless and nonresponsive to FOIA requesters.
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Related to this is the presentation of about 600 photographs on disks 2 and 3, which were scanned from photocopies rather than from photographs. In many cases, it is difficult to tell what the photographs depict. They are not usable in their current form. To add insult to injury, visitors to the FBI Reading Room in Washington, D.C. also must look at photocopies, rather than photographs, in the FBI's possession. The agency will make photocopies - of photocopies? - available, but no longer duplicates photographs. This is a departure from the policy in effect as recently as 2000, when we received 80 photographs (not photocopies!) from the FBI, and scanned them ourselves. They are available on the site's photo archive.
These photographs have a singular significance. For many survivors and family members, the pictures taken in Jonestown or in Peoples Temple are the only images they have of their relatives. Thus the photographs, perhaps more than any other item, serve both a public purpose in depicting life in Jonestown, and a private purpose - of connecting people to their loved ones. They do not deserve to be relegated to the washed-out anonymous results of a photocopier.
The Point of Departure: An Index
Our initial complaint challenged the exemptions claimed for the documents on the CDs and asked for an index to navigate them as well. There is another kind of index in FOI law - a Vaughn index - which helps litigants determine which withheld documents are worth challenging. As a result, in most FOI cases over application of exemptions, a motion for a Vaughn index is among the first filed, and is often granted. In our case, we have not yet received one.
In the 1974 decision in Vaughn v. Rosen, the Circuit Court of Washington, D.C. stated that the burden of proof in justifying exemptions lay upon the agency, and that part of that responsibility entailed creation of an index to the materials, since "the party with the greatest interest in obtaining disclosure is at a loss to argue with desirable legal precision for the revelation of the concealed information." The Vaughn Court then proceeded to outline procedures under which the agency defendant in a FOIA suit is required to file an itemized, indexed inventory and detailed justification statement.
Again, a suit by the Church of Scientology helped to clarify this issue with a decision in the D.C. Circuit Court (1979) which identified the three indispensable elements of the index:
1) the index should be contained in one document, complete in itself.
2) the index must adequately describe each withheld document or deletion from a released document.
3) the index must state the exemption claimed for each deletion or withheld document, and explain why the exemption is relevant. The explanation of the exemption claim and the descriptions need not be so detailed as to reveal what the agency wishes to conceal, but they must be sufficiently specific to permit a reasoned judgment as to whether the material is actually exempted under FOIA.
Other court decisions have reaffirmed Vaughn procedures. The reason is that ordinarily the agency alone possesses knowledge of the precise content of withheld documents. In the case of the FBI's documents, however, this is not necessarily the case. Because hundreds of pages were released prior to the creation of the CDs and exist in other locations, some comparisons and educated guesses can be made. For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms - reviewing a document referred to it by the FBI - exempted 26 of 27 pages describing the weapons traced from Jonestown to the U.S. from release. This same document, however, had been previously released in its entirety to us, and to other requesters, and its contents are posted under Primary Sources on our site. State Department documents which lacked national security exemptions that are housed at the California Historical Society and the San Diego State University Special Collections, are now released by the FBI with new exemptions.
Because we have closely monitored information about Jonestown and Peoples Temple for more than 25 years, in many respects we know more about the documents - at least in terms of their significance or lack thereof - than those reviewing them for the first time for whom the names and identities of individuals are completely foreign. As noted above, we have provided information to the FBI, as well as to the State Department, about privacy exemptions which should have been lifted due to the deaths of principals involved. This has not occurred.
In its initial response, the FBI answered our lawsuit in the same way it had our initial appeal of privacy exemptions, by saying that release of certain names would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. This was a blanket claim, however: the agency did not look at individual documents, but merely asserted - without considering the exemptions on thousands and thousands of documents - that each and every exemption was legitimate or warranted.
The (b)(7) privacy exemption covers a multitude of concerns, from revealing law enforcement records or invading personal privacy, to identifying confidential sources or disclosing law enforcement techniques. Again, our knowledge of events makes clear that confidential sources have already been revealed, by authors such as George Klineman and David Conn, or Deborah Layton Blakey and Jeanne and Al Mills, who admit in their books that they met with federal agents to discuss their concerns about Peoples Temple. Many books and articles have revealed information which was unknown in 1978 and which agencies reviewing documents for possible release should take into account.
We are not looking to "out" anyone, and certainly respect the privacy of individuals who were interviewed by the FBI following the assassination of Ryan and the deaths in Jonestown. At the same time, if Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo made public statements after the deaths, why is the name of the doctor from the New Jersey College of Medicine blanked out in the documents? Why are the names of amateur radio licensees - whose names and call numbers are a matter of public record at the FCC - deleted? Why are the names of survivors withheld on some documents, and released on others (or, in the alternative, why is the name of an interview subject blacked out on one page, when on the same page, the subject is identified as Jim Jones' only natural born son)?
A Vaughn index is a crucial and necessary first step to unraveling the mass of exemptions. Such an index will not resolve all problems, however, since just as every exemption must be individually reviewed by an agency, each exemption must be individually challenged by a requester. And for the latest exemptions, 2029 - the year of declassification - is a long way off.
Conclusions
There are a number of steps that could be taken right now to remedy the situation. First, the FBI should resume its search for all documents pertaining to Peoples Temple. This would include files started on individual members, files started on the group under its various names, and files begun in response to reports from confidential informants. The search would have to include files generated by the FBI's offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis, as well as in Washington, D.C.
Second, the agency should review all exemptions, keeping in mind the fact that the documents are more than 27 years old and refer to events in the distant past, at least in geopolitical terms. The world is a vastly different place than it was in 1978. Many of the principals involved are dead. The issues of containing communism in the Western Hemisphere, monitoring liberal politics at home, and investigating the assassination of a U.S. official abroad are long past. We live in a very different world post-9/11; the documents should not be reviewed through the lenses of 9/11, or as if they had been generated since then. In just a few years the thirtieth anniversary of Jonestown will occur, the time period in which most classified documents are released. These facts must be recognized when considering the appropriateness of on-going exemptions.
Third, the FBI should inventory and categorize these documents into a usable system, with cross-referencing used as much as possible. While it may be impossible to randomly search various PDF files (we don't know), a more complete and descriptive inventory will help those receiving and using the CDs.
Fourth, at the conclusion/resolution of the lawsuit, a new set of CDs needs to be generated. This new collection should incorporate the materials we received as a result of the suit, including the FBI referrals made to other agencies which are now released. It should integrate other items newly discovered, such as files on individuals. It should include corrected scans of illegible documents; if that is not possible, then the best scan possible should be provided, along with an indication that this is the case. It should also add photographs scanned to photographic quality, as 600 dpi, which can be used by the public in a variety of ways such as documentaries, books, artworks.
We are hopeful that, working with the court and the Department of Justice, these steps can be taken. Over the years we have worked with a number of helpful individuals at Justice and in the FBI's Freedom of Information office. We have been able to obtain the Peoples Temple audiotape collection in order to transcribe and make available those tapes to the public. We have uploaded a limited number of photographs in the FBI's possession. We have written books and articles using documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. We have compiled a comprehensive list of those who died by employing State Department documents, censuses created by Peoples Temple and acquired under FOIA. We continue to use, and to share, the government documents we receive in order to more completely tell the story of Peoples Temple and Jonestown.
And we're not the only ones who are doing this. Many individuals - from relatives to artists to scholars - are using the documents as well. That is because in the history of religion in America, and in the imagination of American culture, Jonestown is enormous. The breadth and scope of the articles in this jonestown report, and on our site as a whole, offer testimony to that.
The deeper philosophical, religious and societal questions on Jonestown may never be answered. Hidden among the thousands of undiscovered, unprocessed, withheld and illegible pages are hundreds of possible answers. After 27 years of trying to get these answers, none of us are going to stop now.
(Rebecca Moore's other articles in this issues include Katrina and Jonestown and The Strange Case of Garry Scarff. She may be reached through this website. Thanks go to James Lesar and Don Beck for providing assistance in writing this article.)
Back to Volume 7
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Sep 11, 2012... to Herbert L. Rosedale, 1989 Leo J. Ryan Award to Dr. Louis Jolyon ......rehabilitation approaches of psychiatrists Hardat Sukhdeo and John ...
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U.S. v. LAYTON - June 3, 1987. - Leagle.com
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The most damaging statements made by Layton were contained on tapes of several interviews with Dr. Hardat Arjune Sukhdeo. In those interviews, which took ...
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The Sukhdeo materials. Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, Chief of Psychiatry at Jersey Medical School in New Jersey, interviewed Layton within a short period of time after ...
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Behind The Blue Wall: 2007/05
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May 31, 2007 – [Excerpt] The parents of slain beauty Guiatree Hardat said the NYPD.... frustration with the attitude of this guy," said her father, Sukhdeo Hardat. .... the Prosecutor's Office, and the county was liable because Dr. Elliot Gross, the ...
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Remembering/Knowledge | Utah Electronic High School
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Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born psychiatrist who treated Jonestown survivors, says the conditions that created Peoples Temple could create a similar ...
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March 29, 1992, Palm Beach Post, Guru Ma: Saintly Or Sinister?, by Jenny Vogt, Staff Writer,
She moves among her followers in a heavy cloud of perfume, her long black hair framing the red Hindu tilak spot on her forehead. Intricate tattoos circle her ankles and adorn her wrists. A diamond glitters in her right nostril.
Behold Ma Jaya Bhagavati Cho, guru, lover of humanity, angel of mercy, saint. Or egomaniacal, child-obsessed cult priestess. It depends on whom you ask.
To her followers, who have included folk singer Arlo Guthrie and the late Kimberly Bergalis, she is simply Ma. Earlier in life she was Joyce Green Difiore, a Jewish housewife from Brooklyn with little education, lots of chutzpah and a vision of Christ.
"She has the heart of Mother Teresa with the mouth of Bette Midler," a follower said.
Now, she is a flamboyant spiritual leader teaching a hybrid of Eastern and Western religion to more than 150 earnest followers who view her as a living deity and themselves as her chosen people. Most live on or near a secluded, 41-acre ashram or ranch in Indian River County.
But Cho, 51, is not the saint she seems to her disciples, say law enforcement officials, cult experts and eight former followers. To them, she is an ego-driven tyrant whose mind-control tactics make people willing to do anything to win her favor, including giving up their money, personal identities, families, free will-- even their newborn babies.
Cho called the claims "nonsense" and said they are the opinions of former followers who were upset because they didn't receive enough attention from her.
"They threaten to leave. They threaten to destroy me. I don't care," Cho said. "I'm here on earth to serve humanity. That's all I know."
An attorney who represented two former followers trying to retrieve their teenage son and adult twin daughters from Cho in the early 1980s said the group is destructive.
"You don't know what you're getting into once you start dealing with this cult. It's entering the danger zone," said attorney Joe Gersten, a Miami-Dade Metro commissioner.
Cho's Kashi Church Foundation Inc. is tax-exempt and non-profit. It operates a licensed, unaccredited kindergarten-to-12th grade school for about 75 students, a third of whom live off the ranch.
Kashi means "city of light" in Hindu.
Residents live semi-communally in large houses and apartments on the ranch. Most have jobs off the ranch. They share meals and child care. They co-host the annual Indian River Festival, which is Saturday in Vero Beach.
A single resident pays roughly $700 a month for a private room at the ranch, said attorney John Evans, one of 21 disciples employed on the ashram. Cho's charitable work, which emphasizes feeding and caring for the sick, takes her to Palm Beach County, Los Angeles and elsewhere. The work is supported by donations and the sale of her abstract expressionist artwork, Evans said.
Birth certificates list Cho and her husband SooSe Cho as the parents either together or individually of four children born between 1978 and 1982. Cho initially said she had adopted the children, including a 13-year-old boy she said is her grandson. Later, she said she had adopted only two of the children. The remaining two, whose parents still live at the ranch, are "like foster children that I raised," Cho said.
Followers Gina and Richard Rosenkranz, birth parents of one of the "foster children" raised by Cho, said they asked Cho to raise their child for them in 1982 because they felt unable to do so themselves. Gina said she impulsively signed Cho's name to the birth certificate to make it easier for Cho to assume the role of mother to the boy, now 9.
"You have to understand I was so freaked out at the time," said Gina, 33. "I was crazed. I was young and I didn't know what to do. I knew I didn't want to have a baby."
In 1990, the Rosenkranzes changed the names on their child's birth certificate so they would be listed as the parents, but Cho still remains the primary caretaker, they said.
Follower Karen Chappelear, the natural mother of the second of the two "foster children," said the name of SooSe Cho, Cho's husband, appears on her child's birth certificate, but he is not the natural father. She said SooSe Cho agreed to have his name appear on the certificate because Chappelear was unmarried and did not know who the father of her child was.
Chappelear, 39, said she asked Ma Jaya Bhagavati Cho to raise her daughter, now 9, because she did not want to do so herself. Cho remains the child's primary caretaker, she added.
"I was very insistent I didn't want to have the child myself and eventually she said she would help me to raise the baby," Chappelear said.
Both Chappelear and the Rosenkranzes said they were never approached by Ma to give their children up to her, but did so of their own volition.
Cho said she had the parents' consent to raise the two children, but she said she was unaware her name was on the birth certificates.
Evans would not allow an interview with the parents of Cho's grandson.
Rosanne Henry, a former follower now living in Colorado, tells a different story. Henry said she and her husband and the three other sets of natural parents were coerced or pressured into giving up their newborn children to Cho in the early 1980s. She said Cho directed all four mothers to deliver at different hospitals and sign Cho's name-- or her maiden name-- as the natural mother on the birth certificate.
Four residents who lived on the ranch at the same time as Henry corroborated her story. Three of them insisted that they remain anonymous.
"It was about the cruelest thing you can do to someone other than murdering your child," Henry said.
Cho denies Henry's story, calling her "just a very sad, depressed woman."
"I was in my 40s. There was no way I wanted to have children," Cho said. "In some cases, the parents were having a very hard time together. There was no money. They didn't want the children. They were going to put them up for adoption. One said that if I would take the child she would have it, but if not she would abort."
The Kashi Church Foundation Inc. has many similarities to Jim Jones' People's Temple, said Dr. Hardat A.S. Sukhdeo, a retired psychiatrist and cult expert who counseled survivors of the 1978 Jonestown, Guyana, massacre.
"Her (Cho's) manipulative behavior very closely resembles Jim Jones and his behavior toward the people in his church," Sukhdeo wrote in a 1982 letter to a Miami circuit judge who decided the child custody suit Gersten was involved in. "The (Kashi) cult is dangerous and destructive."
But Cho has staunch allies, including numerous AIDS patients, their families and caretakers. She has devoted herself to AIDS ministry in the last two years.
Kimberly Bergalis, the Fort Pierce woman who attracted national attention after contracting the AIDS virus from her dentist, was close to Cho before she died in December. Bergalis visited the ranch and Cho visited her at her home. George Bergalis credits Cho with helping make his daughter's last year easier to endure. "I think Ma is the ultimate leader," George Bergalis said. ' I think the area needs to feel privileged to have someone like her and that facility."
He said he had never heard any of the allegations against Cho. "We've heard nothing but good things," he said.
Cho's critics see her community service work as a public relations ploy.
"Jim Jones was once the greatest care-giver for the poor and aged," Sukhdeo said. Cult leaders "get more and more powerful (through community service). . . . The more power they get, the more dangerous they get."
When Ma Jaya Bhagavati Cho came to Florida in 1976, she said she thought it was to die.
"I thought I had a brain tumor, and they gave me three months to live," recalled Cho, in her heavy Brooklyn accent. "I wanted to die very dramatically, so I closed my ashrams in California, New York and Colorado and had them all come here.
"After three months, I said, `How embarrassing. I'm not dead.' "
Her band of followers has grown from 18 to more than 150 who live on the ranch and in the area near Sebastian. Eight disillusioned devotees who left the ranch say Cho gave them new names, expected large donations, frequently deprived them of sleep, publicly admonished them for personal failures, left them with phobic fears of leaving the ranch and arranged marriages among her followers.
"What you're telling me is nonsense," Cho said. "When you're in the public eye, someone is always going to throw mud at you."
And stories persist that Cho was obsessed with acquiring people's children. "The more children she has, the happier she is," said former follower Michele Rousseau. In 1981, Rousseau fought to regain custody of her then-16- year-old son from Cho, who she said wrested him away.
Rousseau, 60, and her husband, Jean, moved from Toronto to the Kashi ranch in 1977, taking their son Paul, then 12. Older twin daughters came to live on the ranch later.
Rousseau said she and her family were persuaded to give all their money to Cho. They said they also were deprived of sleep and publicly humiliated. They put up with it, she said, because they thought Cho was God and their key to salvation.
The worst was Cho's attempt to sever the family's ties, Rousseau said. It began when Cho exiled her from the ranch in 1978 after she openly disagreed with the guru's command to move out of the room she shared with her husband and son and into a garage on the ranch. Jean Rousseau soon followed his wife off the ranch, but the three children refused to leave.
The Rousseaus sought legal advice in 1981 from Gersten, then a state senator.
The Rousseaus "were real, literal victims whose family was destroyed by this so-called Ma and the cult," Gersten said. "The Rousseaus felt their children had been kidnapped. It was pretty hard to dispute it."
Paul Rousseau, now 27, is an applied physics graduate student at Stanford University. He said Cho brought him into her inner circle of favorites and counseled him to oppose any efforts to remove him from the ranch. Cho even made plans for him to marry a ranch resident to circumvent his parents' guardianship, he said.
"It's amazing to what lengths they went to, to keep me there," he said. "I guess I would have become a good source of cheap labor for the rest of my life had I never left the ranch."
He said Cho emphasized the importance of youthful followers because they were easier to indoctrinate than adults: "For her, children will make much better disciples in the long run."
The Rousseaus regained custody of their son on Dec. 11, 1981, after a nine-member team from the Miami-Dade Police Department descended on a home Cho used as a retreat in Miami and took him into custody under a court order. The twin daughters were no longer minors and therefore beyond the court's reach. They declined to be interviewed for this story.
Paul Rousseau said he was directed to run away from home, publicly accuse his mother of raping him and to break everything in his parents' home.
"I'm not going to answer questions about people from years and years ago," Cho said of Rousseau. "I don't even remember what happened. All I know is I bless everyone."
Five painful years passed before all three Rousseau children severed ties with the Kashi ranch. All were withdrawn and needed extensive therapy, but now are recovered, their mother said.
"I think it's probably even worse when you look at the children," Paul Rousseau said. "The children born in the sect, they don't have a chance in hell. . . . It all makes me terribly sad to think about it. It's kind of like living as a domesticated animal."
Rosanne Henry said she gave her daughter up to Cho just hours after her birth in 1981. It took eight years and a lot of therapy before Henry and her husband finally retrieved their child, she said.
While living on the ranch in 1980, Henry and her husband got Cho's permission to have a baby, Henry said. Midway through the pregnancy, Cho's confidants approached them and at least four other couples expecting babies and asked them to give their children to Cho, she said.
"Wouldn't it be great if you gave your child to Ma?" Henry recalled being asked. "These children are to be her successors."
Henry's husband readily agreed. "I was totally committed to her (Cho)," he said. "She was the most important thing in the world and I would have done almost anything for her. . . . She was giving our child a chance to be the son or daughter of God."
Henry said Cho ordered her to dye her light brown hair black before going to the hospital and pass herself off as Cho so Cho's name would appear on the birth certificate. A handwriting analysis ordered by the Indian River County Sheriff's Office confirmed the "Joyce Cho" signature on the birth certificate is Henry's, said Lt. Mary Hogan, in charge of the department's criminal investigations.
Cho promised Henry and the three other families who had agreed to give up their babies that they could be involved in the children's upbringing. But she made them promise that all four children were to believe Cho and her husband were their natural parents, Henry said.
Cho denied all of Henry's allegations. "I never directed anybody to do anything."
Another former follower who lived on the ranch at the same time, but declined to be identified, said the families were "coerced, cajoled, teased and tricked."
Cho "has a brilliant ability to read people's strengths and weaknesses and needs and then take advantage of that for . . . whatever it is she wants," said the ex-disciple.
When Henry began trying to get her child back in 1989, Lt. Hogan investigated and confirmed Henry's story. But pursuing criminal charges after eight years would have been "extremely difficult," she said.
"Do lay people believe that brainwashing can take place? I say yes, it can," Hogan said. "Is it happening (on the Kashi ranch) now? I can't tell you that. Did it happen in the `80s? Yes. I believe it did."
Cho initially allowed Henry to care for her daughter, named Ganga Chen Cho. But Henry said she and her husband left in 1982 after Cho abruptly banned her from the nursery.
On July 19, 1989, a five-member SWAT team from the sheriff's office went to the Kashi ranch with a court order and removed Ganga Chen Cho. State officials determined that Henry and her husband were fit parents, and the child returned home with them.
Cho dropped her custody petition because "I didn't want to put my baby through that. My first thing in life is the child . . . I just want children to be happy everywhere."
Henry said she believes the Chos dropped their petition because court proceedings would have opened the group up to scrutiny. The court file includes 57 letters in support of Cho, including notes from Arlo Guthrie and an Indian River County commissioner.
Ganga Chen Cho had been emotionally traumatized during her years with the Chos, according to a state Health and Rehabilitative Services psychological evaluation performed shortly after the child left the ranch.
"She shows an especially strong need for maternal affection and for individual attention in general, clearly feeling that she has been basically ignored and that her `adoptive' parents (the Chos) are controlling rather than loving," the HRS report said. She "has been deprived of a chance to develop a full range of emotions," it said.
The report also said the girl believed Cho was God. When she first came home, Henry said, her daughter prayed to Cho at the dinner table.
"I didn't even look at the HRS report," Cho responded. "I just wanted the best for Ganga."
Henry said her daughter, now 10, is thriving in her natural family in suburban Denver, but still has occasional nightmares about life on the ranch. Cho said she and her husband raised Henry's daughter because she asked her to do so.
"It was just a matter of parents who wanted to abort the baby at a very, very late time," Cho said. "They asked me if I would take the child or they were going to abort it."
A former follower who lived on the ranch in 1981 recalled Cho telling the same story during a group meeting.
"I was sitting there thinking, `Who the hell are you kidding?' " the follower said. "Ninety percent of us who were there knew what was going on, that Rosanne did not want an abortion. It really made me angry, but nobody said anything, and I knew I couldn't say anything."
Hogan speculated that few people have been able to stand up to Cho over the years.
"She (Cho) must have never had any expectation that anyone would break from the fold and realize something wasn't right in paradise."
If you are lonely, she will be your friend. If you are hungry, she will feed you. If you are unhappy, she will make you laugh.
Cho switches easily back and forth between the roles of comedian and ministering angel to the 175 residents of the Palm Beach County Home & General Care Facility.
Strutting through the corridors like a fashion model working a runway, her charisma makes her 5-foot-8 frame appear 6 feet tall. She spots a man in a wheelchair sitting alone in a hallway.
Doing a little dance in her high-top tennis shoes and matching green top and capri pants, she starts singing loudly and off-key: "You are my desire . . . "
"I tell you," Cho continues in a stage whisper, "I'm a little busy now, but when you have the time, I have the body."
The man glows in response, eagerly downing a cookie from the plate Cho offers.
The 10 people in her entourage stay carefully in the background, hurriedly handing her plates of food when she commands. One carefully shadows her every step with her favorite drink, a diet Pepsi, at the ready.
"We think she's the greatest," said county home Director Doris L. Orestis. "She just wants to give." Cho has never tried to recruit people or solicit donations for the ranch, she added.
Last year, the Palm Beach County Commission gave Cho a certificate of appreciation for her work at the county home. She also makes weekly visits to several other Palm Beach County social services agencies, including Connor's Nursery for babies with AIDS.
She is hands-on with AIDS patients, especially infants. She tells anyone who will listen that the disease is not transmitted by hugging, kissing or touching, all of which she does with fervor.
"My main objective is to teach of service and the sacredness of the human touch. . . . What we love to do more than anything else is to touch where no one else will touch and to feed where there is hunger," Cho said.
Most agree that receiving Cho's attention is heady stuff. She impresses with her ability to remember dozens of people's names and backgrounds. She makes people feel they are special to her.
Former followers recall Cho being at the center of their universe. They say they were eager to do almost anything to get her to smile on them.
"It was basically do anything to get five seconds with Ma," Paul Rousseau said.
But former followers say Cho does not hesitate to use guilt, coercion and threats.
A former disciple now living in New England said Cho, a black belt in tae kwon do, once kicked her in the forehead when she was angry with her. Sandy Schneider said the incident occurred during darshan, the ranch's nightly spiritual gatherings.
"It didn't really hurt," said Schneider, who had been called to sit before Cho. "But it knocked me backward. I was so hurt that she had humiliated me. . . . That's what she does: She strips you of all self- esteem."
Darshan is the forum where Cho's control is most evident. She sweeps through a sea of rapt followers, who clasp their hands and bow to her as she takes her position on an animal skin-draped couch in the center of the room.
Everyone sinks to the floor and sits lotus-style at her feet. Cho dons rhinestone-rimmed glasses to read questions submitted by disciples on everything from what to name the new family pet to what community service work to pursue. She blows kisses to her audience. Parents approach with babies in their arms and Cho kisses the infants with the gusto of a politician.
After bantering with the crowd for a few minutes, Cho closes her eyes, flickers her lids and delivers a soliloquy on the importance of the human touch in her teaching. Finally, she recites a long, rambling poem about a river in India.
Cho also used darshan as a tool to deprive her followers of sleep and thus break their wills, the former followers said. She would often call the rituals late at night and keep them going until sunrise, they said.
Cho denied she ever deprived disciples of sleep. "I wouldn't stay up all night."
Another stage where Cho rules is the weekly yoga and darshan session with students from the ranch's River School. As in nightly darshan, she admonishes the children for various misdeeds while their schoolmates look on.
"Don't cry," she tells one little girl who weeps when Cho orders her to stop talking fresh to her teachers. "You were disrespectful."
Cho knows this because of what she describes as a "rat list" provided by school principal Marie Cirillo. The method is highly effective tool for motivating children, Cirillo said.
As proof, Cirillo pointed to a glowing report by a Rutgers University team who visited the school for six days in 1990. The report, which cost the Kashi Foundation $25,000, called the use of guilt to motivate children "well within the limits of superego mechanisms commonly used by families, religions and authorities everywhere to enhance compliance."
Former followers said visitors to the ashram saw only that part of ranch life that Cho wanted them to see.
Former disciples also said Cho made them feel guilty for wanting to see their families off the ranch.
"It was like, `How could you bear to leave her (Cho)? She's everything. Your (own) mother is nothing,' "one said.
Cho also warned against trying to leave the ranch permanently, they said. To do so, they were told, meant risking sudden misfortune.
"She told me if I left I would go blind," a former follower recalled.
Cho said residents can leave the ranch anytime they want "with my blessing."
Disciple John Shinavier, who lived on the ranch from 1977 to 1984, said he had no difficulty leaving the ranch and continues to have close ties with Cho. He is involved in Cho's public service work in the Los Angeles area, where he counsels HIV-positive people.
"She's always been the center of controversy," Shinavier said. "Ma's gotten a lot of bad press in the fact that people can't seem to get past the initial, here's a woman who wears jewelry, who sometimes has a foul mouth and it's not what they expect from a holy person."
Former disciples said the majority of Cho's followers have college degrees, many from prestigious schools.
"Oftentimes it is the most searching, intellectually curious and altruistic individuals who do get recruited into destructive cults, so in a way it's a backhanded compliment to be recruited," said Cynthia Kisser, executive director of the Cult Awareness Network in Chicago. "They want people who, once they have been converted, will contribute time, energy and money to make the organization prosper."
Current followers bow to their guru's feet every night at darshan. During the ceremonies, Cho calls children and adults before her and chastises them for their transgressions, including doing poorly in school.
Cho describes her group as a mixture of Catholics, Jews and Protestants with a shared interest in other faiths, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism.
"The reason I embrace Hinduism is simply because it embraces everything. So there's no one's religion here I put down, because I believe in everything," Cho said. She never encouraged anyone to believe she is a saint or God, she insisted.
"I'm nothing like Jesus Christ. I'm not nearly so nice," she said. She considers food-- chocolate cake in particular-- and monthly beauty shop visits to get her hair dyed her major failings. "God forbid I'm perfect . . . I am the mother. That's what I am: the mother."
But at least some of Cho's current followers say she is next to God-- if not God-- in their estimation.
"I think she's a very saintly person," says longtime follower Denis Schiff, 54. "I knew I was in love with her before I met her."
"Ma is my friend," said Louise Cirillo, 77, mother of school principal Marie Cirillo and a ranch resident since 1985. "If I have any problems, I go to her and visit with her."
"I've never been any place like this, where you feel you're loved every minute," added Sundari Beach, 71, a disciple since 1988. "I'd call it the most loving place in the world-- and it's real love."
Another disciple lovingly caressed Cho's white sneakers as they air out after an early morning painting session. Kneeling on a bench, the woman spoke in hushed tones of Cho's godliness, of the beauty of her paintings and of the paint-spattered shoes.
Her eyes grew large as she confided, "I'm very awed by the holiness of these paintings and by her shoes."
Cho admitted followers have even prayed to her exercise equipment, but downplayed such displays of devotion. She said she is more concerned about who will lead her flock when she is gone.
She said she has a successor in mind but would not say who.
She looked off into the distance, her chin in her hands, gently rocking herself.
"But if I could live for another 20 years, we'll be fine," she said. "We'll be fine."
LIFE ON THE KASHI RANCH
'I FOUND FULFILLMENT here,' said Kashi resident Ann McNichol, 62, who works as a loan processor at a local mortgage company. 'I came here to visit and she (Cho) said move down here and I said OK. . . . The best thing is I'm a freer person here.'
'SHE HAS A GIFT that's inexplicable,' said a former follower who lived on the ranch in the late '70s and early '80s and spoke on condition of anonymity. 'Some people are born with the gift to paint and she has the gift to read people and sum them up in a very short period and use them to her advantage and I've seen very few people who can stand up to that, and that's the essence of charisma.'
'THE BEAUTIFUL THING is the sense of community and being able to live my life with Ma,' said Leslie, a 43-year-old Kashi ranch resident and part owner of a local travel agency. 'We've very devoted to God, to taking care of our children and leading a real life . . . and people seem to be threatened by that because we're different. We're not hippies. Everyone works hard.'
'THE ALLEGIANCE is always to Joyce and not to your marriage or your spouse,' said a former follower, who lived on the ranch in the early `80s. `The real world is not a mellow and gentle place. That's a real fabricated type of lifestyle.'
'THERE'S NO ONE who can compare to Ma and the love she gives you,' said non- resident follower Dan Bishop, 42, a former yacht interior decorator from Fort Lauderdale who has the AIDS virus. 'It's not anything like the Hari Krishnas.'
'I LOVE THE PEOPLE there,' said Sandy Schneider, a former follower who left the ranch in 1980.
'Some of those people are like the dearest, best people in the world. They would literally do anything for you. . . . But when you are subtly trained with mind control to believe something you wouldn't normally believe, that is not free will.'
© The Palm Beach Post
______________________________________________________________________________
About us - UWI Medical Alumni
Hardat Sukhdeo; Andre Williams 1987 Jamaica Chapter founded. Professor Gerald Grell (Dominica); Dr. R.E. David Thwaites and Professor Peter Fletcher
The UWI Medical Alumni Association (UWIMAA) was formed during the first Reunion in Jamaica in 1988 at the time of the University’s 40th Anniversary Celebrations
Disciple John Shinavier, who lived on the ranch from 1977 to 1984, said he had no difficulty leaving the ranch and continues to have close ties with Cho. He is involved in Cho's public service work in the Los Angeles area, where he counsels HIV-positive people.
"She's always been the center of controversy," Shinavier said. "Ma's gotten a lot of bad press in the fact that people can't seem to get past the initial, here's a woman who wears jewelry, who sometimes has a foul mouth and it's not what they expect from a holy person."
Former disciples said the majority of Cho's followers have college degrees, many from prestigious schools.
"Oftentimes it is the most searching, intellectually curious and altruistic individuals who do get recruited into destructive cults, so in a way it's a backhanded compliment to be recruited," said Cynthia Kisser, executive director of the Cult Awareness Network in Chicago. "They want people who, once they have been converted, will contribute time, energy and money to make the organization prosper."
Current followers bow to their guru's feet every night at darshan. During the ceremonies, Cho calls children and adults before her and chastises them for their transgressions, including doing poorly in school.
Cho describes her group as a mixture of Catholics, Jews and Protestants with a shared interest in other faiths, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism.
"The reason I embrace Hinduism is simply because it embraces everything. So there's no one's religion here I put down, because I believe in everything," Cho said. She never encouraged anyone to believe she is a saint or God, she insisted.
"I'm nothing like Jesus Christ. I'm not nearly so nice," she said. She considers food-- chocolate cake in particular-- and monthly beauty shop visits to get her hair dyed her major failings. "God forbid I'm perfect . . . I am the mother. That's what I am: the mother."
But at least some of Cho's current followers say she is next to God-- if not God-- in their estimation.
"I think she's a very saintly person," says longtime follower Denis Schiff, 54. "I knew I was in love with her before I met her."
"Ma is my friend," said Louise Cirillo, 77, mother of school principal Marie Cirillo and a ranch resident since 1985. "If I have any problems, I go to her and visit with her."
"I've never been any place like this, where you feel you're loved every minute," added Sundari Beach, 71, a disciple since 1988. "I'd call it the most loving place in the world-- and it's real love."
Another disciple lovingly caressed Cho's white sneakers as they air out after an early morning painting session. Kneeling on a bench, the woman spoke in hushed tones of Cho's godliness, of the beauty of her paintings and of the paint-spattered shoes.
Her eyes grew large as she confided, "I'm very awed by the holiness of these paintings and by her shoes."
Cho admitted followers have even prayed to her exercise equipment, but downplayed such displays of devotion. She said she is more concerned about who will lead her flock when she is gone.
She said she has a successor in mind but would not say who.
She looked off into the distance, her chin in her hands, gently rocking herself.
"But if I could live for another 20 years, we'll be fine," she said. "We'll be fine."
LIFE ON THE KASHI RANCH
'I FOUND FULFILLMENT here,' said Kashi resident Ann McNichol, 62, who works as a loan processor at a local mortgage company. 'I came here to visit and she (Cho) said move down here and I said OK. . . . The best thing is I'm a freer person here.'
'SHE HAS A GIFT that's inexplicable,' said a former follower who lived on the ranch in the late '70s and early '80s and spoke on condition of anonymity. 'Some people are born with the gift to paint and she has the gift to read people and sum them up in a very short period and use them to her advantage and I've seen very few people who can stand up to that, and that's the essence of charisma.'
'THE BEAUTIFUL THING is the sense of community and being able to live my life with Ma,' said Leslie, a 43-year-old Kashi ranch resident and part owner of a local travel agency. 'We've very devoted to God, to taking care of our children and leading a real life . . . and people seem to be threatened by that because we're different. We're not hippies. Everyone works hard.'
'THE ALLEGIANCE is always to Joyce and not to your marriage or your spouse,' said a former follower, who lived on the ranch in the early `80s. `The real world is not a mellow and gentle place. That's a real fabricated type of lifestyle.'
'THERE'S NO ONE who can compare to Ma and the love she gives you,' said non- resident follower Dan Bishop, 42, a former yacht interior decorator from Fort Lauderdale who has the AIDS virus. 'It's not anything like the Hari Krishnas.'
'I LOVE THE PEOPLE there,' said Sandy Schneider, a former follower who left the ranch in 1980.
'Some of those people are like the dearest, best people in the world. They would literally do anything for you. . . . But when you are subtly trained with mind control to believe something you wouldn't normally believe, that is not free will.'
© The Palm Beach Post
______________________________________________________________________________
About us - UWI Medical Alumni
Hardat Sukhdeo; Andre Williams 1987 Jamaica Chapter founded. Professor Gerald Grell (Dominica); Dr. R.E. David Thwaites and Professor Peter Fletcher
The UWI Medical Alumni Association (UWIMAA) was formed during the first Reunion in Jamaica in 1988 at the time of the University’s 40th Anniversary Celebrations
UWI MEDICAL ALUMNI MEETS WITH MEDICAL FACULTY - 1988
L-R: Karl Massiah; Premdath Ramphal; Sir Kenneth Standard (deceased);Neville Gibbs; Andre Williams; Sir George Alleyne; Nabin Bodonaik;
Gerald Groves; TBI; TBI; Vasil Persaud (deceased); Barbara Noel (partially hidden); Peter Fletcher.
Starting an alumni association is a challenging yet rewarding experience, which grows out of a desire to build a long lasting relationship with your colleagues following your University experience. It embodies a wish for a long-term commitment to your Alma Mater that goes way beyond the college years, and becomes a way of life.
As our history demonstrates, choosing to form and develop such an Association shows a great deal of commitment on the part of its founders.
We thank and acknowledge all our pioneers, who spent much time, effort and money to bring about the premier alumnus organization in the University of the West Indies.
The Formative Years: 1984 – 1988
1984; Barbados Chapter founded Dr. Jeff Massay and the late Dr. Winston "Spottie" Clarke1984; Canada Chapter founded
1985; First Canadian Chapter Board of Directors created, and they conceptualized the Conference in 1988 to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of UWI Drs. Karl Massiah; Pam DaCamara; Robert Ogilvie; Premdath "Raj" Ramphal
1986; US Chapter founded Sir George "Champ" Alleyne; Drs. Neville Gibbs; Hardat Sukhdeo; Andre Williams Jamaica Chapter founded Professor Gerald Grell (Dominica); Dr. R.E. David Thwaites and Professor Peter Fletcher
However, the Life and Development of UWIMAA, truly began when these Chapters came together in November 1988 for Reunion 1, held in Jamaica, at The Americana Hotel, Ocho Rios.
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UWI Notebook Headlines | Marketing and Communications Office ...
myspot.mona.uwi.edu/proffice/uwinotebook/.../wipqsubeqjlmrnyb.html?...
The presenters will be Dr. Beryl Allen, Head IDU and Ms Meta Bogle formerly ... of Stethoscopes will be done by Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, President, USA Chapter.
[PDF] UWI Connect March - May 2009 - The University of the West Indies ...
www.cavehill.uwi.edu/news/periodicals/UWI_Connect_Mar_May_09.pdf
May 24, 2009 – Dr. Winston Mitchell - USA Tri-State. Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo - USA Tri-State. Dr. Kathleen Watson - USA Tri-State. UWIGNA (Canada) - President ..
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Santa Fe New Mexican, Thursday, November 15, 1979, Page 45
newspaperarchive.com › ... › Thursday, November 15, 1979
Nov 15, 1979 – ... jungle before reaching safety Dr Hardat Sukhdeo a psychiatrist who still counsels former church members and about 40 Jonestown survivors ..
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November 29, 1978, NBC News, Jonestown Survivors May Have to Deal with Severe Mental Strains,
Stock Footage, 8:18,
www.nbcuniversalarchives.com/nbcuni/clip/5112574069_s11.do
- Owner: NBC News
- Clip Name: 5112574069_s11
- Date: 11/29/78
- Title: JONESTOWN SURVIVORS MAY HAVE TO DEAL WITH SEVERE MENTAL STRAIN; EXPLAINS PSYCHIATRIST
- Production Unit: TDY
- Media Type: AS
- Media ID: T781130
- Ardome ID: 1100100616453287522
- Hit Time: 00:08:18
- NA
- Duration: 00:05:54;00
- Location: Georgetown;Guyana
- Era: 1970s
- Personalities: Sukhdeo, Hardat
- Short Description: JONESTOWN SURVIVORS MAY HAVE TO DEAL WITH SEVERE MENTAL STRAIN; EXPLAINS PSYCHIATRIST
- Comments: Acc #: 41453;Edited;Reviewer: AJB;Created By: DHS;
- Long Description:
JONESTOWN SURVIVORS MAY HAVE TO DEAL WITH SEVERE MENTAL STRAIN; EXPLAINS PSYCHIATRIST
DR HARDAT SUKHDEO REPORTS MOST JONESTOWN SURVIVORS ARE IN STATE OF CONFUSION AND ARE DEPRESSED; SAYS HE DOUBTS ANY WILL ATTEMPT SUICIDE; EXPLAINS TEMPLE MEMBERS PERCEIVED JIM JONES AS GOD; SAYS JONES INSTILLED FEAR IN CULTISTS; NOTES SOME SURVIVORS ARE STILL UNDER JONES INFLUENCE.
CARTRIDGE: 024 PAGE: 1815
DAA
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www.nbcuniversalarchives.com/nbcuni/clip/5112574961_s07.do
- Owner: NBC News
- Clip Name: 5112574961_s07
- Date: 3/14/79
- Title: JONESTOWN TAPES PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO LAST FEW HOURS BEFORE MASS SUICIDE; PSYCHIATRIST ANALYZES APPEAL OF CULTS
- Production Unit: TDY
- Media Type: AS
- Media ID: T790314
- Ardome ID: 1100100616453559622
- Hit Time: 00:07:45
- NA
- Duration: 00:12:00;00
- Location: New York City;New York State
- Era: 1970s
- Personalities: Sukhdeo, Hardat
- Short Description: JONESTOWN TAPES PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO LAST FEW HOURS BEFORE MASS SUICIDE; PSYCHIATRIST ANALYZES APPEAL OF CULTS
- Comments: Acc #: 46123;Unedited/Live;Reviewer: PA;Created By: DHS;
- Long Description:
JONESTOWN TAPES PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO LAST FEW HOURS BEFORE MASS SUICIDE; PSYCHIATRIST ANALYZES APPEAL OF CULTS
ROBERT HAGER AND TOM BROKAW LISTEN TO FOUR MINUTES OF JONESTOWN TAPES CHRONICLING FINAL HOURS BEFORE MASS SUICIDE. DR HARDAT SUKHDEO TERMS REV JIM JONES A MASTER MANIPULATOR; SAYS PEOPLE AT JONESTOWN WERE NOT IGNORANT BUT WERE FOLLOWING A MAN THEY TRUSTED; NOTES THEY WOULD DO ANYTHING THEY WERE TOLD; SAYS PEOPLE ARE A LOT MORE FRAGILE THAN THEY MIGHT THINK; WARNS THAT WITHOUT SUPPORT SYSTEMS PEOPLE CAN BE TAKEN IN BY THE LOVING FAMILY; CLAIMS WORLD SOCIETY IS CONDUCIVE TO ARRIVAL OF CULTS.
CARTRIDGE: 028 PAGE: 0218 CARTRIDGE: 028 PAGE: 0219
DAA LIVE IN-STUDIO REPORT
See: NBC Universal archive for 164 entries
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[PDF] 89-4286 Section 169 Newspaper Clippings Vol.5 - The Vault - FBI
vault.fbi.gov/jonestown/jonestown-part-280-of/at_download/file
might turn to just ending their lives," _says Dr. Hardat A5. Sukhdeo, chief of psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical. School in Newark. ; 7; ;. Sukhdeo, a native of _____________________________________________________________________________
[PDF] Dec. 4, 2011 Announcements (.pdf) - Trinity Cathedral, Miami
www.trinitymiami.org/userFiles/.../12-4-11_final__announcements.pdf
Dec 5, 2011 – Beth Schimmel. Dr. Clarence Smith. Stefan Smith. Betty Snider. Joy Spragens. Terry Spragens. Hardat Sukhdeo. Ruth Thompson. Ernest Trapp
- ______________________________________________________________________________
newspaperarchive.com › ... › Friday, November 16, 1979
Nov 16, 1979 – ... 1979, Kokomo, Indiana 12 Tribune Friday Nov 16 1979 Jonestown ...in the jungle before reaching safety Dr Hardat Sukhdeo a Guyanese ..
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July 6, 2011, The Paradise Reporter. 1978: Jonestown, Guyana Massacre: A Planned Military "Distraction" & "Cover", diigo,
See: The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue" by Jim Hougan
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November 20, 1978, San Francisco Chronicle
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November 8, 1998, San Francisco Examiner, Utopian Nightmare, by Larry Hatfield,
JONESTOWN, GUYANA -- "My father was a fraud." - Stephan Gandhi Jones, son of Jim Jones
A lone palm tree stands where Jim Jones exhorted his followers to die for him, but the jungle encroaches even as time shrouds memories of Jones, his Peoples Temple and his followers' quest for a better world.
Jonestown was to have been a Utopian dream, free of racism, a haven for justice.
Yet on Nov. 18, 1978, in Guyana, it became the scene of unspeakable horror as Jones led his Bay Area flock into the worst mass murder/suicide in modern history. In a cataclysmic episode, more than 900 people, most of them children or elderly, drank or were forced to drink cyanide-spiked fruit punch at the behest of Jones, a once-charismatic monomaniac who had curried favor with San Francisco's left-leaning political elite.
Others, children among them, died in murder-suicides in a Georgetown hotel room. Jones himself, by then drug-addicted and mentally ill, died of a bullet to the head by an unknown hand.
It was the end of Peoples Temple, but just the beginning of the darkness: Nine days later, with San Francisco still reeling in disbelief, the nightmare of Jonestown was punctuated by the City Hall assassinations of MayorGeorge Moscone and SupervisorHarvey Milk.
In the days and years immediately following these events, national attention turned to the dangers of cults and San Francisco politics turned to the center. SupervisorDianne Feinstein became the mayor who would lead The City out of darkness and ultimately leave San Francisco for the U.S. Senate.
Dangers of extremism
Feinstein says the incidents showed the dangers of extremism.
"The long-term lesson is politics in San Francisco is a very sensitive art. People do not respond to political muscle .‚.‚. I don't think San Francisco does well when the political pendulum goes to either end."
Willie Brown, at that time an assemblyman and today mayor of San Francisco, is loathe to discuss Jones or Jonestown.
"That's not something I want to talk about. It's too painful," Brown says. "Everybody knows the lessons about cults and dying. What's the need to talk about it? (Jim Jones) was a cultist, not recognized by me or anybody else."
Twenty years later, do Jonestown and the Peoples Temple make sense? And have any lessons been learned?
Many say the primary impressions of Jonestown are the madness of Jim Jones and the mounds of bodies.
Little attention has been paid to the real people who died at Jonestown and why they were there. Peoples Temple did not start as a cult, some say, and most of those who died were decent people hoping to improve the human condition.
And, say others, too little attention has been paid to the fact that the needs that attracted people to Peoples Temple and the forces that helped turn it from a social movement into a paranoid and abusive cult still exist.
If there is a fundamental lesson in Jonestown, it's that
"the menace of cults still lingers; it's as real today as it was 20 years ago," says Jackie Speier, a survivor of the Port Kaituma, Guyana, ambush that killed her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, NBC correspondent Don Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown and temple defector Patricia Parks. "No one should ever be so arrogant as to believe it couldn't happen again," Speier says.
Timothy Stoen, a former San Francisco assistant district attorney who played a pivotal role in the life and death of Peoples Temple, says there is a thin line between legitimate religious and social organizations and dangerous cults.
"The fact is there probably will be some future Wacos if not future Peoples Temples," Stoen says, referring to the fiery end of David Koresh's Branch Davidian cult that claimed 81 lives in Texas in 1993.
"There are people out there all over the place who would like to be another Jim Jones."
James Warren Jones was born May 13, 1931, in a tattered town called Crete in Indiana. He was different from the beginning - a Holy Roller preacher as a child, selling spider monkeys on the streets of Indianapolis to buy food as a young student and modeling himself after Father Divine, whose Peace Mission drew a cult following at the time. In a credo that would refine and warp itself until the end, he developed a set of professed beliefs, sometimes called "apostolic socialism," that ignored God while deifying social justice and worshiping the salvific power of socialism.
He became a student minister at anIndiana Methodist church in 1952. He left the Methodists because the church wouldn't desegregate, and in the 1950s founded the movement that would take various names as it evolved into Peoples Temple. In 1965, Jones and his wife, Marceline, brought the nascent temple and a handful of the faithful to California, the promised land for alternative religions.
A church in Redwood Valley
The Joneses and their rainbow family of adopted children and about 70 followers set up in the sylvan Redwood Valley near Ukiah where relations between them and the laid-back locals were uneasy but generally peaceful.
Jones quickly relocated his church to the bigger and more lucrative markets of San Francisco and Los Angeles. He moved Peoples Temple into an abandoned synagogue in The City's Fillmore district.
While attracting a growing congregation of urban blacks, he used his considerable intellectual and acting skills to bring onto his bandwagon many of San Francisco's leading politicians.
Current Mayor Brown was one of Jones' biggest cheerleaders, hailing him as a blend of Martin Luther King, Einstein and Mao. Then-Lt. Gov.Mervyn Dymally was another. Mayor Moscone was still another, naming Jones to head his Housing Commission and, some said, owing his razor-thin election to the few hundred illegal voters Jones allegedly produced.
America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and particularly its radical-chic nation-state of San Francisco, were ideally suited for the rise of a charismatic power-seeker such as Jones. The civil rights movement was still alive and the emerging politics of the day exalted the quest for social justice and equality - exactly the things older religious blacks, idealistic young whites and other seekers were hearing from Jones' pulpit.
But the politics of the day also fed the paranoia in Jones. He believed the government was conspiring to continue the war in Vietnam and spy on such groups as the Black Panthers. The government was not to be trusted.
The government also was working covertly against Jones and the temple, seeking to short-circuit the drive for a better society. Jones believed all this and so, to an almost universal extent, did the Temple congregation.
So Jones moved the temple and 1,000 or so followers to Guyana's outback, winning a 25-year lease on 3,852 acres in the Orinoco River basin near the disputed border with Venezuela.
A small group of temple pioneers moved in 1974 to what was to become Jonestown, far from the hostile attacks of media, government and others. The lease from the Guyana government required the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project to "cultivate and beneficially occupy" at least one-fifth of the land by 1976.
Temple members raised livestock and grew pineapple, cassava, eddoes and other tropical fruits and vegetables. Charles Garry, Peoples Temple's San Francisco lawyer, called it a paradise.
Trouble in paradise
But there was trouble in paradise. The camp never became agriculturally self-sustaining and the swift tropical diseases of the jungle ran rampant. At the end, only a third of the residents were able-bodied. Worse, critics said, it was a prison camp - people were not allowed to leave. Abusive practices such as beatings and forced sex, long-rumored but little-reported at the San Francisco church, escalated. Jones' deteriorating mental stability made him increasingly erratic and he demanded utter, unquestioning loyalty.
Agencies from the State Department and the CIA to the Internal Revenue Service and the Postal Service were investigating or taking legal action against Peoples Temple for mail fraud, wresting Social Security checks from members, arms and narcotics trafficking, and other crimes, real or imagined.
Aiding and abetting the conspiracy in the eyes of Jones and his followers were the few temple defectors and families of members who were getting attention from the hostile North American media.
Against this background, Jones, who was white, and his predominantly white inner circle had faithful followers practice mass suicide in a series of "white nights." Such a drastic end was the only possible response to the vast and growing outside threat, Jones preached. The people believed him.
Congressman's visit
The final act began to unfold when Ryan, a respected Democratic congressman from San Mateo County with a taste for headlines, led a delegation of newsmen and a group of family members called the Concerned Relatives to Jonestown to investigate allegations of thought control, imprisonment, drug- and gun-running.
Ryan was knifed - superficially - during the visit. When he was ready to leave, several Jonestown residents asked to leave with him, an action that apparently triggered the subsequent massacre of Ryan, Robinson and the others at Port Kaituma.
The incredible scene of mass death quickly followed at Jonestown.
"We died because you would not let us live," wrote temple insider Annie Moore in her suicide note.
Among those who survived was Jim Jones' son, Stephan, who was away with the camp's basketball team. It was left to the younger Jones, who had broken with his father and since has denounced him repeatedly, to declare Jim Jones' most durable epitaph. In a recent ABC television visit to Jonestown, Stephan Jones said simply, "My father was a fraud."
Jones was a madman, some feel the people of Jonestown have been unfairly characterized as mindless zombies.
"The people who died in Jonestown were sweet, altruistic people. One of the tragedies of Jonestown is that people haven't paid attention to that," says Timothy Stoen, whose son, John Victor, died at Jonestown. Stoen played the pivotal role in a custody battle with Jones that helped precipitate the murder-suicides. Among Ryan's reasons for going to Guyana was the custody fight.
"No single theory could possibly explain the many complex and related issues that led the members of the Peoples Temple to leave family, friends and church communities and take residence in the jungle of Jonestown," says Archie Smith Jr., professor of pastoral psychology at the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. "Labeled by many as sick, dysfunctional or disadvantaged, (they) were seeking an alternative to the status quo, new and just ways of living and being in the world."
Mary Sawyer, an Iowa State Universityreligion professor who worked for Dymally at the time, blames much of the image on sensationalized media coverage.
"Most of America quickly was persuaded that those who had followed Jim Jones to Guyana .‚.‚. had to have been naive and gullible people at best, and demented radicals at worst," Sawyer says in a treatise titled, "My Lord, What a Mourning - 20 Years since Jonestown."
"Amidst all the attention that was focused on Jim Jones, the people were accorded scarcely any respect as thinking, feeling, caring human beings. .‚.‚. The dehumanizing of the victims of Jonestown by the journalistic community was tantamount to the withholding of permission to grieve."
The Rev. Mary McCormick Maaga, a Jonestown scholar and a United Methodist pastor in Sergeantsville, N.J., has produced a new book, "Hearing the Voices of Jonestown."
"Not to underplay the tragedy and loss of life, but I hope we can now step one step back and look more at the community of people who were involved and ask ourselves what went wrong in a more sophisticated way," Maaga says.
Social, political organization
"I think if we only talk about Jim Jones and his influence on the community, we don't get to ask the broader questions. .‚.‚. Remember, Peoples Temple in the middle years was primarily a social and political organization, not religious," Maaga says. "The members cared about caring for the elderly, the disenfranchised and so on. They were not just blindly following."
Using the turn-of-the-century German theologian Ernst Troeltsch's division of church, sect and cult, Maaga said the temple's sect was the 70 or so white members who followed Jones from Indianapolis to California, then to Guyana, adapting their ideology to his. The cult was the small group of young white Utopians who primarily formed the leadership. The church was by far the majority - the urban blacks with Christian backgrounds who wanted a better life for the world and themselves.
"But they all shared a belief in racial justice, redistribution of wealth and working to perfect society," Maaga says. "Somewhere along the line all that was lost.
"Peoples Temple at some point lost its ability to look self-critically at itself and to challenge the decisions of the leadership - not just Jim Jones. And Jones lost his ability to lead because of his drug addiction and mental illness."
It wasn't just Jones' deterioration that pushed Jonestown toward its doom, Maaga argues: Crop failures, disease and other factors helped.
Nor was Jones solely responsible for leading his flock to destruction, Maaga says:
"It took Marceline Jones, Carolyn Layton, Maria Katsaris, Harriett Tropp, Jim McElvane and the others in positions of responsibility and influence at Jonestown to embrace the idea of suicide for the rank-and-file members to have been willing to drink the poison. Jones had become too ravaged by drug addiction and paranoia to have planned the suicides on his own or to have inspired people to take their own lives through his encouragement alone."
Tragic change in direction
Maaga says the lessons of Jonestown are to be learned by trying to figure out why the committed veered so tragically from their vision of a better world.
"I think things went right earlier in the movement," Maaga says, pointing to the temple's successful social programs in San Francisco.
"What we should be talking about is what went right and when did it go wrong," she said, suggesting the answers might prevent similar tragedies. "I don't think Peoples Temple was a singular example of a self-righteous religion gone horribly awry.
"What was important about it was what they (the members) were - as people - not just how they died."
Rebecca Moore, a University of North Dakota professor of religion and philosophy, lost her sisters Carolyn Layton and Annie Moore at Jonestown, as well as her nephew, Jim-Jon Prokes.
She says some of the still-unexplored questions are whether people in San Francisco could have prevented the tragedy by reining in Jones before he was all-powerful and crazy; what responsibility Willie Brown and others had before and after the catastrophe; and the role of the black church.
"At times I despair that we've learned nothing," Moore says. "By that I mean that people continue to demonize (Jones) and forget the others.
"As a society we fail to take seriously the very strong and powerful desire, or hunger, for community, a community of people working for social change. The people in Jonestown were trying to create a Utopian society, racial justice and social equality. Granted, there were internal contradictions, but they were one of the few groups intentionally addressing the problem of racism and trying concretely to do something about it."
The media, Moore says, almost always dwells on the dead bodies and on Jones himself; the government has swept under the rug all understanding of Jonestown and of its own role. No official inquiry was held in the United States and the Guyanan investigation was almost laughably superficial.
Jonestown, Berkeley's Smith warns, "was not an anomaly. Rather, it was a product of the evolving ethos of our time, an ethos that tends to repress and trivialize the essentially religious impulse. The social and historical forces that gave rise to Jonestown 20 years ago operate today."
He believes black churches in particular have a responsibility to learn and teach the lessons. So does Iowa State's Mary Sawyer: "America's religious community - that vast potential reservoir of pastoral care - was unable to facilitate a proper grieving, either on the part of the families immediately affected or on the part of the nation, because they, too, did not know the people involved."
The churches, including white Protestant and Catholic churches that were so involved in the civil rights movement, failed as well, Sawyer says.
A central lesson unlearned
"Perhaps the biggest heartache of all," Sawyer says,
"is that our country and our churches still have not sought an answer to the question of why the people joined this movement, and so still have not discerned the central lesson of Jonestown. Why, indeed, were white idealists and black Christians drawn to a movement that promised them sanctuary from America's failure to honor her promises of equality and justice?
"Churches, like the public, were so horrified they psychologically needed to distance themselves .‚.‚. to handle the reality of it. Most people know what Jonestown is but if you say Peoples Temple, people will have a blank look. They don't know there was a longstanding social change movement.
"And they're no more informed today than they were 20 years ago. I hope this anniversary will not be just a replay of Jim Jones as a crazy man but that there is some conscientious effort to make America understand. It takes two or three decades before people start asking the right questions. .‚.‚. There hasn't been that kind of soul-searching.
"It's important to do this. We have to have sense of the wounds that are still there."
"What should we be talking about?" asks Jackie Speier, who was elected to the California Assembly after the tragedy and on Tuesday was elected to the state Senate.
"We should be talking about the fact that the menace of cults still lingers. Cults are still around. They're all around us. Many continue to operate under the guise of being religious, under the guise of religiosity and the First Amendment, violating state and federal laws (while) the government again looks the other way."
Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born psychiatrist who treated Jonestown survivors, says the conditions that created Peoples Temple could create a similar movement.
People joined the temple because "they needed to have this type of togetherness and leadership and somebody to tell them what to do and when to do it," said Sukhdeo, of Rutgers University.
Sukhdeo sees the majority of temple members, mostly black, as largely alienated and at sea. The Peoples Temple was more of a place to improve their own lives than to achieve the societal do-goodism espoused by young whites who joined.
"They wanted something like the cult to say, "Yes, we know the truth. Yes, we have the answers.' They were lost, they were angry and they didn't feel they belonged to society."
Nothing has changed, he says: Groups such as Branch Davidian and Heaven's Gate prove that the attraction to cults remains.
A distrust of religion
The Rev. Robert Warren Cromey, rector of San Francisco's Trinity Episcopal Church, says that a "sad part of Jonestown is it has sent a message of distrust of religion, particularly the small sect religions. .‚.‚. (There is) a sense of "if you're religious, this is what might happen to you.'
"But on the positive side, people are looking more critically before getting involved in religious programs, especially the more fringe type of things. Look at the kind of scrutiny now given to Hare Krishna, Scientology and the like. That's as it should be."
Timothy Stoen also warns of the dangers of cults.
"There are a lot of Jim Jones wannabes out there," said Stoen, who recently moved to Colorado Springs from Mendocino. ".‚.‚. You can't wish them away .‚.‚. (but) one hopefully can learn from (Peoples Temple) that these things can be lethal and there comes a point early on when you can do something about it."
The psychological isolation that leads people to seek groups like Peoples Temple still exists, he says, urging families of cultists to ask questions, challenge the groups and otherwise get involved.
"People just have to take an even-handed look that this is kind of a sign of our times - people need structure, community, etc. If mainline churches don't provide it, there'll be cults. Those cults will be there serving some sort of need."
Episcopal Church, lamented recently that the "sad part of Jonestown is it has sent a message of distrust of religion, particularly the small sect religions .‚.‚. But on the positive side, people are looking more critically before getting involved in .‚.‚. the more fringe type of things.
_____________________________________________________________________________
January 13, 1999, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Man Charged, by Gregory Lewis, Examiner Staff,
OAKLAND - The 19-year-old accused of killing an Oakland police officer may be a sad legacy of the tragedy of Jonestown, said his mother and a psychiatrist who worked with Peoples Temple survivors.
Juanita Bogue, a Jonestown survivor and the mother of Chad Rhodes, the man accused of killing Oakland police Officer James Williams Jr., said her son was conceived in the Guyana compound where more than 900 Peoples Temple members committed suicide or were murdered 20 years ago.
"Everything around his life has been trauma," Bogue said Tuesday, the day of her son's arraignment on a charge of slaying the officer from a sniper's perch Sunday morning.
"I'm the only one who can help him and I can't help myself," said Bogue, adding that she was unable to even tell her son about his father. "He may go to the electric chair and not even know who he is."
Rhodes is accused of climbing out of a car on an overpass above Interstate 580 just past midnight Sunday morning and fatally shooting Williams - the father of three small children - with an AK-47 assault rifle.
He is charged with murder, in circumstances that could result in the death penalty, and three counts of attempted murder. Execution in California is by lethal injection.
Sitting in the living room of a friend's home Tuesday, Bogue, 42, appeared emotionally fragile as she described her son as a teenager haunted by never knowing who his father was.
Bogue suffers from bouts of amnesia - a result, said a psychiatrist, of the trauma caused by her experiences with the Peoples Temple and the mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana.
Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born retired psychiatrist who treated Bogue and other Jonestown survivors, said: "I look at this whole effect of Jonestown and the suicides and this boy, this little man, is one of the consequences."
Jonestown was to have been a Utopian dream, free of racism, a haven for justice.
But on Nov. 18, 1978, it became the scene of unspeakable horror as the Rev. Jim Jones led his Bay Area flock into the worst mass murder / suicide in modern history.
U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, NBC correspondent Don Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown and temple defector Patricia Parks were killed in a temple ambush that preceded the suicides in which Jonestown settlers, most of them children or elderly, drank or were forced to drink cyanide-spiked fruit punch.
Rhodes was given the last name of a man who claimed he conceived the child with Bogue in Guyana, but years later turned out to not be his father.
"I left Guyana with Leo Ryan at the time I was pregnant with Chad," Bogue recalled. "I didn't know I was pregnant. I was suffering from amnesia or something like that. When I was five or six months pregnant I couldn't remember who my son's father was."
After her son was born, Bogue said, another Jonestown survivor, Odell Rhodes, stepped forward to claim paternity.
"Not knowing any difference, I put him on the birth certificate," she said.
But Bogue said Odell Rhodes saw Chad only a couple of times before he was a year old, and not again until he was 5.
And when he returned, he sought and won custody of Chad.
"He comes back into our lives again and gets custody of my son because of my disability, my amnesia," Bogue said.
"The judge gives Chad to a man he's seen once or twice before he's 5 years old and he gets a restraining order against me."
A court battle that lasted several months resulted in her regaining custody of Chad, who was about 10 when he learned from his mother that Odell Rhodes wasn't his real father, she said.
Search for his roots
Meanwhile, time and distance from the Jonestown tragedy allowed Bogue to remember things she had blocked out. Among the things she remembered was that a man named Tarik Baker was the real father. She said he died in Jonestown.
When Chad Rhodes decided in his teens that he wanted to know about his father, Bogue began a frantic search to help discover his roots, she said.
She contacted reporters. She went in search of a death certificate. She looked for photos of Baker or even relatives to help Chad Rhodes connect with his family ties.
The 20-year reunion and the gatherings of survivors and members of families who lost relatives in Jonestown offered high hopes in November, Bogue said.
"I told Chad we'd try again," she said. "I talked to a lot of people but nobody came up with anything. I can't find a death certificate. The mortuary couldn't help. It's a grave with no names. It's like I made up this fictional name to say who his father is."
On the bottle
The disappointment sent her son to the bottle, Bogue said.
"He started drinking heavy the last couple of months" after the Jonestown reunion, she said.
Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist who had worked with cults, described Bogue as a Jonestown survivor "who never really got back into society."
Sukhdeo, who lives in New Jersey, said it was harder for the younger people like Bogue, who escaped Jonestown when she was 21, to make the adjustments back into society.
"She got a job, but she couldn't hold it. She got into bad relationships. She went into protective custody, a battered woman's home. She couldn't ever work or function again. The child, conceived in Guyana but born (in the United States) lived with all of that," he said.
Bogue went to Jonestown with her sister, Teena, and parents Jim and Edith Bogue.
"Her mother and father came out," Sukhdeo said. "But they were separated through another tragedy. One of her sisters (Marilee) was killed in Jonestown. Another sister was shot at the airport. The family came back (to the United States) but they were split up.
"All her friends died. All of the people who meant something to her died. She came back here and her world had fallen apart. We got them out (of Guyana physically) but I don't think we ever got her out. She is a very bright girl but psychologically damaged," Sukhdeo said.
Out of work for years
Bogue last worked in the early 1990s for an accounting firm. Since then, she has been on disability because the psychological problems related to Jonestown, she said.
She has three other children - all boys ages 17, 8 and 3. Chad, who was born premature, suffers from chronic asthma and almost died three times as a result of it, according to Bogue.
"He pulled through each time when the doctors gave up," she said. "He has a will to survive. But he can't follow his own family tree."
Rhodes had some convictions as a juvenile, but those records are not open to the public.
As an adult, he was arrested Dec. 15, 1997, after leading police on a chase through Oakland streets before crashing the car into a curb. He pleaded no contest and was ordered to perform 15 days of community service and put on two years probation.
As a juvenile, he ended up in Dewey High School, an alternative school in Oakland. His mother said he thrived there.
"He won awards in art . . . and competitions he entered," she said. "He was on the honor roll."
Officer's death
On Sunday, just after midnight, police said, Rhodes was with several other people driving over the 38th Avenue overpass when they saw officers - with the emergency lights of their carsflashing - searching along the shoulder of I-580 for a gun that reportedly had been thrown by suspects involved in a chase minutes earlier.
As Williams, two other officers and an evidence technician were taking pictures of where they found the weapon, six to eight shots rang out from the overpass, police said.
Williams was hit by a bullet that ripped through his bulletproof vest. Williams - a father of three just 11 weeks out of the police academy - died shortly before 4 a.m. at Highland Hospital.
Tuesday afternoon, Bogue said: "I can't offer (Chad) a normal life because I can't offer myself a normal life. But he's a good son. He's very protective of me. He pays my bills, gives to the kids. He's kind to the kids in the neighborhood. He goes around and fixes their bikes. He's never been violent."
Bogue said her son was never a happy child.
"He's a deep person. He thinks a lot, writes raps," she said, speaking slightly above a whisper. "He's the quiet type, but he has friends and gets along with people. People say all my kids have beautiful personalities. You know, the life of the party. But it's really - no one sees the tears of a clown."
Bogue said her son has an 18-month-old son and a 3-week-old daughter.
"He loves kids and he's really a good father. Now his children are stuck with the stigma of having somebody's name (Rhodes) that's not even theirs."
Bogue spoke philosophically about the case.
"Whatever happened, whatever happens, I love him no matter what."
______________________________________________________________________________
November 2005, Volume 7, [September 9, 2006, 1st web capture] The Jonestown Report, FOIA Lawsuit Results in Release of Thousands of Documents, by Rebecca Moore,
January 13, 1999, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Man Charged, by Gregory Lewis, Examiner Staff,
OAKLAND - The 19-year-old accused of killing an Oakland police officer may be a sad legacy of the tragedy of Jonestown, said his mother and a psychiatrist who worked with Peoples Temple survivors.
Juanita Bogue, a Jonestown survivor and the mother of Chad Rhodes, the man accused of killing Oakland police Officer James Williams Jr., said her son was conceived in the Guyana compound where more than 900 Peoples Temple members committed suicide or were murdered 20 years ago.
"Everything around his life has been trauma," Bogue said Tuesday, the day of her son's arraignment on a charge of slaying the officer from a sniper's perch Sunday morning.
"I'm the only one who can help him and I can't help myself," said Bogue, adding that she was unable to even tell her son about his father. "He may go to the electric chair and not even know who he is."
Rhodes is accused of climbing out of a car on an overpass above Interstate 580 just past midnight Sunday morning and fatally shooting Williams - the father of three small children - with an AK-47 assault rifle.
He is charged with murder, in circumstances that could result in the death penalty, and three counts of attempted murder. Execution in California is by lethal injection.
Sitting in the living room of a friend's home Tuesday, Bogue, 42, appeared emotionally fragile as she described her son as a teenager haunted by never knowing who his father was.
Bogue suffers from bouts of amnesia - a result, said a psychiatrist, of the trauma caused by her experiences with the Peoples Temple and the mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana.
Hardat Sukhdeo, a Guyana-born retired psychiatrist who treated Bogue and other Jonestown survivors, said: "I look at this whole effect of Jonestown and the suicides and this boy, this little man, is one of the consequences."
Jonestown was to have been a Utopian dream, free of racism, a haven for justice.
But on Nov. 18, 1978, it became the scene of unspeakable horror as the Rev. Jim Jones led his Bay Area flock into the worst mass murder / suicide in modern history.
U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan, Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, NBC correspondent Don Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown and temple defector Patricia Parks were killed in a temple ambush that preceded the suicides in which Jonestown settlers, most of them children or elderly, drank or were forced to drink cyanide-spiked fruit punch.
Rhodes was given the last name of a man who claimed he conceived the child with Bogue in Guyana, but years later turned out to not be his father.
"I left Guyana with Leo Ryan at the time I was pregnant with Chad," Bogue recalled. "I didn't know I was pregnant. I was suffering from amnesia or something like that. When I was five or six months pregnant I couldn't remember who my son's father was."
After her son was born, Bogue said, another Jonestown survivor, Odell Rhodes, stepped forward to claim paternity.
"Not knowing any difference, I put him on the birth certificate," she said.
But Bogue said Odell Rhodes saw Chad only a couple of times before he was a year old, and not again until he was 5.
And when he returned, he sought and won custody of Chad.
"He comes back into our lives again and gets custody of my son because of my disability, my amnesia," Bogue said.
"The judge gives Chad to a man he's seen once or twice before he's 5 years old and he gets a restraining order against me."
A court battle that lasted several months resulted in her regaining custody of Chad, who was about 10 when he learned from his mother that Odell Rhodes wasn't his real father, she said.
Search for his roots
Meanwhile, time and distance from the Jonestown tragedy allowed Bogue to remember things she had blocked out. Among the things she remembered was that a man named Tarik Baker was the real father. She said he died in Jonestown.
When Chad Rhodes decided in his teens that he wanted to know about his father, Bogue began a frantic search to help discover his roots, she said.
She contacted reporters. She went in search of a death certificate. She looked for photos of Baker or even relatives to help Chad Rhodes connect with his family ties.
The 20-year reunion and the gatherings of survivors and members of families who lost relatives in Jonestown offered high hopes in November, Bogue said.
"I told Chad we'd try again," she said. "I talked to a lot of people but nobody came up with anything. I can't find a death certificate. The mortuary couldn't help. It's a grave with no names. It's like I made up this fictional name to say who his father is."
On the bottle
The disappointment sent her son to the bottle, Bogue said.
"He started drinking heavy the last couple of months" after the Jonestown reunion, she said.
Sukhdeo, a psychiatrist who had worked with cults, described Bogue as a Jonestown survivor "who never really got back into society."
Sukhdeo, who lives in New Jersey, said it was harder for the younger people like Bogue, who escaped Jonestown when she was 21, to make the adjustments back into society.
"She got a job, but she couldn't hold it. She got into bad relationships. She went into protective custody, a battered woman's home. She couldn't ever work or function again. The child, conceived in Guyana but born (in the United States) lived with all of that," he said.
Bogue went to Jonestown with her sister, Teena, and parents Jim and Edith Bogue.
"Her mother and father came out," Sukhdeo said. "But they were separated through another tragedy. One of her sisters (Marilee) was killed in Jonestown. Another sister was shot at the airport. The family came back (to the United States) but they were split up.
"All her friends died. All of the people who meant something to her died. She came back here and her world had fallen apart. We got them out (of Guyana physically) but I don't think we ever got her out. She is a very bright girl but psychologically damaged," Sukhdeo said.
Out of work for years
Bogue last worked in the early 1990s for an accounting firm. Since then, she has been on disability because the psychological problems related to Jonestown, she said.
She has three other children - all boys ages 17, 8 and 3. Chad, who was born premature, suffers from chronic asthma and almost died three times as a result of it, according to Bogue.
"He pulled through each time when the doctors gave up," she said. "He has a will to survive. But he can't follow his own family tree."
Rhodes had some convictions as a juvenile, but those records are not open to the public.
As an adult, he was arrested Dec. 15, 1997, after leading police on a chase through Oakland streets before crashing the car into a curb. He pleaded no contest and was ordered to perform 15 days of community service and put on two years probation.
As a juvenile, he ended up in Dewey High School, an alternative school in Oakland. His mother said he thrived there.
"He won awards in art . . . and competitions he entered," she said. "He was on the honor roll."
Officer's death
On Sunday, just after midnight, police said, Rhodes was with several other people driving over the 38th Avenue overpass when they saw officers - with the emergency lights of their carsflashing - searching along the shoulder of I-580 for a gun that reportedly had been thrown by suspects involved in a chase minutes earlier.
As Williams, two other officers and an evidence technician were taking pictures of where they found the weapon, six to eight shots rang out from the overpass, police said.
Williams was hit by a bullet that ripped through his bulletproof vest. Williams - a father of three just 11 weeks out of the police academy - died shortly before 4 a.m. at Highland Hospital.
Tuesday afternoon, Bogue said: "I can't offer (Chad) a normal life because I can't offer myself a normal life. But he's a good son. He's very protective of me. He pays my bills, gives to the kids. He's kind to the kids in the neighborhood. He goes around and fixes their bikes. He's never been violent."
Bogue said her son was never a happy child.
"He's a deep person. He thinks a lot, writes raps," she said, speaking slightly above a whisper. "He's the quiet type, but he has friends and gets along with people. People say all my kids have beautiful personalities. You know, the life of the party. But it's really - no one sees the tears of a clown."
Bogue said her son has an 18-month-old son and a 3-week-old daughter.
"He loves kids and he's really a good father. Now his children are stuck with the stigma of having somebody's name (Rhodes) that's not even theirs."
Bogue spoke philosophically about the case.
"Whatever happened, whatever happens, I love him no matter what."
______________________________________________________________________________
November 2005, Volume 7, [September 9, 2006, 1st web capture] The Jonestown Report, FOIA Lawsuit Results in Release of Thousands of Documents, by Rebecca Moore,
With the court-ordered participation of a dozen other federal agencies, the FBI has released thousands of previously-withheld pages in its files on Jonestown and Peoples Temple. As a result of those releases - most of which occurred within the last 12 months - court filings and government documents in the lawsuit McGehee & Moore v. U.S. Department of Justice now fill a twenty-four inch file box.
The lawsuit was filed in September 2001 in order to compel the FBI to provide an index to materials it released to us in 2000. But the case is both more complex, and yet more simple, than that. It is more complex in that the initial release of 48,000+ documents on three compact discs led to a number of other legal issues; and it is more simple in that it comes down to meeting the basic requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
While the case is not yet as complicated, or lengthy, as Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Dickens' Bleak House, it does entail a number of considerations. First, of course, is the lack of an index which would enable people using the discs to locate the records they were looking for. Second, the FBI had referred a number of documents in its possession to various government agencies, thus avoiding evaluation and release of their contents. Third, the FBI and other agencies withheld a number of documents by claiming a variety of exemptions which range from national security to privacy. Fourth, the thoroughness of the initial search which comprises the three CDs is now in question, given the recent release to us of documents which apparently do not appear on them (though, without an index to the CDs' contents, it is hard to tell). Finally, the illegibility of some documents makes their release meaningless, for all practical purposes.
This article examines each of these issues in turn. It reports on the progress of the case after four years in litigation. But first, it presents the background and events leading up to its filing.
Background
In October 1998 we filed a FOIA request with the FBI asking for a copy of all lists it had used to compile the final tally of Peoples Temple members who died in Jonestown. A month and a half later the FBI replied that it had located 48,738 pages of material "which may or may not be related" to the request. The agency said it would duplicate the pages at the cost of $.10 per page (although the first 100 pages would be free). As an alternative, we could examine the documents at no cost in the FBI Reading Room in Washington, D.C. Since neither $4,863.80 nor a trip to D.C. was feasible, we wrote to several members of Congress asking for help. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) interceded on our behalf. After a series of negotiations, the FBI agreed to put all of the documents onto compact disks, thus maximizing the release of documents while lowering the cost to requesters.
In the meantime, we had filed a number of additional FOI applications. These included a request for documents on my sister Carolyn Moore Layton; a request for "Dear Dad" letters collected in Jonestown; a request for documents used in preparing for trials against Larry Layton, who was accused of conspiracy to kill Congressman Leo Ryan; a request for records on seven Peoples Temple leaders; and other assorted issues.
In May 2000 the FBI sent us three CDs at no charge and a cover letter which stated that all of our requests were being addressed with this release. No index accompanied the CDs. Further, because the documents had been stored as graphic files (PDF) - in order to preserve their integrity as individual documents - the CDs were not computer-searchable. The FBI did provide an inventory folder to view the PDF contents of each CD, but an inventory is not the same as an index. In other words, a user might find an FBI inventory listing of "Cuban contacts," but have to search each individual page in order to find an individual's name - whether it was Fidel Castro or a Temple member who might have made such contacts - or a particular topic within the FBI designation.
At the same time, the FBI informed us that there were no main file records on a number of Temple leaders, including Carolyn Layton, Eugene Chaikin, Larry Schacht, Maria Katsaris, or Michael Prokes, among others.
Within a week we appealed the FBI's use of the (b)(6) exemption to the FOIA, which allows agencies to withhold "files the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy." For one thing, as we noted in our appeal letter, more than a dozen key figures were dead, from U.S. Ambassador John Burke, to Guyana Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. For another, many people had waived their right to privacy by writing books or going public in the media with denunciations of the Temple, such as Deborah Layton Blakey, George Klineman, or Tim Stoen. More than ninety people were interviewed on the record by Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs for the book Raven, and we provided their names and the page numbers of their statements. Other people voluntarily gave news media interviews, and still others involuntarily had their names appear in published reports. For all of these individuals we argued that - at least to the extent of their involvement Peoples Temple - they could not claim any privacy rights.
We also appealed the FBI's use of the (b)(7) exemption which allows withholding of records compiled for law enforcement purposes. Since the only person ever tried and convicted of a crime connected with Jonestown was Larry Layton, and since he was incarcerated at the time, we considered law enforcement issues to be moot. In addition, since the Temple had declared bankruptcy in December 1978, and its assets distributed within a few years - and 20 years before we filed our requests - we believe there were no further civil or criminal causes which warranted continued protection.
In response to these two appeals, the FBI sent a letter in September 2000 which affirmed its earlier decisions and denied both of our appeals. It did release two pages, however - a newspaper article from the Ukiah Daily Journal and one from the Sun Reporter - which should not have been classified in the first place.
The misuse of exemptions prompted us to file a FOIA suit against the FBI a year later. The release of thousands of documents in an inexpensive format was an initial step toward being responsive to those wanting to learn more about government interest in Peoples Temple and Jonestown. At the same time, however, without an index or searchable format, the CDs effectively hide information rather than revealing it by inundating requesters with an abundance of riches. Furthermore, the fact that the FBI responded to our appeals (dated May and July respectively) within a few months (September) indicated that the agency either had a searchable index which it wasn't telling us about; or, more likely, that it did not review each and every use of the exemptions, as required by law.
We also pointed out that some documents had been initially reviewed in 1979 and the early 1980s, and while the use of the exemptions at that time - especially concerning privacy - might have been legitimate, the passage of time should open all documents for review. The FBI had conducted a second review in the early 1990s, undoubtedly in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed by the Church of Scientology, which had resulted in the release of 40,000 additional pages, primarily information relating to its investigation of Leo Ryan's assassination; however, many of the pages we sought weren't even identified, much less considered, in that review. In the meantime, President Clinton had issued an Executive Order in 1994 calling for increased openness under the FOIA. In some respects, the creation of the CDs responded to this directive. In others, however, it did not, because FOIA staff at the FBI failed to recognize that more than twenty years had elapsed since Jonestown, and had declined to review exemptions accordingly.
Thus, on 30 August 2001 we filed a complaint for injunctive relief in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on the issues of exemptions and a usable index to the documents. We drew Judge John Garrett Penn on the bench. Our attorney was, and is, James H. Lesar.
Referrals to Other Agencies
A number of motions, counter-motions, and legal maneuvering occurred in the three years before Judge Penn issued an order on 23 November 2004 requiring the Department of Justice to file a report on the referrals of documents the FBI had made to other agencies. The case had grown from its challenge to the FBI's exemptions and the request for an index, to incorporate several additional issues.
For one thing, we had challenged the adequacy of the FBI's search for records. Although a FOIA caseworker at the FBI declared in November 2001 that the FBI had no lists of people who died in Jonestown, we received such a list from the FBI in January 2002. Thus, our FOIA request of October 1998 was finally answered.
Lesar concluded from this that not only had the FBI attempted to narrowly construe our request, but that its initial searches were inadequate. He also noted to the court that the FBI had failed to account for the many referrals made to other agencies (and thus, the de facto withholding of information), in contravention of previous court decisions in this matter. Judge Penn agreed, and on 6 June 2003 allowed our suit to be amended to examine the adequacy of the FBI's search and the issue of referrals, as well as its original request for a review of exemptions and an index.
We received a two hundred-page handwritten inventory the FBI had prepared in 1994 and 1995 that listed all of the records it felt belonged to other agencies - or at least required their permission prior to FBI release. It also recorded exemptions the FBI applied to the documents. By the end of this year we will have received all of the items noted, and then some, since the final tally is greater than that appearing in the 1994 and 1995 inventory.
The referrals presented an interesting challenge. They are identified on the CDs merely as items referred; but they are not described in any way other than to note the originating agency. What emerged from the release of these items is that a number of documents are not even mentioned on the CDs, such as documents from the White House. Still others did not appear on the inventory sheets provided by the FBI. In other words, according to the FBI's own records, the material presented on the CDs was incomplete.
Many, if not most, of these documents duplicate material already made public by other federal offices, such as the State Department, for example, and the Air Force. There were few surprises among the hundreds of cables released. Some helpful information emerged, however, in the form of various lists. The roll of people living in Jonestown who had registered as permanent residents of Guyana will clarify to a certain extent who exactly was living there. Numerous catalogs of survivors, those who died, those identified in the mortuary, and so on will help update and correct various rosters that appear on our website.
Reviewing these releases in conjunction with material already in the public domain will broaden society's understanding of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. It will also help set the historical record straight by providing factual information in the form of names, dates, times, places, and actions. For instance, a cable from the Defense Department to the FBI dated 24 November 1978 states that all 405 bodies found in Jonestown would be evacuated on that day; a short time later, a second cable states that many more dead were found under the bodies just removed. Other cables show that intensive efforts were made to search for survivors, including offering rewards to Amerindians for any information about the whereabouts of residents of Jonestown.
The Question of Exemption
The referring agencies applied their own exemptions to the release of material, to which the FBI added its own, in a contradictory and conflicting manner. Some items reveal the names of those who survived the tragedy of 18 November; some items withhold them under a privacy exemption. Given the fact that the names were released by the State Department to various news agencies in 1978, and that comprehensive lists were published in The New York Times and other news outlets, these privacy protections seem arbitrary and capricious. Another example: Dr. Joseph Lowery, then-president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is mentioned by name in one document as attending the Black Church Consultation on the Implications of Jonestown in February 1979, while in another document his name is withheld. There are many examples of this kind of inconsistency in application of the exemptions.
Even when referring agencies released all information, the FBI applied its own exemptions. Still more disturbing is that the documents have a declassification date of 25 years from the date of review, rather than the date of the original document. This means that a cable originating within the State Department dated 18 December 1978 - and released by the State Department pursuant to this lawsuit - has a declassification date of 5 May 2029. That's because on 5 May 2004, when the FBI reviewed State's recent decision to release the cable, it applied the (b)(1) national security exemption, and thus started the 25-year clock ticking.
It is also clear from the referrals, as well as from the initial CD released by the FBI, that neither State Department nor the FBI has considered the itemized log of people we have identified who no longer, if ever, merit (b)(7) privacy considerations. Newly-applied exemptions that withhold information on 25-year-old documents result in classification as if this disaster happened last week, or last year, or perhaps on 11 September 2001. This lack of historical perspective - the failure to consider Peoples Temple and Jonestown in light of the end of the Cold War, the fall of Communism, and changing politics within the Western Hemisphere - explains why national security and privacy exemptions are made, but it does not justify them.
The release of these documents under court order raises several perplexing problems. First, to which agency do requesters file appeals regarding exemptions: to the FBI? or to the originating agency? Second, will they now be scanned and added to the CDs? These are questions the court may have to resolve.
Scope of Search
Our amended complaint also challenged the adequacy of the FBI's search for documents responsive to our request. In May 2000, the FBI said it had no "main file" records on Carolyn Moore Layton, Laurence Schacht, Maria Katsaris, and a number of other key figures who died in Jonestown. But in response to the lawsuit, the FBI was able to find a number of documents, both on CD (e.g., Maria Katsaris and Mike Prokes) and apparently not on CD. Individual hardcopies of items sent to us revealed a number of FBI interests.
One report indicated that the government spied on Larry Schacht in 1965 when he participated in an antiwar peace vigil outside the LBJ Ranch in Texas. The report noted his marijuana use, and his connection with the Houston Citizens for Action in Vietnam. It also mentioned its failed attempt to "get" him through his draft board in Houston. Richard Tropp ran afoul of the government by being party to a class action suit filed in Nashville in 1968 which asked for an injunction against National Guard units being sent to the troubled city. (The injunction was denied.) Eugene Chaikin's father and mother were born in Russia, and his father, David Wolff Chaikin, had subscribed to The People's World in 1942, and was a member of the Los Angeles Communist Party in 1951. Of course, since various FBI documents spell his name Chalkin - or Chaikan or, in one instance referenced a Fonoa Charkin - it's hard to tell if it's the right person. This party was under surveillance on suspicion of espionage: he was working at Hughes Aircraft.
Surprisingly, the FBI said it did not find anything on my sister Ann Elizabeth Moore, although the archives of the California Historical Society and the San Diego State University Library both have extensive documents - received under previous FBI FOIA requests - which she either wrote, is referenced, or have her signature on. The same is true for Jann Gurvich, who also reportedly had no documentation. Furthermore, are there no case files on the FOIA lawsuit Moore v. FBI which in 1983 challenged the national security exemptions made in the file on my sister Carolyn Layton? The file released to us in 2004 gave us even less than the initial release.
There is other evidence that the original search was inadequate. Documents on the CDs start and stop in the middle. There are gaps which show an incomplete search, such as the journal kept by Temple member Edith Roller. The diary extends over hundreds of pages, following Roller's activities in San Francisco and her move to Guyana. But bits and pieces of the journal appear scattered across separate CDs, and several months are missing. In addition, Roller notes the arrival of about 130 people between September 1977 and June 1978, but the meticulously-maintained Temple logs are gone, as are agricultural reports from the same time period.
Thus we remain skeptical about claims that the search which generated the CDs was as comprehensive as has been claimed. It does not appear that files the FBI may have maintained on individuals in Peoples Temple are necessarily on CD; there are significant gaps in the materials provided; and there are a number of duplicate items on disk. Nevertheless, the agency may proffer the CDs, and not conduct a search, in the mistaken belief that that is sufficiently responsive.
Legibility of the CDs
A final problem, and one not addressed thus far in the case but which pertains to adequacy of the FBI's response, is the fact that many of the items released on CD, as well as in hardcopy, are illegible. It is clear that the person preparing the documents for CD, which are scanned in PDF to retain their integrity as documents, either gained experience from the first disk to the second and third, or someone else took over: there is a noticeable difference in quality from the first to the last disks. This renders many of the documents, especially on the first CD, useless and nonresponsive to FOIA requesters.
_____Related to this is the presentation of about 600 photographs on disks 2 and 3, which were scanned from photocopies rather than from photographs. In many cases, it is difficult to tell what the photographs depict. They are not usable in their current form. To add insult to injury, visitors to the FBI Reading Room in Washington, D.C. also must look at photocopies, rather than photographs, in the FBI's possession. The agency will make photocopies - of photocopies? - available, but no longer duplicates photographs. This is a departure from the policy in effect as recently as 2000, when we received 80 photographs (not photocopies!) from the FBI, and scanned them ourselves. They are available on the site's photo archive.
These photographs have a singular significance. For many survivors and family members, the pictures taken in Jonestown or in Peoples Temple are the only images they have of their relatives. Thus the photographs, perhaps more than any other item, serve both a public purpose in depicting life in Jonestown, and a private purpose - of connecting people to their loved ones. They do not deserve to be relegated to the washed-out anonymous results of a photocopier.
The Point of Departure: An Index
Our initial complaint challenged the exemptions claimed for the documents on the CDs and asked for an index to navigate them as well. There is another kind of index in FOI law - a Vaughn index - which helps litigants determine which withheld documents are worth challenging. As a result, in most FOI cases over application of exemptions, a motion for a Vaughn index is among the first filed, and is often granted. In our case, we have not yet received one.
In the 1974 decision in Vaughn v. Rosen, the Circuit Court of Washington, D.C. stated that the burden of proof in justifying exemptions lay upon the agency, and that part of that responsibility entailed creation of an index to the materials, since "the party with the greatest interest in obtaining disclosure is at a loss to argue with desirable legal precision for the revelation of the concealed information." The Vaughn Court then proceeded to outline procedures under which the agency defendant in a FOIA suit is required to file an itemized, indexed inventory and detailed justification statement.
Again, a suit by the Church of Scientology helped to clarify this issue with a decision in the D.C. Circuit Court (1979) which identified the three indispensable elements of the index:
1) the index should be contained in one document, complete in itself.
2) the index must adequately describe each withheld document or deletion from a released document.
3) the index must state the exemption claimed for each deletion or withheld document, and explain why the exemption is relevant. The explanation of the exemption claim and the descriptions need not be so detailed as to reveal what the agency wishes to conceal, but they must be sufficiently specific to permit a reasoned judgment as to whether the material is actually exempted under FOIA.
Other court decisions have reaffirmed Vaughn procedures. The reason is that ordinarily the agency alone possesses knowledge of the precise content of withheld documents. In the case of the FBI's documents, however, this is not necessarily the case. Because hundreds of pages were released prior to the creation of the CDs and exist in other locations, some comparisons and educated guesses can be made. For example, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms - reviewing a document referred to it by the FBI - exempted 26 of 27 pages describing the weapons traced from Jonestown to the U.S. from release. This same document, however, had been previously released in its entirety to us, and to other requesters, and its contents are posted under Primary Sources on our site. State Department documents which lacked national security exemptions that are housed at the California Historical Society and the San Diego State University Special Collections, are now released by the FBI with new exemptions.
Because we have closely monitored information about Jonestown and Peoples Temple for more than 25 years, in many respects we know more about the documents - at least in terms of their significance or lack thereof - than those reviewing them for the first time for whom the names and identities of individuals are completely foreign. As noted above, we have provided information to the FBI, as well as to the State Department, about privacy exemptions which should have been lifted due to the deaths of principals involved. This has not occurred.
In its initial response, the FBI answered our lawsuit in the same way it had our initial appeal of privacy exemptions, by saying that release of certain names would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. This was a blanket claim, however: the agency did not look at individual documents, but merely asserted - without considering the exemptions on thousands and thousands of documents - that each and every exemption was legitimate or warranted.
The (b)(7) privacy exemption covers a multitude of concerns, from revealing law enforcement records or invading personal privacy, to identifying confidential sources or disclosing law enforcement techniques. Again, our knowledge of events makes clear that confidential sources have already been revealed, by authors such as George Klineman and David Conn, or Deborah Layton Blakey and Jeanne and Al Mills, who admit in their books that they met with federal agents to discuss their concerns about Peoples Temple. Many books and articles have revealed information which was unknown in 1978 and which agencies reviewing documents for possible release should take into account.
We are not looking to "out" anyone, and certainly respect the privacy of individuals who were interviewed by the FBI following the assassination of Ryan and the deaths in Jonestown. At the same time, if Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo made public statements after the deaths, why is the name of the doctor from the New Jersey College of Medicine blanked out in the documents? Why are the names of amateur radio licensees - whose names and call numbers are a matter of public record at the FCC - deleted? Why are the names of survivors withheld on some documents, and released on others (or, in the alternative, why is the name of an interview subject blacked out on one page, when on the same page, the subject is identified as Jim Jones' only natural born son)?
A Vaughn index is a crucial and necessary first step to unraveling the mass of exemptions. Such an index will not resolve all problems, however, since just as every exemption must be individually reviewed by an agency, each exemption must be individually challenged by a requester. And for the latest exemptions, 2029 - the year of declassification - is a long way off.
Conclusions
There are a number of steps that could be taken right now to remedy the situation. First, the FBI should resume its search for all documents pertaining to Peoples Temple. This would include files started on individual members, files started on the group under its various names, and files begun in response to reports from confidential informants. The search would have to include files generated by the FBI's offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis, as well as in Washington, D.C.
Second, the agency should review all exemptions, keeping in mind the fact that the documents are more than 27 years old and refer to events in the distant past, at least in geopolitical terms. The world is a vastly different place than it was in 1978. Many of the principals involved are dead. The issues of containing communism in the Western Hemisphere, monitoring liberal politics at home, and investigating the assassination of a U.S. official abroad are long past. We live in a very different world post-9/11; the documents should not be reviewed through the lenses of 9/11, or as if they had been generated since then. In just a few years the thirtieth anniversary of Jonestown will occur, the time period in which most classified documents are released. These facts must be recognized when considering the appropriateness of on-going exemptions.
Third, the FBI should inventory and categorize these documents into a usable system, with cross-referencing used as much as possible. While it may be impossible to randomly search various PDF files (we don't know), a more complete and descriptive inventory will help those receiving and using the CDs.
Fourth, at the conclusion/resolution of the lawsuit, a new set of CDs needs to be generated. This new collection should incorporate the materials we received as a result of the suit, including the FBI referrals made to other agencies which are now released. It should integrate other items newly discovered, such as files on individuals. It should include corrected scans of illegible documents; if that is not possible, then the best scan possible should be provided, along with an indication that this is the case. It should also add photographs scanned to photographic quality, as 600 dpi, which can be used by the public in a variety of ways such as documentaries, books, artworks.
We are hopeful that, working with the court and the Department of Justice, these steps can be taken. Over the years we have worked with a number of helpful individuals at Justice and in the FBI's Freedom of Information office. We have been able to obtain the Peoples Temple audiotape collection in order to transcribe and make available those tapes to the public. We have uploaded a limited number of photographs in the FBI's possession. We have written books and articles using documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. We have compiled a comprehensive list of those who died by employing State Department documents, censuses created by Peoples Temple and acquired under FOIA. We continue to use, and to share, the government documents we receive in order to more completely tell the story of Peoples Temple and Jonestown.
And we're not the only ones who are doing this. Many individuals - from relatives to artists to scholars - are using the documents as well. That is because in the history of religion in America, and in the imagination of American culture, Jonestown is enormous. The breadth and scope of the articles in this jonestown report, and on our site as a whole, offer testimony to that.
The deeper philosophical, religious and societal questions on Jonestown may never be answered. Hidden among the thousands of undiscovered, unprocessed, withheld and illegible pages are hundreds of possible answers. After 27 years of trying to get these answers, none of us are going to stop now.
(Rebecca Moore's other articles in this issues include Katrina and Jonestown and The Strange Case of Garry Scarff. She may be reached through this website. Thanks go to James Lesar and Don Beck for providing assistance in writing this article.)
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