---
alias:
- People's Temple
- Peoples Temple
- Peoples Temple Christian Church
- People's Temple Christian Church
- People's Temple of the Disciples of Christ
- Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ
- Jonestown
- Jonestown massacre
- Jonestown Massacre
- Jonestown tragedy
- Peoples Temple Agricultural Project
category: Private Organization
created: 2026-10-01
end: 1978-11-18
location: Jonestown, Guyana
relations:
- fn: 1
  reverse: true
  role: founder and director
  type: founded
  with: '[[Jim Jones]]'
- end: 1978-11-18
  fn: 2
  reverse: true
  role: leader of the People's Temple and of Jonestown
  type: head_of
  with: '[[Jim Jones]]'
- end: 1979-05-15
  fn: 4
  reverse: true
  role: Staff Investigative Group inquiry ordered by Chairman Clement J. Zablocki;
    report dated May 15, 1979
  start: 1978-11-21
  type: investigated
  with: '[[House Committee on Foreign Affairs]]'
- end: 1977-09
  fn: 14
  role: investigation of reported gun shipments and contraband to Jonestown
  start: 1977-02
  type: subject_of
  with: '[[United States Customs Service]]'
- fn: 67
  reverse: true
  role: legal counsel
  start: 1977-07
  type: represented
  with: '[[Charles Garry]]'
- fn: 20
  reverse: true
  role: legal counsel
  type: represented
  with: '[[Mark Lane]]'
- end: 1980-11
  fn: 56
  role: review of allegations of CIA involvement referred by the House Foreign Affairs
    Committee on April 3, 1980
  start: 1980-04
  type: subject_of
  with: '[[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]]'
- end: 1978-11-18
  fn: 64
  reverse: true
  role: member and Jonestown security force member; convicted in 1986 over the Port
    Kaituma shootings
  type: member_of
  with: '[[Larry Layton]]'
summary: Church led by Jim Jones that moved most members from California to a leased
  Guyana settlement, where 909 people died on November 18, 1978, after Leo Ryan was
  shot at the Port Kaituma airstrip.
tags:
- Organization
- Event
- PeoplesTemple
- Jonestown
- Guyana
- Assassination
- MKULTRA
- CIA
- LeoRyan
- SovietUnion
- HouseForeignAffairs
updated: 2026-10-01
---

The People's Temple was a church organization led by [Jim Jones](/people/jim-jones/) that moved most of its membership from [California](/places/california/) to a leased agricultural settlement in Guyana known as Jonestown.[^1] On November 18, 1978, Leo Ryan, a California Democrat and member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, was shot and killed at the Port Kaituma airstrip after visiting the settlement, and a mass suicide and murder ritual began at Jonestown at about 5 p.m. The committee's staff report counted 909 deaths at Jonestown, including Jones, five killed at the airstrip (Ryan, three journalists and a Temple defector), and four found dead at the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown; the three figures add to 918. A [State Department](/organizations/state-department/) situation report of the Guyana Task Force dated shortly after the deaths gave the final count of bodies removed from Jonestown as 912 or 913.[^2][^3] Chairman Clement J. Zablocki ordered the staff inquiry on November 21, 1978. The Staff Investigative Group received 902 State Department documents dated June 7, 1974, through November 29, 1978, and conducted 155 hours of on-the-record interviews with 62 persons, producing 5,038 pages of transcript that the committee classified confidential.[^4] The official account holds that Jones's followers swallowed a cyanide-laced drink. Curt Rowlett wrote in 1998 that new information revealed the possibility that the deaths were an [MKULTRA](/programs/project-mkultra/) mind-control experiment conducted by the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) and that most of the dead were murdered, and Wayne Madsen wrote in 2007 that the CIA kept extensive open-source records on its suspected involvement with the Temple.[^5][^6]

### Incorporation in Guyana and the Jonestown Lease

The State Department told the House committee on December 13, 1978, that Temple representatives visited Guyana in 1973 to explore agricultural development, and that in February 1974 two Temple trustees applied to the Guyanese government for a long-term lease of 25,000 acres near Port Kaituma, about 130 miles northwest of Georgetown. The Guyanese Parliament incorporated the People's Temple of the Disciples of Christ by act on March 7, 1975. In February 1976 the government granted a lease of 3,842 acres in the North West District at a nominal rent. The lease required the Temple to clear, cultivate and occupy at least half the acreage during the first seven years and to report to the government at five-year intervals. The Temple stated an intention to invest about 400,000 dollars in the first two years and deposited capital with a government-owned bank.[^7]

Joe Holsinger, Ryan's administrative assistant, told a San Francisco forum on May 23, 1980, that a report by the Alliance for the Preservation of Religious Liberty named Phillip Blakey, a British citizen, as the person who arranged the lease and the money for it in 1974.[^8] The attorney W. William Wilson told the [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence](/organizations/senate-select-committee-on-intelligence/) on April 16, 1980, that the Chicago Defender had reported Blakey worked for the CIA in 1975 and recruited mercenaries for the UNITA forces in Angola, and that the paper cited a former senior Guyanese government administrator and other sources.[^9] The House staff report lists Philip Blakey as the husband of the defector Deborah Layton Blakey and as one of three family members, with her mother and her brother Larry Layton, who remained at Jonestown.[^10]

The House staff group reported evidence of a strong working relationship between the Temple and some Guyanese officials, especially in customs and immigration. It found that the Temple had a privileged status that allowed it to bring items into Guyana outside the usual customs procedures, that shipments were often inspected perfunctorily or not at all, and that the Temple likely brought large sums of money and guns into the country in suitcases and false-bottom crates. Temple members could have customs areas at Timehri Airport closed to other citizens to ease the entry of members or hinder the exit of defectors, and the visas of Temple opponents were curtailed on arbitrary decisions that the United States Embassy in Georgetown later reversed.[^11] The report records repeated charges that the Temple member Paula Adams had a sexual relationship with Laurence Mann, the Guyanese ambassador to the [United States](/places/united-states/), that she made tape recordings, and that transcripts were made for Jones and periodically turned over to high officials of the Guyanese government. It records evidence, which it called incomplete and inconclusive, that unknown Guyanese officials influenced the Stoen custody case, and testimony that support from Deputy Prime Minister Ptolemy Reid came from ideological compatibility with the Temple's socialism and did not appear to be generated for illegal reasons.[^11] The Guyanese government declined by letter of March 28, 1979, on grounds of protocol and its own judicial inquiry, to allow the staff group to interview Guyanese officials, and the report states that this left a conspicuous void.[^12]

The [New York Times](/organizations/new-york-times/) reported on December 24, 1978, that local officials in the northwestern region had filed written reports expressing concern about the settlement, that the central government declined to investigate, and that at least two officers who raised questions were transferred. The same report quotes Deborah Layton Blakey as saying that in September 1977 she and Terri Buford delivered a threat of mass suicide to Reid.[^13]

### Customs Investigation, Interpol and the State Department

The United States Customs Service began an investigation in February 1977 of allegations that more than 170 weapons stored at Ukiah had been moved to the Temple's San Francisco headquarters and possibly on to Jonestown. The House staff report states that the investigation was compromised a month later when an individual passed information about it to Dennis Banks, head of the American Indian Movement, in an effort to dissuade Banks from further contact with Jones, that the conversation was apparently taped and word reached Jones, and that a copy of the Customs report sent to Interpol was shared by normal procedure with the Guyanese police. According to information given to the staff group, Guyanese Police Commissioner C. A. "Skip" Roberts reportedly showed the copy to Paula Adams or Carolyn Layton, and one of them passed the information to Jones.[^14]

The Customs investigation closed in August and September 1977 after a shipment of crates bound for Jonestown was opened in [Miami](/places/miami/), and a report with negative results was filed. Investigators nonetheless sent copies to Interpol and the State Department because the investigation had disclosed allegations that Jones intended to establish a political power base in Guyana and might have several hundred firearms there. The State Department's Office of Munitions Control received the report on September 1, 1977, and a copy went to the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs on September 6. There is no indication that a copy went to the Embassy in Georgetown, and none of the more than 26 State Department officials the staff group interviewed had seen it before November 18, 1978, although one professed awareness of it.[^14]

[Richard Dwyer](/people/richard-dwyer/) said in a 1990 oral history that the Guyanese authorities searched Temple shipments at customs because Interpol had alerted them to rumors of illegal shipments, and that nobody told the Embassy.[^15]

### Embassy Georgetown, Consular Visits and the Privacy Act

A State Department cable from Georgetown, number 2637, dated December 29, 1976, and signed McCoy, reports that Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally of California, visited Guyana to see the People's Temple agricultural mission at Port Kaituma. The chargé d'affaires met Dymally on December 27 and again on December 28, and Jones was present at the second meeting, at which the chargé summarized the state of relations between the United States and Guyana. Dymally and Jones both said they had met Foreign Minister Frederick Wills on December 26, and that he feared the United States would destabilize Guyana as it had Chile. Jones indicated that there was real fear in the Guyanese government that the CIA was a supranational agency answerable to no one and acting against Guyana unknown to other agencies of the United States government. The chargé categorically denied that any United States agency, the CIA included, was acting against Guyana. Jones said he had met Mrs. Carter and Vice President-elect Walter Mondale earlier, that they assured him the Carter administration would not interfere in Guyana's domestic affairs, and that he intended to pass this message to Prime Minister Forbes Burnham on December 29.[^16]

The House staff group found that the Embassy provided the Temple in advance with the names of most of the people consular officers planned to interview at Jonestown, which allowed Jones to rehearse them, and that consular visits averaged five to six hours on four occasions between August 30, 1977, and November 1, 1978. The Temple filed 26 actions under the Privacy Act for documents about specified members, and the Embassy learned of this on December 2, 1977. The report concludes that the legal claims made Embassy reporting to the State Department less candid.[^17] A consular officer's memorandum of December 15, 1977, in the State Department's released files records a meeting on December 12 with Temple members who asked about the motive behind his planned visit to Jonestown.[^18]

In June 1978 the Embassy cabled the State Department (Log 126) for permission to ask the Guyanese government to exercise normal administrative jurisdiction over Jonestown. The State Department refused by cable (Log 130) because the approach "could be construed by some as U.S. Government interference." The Embassy's cable omitted the defection of Deborah Layton Blakey, which had occurred on May 12, 1978, with the help of consular officers Richard McCoy and Daniel Weber, because of Privacy Act considerations, according to the ambassador.[^17] The House staff group found that allegations that a Temple woman had a sexual relationship with McCoy and recorded it were false, citing her signed affidavit, and found no evidence that any other Embassy employee had been compromised by the Temple.[^19]

On November 5, 1978, the Embassy relayed to Ryan that the Temple wanted him to work with its legal counsel, Mark Lane, and would permit a visit only if the delegation was "balanced," had no media coverage and Lane was present. Lane wrote to Ryan on November 6 that he could not be in Jonestown when Ryan wished to visit and referred to a "witchhunt" against the Temple by the United States government.[^20]

Deborah Layton Blakey said, according to a San Mateo Times article of December 14, 1979, that McCoy warned her not to take her assertions about oppression and possible mass suicide to the press, and that she received a letter apparently from Jones referring to a conversation with McCoy.[^21] The San Mateo Times quoted Holsinger on December 6, 1978, as saying that each time Ryan's office contacted the State Department about the Temple, letters from Temple members urging Ryan to desist followed, that staff called it a Pavlovian reaction, and that it could have been incompetence. In his 1980 testimony, which attached that article, he asked whether the free flow of information to Jones was State Department policy or the work of a few officials with close ties to Jones.[^22]

The State Department press spokesman Hodding Carter told reporters on November 27, 1978, that the only investigation by an American agency in Guyana of which he was aware was done by Consular Affairs. Asked about reports that the CIA had been in the settlement five times, he said he was neither aware of it nor able to comment, and that such activity would be outside the CIA's charter as he understood the new charter.[^23]

### San Francisco Political Ties

The Temple moved its base to [San Francisco](/places/san-francisco/) in 1972. George Moscone, elected mayor in 1975, signed a commission appointing "Reverend James Jones" a member of the San Francisco Housing Authority for a term ending April 27, 1980, effective November 30, 1976, in place of Stephen Walter, whose term had expired.[^24] The Jonestown Institute states that the appointment was announced on October 18, 1976, after Jones had declined an offer of a seat on the Human Rights Commission, that Jones later became chair of the authority, and that he hired three Temple leaders to positions on its staff.[^25] The House staff report describes Jones as having endowed himself with official legitimacy through the Moscone appointment, and states that San Francisco political figures appear to have been drawn by his ability to turn out hundreds of followers for rallies, mailings and phone banks, with some direct contributions to campaigns.[^26]

The House report states that the Temple's letter-writing campaigns against critical stories produced letters from Moscone, Dymally, the head of the San Francisco school system and members of the California State Assembly, and that the campaigns were particularly effective with the [San Francisco Chronicle](/organizations/san-francisco-chronicle/) and the National Enquirer. Jones contributed sums totaling 4,400 dollars to the San Francisco Examiner, the Chronicle and ten other newspapers for use in the "defense of a free press"; the Examiner returned the money and the Chronicle sent its check to Sigma Delta Chi, which declined to return it to the Temple. The Examiner cancelled an eight-part series on Jones in 1972 after picketing and a threat of suit, and the report credits the August 1977 New West article with breaking Jones's hold on San Francisco and prompting his departure for Guyana.[^26]

Timothy Stoen, Jones's legal adviser, was hired in 1976 by San Francisco District Attorney Joseph Freitas, according to a newspaper chronology reprinted in the House report, which also states that Jones resigned from the Housing Authority by shortwave radio from Jonestown after the 1977 New West article.[^27] Freitas said in January 1979, according to the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, that Stoen had tried in 1976 to interfere with an investigation of death threats allegedly made by a Temple member to the Reverend Hannibal Williams, and that the allegation surfaced in an in-house review. The state attorney general was investigating whether Stoen, as Freitas's voter-fraud prosecutor, had obstructed investigations at the Temple's behest and how he obtained his job. Stoen denied through his attorney that he had acted improperly.[^28] The House staff group interviewed Freitas and Stoen in California in January 1979, and after the State Department cited the Privacy Act in declining to give information about Stoen, Zablocki replied on March 13, 1979, that the Privacy Act permits disclosure to a committee of Congress within its jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(9).[^29][^30]

### Temple Finances, Panama Accounts and the Soviet Union

The House staff report estimated Jones's controlled wealth at 12 million dollars.[^31] It records that 199 Social Security annuitants lived in Jonestown with benefits of about 37,000 dollars a month, and that about 160,000 dollars in uncashed checks, mostly for August through October 1978, were recovered there.[^32] A court-appointed receiver in California later reported accounting for about 10 million dollars, of which 7.2 million was found in two [Panama](/places/panama/) banks, according to the Jonestown Institute's compilation of 1979 press reports.[^33]

The [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/)'s file on the case (RYMUR) contains a letter dated November 18, 1978, found at Jonestown, signed in the name of a Temple member and addressed to "Dear Comrade Timofeyev" at the Soviet consulate at 48 Chandra Nagar Street, Prashad Nagar, Georgetown. The letter states that it is a letter of instructions "regarding all our assets which we want to leave to the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" and that the Temple wanted its money to benefit "oppressed peoples all over the world." It describes two fixed-time deposits: account 3357 at the Swiss Bank Corporation in Panama, holding two deposits of 557,000 dollars and 1,486,000 dollars, and account 121-00-191A at the Union Bank of Switzerland in Panama, holding seven deposits maturing between May 31 and September 21, 1979, in amounts from 82,536 dollars to 1,623,000 dollars. The listed amounts add to 7,284,536 dollars.[^34] Companion letters instructed the bank officers to send cashier's checks to the consul as deposits matured; the Jonestown Institute reproduces additional letters of the same date leaving assets in banks in Caracas and Nassau to the Soviet Communist Party.[^35]

Three Temple members left Jonestown on November 18 with suitcases that the Jonestown Institute says held over 900,000 dollars in United States currency and over 135,000 Guyanese dollars, along with the letters, with instructions to deliver them to the Soviet Embassy; they abandoned the suitcases and were taken into protective custody at Port Kaituma.[^35] At State Department briefings, reporters asked on November 27, 1978, about Jones's reported activities with the Soviet Embassy and whether Soviet officials visited Jonestown, and Hodding Carter said he had seen the report and had no information on a visit. On November 28 a reporter asked whether the Temple had been negotiating a move to the [Soviet Union](/places/soviet-union/), and he answered, "I've seen reports to that end," and said allegations about half a million dollars to be delivered to the Soviet Embassy with a letter held by the Guyanese government were under investigation. On December 1, asked what had become of the 500,000 dollars and the note, he said he had nothing to offer and would take the question.[^36] The [Associated Press](/organizations/associated-press/) reported from Georgetown that Jones's aides had met at least twice with an official of the Soviet Embassy to discuss moving the colony, and the New York Times reported on December 20, 1978, that Jonestown leaders had tried to bequeath about 7 million dollars in Panamanian and Venezuelan accounts to the Soviet Union.[^37][^38]

A State Department cable of November 1978, Georgetown 3807, records an Embassy interview with Jones's attorney Mark Lane. Lane said that Jones had talked of sending a delegation to the Soviet Union and perhaps of moving the commune there, and that he knew Jones had two or three million dollars in his cabin, which Lane said he had never seen and whose source he declined to name.[^39] A State Department letter of February 28, 1979, answering a request about Jones's foreign travel, stated that the only information the department had was a note in CIA files dated September 1960 indicating that Jones and his wife were planning a trip to the Soviet Union, Finland and Poland, and that nothing indicated the trip was made.[^40]

Jim Hougan wrote that the CIA's [Office of Security](/organizations/cia-office-of-security/) opened a file on Jones in November 1960 and that Jones's passport had been issued on June 28, 1960.[^41] A CIA staff cable of February 1, 1979, summarizing a [Washington Post](/organizations/washington-post/) article headed "Guyana Exploits [KGB](/organizations/kgb/) Tie to Jonestown," records the article's closing statement that the best evidence of CIA involvement after November 18 was a cable sent at 9:18 p.m. the night Ryan was killed, which a reporter said listed the dead and wounded before the State Department had the information; the cable's sender, addressees and the remaining paragraphs are redacted in the released copy.[^42]

### Drugs and Medical Supplies

The Associated Press reported on December 28, 1978, that a drug inventory found in Jonestown showed large supplies of depressants, among them Quaaludes, Demerol, Valium, morphine and 11,000 doses of Thorazine, and that two survivors and law enforcement officials said some had been used to control the behavior of people viewed as disloyal; the report states that there were no records from which to determine how often the drugs were used.[^43] A [Newsweek](/organizations/newsweek/) reporter who entered Jones's cottage after the deaths described a bag of drugs including Thorazine, Darvon, Pentothal and Valium.[^44] [Jack Anderson](/people/jack-anderson/) wrote on September 27, 1980, that the discovery of an arms and drug cache raised the question of links between Jones and drug traffickers and organized crime, as well as law-enforcement agencies.[^45] Madsen's 2007 account lists thallium, chloral hydrate and Largatil among the drugs, with Thorazine, sodium pentothal and Demerol, and describes them as consistent with those used in known [MKULTRA](/programs/project-mkultra/) operations; he wrote that such quantities in an agricultural commune suggested a purpose beyond routine medical care.[^6]

Madsen cited a January 9, 1979, article in the Brazilian newspaper Manchete reporting that Brazil's Federal Police suspected the Temple of belonging to a [Bolivia](/places/bolivia/), [Brazil](/places/brazil/) and Guyana drug network. Brazilian police had seized in 1978 the largest cocaine shipment in the country's history, and two arrested traffickers said ten kilograms were destined for Jones in Guyana. Arthur Carbone Filho, head of the Sao Paulo police unit for combating drugs, said he had documentation that cocaine traffic between Bolivia and Guyana had occurred frequently and that Jones's 1969 arrival in Brazil, where he lived at Belo Horizonte, was probably meant to establish connections for Bolivian cocaine. Francisco Carlos Gariato, chief of the Sao Paulo Federal Police, said a Bolivian trafficker who confessed to smuggling cocaine to Guyana was later identified as a follower and recruiter for Jones.[^6]

### The Death Tape and Richard Dwyer

Richard Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission in Georgetown, accompanied Ryan to Jonestown and was wounded at the airstrip. His oral history places him in the Foreign Service from 1957, in the State Department's Office of Functional and Biographic Intelligence, in Damascus and [Cairo](/places/cairo/), in Chad as deputy chief of mission and chargé from 1974 to 1977, on the Inspection Corps in 1977 and 1978, and in Georgetown from April 1978. In Chad a Peace Corps volunteer's letter identified him as the CIA chief. He said the CIA was not to his taste and that, instead of the standard reply of neither confirming nor denying the allegations, he wished he had said, "No, I am not CIA, never was and do not intend to be."[^15] A 1968 East German reference work by Julius Mader, quoted in a Senate hearing record, lists "Dwyer, Richard Alan" as born in 1933, in the State Department from 1957, working for the CIA from 1959, with posts at Damascus, Cairo and Washington.[^9]

On the tape of the final hour at Jonestown, designated Q 042 by the FBI, Jones says: "Take Dwyer on down to the East House," and later, "Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him."[^46] The San Mateo Times reported on December 14, 1979, that the FBI held a tape on which Jones said that, that the House investigator George Berdes and FBI agents in San Francisco confirmed it, and that Berdes and the agents concluded that Jones was mistaken. Dwyer told the paper that Jones apparently thought he was still at the compound and that he had spent the night with the wounded at the airstrip. Jackie Speier, wounded at the airstrip, said Dwyer left the group on several occasions, that Ryan gave Dwyer a briefcase holding recorders, tapes and notes, and that when it was returned the tapes, notes and recorders were missing. Dwyer said Ryan did not give him the briefcase, that he picked it up at the airstrip, and that he gave it to the committee staff member Jim Schollaert.[^21] Dwyer's oral history states that Jones thought he had returned and that the allegations that he ran a mind control operation came partly from Ryan's administrative assistant and partly from a young man at the CIA, whom he could not identify, who had told the assistant he had direct reports from "their man on the scene." Dwyer said there was nobody there but himself.[^15] The House staff report praised Dwyer's leadership of the survivors at Port Kaituma.[^17] Hougan wrote that Dwyer's background "is that of a sheepdipped CIA officer whose State Department cover had long ago worn thin," listing the Bureau of Intelligence and Research until February 1959, Damascus from 1960 to 1963, Cairo from 1963 to 1966, Washington from 1966 to 1968 and Sofia from 1970 to 1972.[^41]

Madsen wrote that Jack Anderson reported on September 27, 1980, that Dwyer was a CIA agent and a friend of Jones, and that Dwyer and Ambassador John Burke had both allegedly worked for the CIA in Bangkok during the [Vietnam War](/events/vietnam-war/); that Dwyer reportedly left Guyana for Grenada after the massacre; that McCoy allegedly liaised with Jones and was a [United States Air Force](/organizations/us-air-force/) intelligence official; and that another alleged CIA employee, Dan Webber, working under State Department cover, visited Jonestown the day after the massacre.[^6] The Anderson column of that date in the CIA's files states that Mader's directory lists Dwyer as a CIA agent since 1959 and that Dwyer knew Jones; it does not mention Bangkok, Grenada, McCoy or Webber.[^45] Dwyer's oral history lists his assignments after Georgetown as Martinique from 1980 to 1983 and the Office of Caribbean Affairs in 1984, and states that he served as chargé at Antigua for a couple of weeks during the Grenada crisis of 1983; the report of the House staff group lists a Daniel Weber, vice consul and third secretary at Georgetown from October 1976 through December 1978, who with McCoy helped Deborah Layton Blakey defect.[^15][^17]

Jack Anderson's column of September 27, 1980, quoted a Capitol Hill source saying the allegations were coming from very responsible people and could not be dismissed, and stated that Dwyer had "no comment" when asked if he worked for the CIA.[^45] Larry Layton's signed confession to Guyanese authorities of November 22, 1978, stated that he had begged Jones to let him bring down the plane because he felt the people leaving were working with the CIA to smear the Temple and Guyana.[^47]

### Ryan, the CIA and the Reviews of CIA Involvement

On September 27, 1978, Ryan wrote to CIA Director [Stansfield Turner](/people/stansfield-turner/) asking him to confirm or deny a comment made during his investigation of the [Patty Hearst](/people/patty-hearst/) case that the CIA had run experiments on prisoners at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, citing [Donald DeFreeze](/people/donald-defreeze/) of the [Symbionese Liberation Army](/organizations/symbionese-liberation-army/) and another prisoner as sources. A routing slip in the CIA's files carries the letter.[^48] Madsen wrote that Ryan had never been a favorite of the CIA.[^6] After Ryan's death Daniel Schorr stated on November 29, 1978, that Ryan had been his source in 1975 for the covert CIA operation in Angola; the Associated Press report, published in the Washington Post on November 30, adds that Schorr was taken off the air at CBS in 1976 after passing to the Village Voice a secret House Select Committee on Intelligence report critical of Secretary of State [Henry Kissinger](/people/henry-a-kissinger/), and later resigned from CBS.[^49]

The House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Clement J. Zablocki, wrote to the [Director of Central Intelligence](/organizations/director-of-central-intelligence/) on December 11, 1978, asking for all information and documents, and Turner replied on December 28 that Legislative Counsel Frederick P. Hitz would contact the staff.[^50] On February 2, 1979, Zablocki wrote to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that it was the committee's understanding that all officials affiliated with the Embassy who had contact with the Temple, "including representatives of the [Central Intelligence Agency](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)," would submit statements.[^51] A CIA staff cable of February 1, 1979, states that an entity whose name is redacted was reviewing documentary material recovered from Jonestown in search of evidence and was still cataloguing it, that the matter was sub judice, and that the sender had no plans to enquire further; the remaining text is redacted.[^52] A CIA routing sheet dated February 8, 1979, concerns the House committee staff.[^53]

The House staff report states that no conclusive evidence was available that the CIA was acquiring information on Jones or the Temple and that executive orders 11905 of February 18, 1976, and 12036 of January 24, 1978, prohibited the CIA from intelligence activity on United States citizens.[^54] The report also records that the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/) told the staff the FBI had examined an allegation passed on by a constituent of Senator S. I. Hayakawa that Jones was holding people in Georgetown against their will, and closed it because relatives had gone voluntarily.[^54]

The House International Operations Subcommittee, chaired by Dante B. Fascell, held hearings on February 20 and March 4, 1980. Holsinger testified that the CIA had an operation in Guyana designed to support Burnham, that there were credible reports it included covert support for Jones as an ally of Burnham, that the Temple provided funds to the Burnham group and acted as an intimidating force against the government's opponents, and that on the afternoon of the killings a [White House](/places/white-house/) staff member told him by telephone, "We have a CIA report from the scene." He said the Hughes-Ryan amendment of 1974, which Ryan co-sponsored, may have been violated by a failure to report a covert operation, and asked whether the deaths at Jonestown were preferred over disclosure of that operation.[^22] Anderson quoted Les Francis, the White House aide, as saying he thought he had said "intelligence report" rather than "CIA report."[^45] The Afro-American reported on July 15, 1980, that Holsinger also said the chief medical examiner in Guyana, Dr. Leslie Mootoo, reported that more than 700 of the bodies were not suicide victims. At the San Francisco forum on May 23, 1980, Holsinger said he believed the CIA was in effective control of the Embassy, questioned whether Jonestown was a mass mind control experiment under MKULTRA, and relied on the APRL report and an article titled "The Penal Colony."[^8][^55]

The committee staff group wrote Zablocki on March 28, 1980, that the hearings produced no substantive new information and that the CIA allegations were "largely speculative and unsubstantiated," and recommended referral to the [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence](/organizations/house-permanent-select-committee-on-intelligence/) of six contentions: that the CIA conducted a range of activities in Guyana, that a CIA agent witnessed Ryan's assassination, that the CIA violated the Hughes-Ryan Act by not reporting a covert operation, that it decided to allow the events of November 18 to occur to avoid disclosure, that the reporting failure was deliberate because Ryan co-authored the act, and that the CIA was used to promote American commercial interests. It recommended declassification of the committee's interview transcripts by January 1, 1985, subject to the witnesses' agreement. Zablocki, William S. Broomfield, Fascell and John H. Buchanan wrote to the select committee chairman, [Edward P. Boland](/people/edward-p-boland/), on April 3, 1980.[^56]

CIA files record the referral from the other side. A note of April 4, 1980, from the Office of the Director to the Legislative Counsel states that "[John McMahon](/people/john-mcmahon/) denies any Agency involvement" and that the Director of Central Intelligence wanted a note to Zablocki or Boland saying the select committee agreed to investigate; the writer thought it better done staff to staff, and a handwritten reply reads "Yes!" A memorandum of April 17, 1980, from the Legislative Counsel to the Director reports that the House Foreign Affairs staff said on April 14 that neither the Fascell subcommittee nor the staffers who did the initial study found substance to support "persistent rumors about CIA"; that Zablocki's reason for referring the matter was that a fresh look might quell the rumors; that the staff said the allegations came from Holsinger and others very close to Jones whose mind-set was that nothing would persuade them there had not been a conspiracy against Ryan; and that the select committee's staff director, Tom Latimer, said on April 15 that he saw no substance to the allegations and was recommending to Boland a low-key investigation in which a single staff member reviewed the same material made available to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The memorandum adds that Zablocki had "wiped his hands of the matter" and that the select committee felt it must "do something."[^57]

Rebecca Moore wrote in 1985, citing the journalist John Hanrahan, that on the second anniversary of the deaths the select committee announced in a two-page letter, without a report to the Foreign Affairs Committee or the public, that it found no evidence at all of CIA involvement, no CIA connection with Jones and no foreknowledge of the suicides, and that a congressional staff member told Hanrahan the CIA "pulled a fast one" and the first investigation's key sentence was "crafted with excruciating care."[^58]

John Judge and Sandy Meredith were reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer on February 5, 1982, to base on circumstantial evidence their theory that Jonestown was part of a 30-year CIA mind control experiment called MKULTRA; Judge cited the Guyanese government's changing body counts and said Jones was a close friend of a government agent.[^59]

### Civil Suits and Freedom of Information Litigation

Fielding McGehee filed a [Freedom of Information Act](/events/freedom-of-information-act/) request with the CIA on December 6, 1978, narrowed on December 22 at the suggestion of an agency representative to records on the "Peoples Temple," and sued on November 21, 1980. On May 5, 1981, the CIA stated that it held 84 responsive documents: 12 were released in full, 18 with substantial deletions, 26 were withheld and 28 (27 from the State Department, one from the FBI) were forwarded to the originating agencies. The agency had used December 22, 1978, as a search cut-off date without telling him. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held on January 4, 1983, that the delay of almost two and one-half years and the undisclosed cut-off date were evidence of bad faith that removed the credit ordinarily due to the CIA's affidavits by Louis J. Dube, and reversed and remanded.[^60] Anderson wrote on September 27, 1980, that Ryan's five children had filed a 3 million dollar suit charging that the State Department withheld information that could have prevented his murder; their lawyer, Marvin E. Lewis, said he would prove the State Department and the CIA possessed vital information.[^45]

Madsen cited a Washington Post report of March 25, 1983, that relatives of Jonestown victims sued CIA Director Turner alleging he conspired with Jones to control the group as part of a secret government behavior-modification program, and wrote that the CIA maintained extensive open-source records on the Jonestown allegations while most official intelligence files remain classified.[^6] Survivors of the airstrip attack and relatives of members sued the federal government in San Francisco on October 14, 1981, alleging that Vance and Turner took part in a conspiracy with Jones to control Temple members and that Jones was an employee, servant, agent or operative of the CIA from 1963 until his death.[^61] The Washington Post reported on October 15, 1981, the same suit in its "Around the Nation" column.[^62] UPI reported on October 11, 1983, that the Supreme Court declined to review the case after a district judge dismissed it because the plaintiffs' attorney failed to serve the defendants within 40 days and the Ninth Circuit rejected his excuses.[^63]

### The Larry Layton Prosecution

Larry Layton, Deborah Layton Blakey's brother, boarded the six-seat Cessna at Port Kaituma, told the pilot to take off when shots were heard at the larger plane, and shot two passengers; a third shot misfired. He was indicted on October 9, 1980, in the Northern District of California on four counts: conspiracy to kill Leo Ryan under 18 U.S.C. 351(d), aiding and abetting that killing, conspiracy to kill Dwyer as an internationally protected person under 18 U.S.C. 1117, and aiding and abetting that attempted killing under 18 U.S.C. 1116(a). He was returned from Guyana in the company of FBI agents about November 20, 1980.[^64] A defense lawyer wrote that Layton had been tried in Guyana on attempted murder charges and acquitted.[^65] The first trial, beginning July 21, 1981, ended in a hung jury on September 26. After two interlocutory appeals by the government, a second trial began September 18, 1986, and on December 1, 1986, the jury convicted on all counts after deliberating 25 hours over six days; Peckham had excluded a final recording of Jones from the trial.[^66] On March 3, 1987, Judge Robert Peckham sentenced him to fifteen years on three counts and life on the count of aiding and abetting the killing of a member of Congress.[^64][^65] The Ninth Circuit affirmed on August 16, 1988, holding that Jones's pre-arrival tape-recorded speeches were admissible as coconspirator statements, and denied his motion to vacate for ineffective assistance of counsel.[^64]

In the first appeal, decided August 10, 1983, the Ninth Circuit described the government's offer of proof: Jones said in nightly speeches before the visit that if Ryan came "maybe [his] plane will just fall out of the sky," and told residents not to talk to visitors; Layton had been on the Temple security force in the United States.[^47] Charles Garry, a Temple lawyer, told the House staff group that in a year and a half he found no evidence to support the Temple's charges of government conspiracy, while Lane said that people in government agencies had manipulated Jones.[^67] The report states that Jones placed a false defector in the Concerned Relatives group in San Francisco a month before the trip, and records unconfirmed reports that a large shipment of cyanide arrived at Jonestown two days before Ryan's visit and a survivor's statement that Jones said days earlier the congressman's plane "might fall from the sky."[^67] Dwyer said the only person charged in Guyana with a crime was a former Marine at the Georgetown office, convicted of helping Sharon Amos kill her children, and the Washington Post reported on January 29, 1979, that Guyanese police had charged Charles Beikman and Stephen Jones over the deaths of Amos and her three children.[^15][^68] The Jonestown Institute states that Layton, after about 18 years in Guyanese jails and federal prisons, was released on parole in April 2002, two years before his scheduled release, following a six-year campaign by family members and supporters, and that he was the only man convicted on criminal charges arising from the events of November 18, 1978.[^69]

### Dan Mitrione and the Jones Connection

Dan Mitrione was an [Indiana](/places/indiana/) native who served as police chief of Richmond, Indiana, before joining the State Department's International Cooperation Administration, later absorbed into the [Agency for International Development](/organizations/agency-for-international-development/), as a public safety adviser, first at Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and from 1969 as chief public safety adviser in Montevideo, [Uruguay](/places/uruguay/). Hougan wrote that Jones told followers in Guyana, "There was one guy that I knew growing up in Richmond, a cruel, cruel person, even as a kid, a vicious racist, Dan Mitrione," that a Richmond acquaintance confirmed the two men knew one another, and that Jones entered Brazil in April 1962 and settled in Belo Horizonte, where Mitrione was serving at the United States consulate. Jones said, as Hougan quotes him, that he had heard of Mitrione's activities in Belo Horizonte and was inclined to "inform on his activities to everybody on the Left."[^70] CounterPunch reported that Manuel Hevia Cosculluela, a Cuban double agent who infiltrated the CIA, stated that Mitrione trained Uruguayan police to torture using beggars in the soundproofed basement of his Montevideo home, and that Tupamaros guerrillas kidnapped Mitrione, whose body was found on August 10, 1970.[^71] Hougan wrote that Mitrione was recruited into the CIA under State Department cover in May 1960 and that the CIA's file on Jones was opened because Mitrione intended to use him as an agent, and that the file remained open for ten years and was closed, without explanation, after Mitrione's death, and that the CIA said after the massacre that its file on "the Rev. Jimmie Jones" was virtually empty.[^41]

### Burnham, Grenada and the Caribbean

Madsen wrote that Guyana was governed by Prime Minister Burnham, installed with CIA help, as was Omar Torrijos in Panama. A London newspaper's Insight team had reported in April 1967 that the 1964 downfall of Cheddi Jagan's government in British Guiana, in a colony where Burnham led the opposing party, was engineered largely by the CIA, using Public Services International as cover, at a cost of more than 250,000 pounds over five years; a copy of the article is in CIA files.[^72] Madsen also wrote that the Temple amassed property and bank assets across [Latin America](/places/latin-america/), including Panama, Guyana and Grenada.[^6] The Temple's ship Cudjoe was en route to Trinidad with Temple members aboard during the massacre, and Temple members afterward established operations in Trinidad and Grenada, where Prime Minister Eric Gairy, a CIA client according to Madsen, was in power. According to the Oakland Tribune, as Madsen cited it, the staff of St. George's University Medical School in Grenada included Dr. Peter Bourne, a graduate of the [Walter Reed Army Institute of Research](/organizations/walter-reed-army-institute-of-research/) who had studied the psychological effects of stress in combat and had served a year in Vietnam as head of the Army's psychiatric research team.[^6] Holsinger told the House subcommittee that Gairy had visited Jones at the Temple in San Francisco before the move to Guyana, and that more than one million dollars of Temple money had been deposited in a Grenada bank.[^22]

### Witnesses and Assassins

Witnesses to the shooting of Ryan at the airstrip described the assailants as "zombie-like" and emotionless, Rowlett wrote. In reference to a rumored death list compiled by the Temple, a congressional aide was quoted as saying: "There are 120 white brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit." There was evidence that Jones used doubles, and confusion existed as to whether the genuine Jones's body was among the dead.[^5] The House staff report stated that the existence of a reported hit squad intended to eliminate Jones's staunchest opponents could not be concretely documented but should not be totally discounted, and that there was evidence Jones and key lieutenants had "understandings" to eliminate various individuals, including national political leaders.[^73] The FBI obtained transcripts of coded radio messages between Jonestown and the Temple's Georgetown house in the hours before the deaths which, according to the Washington Post's report of January 29, 1979, showed an order to kill ten members of the Concerned Relatives group who had stayed in Georgetown.[^68]

[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy, Committee Print, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., House Document No. 96-223 (May 15, 1979), pp. 16-17. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^2]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 3-6 (summary of events of November 14-19, 1978). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^3]: U.S. Department of State, Operations Center, Guyana Task Force, Situation Report No. 4, document C09000556, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844 (date line garbled in the scan; the report precedes Situation Report No. 28 of December 2, 1978). https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
[^4]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 7-8, 15. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^5]: Curt Rowlett, "Project Mind Kontrol: Did the U.S. Government Actually Create Programmed Assassins?," Steamshovel Press, issue 16 (1998), pp. 13-23 (Jonestown passages at p. 21). https://archive.org/details/steamshovel-press-issue-16-1998
[^6]: Wayne Madsen, "Was Jonestown a CIA Front for Drug Smuggling and Mind Control Experiments?," Wayne Madsen Report, publication date August 30, 2007 (headline dated August 31-September 3, 2007). https://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20070830_4 (copy: https://archive.org/details/madsen-070831-jonesdown). Madsen cites a Washington Post article of March 25, 1983, and a Brazilian newspaper article in Manchete of January 9, 1979 (translated by the CIA); neither was opened for this draft.
[^7]: U.S. Department of State, letter of December 13, 1978, to Rep. Clement J. Zablocki, answers to questions 5 and 6, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix I-C-1(D), pp. 65-76. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^8]: Joe Holsinger, statement to the forum "Psycho-Social Implications of the Jonestown Phenomenon," Miyako Hotel, San Francisco, May 23, 1980. https://archive.org/details/holsinger-psycho-social-implications
[^9]: Prepared statement of W. William Wilson, with attachments (including the San Mateo Times article of December 14, 1979, and an extract from Julius Mader, Who's Who in CIA (Berlin, 1968)), April 16, 1980, in National Intelligence Act of 1980, Hearings before the Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., on S. 2284, pp. 551-562. https://archive.org/details/jonestown-senate-hearings-from-the-96th-congress
[^10]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), p. 10 (persons interviewed in California). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^11]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 32-33 (finding I, involvement of the Government of Guyana). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^12]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 12-14, 33. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^13]: Nicholas M. Horrock, "Mass Cult Immigration Violated Jones' Agreement with Guyana," New York Times, December 24, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, pp. 447-450. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^14]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 25-27 (finding E, U.S. Customs Service investigation). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^15]: Richard A. Dwyer, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, July 12, 1990, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (copyright 1998), sections on Chad, the Inspection Corps and Georgetown, Guyana, 1978-1980. https://archive.org/details/interview-with-richard-a.-dwyer-on-jonestown
[^16]: Embassy Georgetown to Secretary of State, cable Georgetown 2637, "Dymally Visit to Guyana," December 29, 1976, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), appendixes, pp. 147-149. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^17]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 27-32 (findings G and H, Privacy Act and role of the State Department). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^18]: U.S. Department of State, memorandum to file, December 15, 1977, subject "People's Temple," document C09000254, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844, "People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana," Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
[^19]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), p. 31. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^20]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 2-3. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^21]: Rick Sullivan and Karen Petterson, "CIA Agent Witnessed Jonestown Mass Suicide," San Mateo Times, December 14, 1979, reprinted as Attachment 2 to the statement of W. William Wilson, in National Intelligence Act of 1980, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearings, pp. 558-562. https://archive.org/details/jonestown-senate-hearings-from-the-96th-congress
[^22]: Statement of Joe Holsinger, Administrative Assistant to the late Representative Leo J. Ryan, with Exhibit A (John Horgan and Rick Sullivan, "Ryan's Calls to State Department: Somehow the Word Would Get to Peoples Temple," San Mateo Times, December 6, 1978), in Review of the Implementation of Recommendations Relating to the Death of Representative Leo J. Ryan, Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Operations, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., February 20 and March 4, 1980, pp. 6-16. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13658
[^23]: U.S. Department of State, transcript of daily briefing, Monday, November 27, 1978 (Hodding Carter), document C09000586, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
[^24]: City and County of San Francisco, commission appointing Reverend James Jones a member of the Housing Authority, signed by Mayor George R. Moscone, November 30, 1976, FBI RYMUR file 89-4286-BB-17-x. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/SFHousing.pdf
[^25]: "Jones Appointment to San Francisco Housing Authority," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (last modified April 17, 2024), citing Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs, Raven, p. 268. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=14021
[^26]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 22-24 (finding C, opponents and media intimidated, public officials used). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^27]: Chronology, newspaper article (title and date not legible on the scan), reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, entries for 1976 and 1977. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^28]: James A. Finefrock, "DA Accuses Deputy of Pro-Temple Ploy," San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 1979, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 469. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^29]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 9-11 (California interviews, January 3-19, 1979). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^30]: Letter from Rep. Clement J. Zablocki to Douglas J. Bennet Jr., March 13, 1979, acknowledging the State Department letter of February 28, 1979, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix III-G-2. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^31]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 18-19. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^32]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 33-35 (finding J, Social Security). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^33]: "The Jonestown Banks," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (originally posted February 25, 2018), compiling Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post reports of 1979 and 1982. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=78508
[^34]: Letter dated November 18, 1978, signed in the name of a Temple member, to Mr. Fedor Timofeyev, Consul, 48 Chandra Nagar Street, Prashad Nagar, Georgetown, Guyana, FBI RYMUR file 89-4286-1637, p. 230 (FBI release stamp 11/9/82). http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/letter_toFeodorTimofeyev.pdf
[^35]: "Financial Letters of November 18," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (last modified April 24, 2024), reproducing FBI RYMUR file 89-4286-1637, pp. 230-235, and 89-4286-B-1-k-3 and k-4, and citing Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs, Raven, pp. 562-563. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13904
[^36]: U.S. Department of State, transcripts of daily briefings of November 27, November 28 and December 1, 1978 (Hodding Carter), documents C09000586, C09000587 and C09000589, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
[^37]: Associated Press dispatch from Georgetown, in "Note Found on Jones' Body," Nicholas M. Horrock, New York Times, November 27, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 388. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^38]: Nicholas M. Horrock, "Paper Calls Jones Communist in 1950's," New York Times, December 20, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, pp. 445-446. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^39]: Embassy Georgetown to Secretary of State, cable Georgetown 3807, "Interview with Mark Lane," November 1978, document C09000122, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
[^40]: Douglas J. Dennet Jr., Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations, letter to Rep. Clement J. Zablocki, February 28, 1979, answering question 5 of the February 2, 1979 request, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix III-G-2, pp. 507-508. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^41]: Jim Hougan, "The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue," sections on Mitrione and the CIA file and on Dwyer, Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (originally posted March 11, 2013). https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16572
[^42]: CIA staff cable, TOT 011936Z February 1979, "Washington Post 1 February Article Titled 'Guyana Exploits KGB Tie to Jonestown,'" CIA Reading Room document 0001432572 (approved for release May 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001432572
[^43]: "Jones Commune Found Stocked With Drugs to Control the Mind," Associated Press, Georgetown, December 28, 1978, in New York Times, December 29, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 455. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^44]: "The Cult of Death," Newsweek, December 4, 1978 (reporter's account of Jones's cottage, section "A Bag of Drugs"), reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, pp. 397-435 (account at pp. 413-414). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^45]: Jack Anderson, column, Washington Post, September 27, 1980, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170035-8 ("Ryan Kin: How Much Did U.S. Know?"). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000100170035-8
[^46]: Transcript of FBI tape Q 042, prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III, Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=29079
[^47]: United States v. Layton, 720 F.2d 548, 550-551 (9th Cir. 1983) (No. 82-1072, decided Aug. 10, 1983). https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/720/720.F2d.548.82-1072.html
[^48]: Rep. Leo J. Ryan to Admiral Stansfield Turner, letter, September 27, 1978, with CIA Executive Secretariat routing slip, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP81M00980R000300040014-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81m00980r000300040014-0
[^49]: "Schorr Reveals Rep. Ryan as Source of Angola Leak," Associated Press, Newport, R.I., November 29, 1978, Washington Post, November 30, 1978, p. A-22, in CIA Operations Center News Service, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP81M00980R000600030002-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81m00980r000600030002-1
[^50]: Letter from Rep. Clement J. Zablocki to the Director of Central Intelligence, December 11, 1978, and letter from Stansfield Turner to Zablocki, December 28, 1978, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix III, pp. 210-212. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^51]: Letter from Rep. Clement J. Zablocki to Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, February 2, 1979, request (1), in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix I-C-1(M), pp. 153-154. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^52]: CIA staff cable, TOR 020013Z February 1979, "Wnintel," CIA Reading Room document 0001431650, "Cable re Material Recovered from Jonestown" (approved for release May 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001431650
[^53]: CIA routing and record sheet dated February 8, 1979, re House International Relations Committee staff looking into the death of Rep. Leo Ryan, CIA Reading Room document 0001432558 (approved for release February 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001432558
[^54]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 20-22 (finding B, "Conspiracy Against Jim Jones and People's Temple"), and Appendix III-B-2 (Executive Orders 11905 and 12036). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^55]: Washington Afro-American, July 15, 1980, "Ryan Aide Discounts 'Jonestown Mythology,'" CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000302770002-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000302770002-2
[^56]: Staff Investigative Group (Ivo Spalatin, George R. Berdes, Thomas R. Smeeton) to Rep. Clement J. Zablocki, March 28, 1980; Zablocki to Rep. Dante B. Fascell, March 31, 1980; and Zablocki, William S. Broomfield, Fascell and John H. Buchanan Jr. to Rep. Edward P. Boland, April 3, 1980, Appendices 4 and 5, in Review of the Implementation of Recommendations Relating to the Death of Representative Leo J. Ryan, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Operations hearings, February 20 and March 4, 1980, pp. 76-79. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13658
[^57]: CIA Office of the Director note to Legislative Counsel, April 4, 1980, "Guyana - HFAC" (Executive Registry 80-917), with UPI item of April 4, 1980, and Legislative Counsel memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, April 17, 1980 (OLC 80-0663/5), "Guyana - HFAC/HPSCI," CIA Reading Room document 0001432433 (approved for release February 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001432433
[^58]: Rebecca Moore, A Sympathetic History of Jonestown: The Moore Family Involvement in Peoples Temple (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985), chapter 16 excerpt, "McGehee v. CIA," citing John Hanrahan. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16588
[^59]: Frank Rossi, "The Question of Jonestown," Philadelphia Inquirer, February 5, 1982, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420024-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000303420024-5
[^60]: McGehee v. Central Intelligence Agency, 697 F.2d 1095, 1097-1099, 1102-1103, 1112-1113 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (No. 82-1096, decided Jan. 4, 1983). https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/697/697.F2d.1095.82-1096.html
[^61]: "Rev. Jones: Was CIA Agent, Suit Alleges," UPI, San Francisco, Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1981, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020030-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000200020030-8
[^62]: "Around the Nation," Washington Post, October 15, 1981, p. A10, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020031-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000200020031-7
[^63]: Spencer Sherman, "Peoples Temple Survivors Lose Appeal," UPI, October 11, 1983. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/10/11/Peoples-temple-survivors-lose-appeal/1510434692800/
[^64]: United States v. Layton, 855 F.2d 1388, 1392-1394 (9th Cir. 1988) (Nos. 87-1071, 87-2576, decided Aug. 16, 1988). https://openjurist.org/855/f2d/1388/united-states-v-layton
[^65]: "Larry Layton and Peoples Temple: Twenty-Five Years Later," essay by a member of Layton's defense team (author's name not shown on the captured page), Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16973
[^66]: "Former Peoples Temple cult member Larry Layton was convicted," UPI, December 1, 1986. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/12/01/Former-Peoples-Temple-cult-member-Larry-Layton-was-convicted/1537533797200/
[^67]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 21, 26-27 (findings B and F, including the statements of Mark Lane and Charles Garry). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^68]: Charles A. Krause, "FBI Has Copy of Cult's Radio Order To Kill," Washington Post, January 29, 1979, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 478. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
[^69]: "The Campaign to Release Larry Layton from Federal Prison," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=32946
[^70]: Jim Hougan, "The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue," sections II.2 and II.7, Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16572
[^71]: "Teaching Torture: The Death and Legacy of Dan Mitrione," CounterPunch, August 13, 2020. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/13/teaching-torture-the-death-and-legacy-of-dan-mitrione/
[^72]: "How the CIA Got Rid of Jagan," Insight, London newspaper (masthead not visible on the scan), April 1967, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP75-00149R000400180010-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000400180010-1
[^73]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), p. 36 (finding K, future status of People's Temple). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1