Quote:Jonestown had its grey eminence in Dr. Lawrence Laird
Layton of the University of California at Berkeley, formerly a
chemist for the Manhattan Project and head of the Army's chemical
warfare research division in the early 1950s. (Larry Layton, his
son, led the death squad that murdered Congressman Leo Ryan,
who'd arrived at Guyana to investigate the cult.) Michael Meiers,
author of Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment?, scavenged for
information on the People's Temple for six years, concluding:
"The Jonestown experiment was conceived by Dr. Layton, staffed by
Dr. Layton and financed by Dr. Layton. It was as much his project
as it was Jim Jones'. Though it was essential for him to remain
in the background for security reasons, Dr. Layton maintained
contact with and even control of the experiment through his wife
and children." The African-American cult had at its core a
Caucasian inner-council, composed of Dr. Layton's family and
in-laws.