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Grenada - Jan Klimkowski - 05-05-2013
Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity was published in 1980.
In the novel:
Quote:While in Paris, Bourne discovers a designer's clothing shop is used as a drop-off for Carlos' spies' intel. While he is snooping around the shop, he is recognized by an employee named D'Anjou. He meets D'Anjou and learns that they were partners in a CIA para-military unit called Medusa during the Vietnam War and that his code-name was Delta.
The Jonestown massacre took place in 1978.
Here's John Judge:
Quote:What Was Jonestown?
According to one story, Jones was seeking a place on earth that
would survive the effects of nuclear war, relying only on an
article in Esquire magazine for his list.[145] The real reason for
his locations in Brazil, California, Guyana and elsewhere deserve
more scrutiny.[146] At one point Jones wanted to set up in
Grenada, and he invited then-Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy to
visit the Temple in San Francisco.[147] He invested $200,000 in
the Grenada National Bank in 1977 to pave the way, and some
$76,000 was still there after the massacre.[148]
His final choice, the Matthew's Ridge section in Guyana is an
interesting one. It was originally the site of a Union Carbide
bauxite and manganese mine, and Jones used the dock they left
behind.[149] At an earlier point, it had been one of seven
possible sites chosen for the relocation of the Jews after World
War II.[150] Plans to inhabit the jungles of Guyana's interior
with cheap labor date back to 1919.[151] Resources buried there
are among the richest in the world, and include manganese,
diamonds, gold, bauxite and uranium.[152] Forbes Burnham, the
Prime Minister, had participated in a scheme to repatriate Blacks
from the UK to work in the area. Like all earlier attempts, it
failed.[153]
Once chosen, the site was leased and worked on by a select crew of
Temple members in preparation for the arrival of the body of the
church. The work was done in cooperation with Burnham and the U.S.
Embassy there.[154] But if these were idealists seeking a better
life, their arrival in "Utopia" was a strange welcome. Piled into
busses in San Francisco, they had driven to Florida. From there,
Pan American charter planes delivered them to Guyana.[155] When
they arrived at the airport, the Blacks were taken off the plane,
bound and gagged.[156] The deception had finally been stripped
bare of all pretense. The Blacks were so isolated and controlled
that neighbors as close as five miles from the site did not know
that Blacks lived at Jonestown. The only public representatives
seen in Guyana were white.[157] Guyanese children were "bought"
also.[158]
According to survivors' reports, they entered a virtual slave
labor camp. Worked for 16 to 18 hours daily, they were forced to
live in cramped quarters on minimum rations, usually rice, bread
and sometimes rancid meat. Kept on a schedule of physical and
mental exhaustion, they were also forced to stay awake at night
and listen to lectures by Jones. Threats and abuse became more
common.[159] The camp medical staff under Dr. Lawrence Schacht was
known to perform painful suturing without anaesthetic. They
administered drugs, and kept daily medical records.[160]
Infractions of the rules or disloyalty led to increasingly harsh
punishments, including forced drugging, sensory isolation in an
underground box, physical torture and public sexual rape and
humiliation. Beatings and verbal abuse were commonplace. Only the
special guards were treated humanely and fed decently.[161] People
with serious injuries were flown out, but few ever returned.[162]
Perhaps the motto at Jonestown should have been the same as the
one at Auschwitz, developed by Larry Schacht's namesake, Dr.
Hjalmar Schacht, the Nazi Minister of Economics, "Arheit Macht
Frei," or "Work Will Make You Free." Guyana even considered
setting up an "Auschwitz-like museum" at the site, but abandoned
the idea.[163]
By this point, Jones had amassed incredible wealth. Press
estimates ranged from $26 million to $2 billion, including bank
accounts, foreign investments and real estate. Accounts were set
up worldwide by key members, often in the personal name of certain
people in the Temple.[164] Much of this money, listed publicly
after the massacre, disappeared mysteriously. It was a fortune far
too large to have come from membership alone. The receivership set
up by the government settled on a total of $10 million. Of special
interest were the Swiss bank accounts opened in Panama, the money
taken from the camp, and the extensive investments in Barclay's
Bank.[165] Other sources of income included the German banking
family of Lisa Philips Layton, Larry's mother.[166] Also, close to
$65,000 a month income was claimed to come from welfare and social
security checks for 199 members, sent to the Temple followers and
signed over to Jones.[167] In addition, there are indications that
Blakey and other members were supplementing the Temple funds with
international smuggling of guns and drugs.[168] At one point,
Charles Garry noted that Jones and his community were "literally
sitting on a gold mine." Mineral distribution maps of Guyana
suggest he was right.[169]
To comprehend this well-financed, sinister operation, we must
abandon the myth that this was a religious commune and study
instead the history that led to its formation. Jonestown was an
experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA and
military intelligence code name for mind control.[170] A close
study of Senator Ervin's 1974 report, Individual Rights and the
Government's Role in Behavior Modification, shows that these
agencies had certain "target populations" in mind, for both
individual and mass control. Blacks, women, prisoners, the
elderly, the young, and inmates of psychiatric wards were selected
as "potentially violent."[171] There were plans in California at
the time for a Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence,
expanding on the horrific work of Dr. Jos� Delgado, Drs. Mark and
Ervin, and Dr. Jolly West, experts in implantation, psychosurgery,
and tranquilizers. The guinea pigs were to be drawn from the ranks
of the "target populations," and taken to an isolated military
missile base in California.[172] In that same period, Jones began
to move his Temple members to Jonestown. The were the exact
population selected for such tests.[173]
The meticulous daily notes and drug records kept by Larry Schacht
disappeared, but evidence did not.[174] The history of MK-ULTRA
and its sister programs (MK-DELTA, ARTICHOKE, BLUEBIRD, etc.)
records a combination of drugs, drug mixtures, electroshock and
torture as methods for control. The desired results ranged from
temporary and permanent amnesia, uninhibited confessions, and
creation of second personalities, to programmed assassins and
preconditioned suicidal urges. One goal was the ability to control
mass populations, especially for cheap labor.[175] Dr. Delgado
told Congress that he hoped for a future where a technology would
control workers in the field and troops at war with electronic
remote signals. He found it hard to understand why people would
complain about electrodes implanted in their brains to make them
"both happy and productive."[176]
On the scene at Jonestown, Guyanese troops discovered a large
cache of drugs, enough to drug the entire population of
Georgetown, Guyana (well over 200,000)[177] for more than a year.
According to survivors, these were being used regularly "to
control" a population of only 1,100 people.[178] One footlocker
contained 11,000 doses of thorazine, a dangerous tranquilizer.
Drugs used in the testing for MK-ULTRA were found in abundance,
including sodium pentathol (a truth serum), chloral hydrate (a
hypnotic), demerol, thalium (confuses thinking), and many
others.[179] Schacht had supplies of haliopareael and largatil as
well, two other major tranquilizers.[180] The actual description
of life at Jonestown is that of a tightly run concentration camp,
complete with medical and psychiatric experimentation. The
stresses and isolation of the victims is typical of sophisticated
brainwashing techniques. The drugs and special tortures add an
additional experimental aspect to the horror.[181] This more
clearly explains the medical tags on the bodies, and why they had
to be removed. It also suggests an additional motive for
frustrating any chemical autopsies, since these drugs would have
been found in the system of the dead.
The story of Jonestown is that of a gruesome experiment, not a
religious utopian society. On the eve of the massacre, Forbes
Burnham was reportedly converted to "born again" Christianity by
members of the Full Gospel Christian Businessman's Association,
including Lionel Luckhoo, a Temple lawyer in Guyana.[182] This
same group, based in California, also reportedly converted
Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt prior to his massacres there and
they were in touch with Jim Jones in Ukiah.[183] They currently
conduct the White House prayer breakfasts for Mr. Reagan.[184]
With Ryan on his way to Jonestown, the seal of secrecy was broken.
In a desperate attempt to test their conditioning methods, the
Jonestown elite apparently tried to implement a real suicide
drill.[185] Clearly, it led to a revolt, and the majority of
people fled, unaware that there were people waiting to catch them.
And more:
Quote:Aftermath
In the face of such horror, it may seem little compensation to
know that a part of the truth has been unearthed. But for the
families and some of the Survivors, the truth, however painful, is
the only path to being relieved of the burden of their doubts.
It's hard to believe that President Carter was calling on us at
the time not to "overreact." The idea that a large community of
Black people would not only stand by and be poisoned at the
suggestion of Jim Jones, but would allow their children to be
murdered first, is a monstrous lie, and a racist insult.[266] We
now know that the most direct description of Jonestown is that it
was a Black genocide plan. One Temple director, Joyce Shaw,
described the Jonestown massacre as, "some kind of horrible
government experiments, or some sort of sick racial thing, a plan
like that of the Germans to exterminate Blacks."[267] If we refuse
to look further into this nightmarish event, there will be more
Jonestowns to come. They will move from Guyana to our own back
yard.
The cast of characters is neither dead nor inactive. Key members
of the armed guard were ordered to be on board the Temple Ship,
Cudjoe -- at the hour of the massacre they were on a supply run to
Trinidad. George Phillip Blakey phoned his father-in-law, Dr.
Lawrence Layton, from Panama after the event.[268] At least ten
members of the Temple remained on the boat, and set up a new
community in Trinidad while Nigel Slingger, a Grenada businessman
and insurance broker for Jonestown, repaired the 400-ton shipping
vessel. Then Charles Touchette, Paul McCann, Stephan Jones, and
George Blakey set up an "open house" in Grenada with the others.
McCann spoke about starting a shipping company to "finance the
continued work of the original Temple."[269]
That "work" may have included the mysterious operations of the
mental hospital in Grenada that eluded government security by
promising free medical care.[270] The hospital as operated by Sir
Geoffrey Bourne, Chancellor of the St. George's University Medical
School, was also staffed by his son Dr. Peter Bourne.[271] His
son's history includes work with psychological experiments and
USAID in Vietnam, the methadone clinics in the U.S., and a drug
scandal in the Carter White House.[272] The mental hospital was
the only structure bombed during the U.S. invasion of Grenada in
1983. This was part of a plan to put Sir Eric Gairy back in
power.[273] Were additional experiments going on at the site?[274]
In addition, the killers of Leo Ryan and others at Port Kaituma
were never accounted for fully. The trial of Larry Layton was
mishandled by the Guyanese courts, and the U.S. system as
well.[275] No adequate evidentiary hearings have occurred either
at the trial or in state and congressional reviews. The Jonestown
killers, trained assassins and mercenaries, are not on trial. They
might be working in Africa or Central America. Their participation
in Jonestown can be used as an "explanation" for their involvement
in later murders here, such as the case of the attack on school
children in Los Angeles.[276] They should be named and located.
The money behind Jonestown was never fully examined or recovered.
The court receivership only collected a fraction. The bulk went to
pay back military operations and burial costs. Families of the
dead were awarded only minimal amounts.[277] Some filed suit,
unsuccessfully, to learn more about the circumstances of the
deaths, and who was responsible. Joe Holsinger, Leo Ryan's close
friend and assistant, studied the case for two years and reached
the same unnerving conclusions: these people were murdered, there
was evidence of a mass mind-control experiment, and the top levels
of civilian and military intelligence were involved.[278] He
worked with Ryan's family members to prove the corruption and
injustice, but they could barely afford the immense court costs
and case preparation. Their suit, as well as a similar one brought
by ex-members and families of the victims, had to be dropped for
lack of funds.[279]
And Wayne Madsen:
Quote:The presence of a Jonestown de-programmer on the CIA-SAIC team in noteworthy. On August 31, 2007, WMR reported: "During the time of the Jonestown massacre, the People's Temple's ship, the 'Cudjoe,' was en route to Trinidad with members of the Temple on board. Temple members soon set up operations in Trinidad and Grenada, where [Prime Minister Eric] Gairy, a CIA client, who, in a 1977 speech before the UN General Assembly, called for the UN to establish an Agency for Psychic Research into Unidentified Flying Objects and the Bermuda Triangle, was in charge. According to the Oakland Tribune, the St. George's University Medical School in Grenada had on its staff one Dr. Peter Bourne, the son of the university's vice chancellor Sir Geoffrey Bourne. Peter Bourne is a graduate of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), where he studied the psychological effects of stress on those in combat. He also served one year in Vietnam as the head of the Army's psychiatric research team. Bourne later became an Assistant UN Secretary General and an adviser to then-Congressman Bill Richardson. It was under the guise of rescuing American medical students at the university, that the Reagan administration launched a 1983 invasion to overthrow Bernard Coard, who had ousted and executed Bishop in a coup. Both Bournes said the medical students were never in any danger. [Some believe that author Robert Ludlum got the idea for CIA mind-controlled assassins in his novel "The Bourne Identity" and its sequels from Geoffrey Bourne's work.]
The Jonestown connection to the U.S. war in Southeast Asia does not end there. The U.S. ambassador to Guyana at the time of the Jonestown massacre was John Burke, who served with his Deputy Chief of Mission Richard Dwyer, were allegedly working for the CIA in Bangkok during the Vietnam war. Dwyer was wounded in the Port Kaituma shootings where [Representative Leo] Ryan and the others were killed. On Sept. 27, 1980, Jack Anderson reported that Dwyer was a CIA agent and a friend of Jones. Anderson reported that on one of the tapes made during the mass suicide Jones was heard saying, 'Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him.' Dwyer reportedly left Guyana for Grenada after the massacre. The US Consular Officer at the embassy in Georgetown, Guyana was Richard McCoy, who allegedly liaised with Jim Jones and was a U.S. Air Force intelligence official. Another alleged CIA employee, operating under State Department cover, was Dan Webber, who also visited the Jonestown the day after the massacre. Joe Holsinger, Ryan's assistant and friend, later said that he believed that Jonestown was a massive mind control experiment and that the CIA and military intelligence was involved in the program."
Grenada - Magda Hassan - 30-12-2013
THE PEGASUS FILE Vietnam Special Forces Air Combat Controller; 25 year CIA deep cover agent; US Army pilot flying classified missions during the US invasion of Grenada; Iran-Contra pilot flying cocaine shipments labelled as medical supplies; and member of the ultra-secret, international G7 run Pegasus "Hit Team" - this is the extraordinary story of Gene "Chip" Tatum.
By David Guyatt
Part 1
From sensitive and highly secret - and hitherto largely unknown - Special Forces covert operations in Cambodia, to wandering CIA asset, through to "black ops" activities in Grenada and Oliver North's Iran-Contra "Enterprise," and on to membership in an international "hit team," Gene "Chip" Tatum has seen it all, done it all and is now telling it all.
Tatum knows where the skeletons are buried. Above all he is aware that his testimony implicates serving and former US Presidents, plus a whole list of high government officials, and others, in a welter of nefarious activities - including assassination, blackmail, coercion, gun-running, money-laundering and Cocaine trafficking.
Tatum, a lanky Floridian, turned whistle-blower following his arrest on a treason charge in 1995. The charge was both astonishing and patently ludicrous and resulted in a flurry of press interest with an article appearing in the Tampa Tribune on 4 May 1996. Incredibly, the charge was later dropped to be replaced by a fraud charge - a drastic step-down. Found guilty he was sentenced to serve a 15 month sentence. In March 1996, an additional charge - "conspiring to embezzle" was brought against him. Found guilty he is now incarcerated in Jessup Federal Correctional Facility, Florida, where he is serving a 27 month concurrent sentence.
Many questions continue to hang over the conduct of the trial. His defence lawyer refused to call any of the 80 witnesses nominated by Tatum for the defence. Later he freely confessed to having come under pressure from the Defence Department. Tatum says the first charge was a set-up to discredit him following his "resignation" from Operation Pegasus. The second he views with greater scepticism and concern.
His resignation from Pegasus followed his refusal to "neutralise" a leading US political figure in the 1992 US presidential elections. Tatum declares he will not "participate in assassinations of any sort, character assassinations or anything, of American citizens." He goes on to explain that back in 1994, in a telephone conference call from Oliver North, Felix Rodriguez and the late William Colby of the CIA, he was warned to turn over incriminating documents and tapes he had accumulated for his "retirement." He wryly observes that had he done so, he would probably have been quickly "terminated" in an "extreme" way - a speciality of the Pegasus team of which he was once a member. Countering this demand, he volunteered to plead guilty on a fabricated felony count and serve a twelve month sentence - so that his credibility was damaged in the event he ever decided to speak out. His incarceration for the second charge - and especially the 6 months sentencing of his wife, Nancy - has led him to speak out about his life which spans almost thirty years as a "black" operative. It is an extraordinary story.
OPERATION RED ROCK
Tatum's has written of his early career in the military, and his involvement in a highly sensitive and classified operation in an unpublished manuscript entitled "Operation Red Rock." Joining the Air Force in February 1970, he went through Army jump school; escape and evasion; jungle training; sea survival school; diving school and was assigned along with six others as "Combat Controllers" - the USAF equivalent of Special Forces - receiving his distinctive Special Forces burgundy coloured beret. From there he was assigned to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and then on to Fort Bragg, North Carolina - home of the Green Berets - for training in C4 plastic explosives, mines, nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, plus indoctrination in electronic and psychological operations.
Posted to South East Asia as Airman First Class (A1C) in December 1970, he was assigned as a radio operator on a Forward Air Control (FAC) aircraft attached to Task Force Alpha at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. In short order he was recruited (an involuntary "volunteer") to Team Red Rock. The team was composed of eight US Army Green Berets, three US Navy SEALS and two "cowboys" - a euphemism for CIA paramilitary specialists. With Tatum attached, Team Red Rock totalled 14 in all, and was about to be tasked with an operation that came directly from the White House.
In January 1971 the team received a final briefing from General Alexander Haig - who had flown in specially - along with Central Intelligence Agency, Saigon Chief William Colby; posing as "Mr. Peepers." Haig and Colby outlined the plan, stressing it's importance and extreme classification. President Nixon, desperate to quell domestic riots over an increasingly unpopular war, sought to withdraw all US personnel from Southeast Asia. Withdrawal would - and in the end ultimately did - cause a military vacuum quickly leading to the defeat of South Vietnamese forces.
During those years, Nixon was also running a "secret war" in Cambodia and Laos. In Laos, dwindling number of Meo tribesmen together with covert US personnel employed by the CIA proprietary company, Air America, were battling against superior North Vietnamese ground forces. A much similar pattern was occurring in Cambodia, amid grave fears that the "Domino Theory" would result if either of these two nations were to fall to the communist North Vietnamese. Nixon hoped that the vacuum caused by the withdrawal of US covert forces could be filled by native Cambodian forces. Lon Nol, the Cambodian leader, continued to stubbornly resist Nixon's diplomatic overtures to take up the slack - anxious to hedge his bets and realistic about his chances of survival as Kymer Rouge and Vietnamese forces prepared to swarm-in unhindered by US air power.
A plan had been drawn up at the highest levels of Nixon's administration. Team Red Rock were to secretly enter Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, and attack the airport, military and civil installations - wrecking as much havoc as possible. The plan called for the team to parachute into the outskirts of Phnom Penh carrying with them captured NVA "Sappers." Taken in unarmed and alive, the Sappers would be "sacrificed" and their bodies left to be discovered by Cambodian forces. A furious, Lon Nol would assume North Vietnam was to blame. Such an act would, it was hoped, stiffen Lon Nol's backbone. With nowhere else to turn, the US puppet would urgently seek US hardware to strengthen his forces and continue the battle.
The team were not told that they too were to be sacrificed by their President to ensure that word of the operation never reached the light of day. A detachment of Montagnard tribesmen (Yards) in the pay of the CIA were assigned to liquidate each member of the team and dispose of their bodies. The attack went successfully, but the teams suspicion of the "Yards" foiled the betrayal. Using their knowledge of "escape and evasion" tactics the team decided to trek to the Vietnamese border and back to safety with US forces.
Casualties thinned out their numbers until only eight of them remained. Soon these, too, were captured by NVA regulars and underwent hideous torture at the hands of Chinese and Russian interrogators. Ultimately, only Tatum and one other team member survived the ordeal. Convalescing, Tatum was debriefed by CIA station chief, William Colby, and told he would, in future, be kept close to the "Agency". Recruited into the CIA, the yawning door of future "black" operations creaked open. Life would never be the same again for Chip Tatum.
CIA DEEP COVER AGENT
For the next ten years or so, Tatum's covert activities were varied. For awhile he worked out of Homestead Air Force Base where he was NCIOC of the tower receiver sight and MARS station. This was the base which then President Nixon used for his frequent visits to the Key Biscayne, Florida, White House. Much of this period remains obscured behind a thick blanket of classification.
From there he was stationed in Northern Italy, tasked with visiting the border towns of Yugoslavia and Italy. Colby felt that as a young Air Force man, Tatum might be "approached" in these towns for "information." The idea was to make contact with foreign agents and covertly gather information about them and their operations. Later he was tasked with infiltrating Yugoslavia, searching for missing US POW's from Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia - as well as being assigned to gather intelligence on potential successors to the then Yugoslavian President, Tito.
By 1976, he was operating out of Lamar, Colorado, in a communications facility, called OLAB. His contact there was Don Holmes, president of Valley - a Saving & Loan bank. Tatum acted as his courier shuttling between Lamar and Springfield, Colorado with transaction files. From there he was transferred to McDill Air Force Base, Tampa, Florida. Shortly before his McDill posting, he received a call from Colby telling him he was resigning his position as Director, Central Intelligence and recommending Tatum should de-activate his clandestine CIA activities. Colby continued, saying that remaining active without Colby there to protect him, may place him in personal "jeopardy," as he had powerful enemies in Washington. This warning referred to Nixon, Kissinger and Haig and Tatum's role and survival from Operation Red Rock. Tatum took good notice of the warning and became de-active. Later, in 1978, he requested and was granted entry into a USAF reserve programme. Leaving active military service he moved to Gunnison, Colorado, and took up a position with Bo Calloway, owner of the Crested Bute Ski area. The appointment was arranged by Colby.
During 1980 he received a visit from two men who informed him he was being reactivated, but into the US Army instead of the Air Force. He was sent to the US Army Flight School for rotary wing training at Fort Rucker. From there he was assigned to the 160th Aviation Battalion/Special Forces at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Shortly afterwards, the 160th combined with others to form Task Force 160.
It was in this unit that Tatum played a "spooky" role in the US invasion of Grenada. A photograph of him standing in front of his Hughes MD-500 Defender gunship on the beach-head in Grenada, appeared in the Lousiville Courier Journal, along with a feature story. Tatum will only say of this episode that he "wasn't there" in the same sense that he "wasn't in Cambodia." At that time he was attached to the US Army's 160th air wing at Ft. Campbell. Not only was the Hughes helicopter then not in the Army's inventory, but the 160th didn't officially exist. Jim Malone of the Louisville Courier, finds this extraordinary. He has documents showing the wing was stationed at Ft. Campbell, even though officials in the Pentagon continue to deny it - as they deny the wings' role in Grenada. Malone, in a telephone conversation with this writer, advised that the 160[SUP]th[/SUP] is now stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina - home of the famous Special Forces, the "Green Berets." Their mission is to fly "Delta Teams" on covert assignments, Malone added.
THE CONTRA COKE TRAIN
During 1983, Colby established contact again advising him he would shortly be contacted by "a man called North." This, as Tatum was to later discover was none other than Lt. Col. Oliver North - the central architect of America's Nicaraguan Contra campaign. Besides fighting a covert war, North was also the link-man in much, much dirtier work.
The "Contragate" years teem with well documented accounts of illicit wholesale gun running and dope smuggling. The expose series published in Autumn 1996 by the San Jose Mercury Post, entitled the "Dark Alliance," openly finger-points at the CIA and the Reagan administration for turning a blind-eye to massive Cocaine smuggling. Moreover, the series of articles claim that the explosion of "crack Cocaine" in Los Angeles resulted entirely from the Contra leaders-cum-dope peddlers who made vast personal fortunes from their activities. Today, the official argument remains that the Contra's were "freelancing" without the knowledge or consent of their CIA "handlers" or North's so called "Enterprise." Despite these assertions, mountains of hard evidence point in a different direction including an entry from North's own diary which shows his knowledge of Cocaine shipments.
In stark contrast to these denials, Tatum says North's "Enterprise" not only set-up the Cocaine factories, "ran" the Colombian cartels but were also responsible for master-minding the massive shipments of narcotics into the US. Significantly, he is not alone in making these accusations. A number of those involved in Col. North's operations have subsequently come forward and spilled the beans. Almost all of these "whistle-blowers" have been hounded and jailed. Some have died, whilst others have fled. The whole Contra thing, Tatum states, was also being used by an extremely covert group called Pegasus.
During February 1985, Tatum was piloting "Dustoff" (Medevac) flights for the US Army's 3/498th Medical Company, stationed at Fort Stewart, Georgia. Two flight crews, including Tatum's, were transferred to Palmerola Air Base, Honduras. Each flight consisted of a Pilot, co-pilot, medic and crew chief. Once familiarised they assumed the Medevac mission for Joint Task Force Bravo. In 1984, he had previously infiltrated the 3/498th on the instructions of Lt. Col. Oliver North - who had established contact under the code-name "Jake" (North had "control" of the 160[SUP]th[/SUP] air wing and was also deeply involved with the tactical planning of "black ops" missions in the Grenada invasion).
On 15 February 1995, during a flight to La Cieba, Honduras, he was instructed to contact his local "handler" - Major Felix Rodriguez - later to prove a major figure in the Iran-Contra investigation. Rodriguez informed Tatum that in addition to his Army "Medevac" duties he was to support covert "Pegasus" missions. These, he was told, would take priority over his other duties. He was also given his "chain of command;" three individuals - any of whom could authorise Pegasus missions.
In addition to Oliver North and Felix Rodriguez, Tatum would, henceforward, take orders from Amiram Nir, a former Mossad agent and Advisor to Vice President Bush. Aviation support for Pegasus missions operated out of Ilapongo airbase, Honduras (home of the CIA proprietary airline Corporate Air Services) plus numerous Contra camps located in the jungles and mountains along the Honduras/Nicaragua border. A common feature of all future Pegasus missions was the transport "of large white coolers in and out of the Contra camps."
On 26 February 1985, Tatum and his crew were instructed to fly two individuals to one of the larger Contra camps on the Honduran border. His flight log lists the names of the two individuals as Bill Cooper and Buzz Sawyer - both of whom worked for Corporate Air Services. Following a meeting between the CIA agents and Contra leaders, Tatum was given a sealed cooler marked "Vaccine" weighing approximately 200 lbs and instructed to deliver it to a USAF C 130 transport plane at La Mesa airport, Honduras. Two crew members off-loading the cooler accidentally dropped it breaking the seal. Inside was over 100 bags of Cocaine. Tatum resealed the cooler and later watched as it was transferred aboard the C-130 outward bound for Panama.
On his return to Palmerola Air Base, Tatum phoned Col. North advising him of his discovery. North replied that it was "a trophy of war" and that the "Sandinistas are manufacturing Cocaine and selling it to fund the military." North closed the conversation by saying that "the Cocaine was bound for the world courts as evidence" against the Sandinistas.
The whole incident struck him as odd and strongly reminded him of earlier missions dating back to 1983-4 when he was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as a Special Operations Pilot. Regularly he would tranship white coolers marked as "medical supplies" to Little Rock Air Force Base, Arkansas. On two occasions he carried similar coolers to Mena airport, Arkansas. Deliveries of medical coolers to Mena were picked up by Dr. Dan Lassater - a close confidant of then Arkansas Governor, Bill Clinton. Now almost two years later he decided to document his discovery to safeguard his "retirement." Thereafter, all Pegasus flights were documented on the reverse of his flight logs.
This was a difficult time for Tatum, since he had three balls to juggle at the same time. On the one hand he was flying classified active duty missions for the US Army, on the other he was flying CIA missions arranged through Mil Group A (CIA) - located at the embassy in Tegucigalpa - and thirdly he was flying Pegasus missions under the control of William Colby, Oliver North and George Bush following his recruitment into Pegasus by Colby in 1986,
Tatum completed numerous missions during his rotation to Honduras. Picking up and trans-shipping coolers containing Cocaine was a regular event. Extraordinarily, this included infiltrating Nicaraguan airspace (Tatum says it was not difficult to infiltrate any country and that Foreign Powers would kill to know how it is done) and landing at Bluefields Airbase with deliveries for placement aboard USAF C-123's and C-130's. This was followed by a brief stint to Columbia, where he had been assigned to assist the Drug Enforcement Agencies "war on drugs," only to discover the DEA were heavily engaged in narcotics trafficking.
THE BOSS HOG LIST
One of the most flamboyant individuals involved in the Cocaine trail from Columbia through Honduras, Panama and on in to the United States, was Barry Seal. Seal flew an assortment of aircraft, off-loading shipments of weapons in South America, and picking up deliveries of Cocaine for his return flight to the US on behalf of Col. North's "Enterprise." His primary base of operations was Mena airport, Arkansas. Seal, a CIA "asset" was later arrested and became a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) informer. Prior to his killing in 1986 - allegedly by a Medellin Cartel assassination squad in revenge for informing on them - Seal openly boasted he had information that implicated high government officials - including then Vice President Bush - in the Enterprise' narcotics trafficking business.
Tatum would soon get to meet Barry Seal and become close friends. Later, after Seal's death Tatum recalled being present during a meeting between Oliver North, Felix Rodriguez, Amiram Nir and General Alverez from Honduras, when North stated that Vice President Bush was going to have his son, Jeb, arrange "something out of Columbia." This conversation focused on Barry Seal's increasingly notorious activities. Tatum later made the connection that he was present when Seal's fate had been decided. The discussion also made it clear that VP Bush, Governor Clinton and his three respective "handlers" were knee-deep in the Cocaine venture and making a fist load of money.
Unknown to all those present, Seal had earlier provided Tatum with a list of names of those high government officials deeply involved with or responsible for controlling the narcotics business. Seal called them the "Boss Hogs." This has remained a tightly held secret by Tatum until recent weeks. The list cites the surnames and is re-produced below as I received it, complete with mis-spellings where they have occurred. I have appended their full names and titles in brackets where appropriate/available.
UNITED STATES
Casey - (Director of Central Intellignece William Casey)
Clair-George (Clair Elroy George - Head of CIA's Central American Task Force)
Bush - (Vice President George Bush)
Kissinger - (Dr. Henry Kissinger, Chmn Kissinger Associates, former US Secretary
of State, former National Security Adviser)
Haig - (General Alexander Haig, former Secretary of State)
Greg - (Donald Gregg, former National Security Adviser to VP Bush,
ambassador to Korea and alleged joint "controller" of Panama's Manuel
Noriega, along with William Casey).
Clairage (Duane "Dewey" Clarradge, CIA)
Fernandez (Joseph Fernandez - CIA Costa Rican Station Chief)
North (Lt. Col. Oliver North - National Security Council Aide)
Singlaub (John Singlaub, CIA covert operator)
Colby (William Colby, Director of Central Intelligence 1973-76)
Secord (Richard V. Secord, regarded as a "brilliant" CIA black operative)
Weld (William Weld, head of Criminal division, US Justice Department -
instrumental in "blocking" Senate investigations into narcotics
according to testimony of former Senate special investigator, Jack
Blum)
Rodriguez (Felix Rodriguez, CIA officer with close connection to VP Bush)
Peroot (General Peroot, Defence Intelligence Agency)
Most, if not all, of these names are readily familiar to Contragate investigators and journalists covering this story. Allegations regarding the involvement of former President George Bush in the Cocaine business are by no means new - they abound in plentiful supply. The fact that Bush pardoned a number of his closest advisors - who faced criminal prosecution and possible jail - late on Christmas eve 1992, just weeks before Bill Clinton's inaugeration, left a sour taste in the mouths of many. If prosecuted they clearly would've fingered the President himself.
PEGASUS - DIRTY MONEY LAUNDERING
But Tatum's story takes us even further along the dark road of power, greed, and corruption. During l986, he had left Honduras and set up a money laundering business in Watertown, New York State - close to the home base of the Army's 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. The location was chosen with care. With access to Fort Drum's telephone lines for secure communications, he was assigned a Cherokee 140 helicopter used to ship personnel and supplies - under radar cover - across the Canadian border. His tenure with these companies lasted from 1986 through to 1990. This was a pure Pegasus operation.
It was at Watertown, that Tatum was provided with a civilian cover in the form of three construction companies: American National Home Builders; American Constructors and American Homes. Funding was provided by Henry Hyde, Republican politician for Illinois - well known as the CIA's "black" money-man. Hyde provided a $250,000 line of credit with Key bank, Watertown. Although Tatum was listed as the President in all three companies, all were in reality under the control of Ben Whittaker, a lawyer from Rochester, New York. Whittaker, Tatum says, is closely associated with Tony Wilson of the Wilson family who owned Xerox Corporation. They are extremely wealthy and "friends of the Rothschilds and Rockerfellers." In addition, he was also closely associated with South Eastern US Investment Group (SEUS) - an investment bank in Savannah, Gorgia, from 1985 through to 1989. Another proprietary he was associated with was Irving Place Development, a service organisation of Irving Bank and Trust Company. Cocaine proceeds were laundered through these companies by an ingenious use of construction loans.
In response to a question asking why was the "drug related money" placed in "Arkansas Colorado and Ohio," Tatum simply explains that he doesn't know why, adding that "It was being done before I got there. I assume banking laws and whether or not Bush had people in his pocket in these areas." He does explain that the primary figure involved in the laundry exercise in Arkansas, was "Jack Stevens." Jackson Stevens, owner of Worthen Bank & Trust Company is closely aligned with President Bill Clinton. Tatum states that "…Clinton received the cash and divided it up between Stevens and [Dan] Lasater to clean it up. Stevens company [Worthen bank] was used as the guarantor providing 'warehouse' lines of credit."
Developing this theme in more detail, Tatum explains that the "Enterprise" were receiving drugs in exchange for the guns they supplied to the Contra's. The raw product in the form of coca leaves was supplied by the Colombians and pressed into large cube-shaped bales and then shipped to Nicaragua and Honduras. All the "product" was pre-sold and the delivery into the US "guaranteed."
This eventually resulted in the sale proceeds being pre-paid to Panama, under Noriega's control. Some of this money was washed through banks and other companies operating in Panama and elsewhere. The rest was sent to Arkansas, Ohio and Colorado. Thereafter, the dirty money was filtered via construction loans with permanent "takeouts" "arranged by banks and mortgage lenders." These, in turn, were later sold to Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's - negotiable US Federal securities that are traded globally on a daily basis. Each laundry "cycle" lasted from six months to a year. The result was dirty money transformed into good, clean US currency.
This system wasn't arbitrary or accidental. One initial "test-bed" was a small residential mortgage lender named Carl I Brown (CIB), in Kansas. Others were larger and still others became national. All were ultimately destined to be purchased by a bank (proprietary) from Japan within a specific time-frame: 1996 - as part of ongoing Pegasus plans. Eric Brown, the son of the founder of CIB was heavily involved in these activities. Three additional companies were involved to Tatum's knowledge: US Homes, Pulte Homes and Richmond Homes. All became very successful, providing "The American Dream - as VP Bush put it in a meeting in 1987."
PEGASUS - ASSASSINATION & NEUTRALIZATION
Tatum has gone into considerable additional detail regarding the role of Pegasus as he knew it. He believes Pegasus was established during the Eisenhower years as a secret group inside the CIA to spy on that agency on behalf of the President. At some point - believed to be after the assassination of President Kennedy - Pegasus went AWOL from direct US government control and came under the direction of an international Board of Directors which Tatum alleges now include George Bush and Henry Kissinger.
The directors of Pegasus meet once a year in secret conclave following G7 meetings. The group have "representation" from a number of intelligence agencies throughout the world. These included the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) agents, plus agents from British, Israeli, Turkish and Danish Intelligence, plus "others who performed various functions for Pegasus." The mission of Pegasus, Tatum explains, is " to 'align' world leaders and financiers to our (US) policies and standards."
One of Tatum's Pegasus duties included flying "Archer Teams" (a four man hit team) in his helicopter to their insertion point. He states that Enrique Bermudez was assassinated in 1991 by a Pegasus teams, adding he "was shot in the back of the head while walking down the street… from about 150 yards." Bermudez, known as "Commander Zero" was the senior Contra leader. Tatum received two broken ribs when he came under small arms fire during the assassination. Following the Nicaraguan war, Bermudez sought a prominent position in the new government. Spurned by President Chamarro, "Commander Zero" tried to pressure Bush to intercede on his behalf, threatening to expose Bush's role in the Cocaine trafficking enterprise. Bush ordered his disposal.
Another Pegasus assassination was that of General Augusto (Dr. Gus) Alverez, the "co-operating" Army Chief of Staff, Honduras. Alverez was assassinated in 1989, following his demand for a bigger split of the Cocaine profits. Tatum also describes his involvement in the assassination of Amiram Nir - the former Israeli Mossad agent who went under the assumed name, Pat Weber. Nir was scheduled to testify to the Senate subcommittee and it was feared he would reveal the truth. He perished following the shooting down of his aircraft with missiles from Tatum's helicopter.
Other "neutralisations" verge on the bizarre. An individual who must remain nameless for a variety of reasons - but whose name is known to this writer - underwent an experience that is both horrific and chilling. Readers are warned that what follows is not at all pleasant. For sake of ease we shall call this individual "Mr X" or simply "X."
Mr. X was a leader of one of the largest CIA-backed Contra groups. He recently testified before the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Formerly, Mr X was a senior executive in a South American subsidiary of leading US soft drinks corporation. During his Senate testimony, he denied any knowledge of CIA involvement in the narcotics trade, adding that condoning such activity would have been foreign to his way of life. Not so, says Tatum. Mr X had been recruited into the CIA by then Director, William Casey, with the assistance of Oliver North.
In 1990, when Nicaraguan leader, Daniel Ortega, announced there would be "free elections," X was ecstatic. He began jostling for position and asked President Bush ensure he be given a prominent position in the new government - in return for his years of toil at the behest of the CIA and the "Enterprise." The pressure came in a form that Bush could not ignore. Failure to help his friend would result in X's intimate knowledge of Bush's involvement in the dope trade being made public. His threat left Bush with a sour taste. A Pegasus team was assigned to "neutralise" him in early 1990.
X, Tatum states "fancied himself a lover of women. Tall, large-breasted blondes were his favourite. It was determined that, if effectively neutralised, [X] could be an asset. Therefore, it was decided that intimidation would be used to control [X]." They choose to use the drug "Scopolamine" which also went by the nickname "Burundanga" or the "Voodoo drug."
The drug is extracted from the pods of a flowering shrub that grows in remote regions of South America. In it's processed, powdered form, "Scopolomine" is "void of smell, void of taste." When properly administered "it causes absolute obedience," without this being "observable by others." Importantly, the target will not recall any of the events that occurred during the period they were under the spell of the drug. In outlining these details, Tatum adds that it is important to administer the drug in the correct dosage and that he has known targets to die from too high a dose. Others have "remained under the influence of Burundanga for up to three weeks." Precise dosage can be achieved by liquid ingestion; the powder being readily soluble. Ingestion via cigarettes is also an optimum method of ingestion. It is fast acting and takes no more than 20 minutes to work.
X was invited to spend a relaxing week-end at a luxury hotel as a guest of his friend George Bush. The evening started with cocktails and was followed by a fine meal. "Nothing but the best were the orders." Following the meal, he was ushered into the suite of a blonde "bomb-shell," supplied by the CIA. A dose of Burundanga had been ingested during pre-dinner cocktails.
His host for the week-end was a trusted18 year veteran field intelligence officer. X was gallant with the blonde as they both moved into the bedroom where video cameras were already set-up in one corner. In short order, the blonde had X standing naked in front of her, slipping his manhood in her mouth. All the while the video cameras whirred. Slowly stripping off, the blonde then instructed X to reciprocate the favour. Naked, the blonde boasted a large erect penis, saying "now take it in your mouth," He obliged, his love-making recorded 24 frames a second on celluloid. The male prostitute was hired, Tatum says, from a bar in New York and killed the same evening.
Two weeks later, X - wholly unaware of the events of that evening - was visited in Nicaragua. He was presented with a copy of the video footage along with instructions. Tatum says that X can never allow that video to be seen… "Not only does it reveal his homosexuality, but it also reveals his bestiality and satanic worship rituals." As frame after frame flicked by, X wept, forced to watch himself kill and gut his homosexual lover, and then eat the still warm heart. Neutralised, Mr X became a leading member of the Nicaraguan government a few short weeks later.
PLANNING FOR RETIREMENT
Since 1985, when he first became aware of the Enterprise drug smuggling, Tatum began collecting documents, audio and video tapes for his "retirement." He was acutely aware that most deep cover agents do not survive long in what is a very dirty game at a high-stakes poker table.
When in 1992, President Bush instructed him to "neutralise" Presidential runner Ross Perot, Tatum refused. He turned over a copy of an incriminating tape to President Bush, explaining that it would not be released, providing he, his family and Perot were kept safe. He also told the President that copies of the tape had been placed in six different locations world-wide, and that "if I didn't contact these capsule-holders by a certain time each year, they are to be sent to the addresses on the packaging." He closed the conversation by stating that when he originally "placed the packages, I gave explicit instructions that if I asked for them to be sent back to me, they were to send them to the addresses on the packages." This, Tatum reasoned, would avoid intimidation or torture.
ENDS
In part two we further examine Tatum's extraordinary account of his deep-cover life in Pegasus: included will be George Bush's "scope and mission" paper for the New World Order, which reveals details of the private corporation that is to be the nucleus of the "international master plan for world growth and stability." We also cruise through Tatum's narrative of the "Super Bills" story - how the CIA provided the Shah of Iran with plates and equipment to print "perfect" counterfeit $100 bills and how Pegasus used these in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Also covered is the hidden story why Colombian Cocaine cartel member Pablo Escobar was shot and killed; why Panama's Manuel Noriega warranted a full scale US invasion and imprisonment; and what lay behind the mysterious 1996 death of former Director of Central Intelligence, William Colby. Not least we will examine the shocking role of star prosecution witness Gabriel Taboada, who was "briefed" by the US Justice department to ensure Noriega received a long-term jail sentence. Additional revelations centre on the involvement of President Clinton and close Clinton confidant, William Barr, in the Mena, Arkansas Cocaine industry. Accompanying Part Two will be the full list of names, from 11 countries, of the BOSS HOGS.
These, plus other accounts of Tatum's thirty year life as a CIA deep cover agent and membership of the ultra secret international hit-squad Pegasus.
Part 2
During his twenty two years as a deep cover CIA and DIA operative, Gene "Chip" Tatum saw or participated in a remarkable series of covert operations. Foremost in his mind are the years 1986-92, when he operated for a group he called Pegasus. This group operated on behalf of the US and other governments undertaking tasks that ranged from narcotic smuggling to assassinations.
The name Pegasus was, in fact, a "cover" designation used by Tatum to protect himself against possible prosecution. Earlier this year Tatum revealed the true structure of the group and explained why he felt the need to conceal it. Timing was all important. In a message to this writer, Tatum stated "It has now been well past the five year statute of limitations which could have come back and haunted me. That date was January 22, 1997. On January 21, 1992 I walked out of the Jupiter island meeting to which I referred earlier."
Few individuals, even now, are aware of the significance of Jupiter island. Located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, just a few miles north of Palm Beach, the island measures a mere half a mile wide and nine miles long. According to authors Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin island residents read like a Who's Who of the Anglo American establishment. Many have close connections to the intelligence apparatus and not a few are - or have been - members of the notorious Skull and Bones Society, a secretive and influential Masonic lodge formed at Yale law school.[i] Interestingly, many of the early residents, including Averall Harriman and Prescot Bush - George Bush's father - were strong supporters of Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party prior to WW11. Even in recent years, George Bush continued to have unfinished work with Nazi's domiciled in South America, Tatum says. Especially while the world's eye's were turned towards Saddam Hussein and Iraq during Desert Storm. That, however, is another story.
Jupiter island boasts hyper-security. All vehicles are tracked by sensors placed in the roads and every house-keeper, gardener or other non-resident is required by ordinance to be finger-printed and registered. Residents themselves, are carefully screened prior to being permitted to purchase real estate (many purchase by invitation it is thought) and one of their primary duties as good residents is to perform active "surveillance" to ensure the island remains secure[ii] It was here that Tatum met with and discussed sensitive projects with then Vice President and later President Bush, at the residence of his mother, Rose Bush.
The organisational structure of the so-called "Pegasus" group provided by Tatum demands recounting in detail. The significance of the various Presidential orders which led to the formation and operation of the covert activities in which Tatum and others participated, constitute a secret government within a government. This is the power that hides behind the open face of democratic government that some have called the "Octopus." Activities include high level narcotics trafficking, illegal transfers of ultra high-tech weaponry, money laundering on a massive scale and an odd "hit" or "alignment" to keep wobbly-kneed individuals on the straight and narrow.
It was in 1981, Tatum states that "President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive Number 3 (NSDD-3), which authorised the vice president to chair the Special Situation Group (SSG). The Special Situation Group was a division under the national Security Council (NSC). One entity formed to support the SSG was the Terrorist Incident Working Group (TIWG). TIWG was formed in April 1982, by authority of President Reagan in NSDD-30. This group consisted of representatives of the following: Director of Central Intelligence, Department of Defence, FBI, NSC staff and others as required.[iii]
Tatum continues, "The purpose of TIWG is to provide SSG with direct operational support. TIWG then recommended to the President that a Terrorism Task Froce be formed and chaired by the head of SSG (the vice president). Reagan approved NSDD-138 in April 1984, which extended TIWG's arm and ability to form sub-groups. As a result of NSDD-138 was the formation of the Operation Sub-Group. The subgroup was a select NSC-DOD-CIA-FBI-Foreign Intelligence Agency which operated so as to by-pass the regular operations of intelligence/military/law enforcement agencies. OSG was formed in February 1986."
Having revealed the framework of the authorising Presidential Directives necessary for the conduct of these covert operations, Tatum then details the nitty-gritty of the OSG. "I was an operative for OSG from April, 1986 through January, 1992. When I was operating under the authority of the OSG I would report directly to the OSG, not to the CIA or DIA. This secret government' apparatus, built by Bush from 1981 to 1986, was able to draw upon assets from the CIA, the DOD Special Operations Units, and the private sector. Using the private sector clause, Don Gregg, VP Bush's National Security Advisor, included a representative from British Intelligence and Israeli Intelligence. To date I have called this group Pegasus in an attempt not to divulge it's true identity until I was on safe ground. Although most of the missions performed by OSG-2 are classified, the existence of the organisation is now declassified."
Until Tatum forwarded these details, the existence of more than one Operations Sub-Group (OSG) were unknown. In fact, Tatum has now revealed the existence of three OSGs. OSG-1 was headed by Ted Shackley and was "our anti-narcotics group."[iv] OSG-2 was the anti-terrorism group and OSG-3 was "our alignment' group." Tatum was originally posted to OSG-2 which was commanded by Col. Oliver North. The third group, OSG-3 was commanded by Richard Secord. Following the exposure of Oliver North's role in Contragate in 1987 he resigned as head of OSG-2, and his spot was taken over by Secord. Tatum moved up to command OSG-3 at the same time.
All three OSG's answered to those individuals who sat on the TIWG. General Colin Powell, represented the Department of Defence, William Casey the CIA, Donald Gregg for the National Security Council. "FBI guys rotated in and out…" Tatum says. "It was like they couldn't get anyone," he concludes. Representing British Intelligence was Sir Colin Figure. Formerly head of MI6, Sir Colin transferred in 1986 to become "Security Co-ordinator" one of the top slots at the Cabinet office, under the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher. He retired in 1989. Amiram Nir represented Israeli interests until his assassination by an "Archer" team led by Tatum - at the request of high level Israeli individuals - in 1988. Any of these six could "call a mission." In addition, George Bush could do likewise. Of significance too, was the occasional representation on the TIWG of Lord Chalfont. The British lord was an adviser on "Mid-East affairs" between 1986 and 1990.
From the moment Tatum was recruited to the OSG, he was posted to up state New York where he established a number of cover businesses. One of these was Cedar Shores Estates, Inc.[v] This was his base of operations throughout the next six years.[vi] It may be no more than sheer co-incidence that the name of the company is similar to Cedar Holdings, a British company that had a relationship to former British Conservative Party Treasurer, Lord Alister McAlpine. In an unpublished book by Peter Jones, the author looked in some detail at the business activities of this Conservative party "Grey Eminence" and leading Freemason.[vii] Of no little interest was the author's detailed connections of numerous companies that he believed were involved in all manner of dark activities. Interestingly, these include a company called Leisure Circle that has a sinuous connection to Sir John Cuckney, one of the central figures of the Scott Inquiry investigation into arms sales to Iraq. Whilst these connections are admittedly tenuous, to say the least, it should be noted that Tatum's up-state New York operation was also involved in shipping the most sophisticated weapons across the border to Canada. Not least are the known connections between Oliver North's related gun-running operations that saw dirty money being laundered through the British Channel Islands and the London based BCCI bank. Money laundering was one of the principal activities of Col. Oliver North.
SUPER BILLS
One operation in which Tatum has knowledge, regards the so called "Superbills," or "Supernotes" sting. Years earlier, in the late sixties or early seventies, the CIA had secretly provided to the Shah of Iran a perfect set of printing plates that could reproduce US$100 bills without blemish. Also provided was an intaglio printing press. This special printing press ensures that the etched plate meets paper with tremendous force, creating the distinctive embossed feel of a genuine banknote. In addition, the Shah was also given the ink and banknote quality paper enabling him to produce perfect counterfeit US Dollar banknotes. The Shah later fled Iran and left the plates and press behind in his confusion. The whole caboodle sat in the mint at Tehran, according to some experts.[viii]
According to Tatum, a deal was arranged in the early mid-eighties between VP George Bush, Panama's Manuel Noriega and the Iranian leadership. A sum of US$8 billion deposited in the Banco Nacional de Panama on behalf of Colombian Cocaine king, Pablo Escobar was "lent" to George Bush. Of this, US$4 billion was shipped by plane to Iran where it was exchanged at a ratio of one good bill for two counterfeit bills. On the return trip, the aircraft, an 707 cargo container carried two shrink-wrapped pallets containing US$4 billion each. The 707 arrived at Howard/Albrook Air Force base in Panama where the pallets were off-loaded under armed guard of the Panamanian military. The counterfeit notes were re-deposited back into Escobar's account at the Panama central bank. Under no circumstances could the counterfeit bills be permitted to leave the bank vault - for fear of devaluing the US currency with forged notes - and active steps would later be taken to ensure this.
The other half of Escobar's "good" money was placed into the hands of Nana DeBusia, the grandson of Guyana's first democratic leader. DeBusia was chosen by the CIA's William Casey to launder the massive sum into numerous bank accounts under the joint signature of VP George Bush and Director Casey. The next leg of the operation was to retrieve the $4 billion exchanged with the Iranians for the Superbills. This was facilitated by the supply of military equipment - arms, ammunition and replacement parts for weapon systems. This part of the deal was arranged by Col Oliver North on behalf of the CIA's William Casey.
The result of these complex manoeuvres were twofold. On the one hand the CIA acquired $4 billion - via the arms sales - for use in future black operations without the need to rely on Congressional oversight or authority. If later caught, Tatum says "… the CIA can report the source of funds as being from an arms transaction with Iran." Part of these funds were then used to support the Contra's, whilst the rest disappeared down the ultra-black hole of the Company's covert finances. Meanwhile, Nana DeBusia had begun laundering the remaining $4 billion through various banks, including the Vatican bank.[ix] For his trouble, DeBusia was entitled to take a commission amounting to $200 million. The remaining $3.8 billion was then secreted in private numbered accounts around the globe controlled by George Bush and William Casey.
The operation was complete apart from some necessary mopping-up which was to occur over the following years. 1) In 1989, Pablo Escobar was targeted by an intensive US-Colombian "War on Drugs" campaign. He flees into hiding, in fear of his life. Eventually, in 1993, he is tracked down and killed in a police shoot-out. A British TV documentary reveals that the Cocaine King was gunned down while attempting to escape and was probably unarmed. The campaign waged against Escobar ensures he cannot withdraw the $8 billion in superbills. Following his death, the quantity and quality of Cocaine shipments from Colombia immediately increases many fold - giving the lie to the "war on drugs." 2) Also during 1989, Panama's General Noriega was captured in a US invasion of Panama. Noriega was later convicted and placed in federal prison under constant US guard to ensure his silence.[x] 3) penultimately, Nana DeBusia was indicted on 32 counts including bank fraud and thereby effectively silenced.[xi] 4) Earlier, in 1987, DCI William Casey died of a brain tumour - just days before he would have been required to attend the Senate hearings into the Contragate affair. According to Tatum only one figure emerges unscathed - George Bush, who alone retained control of $3.8 billion in laundered funds. Obviously, the CIA still retained control over the balance of their $4 billion share of the "sting" operation.
It is of considerable significance that this operation has been corroborated by another source who's credibility is not in question.[xii] This individual was present in Tehran during many of these events, and was later posted to another sensitive location in this connection. Moreover, it has additionally been revealed that Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) were heavily involved in the Superbill sting. That BNL were an intrinsic part of Oliver North's so called "Enterprise" - in reality the OSG's of the Terrorist Incident Working Group - is beyond doubt.[xiii]
The question remains, however, is what did George Bush intend to do with his "black" $3.8 billion? What was the ultimate purpose of the operation? Perhaps some of the money is to be used to grease palms and otherwise finance Bush's bid for the presidency following the completion of President Reagan's second term? Maybe it was used to finance other lucrative projects. Perhaps it was to be used to inject financial muscle into another, grander scheme that Tatum has recently spoken of. This involves George Bush's "scope and mission" paper for a New World Order.
A copy of the Scoping paper supplied to Tatum by George Bush outlines the formation of a Corporation whose purpose is to "… provide a central network of information, analysts and strategists on an international basis in pursuit or world order and economic stability." The "scope" of the corporation involves four features: 1) Centralization of informational services; 2) Analysis of data by region specific analysts; 3) Provide recommendations based upon analysts reports by international experts, and 4) Provide international master plan for world growth and economic stability. The Corporation will be privately owned with a Board of Directors "consisting of twelve members, elected annually by the shareholders." In addition there will be five departments: "Data Resources; Political Management; Economic Management; Military Management; Environmental Management."[xiv]
MORE BOSS HOGS
But it is the realm of narcotics trafficking, that Tatum is most vociferous. Part one of this article recounted the names of high level US individuals given to Tatum by Barry Adler Seal. This Seal called the "Boss Hogs List" which extended to senior individuals in 11 different countries who Seal claimed controlled the global narcotics network. The complete list is recounted verbatim below (including spelling mistakes) and in the manner in which it was written by Tatum on the reverse of a flight log:[xv]
NICARAGUA
Colaro
Borge
Bermudez
COMMANDERS
Fernando
Franklin
Martin
Chamoro
Pastora
Nora (a woman)
Lacayo
PANAMA
Noriega & his brother
Harrari
ISRAEL
Rabin
Kimchi
Nir
(P Ben or Guatamalian arms dealer for Israel)
Harrari
COLUMBIA
Ochoa
Leder
Navarro
Richardo
Duran
Sarmiento
SAUDI
Fahd
Prince B [Tatum believes this to be Prince Bandar]
IRAN
Gorba
EL SALVADOR
Duarte
Balestaros
Maty
HONDURAS
Suazo
Cordoba
Alverez
MEXICO
Salinas brothers
Albrego
COUNTRY UNKNOWN
Santa Cruz
Echeverri
Bolinik
UNITED STATES
Casey Clair George
Bush Singlab
Kissinger Colby
Haig Secord
Gregg Weld
Clairage Rodriguez
Fernandez Peroot
North
STATES
Arkansas: Clinton Young
Louisiana Edwards (Barry's buddy) Marcellas Family
Kentucky Gov in pocket
FULL CIRCLE
In a very real sense, Chip Tatum's story has now gone full circle. In March 1996, Tatum wrote to former Director of Central Intelligence, William Colby. Readers will recall that it was Colby who originally recruited Tatum into the CIA in 1971, and set him on his career as a covert intelligence operator. Since that time, Tatum had developed a fondness for the super-spook and Colby, in turn, played the role of mentor.
In his letter, Tatum asked Colby to write a forward for his book "Operation Red Rock" which he had completed just two months earlier. But there was another purpose in writing to the former DCI. Four years earlier, when Tatum resigned his OSG command, he had volunteered to plead guilty on a felony charge in order to discredit himself. This was part of Tatum's strategy of survival, as he was aware that one didn't resign this particular team and remain alive long. The fact that he had collected a body of evidence - including video and audio tapes and other related documentation - as life insurance, gave muscle to his negotiation. At that time he had not planned to reveal any of the details that he has now provided. In the event his offer was taken up and he served a prison sentence of just over one year. That is where matters should have ended.
However, having served his sentence - thus complying with his part of the agreement - both Tatum and his wife, Nancy were subsequently arrested and charged with another misdemeanour. Tatum got angry. His letter states "I have always kept my word with you. I told you that I would discredit myself. I don't need your help to accomplish this. But to charge Nancy with a crime, and expect me to allow this, is beyond my comprehension." He angrily continues "I know that North and Rodriguez are the fuel for this, but haven't you warned them that I wouldn't sit still for this?" He then adds "I do not blame you for this, I am disappointed that you have allowed the Pond Scum' to control you!"
There then follows a warning. "The second book that I have already started, will contain my movements from 1980 through today. I will not only write about the missions but about the N.W.O. [New World Order] timetable and planned events including a chronology." Ominously he adds "And I will name names. You must detach yourself from these people!" Tatum then continues by outlining how he will enter evidence for his forthcoming trial and if disallowed for reasons of classification, then "a Special Prosecutor will be required to investigate the information, and the video tape tells no lies." The letter adds "I also had stills and an audio clip of a meeting added to the video. Out of respect for you I have kept your name out to this point, but if you don't separate yourself from these terrorists, I will have no choice but to reveal your involvement also. Either way - the group will be exposed - by the media or by the investigating committee. Either way they're out of gas!" Tatum closes the letter by saying "Mr. Colby - you've done too much for your country to be disgraced in the manner that these men will be."
Less than two months later, the former DCI was reported missing. By Monday, 6 May 1996, Colby's body was found and later he reported to have died following a "canoeing" accident on the Wicomico river, Maryland. Tatum and many others - including this writer - doubt this. Throughout his life, Colby had an all-abiding fear of water. It would have been entirely out of character for him to voluntarily step into a boat, let alone a canoe.
Despite this, Colby's death officially remains an accident. This can have come as no special surprise to Tatum who, recently stated to this writer "I knew the OSG were bullet-proof when one of our targets, a 25 year old, was reported to have died of a heart attack. His name was Al-Jarrah." That, however, is another story.
AFTERNOTE
At 3 p m on Friday 4 April 1997 - shortly after publication of part one of this article - Chip was roused from a mid-afternoon snooze and told to report to the Warden of his prison. He was informed that he was being released - less than mid-way through his 27 month sentence - with immediate effect, following an appellate court decision that found his conviction by Judge Adams to be illegal. The Tatum's are now freely enjoying the sunshine and Cajun cooking of Florida together, as Chip turns his attention to beginning a new career - his first real job hunting in 26 years. "Spy stuff" will not form part of his job search efforts. Meanwhile, he has written and published a Chronicle that details many of his allegations.[xvi]
ENDS
Footnotes
[i] George Bush - The Unauthorised Biography - by Webster Griffin Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin
[ii] Ibid
[iii] additional standing members were the Department of State, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). NSDD-30 was classified "Secret." Now partly de-classified the redacted sections nominated NSC staffer Col. Oliver North responsibility for "antiterrorist operations." This included so called "active measures" to "deter or pre-empt terrorist attack" and established the administrative framework for "CIA projects aimed at killing leaders of radical Islamic organizations." As such it was an illegal Presidential directive. My thanks to Steve Aftergood at the Federation of American Scientists, Washington for providing research extracts of these and other NSDDs drawn from ChristopherSimpson's book "National Security Directives of the Reagan and Bush Administrations" (Westview Press, San Francisco).
[iv] Shackley's involvement in the narcotics industry is legion. Not least, Col Bo Gritz - the most highly decorated Special Forces officer in history - has spoken of his encounter with the Burmese warlord Khun Sa. Housed in the centre of the "Golden Triangle," Khun Sa is one of the leading exporters of raw Opium in the world. In an interview captured on camera, the warlord states that his primary contact in the Heroin business was the CIA's very own Ted Shackley. Shackley worked closely with Mafia chief Santos Trafficante, according to Khun Sa.
[v] Tatum has stated that it was routine for all the OSG operatives to establish their own businesses as "covers." Funding was provided as a line of credit with the Key Bank of Central New York, Watertown, New York state by Republican Harry Hyde. The company was formed by attorney, Ben Whitaker. Legal representation was through O'Hara and Crough in Syracuse, NY. Tatum also operated through a number of other similar "fronts." These included Progressive Structures Inc., Irving Place Capital & Development, American National Home Builders.
[vi] Tatum has provided me with a number of documents of this proprietary company including details of incorporation, board minutes, bank statements, legal billings and copies of cashed cheques. In addition he has also provided documents relating to other front companies he was involved with.
[vii] The Obedience of Australia. Privately published by Peter Jones. The book covers in considerable detail Masonic business connections that are shadowy to say the least.
[viii] See The New Yorker article by Fredric Dannen and Ira Silverman - October 23, 1995 for additional details.
[ix] Tatum says DeBusia laundered this sum through banks in London. Coincidences abound in this story and they may be no more than coincidences. However, I think it is worth citing Gerald James, former Chairman of Astra Plc and one of the principal figures in the Scott affair and arms sales to Iraq. In his book "In the Public Interest" (Warner Books 1996) Gerald reproduces an internal company memorandum referring to the massive British-Saudi Al Yamamah arms deal in which a sum of $4 billion is mentioned in connection with a bribe to Saudi Prince Bandar - a nephew of King Fahd. The memorandum states "This 4 bil US was mentioned in connection with M. Thatcher's son." Interestingly, the sum of $3.8 billion is mentioned in the "Kerry Report" that looked into the IranContra affair.
[x] One of the principal prosecution witnesses again Gen. Noriega was Gabriel Taboada. Arguably, without Taboada's testimony (he was regarded as the "star witness") the prosecution case against Noriega may well have failed. Tatum has provided this writer with a number of private letters and other documents written by Toboada. These clearly show that Toboada was "coached" by the prosecution in what to say, and, more significantly, what not to say. Toboada's correspondence makes it clear he was aware that the prosecution case against Noriega was severely flawed by perjury - a fact known to the prosecution team. Today, Toboada lives in fear of his life - a state of affairs that the US Justice Dept dismiss out of hand.
[xi] Following the intervention of the CIA, DeBusia is acquitted on all counts. Effectively discredited he will continue to maintain silent.
[xii] Private communication with this writer
[xiii] See Alan Friedman's "The Spider's Web" (Faber & Faber 1993) for a more detailed role of BNL in the Contragate affair. I have been reliably informed that that significant portions of Friedman's original manuscript were excised by a wary publisher?
[xiv] It is impossible to judge the veracity of this
Grenada - Peter Lemkin - 23-06-2014
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The Black Hole of Guyana
The Untold Story of the Jonestown Massacre
by John Judge
1985
You Know the Official Version
But Just Suppose
It Didn't Happen That Way...
Who Was Jim Jones?
What Was Jonestown?
One Too Many Jonestowns
The Links to U.S. Intelligence Agencies
The Strange Connection
to the Murder of Martin Luther King
Aftermath
SOURCES
The ultimate victims of mind control at Jonestown are the
American people. If we fail to look beyond the constructed
images given us by the television and the press, then our
consciousness is manipulated, just as well as the Jonestown
victims' was. Facing nuclear annihilation, may see the current
militarism of the Reagan policies, and military training itself, as
the real "mass suicide cult." If the discrepancy between the
truth of Jonestown and the official version can be so great,
truth of Jonestown and the official version can be so great,
what other lies have we been told about major events?
History is precious. In a democracy, knowledge must be
accessible for informed consent to function. Hiding or distorting
history behind "national security" leaves the public as the final
enemy of the government. Democratic process cannot operate
on "need to know." Otherwise we live in the 1984 envisioned
by Orwell's projections and we must heed his warning that
those who control the past control the future.
The real tragedy of Jonestown is not only that it occurred, but
that so few chose to ask themselves why or how, so few
sought to find out the facts behind the bizarre tale used to
explain away the death of more than 900 people, and that so
many will continue to be blind to the grim reality of our
intelligence agencies. In the long run, the truth will come out.
Only our complicity in the deception continues to dishonor the
dead.
Somewhere in the concrete canyons of New York City a recently
formed rock group is using the name Jim Jones and the Suicides.
Irreverent and disarming, the name reflects the new trend in
punk rock, to take social issues head on. Cynicism about the
Jonestown deaths and its social parallels abound in the lyrics of
today's music. The messages are clear because we all know the
story.
In fact, people today recognize the name "Jonestown" more than
any other event, a full 98% of the population.[1] The television
and printed media were filled with the news for more than a
year, even though the tale read like something from the National
Enquirer tabloid. But despite all the coverage, the reality of
Jonestown and the reasons behind the bizarre events remain a
mystery. The details have faded from memory for most of us
since November 18, 1978, but not the outlines. Think back a
moment and you'll remember.
You Know the Official Version
A fanatic religious leader in California led a multiracial
community into the jungles of remote Guyana to establish a
socialist utopia. The People's Temple, his church, was in the
heart of San Francisco and drew poor people, social activists,
Blacks and Hispanics, young and old. The message was racial
harmony and justice, and criticism of the hypocrisy of the world
around his followers.[2]
The Temple rose in a vacuum of leadership at the end of an era.
The political confrontations of the 60s were almost over, and
religious cults and "personal transformation" were on the rise.
Those who had preached a similar message on the political soap
box were gone, burnt out, discredited, or dead. The counterculture
had apparently degenerated into drugs and violence.
Charlie Manson was the only visible image of the period.
Suddenly, religion seemed to offer a last hope.[3]
Even before they left for the Jonestown site, the People's Temple
members were subjects of local scandal in the news.[4] Jim Jones
claimed these exposés were attacks on their newly-found
religion, and used them as an excuse to move most of the
members to Guyana.[5] But disturbing reports continued to
surround Jones, and soon came to the attention of congressional
members like Leo Ryan. Stories of beatings, kidnapping, sexual
abuse and mysterious deaths leaked out in the press.[6] Ryan
decided to go to Guyana and investigate the situation for
himself. The nightmare began.[7]
Isolated on the tiny airstrip at Port Kaituma, Ryan and several
reporters in his group were murdered. Then came the almost
unbelievable "White Night," a mass suicide pact of the Jonestown
camp. A community made up mostly of Blacks and women drank
cyanide from paper cups of Kool-Aid, adults and children alike
died and fell around the main pavilion. Jones himself was shot in
the head, an apparent suicide. For days, the body count
mounted, from 400 to nearly 1,000. The bodies were flown to
the United States and later cremated or buried in mass graves.[8]
Temple member Larry Layton is still facing charges of conspiracy
in Ryan's murder. Ryan was recently awarded a posthumous
Medal of Honor, and was the first Congress member to die in the
line of duty.[9]
Pete Hammill called the corpses "all the loose change of the
sixties."[10] The effect was electric. Any alternative to the current
system was seen as futile, if not deadly. Protest only led to police
riots and political assassination. Alternative life styles and drugs
led to "creepy-crawly" communes and violent murders.[11] And
religious experiments led to cults and suicide. Social utopias
were dreams that turned into nightmares. The television urged
us to go back to "The Happy Days" of the apolitical 50s. The
message was, get a job, and go back to church.[12] The
unyielding nuclear threat generated only nihilism and
hopelessness. There was no answer but death, no exit from the
grisly future. The new ethic was personal success, aerobics,
material consumption, a return to "American values," and the
"moral majority" white Christian world. The official message was
clear.
But Just Suppose It
Didn't Happen That Way...
The headlines the day of the massacre read: "Cult Dies in South
American Jungle: 400 Die in Mass Suicide, 700 Flee into
Jungle."[13] By all accounts in the press, as well as People's
Temple statements there were at least 1,100 people at
Jonestown.[14] There were 809 adult passports found there, and
reports of 300 children (276 found among the dead, and 210
never identified). The headline figures from the first day add to
the same number: 1,100.[15] The original body count done by the
Guyanese was 408, and this figure was initially agreed to by U.S.
Army authorities on site.[16] However, over the next few days, the
total of reported dead began to rise quickly. The Army made a
series of misleading and openly false statements about the
discrepancy. The new total, which was the official final count,
was given almost a week later by American authorities as 913.[17]
A total of 16 survivors were reported to have returned to the
U.S.[18] Where were the others?
At their first press conference, the Americans claimed that the
Guyanese "could not count." These local people had carried out
the gruesome job of counting the bodies, and later assisted
American troops in the process of poking holes in the flesh lest
they explode from the gasses of decay.[19] Then the Americans
proposed another theory -- they had missed seeing a pile of
bodies at the back of the pavilion. The structure was the size of a
small house, and they had been at the scene for days. Finally, we
were given the official reason for the discrepancy -- bodies had
fallen on top of other bodies, adults covering children.[20]
fallen on top of other bodies, adults covering children.[20]
It was a simple, if morbid, arithmetic that led to the first
suspicions. The 408 bodies discovered at first count would have
to be able to cover 505 bodies for a total of 913. In addition,
those who first worked on the bodies would have been unlikely
to miss bodies lying beneath each other since each body had to
be punctured. Eighty-two of the bodies first found were those of
children, reducing the number that could have been hidden
below others.[21] A search of nearly 150 photographs, aerial and
close-up, fails to show even one body lying under another,
much less 500.[22]
It seemed the first reports were true, 400 had died, and 700 had
fled to the jungle. The American authorities claimed to have
searched for people who had escaped, but found no evidence of
any in the surrounding area.[23] At least a hundred Guyanese
troops were among the first to arrive, and they were ordered to
search the jungle for survivors.[24] In the area, at the same time,
British Black Watch troops were on "training exercises," with
nearly 600 of their best-trained commandos. Soon, American
Green Berets were on site as well.[25] The presence of these
soldiers, specially trained in covert killing operations, may
explain the increasing numbers of bodies that appeared.
Most of the photographs show the bodies in neat rows, face
down. There are few exceptions. Close shots indicate drag
marks, as though the bodies were positioned by someone after
death.[26] Is it possible that the 700 who fled were rounded up
by these troops, brought back to Jonestown and added to the
body count?[27]
If so, the bodies would indicate the cause of death. A new word
was coined by the media, "suicide-murder." But which was it?[28]
Autopsies and forensic science are a developing art. The
detectives of death use a variety of scientific methods and clues
to determine how people die, when they expire, and the specific
cause of death. Dr. Mootoo, the top Guyanese pathologist, was
at Jonestown within hours after the massacre. Refusing the
assistance of U.S. pathologists, he accompanied the teams that
counted the dead, examined the bodies, and worked to identify
the deceased. While the American press screamed about the
"Kool-Aid Suicides," Dr. Mootoo was reaching a much different
opinion.[29]
There are certain signs that show the types of poisons that lead
to the end of life. Cyanide blocks the messages from the brain to
to the end of life. Cyanide blocks the messages from the brain to
the muscles by changing body chemistry in the central nervous
system. Even the "involuntary" functions like breathing and
heartbeat get mixed neural signals. It is a painful death, breath
coming in spurts. The other muscles spasm, limbs twist and
contort. The facial muscles draw back into a deadly grin, called
"cyanide rictus."[30] All these telling signs were absent in the
Jonestown dead. Limbs were limp and relaxed, and the few
visible faces showed no sign of distortion.[31]
Instead, Dr. Mootoo found fresh needle marks at the back of the
left shoulder blades of 80-90% of the victims.[32] Others had
been shot or strangled. One survivor reported that those who
resisted were forced by armed guards.[33] The gun that
reportedly shot Jim Jones was lying nearly 200 feet from his
body, not a likely suicide weapon.[34] As Chief Medical Examiner,
Mootoo's testimony to the Guyanese grand jury investigating
Jonestown led to their conclusion that all but three of the people
were murdered by "persons unknown." Only two had committed
suicide they said.[35] Several pictures show the gun-shot wounds
on the bodies as well.[36] The U.S. Army spokesman, Lt. Col.
Schuler, said, "No autopsies are needed. The cause of death is
not an issue here." The forensic doctors who later did autopsies
at Dover, Delaware, were never made aware of Dr. Mootoo's
findings.[37]
There are other indications that the Guyanese government
participated with American authorities in a cover-up of the real
story, despite their own findings. One good example was
Guyanese Police Chief Lloyd Barker, who interfered with
investigations, helped "recover" 2.5 million for the Guyanese
government, and was often the first to officially announce the
cover stories relating to suicide, body counts and survivors.[38]
Among the first to the scene were the wife of Guyanese Prime
Minister Forbes Burnham and his Deputy Prime Minister, Ptolemy
Reid. They returned from the massacre site with nearly $1
million in cash, gold and jewelry taken from the buildings and
from the dead. Inexplicably, one of Burnham's political party
secretaries had visited the site of the massacre only hours before
it occurred.[39] When Shirley Field Ridley, Guyanese Minister of
Information, announced the change in the body count to the
shocked Guyanese parliament, she refused to answer further
questions. Other representatives began to point a finger of
shame at Ridley and the Burnham government, and the local
press dubbed the scandal "Templegate." All accused them of
taking a ghoulish payoff.[40]
Perhaps more significantly, the Americans brought in 16 huge
C-131 cargo planes, but claimed they could only carry 36
caskets in each one. These aircraft can carry tanks, trucks,
troops and ammunition all in one load.[41] At the scene, bodies
were stripped of identification, including the medical wrist tags
visible in many early photos.[42] Dust-off operations during
Vietnam clearly demonstrated that the military is capable of
moving hundreds of bodies in a short period.[43] Instead, they
took nearly a week to bring back the Jonestown dead, bringing in
the majority at the end of the period.[44] The corpses, rotting in
the heat, made autopsy impossible.[45] At one point, the remains
of 183 people arrived in 82 caskets. Although the Guyanese had
identified 174 bodies at the site, only 17 (later 46) were
tentatively identified at the massive military mortuary in Dover,
Delaware.[46]
Isolated there, hundreds of miles from their families who might
have visited the bodies at a similar mortuary in Oakland that was
used during Vietnam, many of the dead were eventually
cremated.[47] Press was excluded, and even family members had
difficulty getting access to the remains.[48] Officials in New Jersey
began to complain that state coroners were excluded, and that
the military coroners appointed were illegally performing
cremations.[49] One of the top forensic body identification
experts, who later was brought in to work on the Iranian raid
casualties, was denied repeated requests to assist.[50] In
December, the President of the National Association of Medical
Examiners complained in an open letter to the U.S. military that
they "badly botched" procedures, and that a simple fluid autopsy
was never performed at the point of discovery. Decomposition,
embalming and cremation made further forensic work
impossible.[51] The unorthodox method of identification
attempted, to remove the skin from the finger tip and slip it over
a gloved finger, would not have stood up in court.[52]
The long delay made it impossible to reconstruct the event. As
noted, these military doctors were unaware of Dr. Mootoo's
conclusions. Several civilian pathology experts said they
"shuddered at the ineptness" of the military, and that their
autopsy method was "doing it backwards." But in official
statements, the U.S. attempted to discredit the Guyanese grand
jury findings, saying they had uncovered "few facts."[53]
Guyanese troops, and police who had arrived with American
Embassy official Richard Dwyer, also failed to defend
Congressman Leo Ryan and others who came to Guyana with
Congressman Leo Ryan and others who came to Guyana with
him when they were shot down in cold blood at the Port Kaituma
airstrip, even though the troops were nearby with machine guns
at the ready.[54] Although Temple member Larry Layton has been
charged with the murders of Congressman Ryan, Temple
defector Patricia Parks, and press reporters Greg Robinson, Don
Harris and Bob Brown, he was not in a position to shoot them.[55]
Blocked from boarding Ryan's twin engine Otter, he had entered
another plane nearby. Once inside, he pulled out a gun and
wounded two Temple followers, before being disarmed.[56] The
others were clearly killed by armed men who descended from a
tractor trailer at the scene, after opening fire. Witnesses
described them as "zombies," walking mechanically, without
emotion, and "looking through you, not at you" as they
murdered.[57] Only certain people were killed, and the selection
was clearly planned. Certain wounded people, like Ryan's aide
Jackie Speiers, were not harmed further, but the killers made
sure that Ryan and the newsmen were dead. In some cases they
shot people, already wounded, directly in the head.[58] These
gunmen were never finally identified, and may have been under
Layton's command. They may not have been among the
Jonestown dead.[59]
At the Jonestown site, survivors described a special group of
Jones' followers who were allowed to carry weapons and money,
and to come and go from the camp. These people were all white,
mostly males.[60] They ate better and worked less than the
others, and they served as an armed guard to enforce discipline,
control labor and restrict movement.[61] Among them were Jones'
top lieutenants, including George Phillip Blakey. Blakey and
others regularly visited Georgetown, Guyana and made trips in
their sea-going boat, the Cudjoe. He was privileged to be aboard
the boat when the murders occurred.[62] This special armed
guard survived the massacre. Many were trained and
programmed killers, like the "zombies" who attacked Ryan. Some
were used as mercenaries in Africa, and elsewhere.[63] The dead
were 90% women, and 80% Blacks.[64] It is unlikely that men
armed with guns and modern crossbows would give up control
and willingly be injected with poisons. It is much more likely that
they forced nearly 400 people to die by injection, and then
assisted in the murder of 500 more who attempted to escape.
One survivor clearly heard people cheering 45 minutes after the
massacre. Despite government claims, they are not accounted
for, nor is their location known.[65]
Back in California, People's Temple members openly admitted
that they feared they were targeted by a "hit squad," and the
that they feared they were targeted by a "hit squad," and the
Temple was surrounded for some time by local police forces.[66]
During that period, two members of the elite guard from
Jonestown returned and were allowed into the Temple by
police.[67] The survivors who rode to Port Kaituma with Leo Ryan
complained when Larry Layton boarded the truck, "He's not one
of us."[68] Rumors also persisted that a "death list" of U.S.
officials existed, and some survivors verified in testimony to the
San Francisco grand jury.[69] A congressional aide was quoted in
the AP wires on May 19, 1979, "There are 120 white,
brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger
word to pick up their hit."[70]
Other survivors included Mark Lane and Charles Garry, lawyers
for People's Temple who managed to escape the massacre
somehow.[71] In addition to the 16 who officially returned with
the Ryan party, others managed to reach Georgetown and come
back home.[72] However, there have been continuing suspicious
murders of those people here. Jeannie and Al Mills, who
intended to write a book about Jones, were murdered at home,
bound and shot.[73] Some evidence indicates a connection
between the Jonestown operation and the murders of Mayor
Moscone and Harvey Milk by police agent Dan White.[74] Another
Jonestown survivor was shot near his home in Detroit by
unidentified killers.[75] Yet another was involved in a mass
murder of school children in Los Angeles.[76] Anyone who
survived such massive slaughter must be somewhat suspect. The
fact that the press never even spoke about nearly 200 survivors
raises serious doubts.
Who Was Jim Jones?
In order to understand the strange events surrounding
Jonestown, we must begin with a history of the people involved.
The official story of a religious fanatic and his idealist followers
doesn't make sense in light of the evidence of murders, armed
killers and autopsy cover-ups. If it happened the way we were
told, there should be no reason to try to hide the facts from the
public, and full investigation into the deaths at Jonestown, and
the murder of Leo Ryan would have been welcomed. What did
happen is something else again.
Jim Jones grew up in Lynn, in southern Indiana. His father was an
active member of the local Ku Klux Klan that infest that area.[77]
His friends found him a little strange, and he was interested in
preaching the Bible and religious rituals.[78] Perhaps more
preaching the Bible and religious rituals.[78] Perhaps more
important was his boyhood friendship with Dan Mitrione,
confirmed by local residents.[79] In the early 50s, Jones set out to
be a religious minister, and was ordained at one point by a
Christian denomination in Indianapolis.[80] It was during this
period that he met and married his lifelong mate, Marceline.[81]
He also had a small business selling monkeys, purchased from
the research department at Indiana State University in
Bloomington.[82]
A Bible-thumper and faith healer, Jones put on revivalist tent
shows in the area, and worked close to Richmond, Indiana.
Mitrione, his friend, worked as chief of police there, and kept
him from being arrested or run out of town.[83] According to
those close to him, he used wet chicken livers as evidence of
"cancers" he was removing by "divine powers."[84] His landlady
called him "a gangster who used a Bible instead of a gun."[85] His
church followers included Charles Beikman, a Green Beret who
was to stay with him to the end.[86] Beikman was later charged
with the murders of several Temple members in Georgetown,
following the massacre.[87]
Dan Mitrione, Jones' friend, moved on to the CIA-financed
International Police Academy, where police were trained in
counter-insurgency and torture techniques from around the
world.[88] Jones, a poor, itinerant preacher, suddenly had money
in 1961 for a trip to "minister" in Brazil, and he took his family
with him.[89] By this time, he had "adopted" Beikman, and eight
children, both Black and white.[90] His neighbors in Brazil
distrusted him. He told them he worked with U.S. Navy
Intelligence. His transportation and groceries were being
provided by the U.S. Embassy as was the large house he lived
in.[91] His son, Stephan, commented that he made regular trips to
Belo Horizonte, site of the CIA headquarters in Brazil.[92] An
American police advisor, working closely with the CIA at that
point, Dan Mitrione was there as well.[93] Mitrione had risen in
the ranks quickly, and was busy training foreign police in torture
and assassination methods. He was later kidnapped by
Tupermaro guerillas in Uruguay, interrogated and murdered.[94]
Costa Gravas made a film about his death titled State of
Siege.[95] Jones returned to the United States in 1963, with
$10,000 in his pocket.[96] Recent articles indicate that Catholic
clergy are complaining about CIA funding of other denominations
for "ministry" in Brazil; perhaps Jones was an early example.[97]
With his new wealth, Jones was able to travel to California and
establish the first People's Temple in Ukiah, California, in 1965.
establish the first People's Temple in Ukiah, California, in 1965.
Guarded by dogs, electric fences and guard towers, he set up
Happy Havens Rest Home.[98] Despite a lack of trained personnel,
or proper licensing, Jones drew in many people at the camp. He
had elderly, prisoners, people from psychiatric institutions, and
150 foster children, often transferred to care at Happy Havens by
court orders.[99] He was contacted there by Christian
missionaries from World Vision, an international evangelical
order that had done espionage work for the CIA in Southeast
Asia.[100] He met "influential" members of the community and
was befriended by Walter Heady, the head of the local chapter of
the John Birch Society.[101] He used the members of his "church"
to organize local voting drives for Richard Nixon's election, and
worked closely with the republican party.[102] He was even
appointed chairman of the county grand jury.[103]
"The Messiah from Ukiah," as he was known then, met and
recruited Timothy Stoen, a Stanford graduate and member of the
city DA's office, and his wife Grace.[104] During this time, the
Layton family, Terri Buford and George Phillip Blakey and other
important members joined the Temple.[105] The camp "doctor,"
Larry Schacht, claims Jones got him off drugs and into medical
school during this period.[106] These were not just street urchins.
Buford's father was a Commander for the fleet at the
Philadelphia Navy Base for years.[107] The Laytons were a wellheeled,
aristocratic family. Dr. Layton donated at least a quartermillion
dollars to Jones. His wife son and daughter were all
members of the Temple.[108] George Blakey, who married Debbie
Layton, was from a wealthy British family. He donated $60,000
to pay the lease on the 27,000-acre Guyana site in 1974.[109]
Lisa Philips Layton had come to the U.S. from a rich Hamburg
banking family in Germany.[110] Most of the top lieutenants
around Jones were from wealthy, educated backgrounds, many
with connections to the military or intelligence agencies. These
were the people who would set up the bank accounts, complex
legal actions, and financial records that put people under the
Temple's control.[111]
Stoen was able to set up important contacts for Jones as
Assistant DA in San Francisco.[112] Jones changed his image to
that of a liberal.[113] He had spent time studying the preaching
methods of Fr. Divine in Philadelphia, and attempted to use them
in a manipulative way on the streets of San Francisco. Fr. Divine
ran a religious and charitable operation among Philadelphia's
poor Black community.[114] Jones was able to use his followers in
an election once again, this time for Mayor Moscone. Moscone
responded in 1976, putting Jones in charge of the city Housing
responded in 1976, putting Jones in charge of the city Housing
Commission.[115] In addition, many of his key followers got jobs
with the city Welfare Department and much of the recruitment to
the Temple in San Francisco came from the ranks of these
unemployed and dispossessed people.[116] Jones was introduced
to many influential liberal and radical people there, and
entertained or greeted people ranging from Roslyn Carter to
Angela Davis.[117]
The period when Jones began the Temple there marked the end
of an important political decade. Nixon's election had ushered in
a domestic intelligence dead set against the movements for
peace, civil rights and social justice. Names like COINTELPRO,
CHAOS, and OPERATION GARDEN PLOT, or the HOUSTON PLAN made the
news following in the wake of Watergate revelations.[118] Senator
Ervin called the White House plans against dissent "fascistic."[119]
These operations involved the highest levels of military and
civilian intelligence and all levels of police agencies in a fullscale
attempt to discredit, disrupt and destroy the movements
that sprang up in the 1960s. There are indications that these
plans, or the mood they created, led to the assassinations of
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, as unacceptable "Black
Messiahs."[120]
One of the architects under then-Governor Reagan in California
was now-Attorney General Edwin Meese. He coordinated
"Operation Garden Plot" for military intelligence and all police
operations and intelligence in a period that was plagued with
violations of civil and constitutional rights.[121] Perhaps you recall
the police attacks on People's Park, the murder of many Black
Panthers and activists, the infiltration of the Free Speech
Movement and antiwar activity, and the experimentation on
prisoners at Vacaville, or the shooting of George Jackson.[122]
Meese later bragged that this activity had damaged or destroyed
the people he called "revolutionaries."[123] It was into this
situation Jones came to usurp leadership.[124]
After his arrival in Ukiah, his methods were visible to those who
took the time to investigate.[125] His armed guards wore black
uniforms and leather jackboots. His approach was one of
deception, and if that wore off, then manipulation and threats.
Loyalty to his church included signing blank sheets of paper,
later filled in with "confessions' and used for blackmail purposes,
or to extort funds.[126] Yet the vast membership he was extorting
often owned little, and he tried to milk them for everything, from
personal funds to land deeds.[127] Illegal activities were regularly
reported during this period, but either not investigated or
reported during this period, but either not investigated or
unresolved. He clearly had the cooperation of local police. Years
later, evidence would come out of charges of sexual solicitation,
mysteriously dropped.[128]
Those who sought to leave were prevented and rebuked. Local
journalist Kathy Hunter wrote in the Ukiah press about "Seven
Mysterious Deaths" of the Temple members who had argued with
Jones and attempted to leave. One of these was Maxine
Swaney.[129] Jones openly hinted to other members that he had
arranged for them to die, threatening a similar fate to others
who would be disloyal.[130] Kathy Hunter later tried to visit
Jonestown, only to be forcibly drugged by Temple guards, and
deported to Georgetown.[131] She later charged that Mark Lane
approached her, falsely identifying himself as a reporter for
Esquire, rather than as an attorney for Jim Jones. He led her to
believe he was seeking information on Jones for an exposé in the
magazine, and asked to see her evidence.
The pattern was to continue in San Francisco. In addition, Jones
required that members practice for the mysterious "White Night,"
a mass suicide ritual that would protect them from murder at the
hands of their enemies.[132] Although the new Temple had no
guards or fences to restrict members, few had other places to
live, and many had given over all they owned to Jones. They felt
trapped inside this community that preached love, but practiced
hatred.[133]
Following press exposure, and a critical article in New West
magazine, Jones became very agitated, and the number of
suicide drills increased.[134] Complaints about mistreatment by
current and ex-members began to appear in the media and
reach the ears of congressional representatives. Sam Houston, an
old friend of Leo Ryan, came to him with questions about the
untimely death of his son following his departure from the
Temple.[135] Later, Timothy and Grace Stoen would complain to
Ryan about custody of their young son, who was living with
Jones, and urge him to visit the commune.[136] Against advice of
friends and staff members, Ryan decided to take a team of
journalists to Guyana and seek the truth of the situation.[137]
Some feel that Ryan's journey there was planned and expected,
and used as a convenient excuse to set up his murder. Others
feel that this unexpected violation of secrecy around Jonestown
set off the spark that led to the mass murder. In either case, it
marked the beginning of the end for Ryan and Jones.[138]
At one point, to show his powers, Jones arranged to be shot in
the heart in front of the congregation. Dragged to a back room,
apparently wounded and bleeding, he returned a moment later
alive and well. While this may have been more of his stage antics
to prompt believers' faith it may also have marked the end of Jim
Jones.[139] For undisclosed reasons, Jones had and used
"doubles."[140] This is very unusual for a religious leader, but
quite common in intelligence operations.[141]
Even the death and identification of Jim Jones were peculiar. He
was apparently shot by another person at the camp.[142] Photos
of his body do not show identifying tattoos on his chest. The
body and face are not clearly recognizable due to bloating and
discoloration.[143] The FBI reportedly checked his fingerprints
twice, a seemingly futile gesture since it is a precise operation. A
more logical route would have been to check dental records.[144]
Several researchers familiar with the case feel that the body may
not have been Jones. Even if the person at the site was one of the
"doubles," it does not mean Jones is still alive. He may have been
killed at an earlier point.
What Was Jonestown?
According to one story, Jones was seeking a place on earth that
would survive the effects of nuclear war, relying only on an
article in Esquire magazine for his list.[145] The real reason for
his locations in Brazil, California, Guyana and elsewhere deserve
more scrutiny.[146] At one point Jones wanted to set up in
Grenada, and he invited then-Prime Minister Sir Eric Gairy to visit
the Temple in San Francisco.[147] He invested $200,000 in the
Grenada National Bank in 1977 to pave the way, and some
$76,000 was still there after the massacre.[148]
His final choice, the Matthew's Ridge section in Guyana is an
interesting one. It was originally the site of a Union Carbide
bauxite and manganese mine, and Jones used the dock they left
behind.[149] At an earlier point, it had been one of seven possible
sites chosen for the relocation of the Jews after World War II.[150]
Plans to inhabit the jungles of Guyana's interior with cheap labor
date back to 1919.[151] Resources buried there are among the
richest in the world, and include manganese, diamonds, gold,
bauxite and uranium.[152] Forbes Burnham, the Prime Minister,
had participated in a scheme to repatriate Blacks from the UK to
work in the area. Like all earlier attempts, it failed.[153]
Once chosen, the site was leased and worked on by a select crew
of Temple members in preparation for the arrival of the body of
the church. The work was done in cooperation with Burnham and
the U.S. Embassy there.[154] But if these were idealists seeking a
better life, their arrival in "Utopia" was a strange welcome. Piled
into busses in San Francisco, they had driven to Florida. From
there, Pan American charter planes delivered them to
Guyana.[155] When they arrived at the airport, the Blacks were
taken off the plane, bound and gagged.[156] The deception had
finally been stripped bare of all pretense. The Blacks were so
isolated and controlled that neighbors as close as five miles from
the site did not know that Blacks lived at Jonestown. The only
public representatives seen in Guyana were white.[157] Guyanese
children were "bought" also.[158]
According to survivors' reports, they entered a virtual slave labor
camp. Worked for 16 to 18 hours daily, they were forced to live
in cramped quarters on minimum rations, usually rice, bread and
sometimes rancid meat. Kept on a schedule of physical and
mental exhaustion, they were also forced to stay awake at night
and listen to lectures by Jones. Threats and abuse became more
common.[159] The camp medical staff under Dr. Lawrence
Schacht was known to perform painful suturing without
anaesthetic. They administered drugs, and kept daily medical
records.[160] Infractions of the rules or disloyalty led to
increasingly harsh punishments, including forced drugging,
sensory isolation in an underground box, physical torture and
public sexual rape and humiliation. Beatings and verbal abuse
were commonplace. Only the special guards were treated
humanely and fed decently.[161] People with serious injuries were
flown out, but few ever returned.[162] Perhaps the motto at
Jonestown should have been the same as the one at Auschwitz,
developed by Larry Schacht's namesake, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the
Nazi Minister of Economics, "Arheit Macht Frei," or "Work Will
Make You Free." Guyana even considered setting up an
"Auschwitz-like museum" at the site, but abandoned the
idea.[163]
By this point, Jones had amassed incredible wealth. Press
estimates ranged from $26 million to $2 billion, including bank
accounts, foreign investments and real estate. Accounts were set
up worldwide by key members, often in the personal name of
certain people in the Temple.[164] Much of this money, listed
publicly after the massacre, disappeared mysteriously. It was a
fortune far too large to have come from membership alone. The
receivership set up by the government settled on a total of $10
million. Of special interest were the Swiss bank accounts opened
million. Of special interest were the Swiss bank accounts opened
in Panama, the money taken from the camp, and the extensive
investments in Barclay's Bank.[165] Other sources of income
included the German banking family of Lisa Philips Layton,
Larry's mother.[166] Also, close to $65,000 a month income was
claimed to come from welfare and social security checks for 199
members, sent to the Temple followers and signed over to
Jones.[167] In addition, there are indications that Blakey and other
members were supplementing the Temple funds with
international smuggling of guns and drugs.[168] At one point,
Charles Garry noted that Jones and his community were "literally
sitting on a gold mine." Mineral distribution maps of Guyana
suggest he was right.[169]
To comprehend this well-financed, sinister operation, we must
abandon the myth that this was a religious commune and study
instead the history that led to its formation. Jonestown was an
experiment, part of a 30-year program called MK-ULTRA, the CIA
and military intelligence code name for mind control.[170] A close
study of Senator Ervin's 1974 report, Individual Rights and the
Government's Role in Behavior Modification, shows that these
agencies had certain "target populations" in mind, for both
individual and mass control. Blacks, women, prisoners, the
elderly, the young, and inmates of psychiatric wards were
selected as "potentially violent."[171] There were plans in
California at the time for a Center for the Study and Reduction of
Violence, expanding on the horrific work of Dr. José Delgado,
Drs. Mark and Ervin, and Dr. Jolly West, experts in implantation,
psychosurgery, and tranquilizers. The guinea pigs were to be
drawn from the ranks of the "target populations," and taken to
an isolated military missile base in California.[172] In that same
period, Jones began to move his Temple members to Jonestown.
The were the exact population selected for such tests.[173]
The meticulous daily notes and drug records kept by Larry
Schacht disappeared, but evidence did not.[174] The history of MKULTRA
and its sister programs (MK-DELTA, ARTICHOKE, BLUEBIRD, etc.)
records a combination of drugs, drug mixtures, electroshock and
torture as methods for control. The desired results ranged from
temporary and permanent amnesia, uninhibited confessions, and
creation of second personalities, to programmed assassins and
preconditioned suicidal urges. One goal was the ability to control
mass populations, especially for cheap labor.[175] Dr. Delgado
told Congress that he hoped for a future where a technology
would control workers in the field and troops at war with
electronic remote signals. He found it hard to understand why
people would complain about electrodes implanted in their
people would complain about electrodes implanted in their
brains to make them "both happy and productive."[176]
On the scene at Jonestown, Guyanese troops discovered a large
cache of drugs, enough to drug the entire population of
Georgetown, Guyana (well over 200,000)[177] for more than a
year. According to survivors, these were being used regularly "to
control" a population of only 1,100 people.[178] One footlocker
contained 11,000 doses of thorazine, a dangerous tranquilizer.
Drugs used in the testing for MK-ULTRA were found in
abundance, including sodium pentathol (a truth serum), chloral
hydrate (a hypnotic), demerol, thalium (confuses thinking), and
many others.[179] Schacht had supplies of haliopareael and
largatil as well, two other major tranquilizers.[180] The actual
description of life at Jonestown is that of a tightly run
concentration camp, complete with medical and psychiatric
experimentation. The stresses and isolation of the victims is
typical of sophisticated brainwashing techniques. The drugs and
special tortures add an additional experimental aspect to the
horror.[181] This more clearly explains the medical tags on the
bodies, and why they had to be removed. It also suggests an
additional motive for frustrating any chemical autopsies, since
these drugs would have been found in the system of the dead.
The story of Jonestown is that of a gruesome experiment, not a
religious utopian society. On the eve of the massacre, Forbes
Burnham was reportedly converted to "born again" Christianity
by members of the Full Gospel Christian Businessman's
Association, including Lionel Luckhoo, a Temple lawyer in
Guyana.[182] This same group, based in California, also
reportedly converted Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt prior to his
massacres there and they were in touch with Jim Jones in
Ukiah.[183] They currently conduct the White House prayer
breakfasts for Mr. Reagan.[184] With Ryan on his way to
Jonestown, the seal of secrecy was broken. In a desperate
attempt to test their conditioning methods, the Jonestown elite
apparently tried to implement a real suicide drill.[185] Clearly, it
led to a revolt, and the majority of people fled, unaware that
there were people waiting to catch them.
One Too Many Jonestowns
Author Don Freed, an associate of Mark Lane, said that Martin
Luther King, "if he could see Johnstown would recognize it as the
next step in his agenda, and he would say, one, two, three, many
more Jonestowns."[186] Strangely enough, almost every map of
more Jonestowns."[186] Strangely enough, almost every map of
Guyana in the major press located Jonestown at a different place
following the killings. One map even shows a second site in the
area called "Johnstown."[187] Perhaps there were multiple camps
and Leo Ryan was only shown the one they hoped he would see.
In any case, the Jonestown model survives, and similar camps,
and their sinister designs, show up in many places.
Inside Guyana itself, approximately 25 miles to the south of
Matthews Ridge, is a community called Hilltown, named after
religious leader Rabbi Hill. Hill has used the names Abraham
Israel and Rabbi Emmanuel Washington. Hilltown, set up about
the same time as Jonestown, followed the departure of David Hill,
who was known in Cleveland, a fugitive of the U.S. courts. Hill
rules with an "iron fist" over some 8,000 Black people from
Guyana and America who believe they are the Lost Tribe of Israel
and the real Hebrews of Biblical prophecy.[188] Used as strongarm
troops, and "internal mercenaries" to insure Burnham's
election, as were Jonestown members, the Hilltown people were
allowed to clear the Jonestown site of shoes and unused
weapons, both in short supply in Guyana.[189] Hill says his
followers would gladly kill themselves at his command, but he
would survive since, unlike Jones, he is "in control."[190]
Similar camps were reported at the time in the Philippines.
Perhaps the best known example is the fascist torture camp in
Chile known as Colonia Dignidad. Also a religious cult built
around a single individual, this one came from Germany to Chile
in 1961. In both cases, the camp was their "Agricultural
Experiment." Sealed and protected by the dreaded Chilean DINA
police, Colonia Dignidad serves as a torture chamber for political
dissidents. To the Jonestown monstrosities, they have added
dogs specially trained to attack human genitals.[191] The
operations there have included the heavy hand of decapitation
specialist Michael Townley Welch, an American CIA agent, as well
as reported visits by Nazi war criminals Dr. Josef Mengele and
Martin Bormann. Currently, another such campsite exists at
Pisagua, Chile.[192] Temple member Jeannie Mills, now dead,
reported having seen actual films of a Chilean torture camp while
at Jonestown. The only source possible at the time was the
Chilean fascists themselves.[193]
In the current period, Jonestown is being "repopulated" with
100,000 Laotian Hmong people. Many of them grew opium for
CIA money in Southeast Asia. Over 1,000 reside there already
under a scheme designed by Billy Graham's nephew Ernest, and
members of the Federation of Evangelical Ministries Association
members of the Federation of Evangelical Ministries Association
in Wheaton, Illinois (World Vision, World Medical Relief,
Samaritan's Purse, and Carl McIntyre's International Council of
Christian Churches).[194] Similar plans devised by the Peace Corps
included moving inner-city Blacks from America to Jamaica, and
other Third World countries. And World Relief attempted to move
the population of the Island of Dominica to Jonestown.[195] It is
only a matter of time before another Jonestown will be exposed,
perhaps leading again to massive slaughter.
The Links to U.S. Intelligence Agencies
Our story so far has hinted at connections to U.S. intelligence,
such as the long-term friendship of Jones and CIA associate Dan
Mitrione. But the ties are much more direct when a full picture of
the operation is revealed. To start with, the history of Forbes
Burnham's rise to power in Guyana is fraught with the clear
implication of a CIA coup d'état to oust troublesome independent
leader Cheddi Jagan.[196] In addition, the press and other
evidence indicated the presence of a CIA agent on the scene at
the time of the massacre. This man, Richard Dwyer, was working
as Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Guyana.[197]
Identified in Who's Who in the CIA, he has been involved since
1959, and was last stationed in Martinique.[198] Present at the
camp site and the airport strip, his accounts were used by the
State Department to confirm the death of Leo Ryan. At the
massacre, Jones said, "Get Dwyer out of here" just before the
killings began.[199]
Other Embassy personnel, who knew the situation at Jonestown
well, were also connected to intelligence work. U.S. Ambassador
John Burke, who served in the CIA with Dwyer in Thailand, was an
Embassy official described by Philip Agee as working for the CIA
since 1963. A Reagan appointee to the CIA, he is still employed
by the Agency, usually on State Department assignments.[200]
Burke tried to stop Ryan's investigation.[201] Also at the Embassy
was Chief Consular officer Richard McCoy, described as "close to
Jones," who worked for military intelligence and was "on loan"
from the Defense Department at the time of the massacre.[202]
According to a standard source, "The U.S. embassy in
Georgetown housed the Georgetown CIA station. It now appears
that the majority and perhaps all of the embassy officials were
CIA officers operating under State Department covers . . ."[203]
Dan Webber, who was sent to the site of the massacre the day
after, was also named as CIA.[204] Not only did the State
Department conceal all reports of violations at Jonestown from
Department conceal all reports of violations at Jonestown from
Congressman Leo Ryan, but the Embassy regularly provided
Jones with copies of all congressional inquiries under the
Freedom of Information Act.[205]
Ryan had challenged the Agency's overseas operations before, as
a member of the House Committee responsible for oversight on
intelligence. He was an author of the controversial Hughes-Ryan
Amendment that would have required CIA disclosure in advance
to the congressional committees of all planned covert
operations. The Amendment was defeated shortly after his
death.[206]
American intelligence agencies have a sordid history of
cooperative relations with Nazi war criminals and international
fascism.[207] In light of this, consider the curious ties of the
family members of the top lieutenants to Jim Jones. The Layton
family is one example. Dr. Laurence Layton was Chief of
Chemical and Biological Warfare Research at Dugway Proving
Grounds in Utah, for many years, and later worked as Director of
Missile and Satellite Development at the Navy Propellant Division,
Indian Head, Maryland.[208] His wife, Lisa, had come from a rich
German family. Her father, Hugo, had represented I.G. Farben as
a stockbroker.[209] Her stories about hiding her Jewish past from
her children for most of her life, and her parents' escape from a
train heading for a Nazi concentration camp seem shallow, as do
Dr. Layton's Quaker religious beliefs. The same family sent
money to Jonestown regularly.[210] Their daughter, Debbie, met
and married George Philip Blakey in an exclusive private school
in England. Blakey's parents have extensive stock holdings in
Solvay drugs, a division of the Nazi cartel I.G. Farben.[211] He also
contributed financially.[212]
Terri Buford's father, Admiral Charles T. Buford, worked with
Navy Intelligence.[213] In addition, Blakey was reportedly running
mercenaries from Jonestown to CIA-backed UNITA forces in
Angola.[214] Maria Katsaris' father was a minister with the Greek
Orthodox Church, a common conduit of CIA fundings, and Maris
claimed she had proof he was CIA. She was shot in the head, and
her death was ruled a suicide, but at one point Charles Beikman
was charged with killing her.[215] On their return to the United
States, the "official" survivors were represented by attorney
Joseph Blatchford who had been named prior to that time in a
scandal involving CIA infiltration of the Peace Corps.[216] Almost
everywhere you look at Jonestown, U.S. intelligence and fascism
rear their ugly heads.
The connection of intelligence agencies to cults is nothing new.
A simple but revealing example is the Unification Church, tied to
both the Korean CIA (i.e., American CIA in Korea), and the
international fascist network known as the World Anti-
Communist League (WACL). The Moonies hosted WACL's first
international conference.[217] What distinguished Jonestown was
both the level of control and the openly sinister involvement. It
was imperative that they cover their tracks.[218]
Maria Katsaris sent Michael Prokes, Tim Carter, and another
guard out at the last minute with $500,000 cash in a suitcase,
and instructions for a drop point. Her note inside suggests the
funds were destined for the Soviet Union.[219] Prokes later shot
himself at a San Francisco press conference, where he claimed to
be an FBI informant.[220] Others reported meeting with KGB agents
and plans to move to Russia.[221] This disinformation was part of
a "red smear" to be used if they had to abandon the operation.
The Soviet Union had no interest in the money and even less in
Jonestown. The cash was recovered by the Guyanese
government.[222]
Their hidden funding may include more intelligence links. A
mysterious account in Panama, totaling nearly $5 million in the
name of an "Associacion Pro Religiosa do San Pedro, S.A." was
located.[223] This unknown Religious Association of St. Peter was
probably one of the twelve phony companies set up by
Archbishop Paul Marcinkus to hide the illegal investments of
Vatican funds through the scandal-ridden Banco
Ambrosiano.[224] A few days after the story broke about the
accounts, the President of Panama, and most of the government
resigned, Roberto Calvi of Banco Ambrosiano was murdered, and
the Jonestown account disappeared from public scrutiny and
court record.[225]
The direct orders to cover up the cause of death came from the
top levels of the American government. Zbigniew Brezezinsky
delegated to Robert Pastor, and he in turn ordered Lt. Col.
Gordon Sumner to strip the bodies of identity.[226] Pastor is now
Deputy Director of the CIA.[227] One can only wonder how many
others tied to the Jonestown operation were similarly promoted.
The Strange Connection
to the Murder of Martin Luther King
One of the persistent problems in researching Jonestown is that
it seems to lead to so many other criminal activities, each with
it seems to lead to so many other criminal activities, each with
its own complex history and cast of characters. Perhaps the most
disturbing of these is the connection that appears repeatedly
between the characters in the Jonestown story and the key
people involved in the murder and investigating of Martin Luther
King.
The first clue to this link appeared in the personal histories of
the members of the Ryan investigation team who were so
selectively and deliberately killed at Port Kaituma. Don Harris, a
veteran NBC reporter, had been the only network newsman on
the scene to cover Martin Luther King's activity in Memphis at the
time of King's assassination. He had interviewed key witnesses at
the site. His coverage of the urban riots that followed won him
an Emmy award.[228] Gregory Robinson, a "fearless" journalist
from the San Francisco Examiner, had photographed the same
riots in Washington, D.C. When he was approached for copies of
the films by Justice Department officials, he threw the negatives
into the Potomac river.[229]
The role of Mark Lane, who served as attorney for Jim Jones, is
even more clearly intertwined.[230] Lane had co-authored a book
with Dick Gregory, claiming FBI complicity in the King
murder.[231] He was hired as the attorney for James Earl Ray,
accused assassin, when Ray testified before the House Select
Committee on Assassinations about King.[232] Prior to this
testimony, Ray was involved in an unusual escape plot at Brushy
Mountain State Prison.[233] The prisoner who had helped engineer
the escape plot was later inexplicably offered an early, parole by
members of the Tennessee Governor's office. These officials, and
Governor Blanton himself, were to come under close public
scrutiny and face legal charges in regard to bribes taken to
arrange illegal early pardons for prisoners.[234]
One of the people living at Jonestown was ex-FBI agent Wesley
Swearington, who at least publicly condemned the COINTELPRO
operations and other abuses, based on stolen classified
documents, at the Jonestown site. Lane had reportedly met with
him there at least a year before the massacre. Terri Buford said
the documents were passed on to Charles Garry. Lane used
information from Swearingen in his thesis on the FBI and King's
murder. Swearingen later served as a key witness in suits against
the Justice Department brought by the Socialist Workers
Party.[235] When Larry Flynt, the flamboyant publisher of Hustler
magazine, offered a, $1 million reward leading to the capture
and conviction of the John F. Kennedy killers, the long distance
number listed to collect information and leads was being
number listed to collect information and leads was being
answered by Mark Lane and Wesley Swearingen.[236]
With help from officials in Tennessee, Governor Blanton's office,
Lane managed to get legal custody of a woman who had been
incarcerated in the Tennessee state psychiatric system for nearly
eight years.[237] This woman, Grace Walden Stephens, had been a
witness in the King murder.[238] She was living at the time in
Memphis in a rooming house across from the hotel when Martin
Luther King was shot.[239] The official version of events had Ray
located in the common bathroom of the rooming house, and
claimed he used a rifle to murder King from that window.[240]
Grace Stephens did, indeed, see a man run from the bathroom,
past her door and down to the street below.[241] A rifle, later
linked circumstantially to James Earl Ray, was found inside a
bundle at the base of the rooming house stairs, and identified as
the murder weapon.[242] But Grace, who saw the man clearly,
refused to identify him as Ray when shown photographs by the
FBI.[243] Her testimony was never introduced at the trial. The FBI
relied, instead, on the word of her common law husband, Charles
Stephens, who was drunk and unconscious at the time of the
incident.[244] Her persistence in saying that it was not James Earl
Ray was used at her mental competency hearings as evidence
against her, and she disappeared into the psychiatric system.[245]
Grace Walden Stephens took up residence in Memphis with Lane,
her custodian, and Terri Buford, a key Temple member who had
returned to the U.S. before the killings to live with Lane.[246]
While arranging for her to testify before the Select Committee on
Ray's behalf, Lane and Buford were plotting another fate for
Grace Stephens. Notes from Buford to Jones, found in the
aftermath of the killings, discussed arrangements with Lane to
move Grace Stephens to Jonestown.[247] The problem that
remained was lack of a passport, but Buford suggested either
getting a passport on the black market, or using the passport of
former Temple member Maxine Swaney.[248] Swaney, dead for
nearly 2-1/2 years since her departure from the Ukiah camp,
was in no position to argue and Jones apparently kept her
passport with him.[249] Whether Grace ever arrived at Jonestown
is unclear.
Lane was also forced to leave Ray in the midst of testimony to
the Select Committee when he got word that Ryan was planning
to visit. Lane had attempted to discourage the trip earlier in a
vaguely threatening letter.[250] Now he rushed to be sure he
arrived with the group.[251] At the scene, he failed to warn Ryan
and others, knowing that the sandwiches and other food might
and others, knowing that the sandwiches and other food might
be drugged, but refrained from eating it himself.[252] Later,
claiming that he and Charles Garry would write the official
history of the "revolutionary suicide," Lane was allowed to leave
the pieces of underwear to mark their way back to
Georgetown.[253] If true, it seems an unlikely method if they were
in any fear of pursuit. They had heard gunfire and screams back
at the camp.[254] Lane was reportedly well aware of the forced
drugging and suicide drills at Jonestown before Ryan arrived.[255]
Another important figure in the murder of Martin Luther King
was his mother, Alberta. A few weeks after the first public
announcement by Coretta Scott King that she believed her
husband's murder was part of a conspiracy, Mrs. Alberta King
was brutally shot to death in Atlanta, while attending church
services.[256] Anyone who had seen the physical wounds suffered
by King might have been an adverse witness to the official
version, since the Wound angles did not match the ballistic
direction of a shot from the rooming house.[257] Her death also
closely coincided with the reopening of the Tennessee state court
review of Ray's conviction based on a guilty plea, required by a
6th Circuit decision.[258] The judge in that case reportedly
refused to allow witnesses from beyond a 100-mile radius from
the courtroom.[259]
The man convicted of shooting King's mother was Marcus Wayne
Chenault. His emotional affect following the murder was
unusual. Grinning, he asked if he had hit anyone.[260] He had
reportedly been dropped off at the church by people he knew in
Ohio.[261] While at Ohio State University, he was part of a group
known as "the Troop," run by a Black minister and gun collector
who used the name Rabbi Emmanuel Israel. This man, described
in the press as a "mentor" for Chenault, left the area immediately
after the shooting.[262] In the same period, Rabbi Hill traveled
from Ohio to Guyana and set up Hilltown, using similar aliases,
and preaching the same message of a "black Hebrew elite."[263]
Chenault confided to SCLC leaders that he was one of many
killers who were working to assassinate a long list of Black
leadership. The names he said were on this list coincided with
similar "death lists" distributed by the KKK, and linked to the
COINTELPRO operations in the 60s.[264]
The real backgrounds and identities of Marcus Wayne Chenault
and Rabbi Hill may never be discovered. But one thing is certain:
Martin Luther King Would never had countenanced the
preachings of Jim Jones, had he lived to hear them.[265]
Aftermath
In the face of such horror, it may seem little compensation to
know that a part of the truth has been unearthed. But for the
families and some of the Survivors, the truth, however painful, is
the only path to being relieved of the burden of their doubts. It's
hard to believe that President Carter was calling on us at the
time not to "overreact." The idea that a large community of Black
people would not only stand by and be poisoned at the
suggestion of Jim Jones, but would allow their children to be
murdered first, is a monstrous lie, and a racist insult.[266] We
now know that the most direct description of Jonestown is that it
was a Black genocide plan. One Temple director, Joyce Shaw,
described the Jonestown massacre as, "some kind of horrible
government experiments, or some sort of sick racial thing, a
plan like that of the Germans to exterminate Blacks."[267] If we
refuse to look further into this nightmarish event, there will be
more Jonestowns to come. They will move from Guyana to our
own back yard.
The cast of characters is neither dead nor inactive. Key members
of the armed guard were ordered to be on board the Temple
Ship, Cudjoe -- at the hour of the massacre they were on a
supply run to Trinidad. George Phillip Blakey phoned his fatherin-
law, Dr. Lawrence Layton, from Panama after the event.[268] At
least ten members of the Temple remained on the boat, and set
up a new community in Trinidad while Nigel Slingger, a Grenada
businessman and insurance broker for Jonestown, repaired the
400-ton shipping vessel. Then Charles Touchette, Paul McCann,
Stephan Jones, and George Blakey set up an "open house" in
Grenada with the others. McCann spoke about starting a
shipping company to "finance the continued work of the original
Temple."[269]
That "work" may have included the mysterious operations of the
mental hospital in Grenada that eluded government security by
promising free medical care.[270] The hospital as operated by Sir
Geoffrey Bourne, Chancellor of the St. George's University
Medical School, was also staffed by his son Dr. Peter Bourne.[271]
His son's history includes work with psychological experiments
and USAID in Vietnam, the methadone clinics in the U.S., and a
drug scandal in the Carter White House.[272] The mental hospital
was the only structure bombed during the U.S. invasion of
Grenada in 1983. This was part of a plan to put Sir Eric Gairy
back in power.[273] Were additional experiments going on at the
back in power.[273] Were additional experiments going on at the
site?[274]
In addition, the killers of Leo Ryan and others at Port Kaituma
were never accounted for fully. The trial of Larry Layton was
mishandled by the Guyanese courts, and the U.S. system as
well.[275] No adequate evidentiary hearings have occurred either
at the trial or in state and congressional reviews. The Jonestown
killers, trained assassins and mercenaries, are not on trial. They
might be working in Africa or Central America. Their
participation in Jonestown can be used as an "explanation" for
their involvement in later murders here, such as the case of the
attack on school children in Los Angeles.[276] They should be
named and located.
The money behind Jonestown was never fully examined or
recovered. The court receivership only collected a fraction. The
bulk went to pay back military operations and burial costs.
Families of the dead were awarded only minimal amounts.[277]
Some filed suit, unsuccessfully, to learn more about the
circumstances of the deaths, and who was responsible. Joe
Holsinger, Leo Ryan's close friend and assistant, studied the case
for two years and reached the same unnerving conclusions:
these people were murdered, there was evidence of a mass
mind-control experiment, and the top levels of civilian and
military intelligence were involved.[278] He worked with Ryan's
family members to prove the corruption and injustice, but they
could barely afford the immense court costs and case
preparation. Their suit, as well as a similar one brought by exmembers
and families of the victims, had to be dropped for lack
of funds.[279]
The international operations of World Vision and the related
evangelical groups continue unabashed. World Vision official
John W. Hinckley, Sr. was on his way to a Guatemalan water
project run by the organization on the day his son shot at
president Reagan.[280] A mysterious "double" of Hinckley, Jr., a
man named Richardson, followed Hinckley's path from Colorado
to Connecticut, and even wrote love letters to Jody Foster.
Richardson was a follower of Carl McIntyre's International
Council of Christian Churches, and attended their Bible School in
Florida. He was arrested shortly after the assassination attempt
in New York's Port Au...
Grenada - Drew Phipps - 21-05-2015
A new lead in this story. Hilary Clinton communicated by emails (which are currently being released under court order) with, or at least received email briefings from, Sydney Blumenthal about the Libya situation. It is said that Blumenthal represents a group of entrepreneurs interested in Libya business opportunities. Apparently, the group is called Osprey Global Solutions, LLC. Here is a link to that company's web site: http://ospreyglobalsolutions.com/
If you browse that website, it kinda looks like a private army, a private arms dealer, with a private intelligence service, as well as lobbyists and specialists in government contracting.
Osprey CEO: David L. Grange is a retired United States Army Major General. He served with the 101st Airborne during the Vietnam War. He was later assigned to Delta Force, commanding a squadron during the invasion of Grenada and was deputy commander during the Gulf War. His last command was of 1st Infantry Division before he retired in 1999.
Here is a list of Osprey's "business partners:" "Industry Partners
3PMT, Alvarez and Marcel, AWHERE Inc., Barron Designs Inc., Boone, C1 Finanical Ventures, Defense Logistics Support, DTN-Forensics, Elite (SIPS), EOD Technology, ETA, Granite, Hinds Community College, Honeywell, International Institute, Jacobs, Janus Research Group, Klox, Land Rover, Lovelace Respiratory Lab, Magis Group, MARBIONC, National Forensic Science Technology Center, Navstar Inc, NC Global Transpark, NTC of Libya, OceanSafe, Ohio Ordnance Works, Osprey Italia, Pinnacle Performance Group, PPD, ProSol, Proxy Aviation, Rapid Fabrication, Raptor Detection Technologies, Reliant Global Solutions, Ridgeback Ltd., Royal Oaks, SAIC, Salient Arms International, Silent Partner, Tactical Development Group, Tatilek, TigerSwan Unc., Titan Altlas, Trans America, Trusa, Typhon, UNC Biometrics, Warsport "
It is the BS explanation of the underlying defining event (a mob angered by a video), that emanated from Hillary's State Department in the aftermath of the attack, that has raised so many questions about the event. Who actually had something serious enough to hide that justify a flimsy false cover story? Was the defining event that set off the attack on the Benghazi Consulate, a reaction to something the US government did, or was it a reaction to some off-the-books operation by a private contractor?
Grenada - Anthony Thorne - 28-08-2015
VIII PUBLICITY, PROVOCATEURING AND POLITICAL POWER
If Jim Jones had his way history would remember him as a psychopathic communist whose drug-induced paranoia triggered the mass suicide of his followers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who has studied Jones knows that he projected an image to the public that was almost exactly opposite reality and that unravelling the cloaks of illusion that surrounded him might well be compared to viewing the dance of the seven veils. As each veil is removed another is exposed; a veil on top of a veil, on top of a veil... To date, many of Jones false covers have been exposed but, unlike the dance of the seven veils, researchers have had no prior indication of the number of covers that surrounded Jones and have fallen short of revealing his bare essence; that is, until now.
In the last year and a half of his public career and especially in the last six months, Jones went out of his way to give the impression that he was a communist. Temple aide Deborah Layton courted the Russian and Cuban embassies in Guyana; she volunteered her help in planning their local May Day celebration and arranged for their officials to attend social events in Jonestown. Despite the fact that Jonestown had the finest medical facilities in Guyana, Jones insisted on retaining a doctor from the Russian embassy as his personal physician. Russian language classes were compulsory for Jonestown residents as Jones claimed the group might one day immigrate to the U.S.S.R. "What about Russia?" was the main objection presented by a Jonestown woman on the tape recording of the final White Night. What about Russia, indeed. Jones began the deceit in San Francisco when he befriended Angela Davis, a prominent figure in the American Communist Party. He continued the cover in Guyana, when he persuaded the Russian News Agency TASS to publish an article about Jonestown. In the rubble of the aftermath, several taped sermons and Jones' dictated memoirs were found to contain claims that the preacher was a Communist since his work in the Brazilian coup d'etat fifteen years earlier. And then there was the matter of Mike Prokes, a high ranking Temple aide whom Jones sent to the Russian Embassy on the day of the final White Night with $30,000 that supposedly represented the Temple's wealth being returned to its sponsors. Considering the Temple's $50 million net worth and the millions in cash in Jonestown, $30,000 can only be seen as a token gesture intended to give the impression that Jones was somehow affiliated with the Russians. To dispel one of his outermost covers, Jones was not a Communist. Actually, judging from the politicians and governments he supported as well as the "government" he created in the Peoples Temple, Jones was a fascist.
Another, perhaps more effective, cover was that Jones was an insane drug addict, an image that even today permeates public opinion. It was based largely on his attempt to provide a logical explanation to what he knew would be viewed as the very illogical demise of his followers.
Jonestown was a pharmaceutical field test so there was a disproportionately large amount of drugs in the community, but the drugs were intended for the human guinea pigs and not Jones, whose heightened awareness of the potential dangers prompted him to abstain from tobacco, alcohol and even moderate drugs like aspirin. Though he would often make reference to his imaginary drug habit, the only pills he took were vitamin and sugar pills.
Jones' insanity plea was a well-organized illusion that began in San Francisco when a Temple aide, who had been instructed to locate some papers, happened upon a psychiatrist's report stating Jones was a psychopath, found hidden behind a couch, The report, was a fake. Jones would never have agreed to a psychological evaluation nor would he have treated such a discrediting piece of evidence so carelessly. The aide eventually defected from the Temple to present her discovery to the public which was exactly the predetermined result that Jones desired. As Jonestown neared its finale, he tape-recorded several of his long-winded sermons; recordings that survived the carnage as evidence that the ranting and raving preacher was a madman. He also performed crazed dances with live snakes for video cameras. The film of these little stage performances also conveniently survived the carnage, as did several witnesses who claimed Jones continually warned that there was a CIA agent behind every tree surrounding the jungle community. Actually, Jones was quite knowledgeable in the field of psychology and along with the professional staff of psychologists employed in Jonestown, he was able to create a medically accurate picture of a deranged drug addict, a self-created image that survives today as most Americans think of him as just another "crazy Californian."
The Temple's California corporate charter clearly states in Article 10:
No substantial part of the activities of this
corporation shall consist of carrying on
propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence
legislation, and the corporation shall not
participate or intervene in any political
campaign on behalf of any candidate for public
office.
Article 10 was a joke for, as with the other images Jones projected to the public, the truth was exactly the opposite. The Peoples Temple was an army of political campaign workers that swayed and even fixed elections, advised politicians on pending legislation, proposed appointments and controlled virtually every political arena they entered. They were careful not to run any Temple members for public office but scores were appointed to strategic positions in government by politicians indebted to the Temple for their campaign efforts. The Peoples Temple exerted a considerable and often underrated political influence on a local, state, national and even international level.
Internationally, Jones was renowned in certain circles of the CIA as the agency's foremost authority on the politics of the Caribbean which, in the broad sense envisioned by President Kennedy, included the South American country of Guyana. His early assignments in Cuba, Guyana (then British Guiana) and Brazil established Jones as a right-wing conservative for his support of the Brazilian military coup, his opposition to the left-wing government of Cheddi Jagan in Guyana and his organization of anti-Castro Cubans. His cover varied from one of a socialist to one of a communist, depending on what the situation required, but the results of his activities always benefitted the fascist faction and were generally within the reported objectives of the CIA.
The political history of the capital city of St. George's, Grenada, bears a striking resemblance to that of Georgetown Guyana. The Caribbean countries, both former British possessions, gained their independence within eight years of each other. Both experienced communist control before a brief period o CIA-sponsored coups installed governments that were sympathetic to, if not controlled by, the United States. Also, more pertinent to this story, both governments in the course of their evolution were largely influenced by one particular CIA operative: Jim Jones.
Eighty miles off the coast of Venezuela lies the tiny nation of Grenada, a volcanic island paradise discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1498. Centuries of exploitation from the Spanish, the British and the French have exterminated the native Carib peoples and transformed the island into a spice producing, health and pleasure resort with the perfect climate, lush tropical flora, exceptional bathing beaches and hot springs. Grenada became a British possession in 1783 during the period immediately following the American revolution when England sought to secure as many colonies as possible in the New World following their loss of the United States. It was also during this period that Britain annexed British Guiana (Guyana). For nearly two centuries, Grenada remained a British possession until February 7, 1974, when the island gained its independence under a government headed by Prime Minister Eric Gairy, an unlikely statesman. Gairy was a street corner eccentric, a Rosicrucian who experimented with astral projection and soul travel , practiced a form of witchcraft called "Obeah" and counted the Reverend Jim Jones among his friends.
On May 7, 1977, Jones, his wife Marceline , attorney Tim Stoen and several Temple aides travelled to Grenada to meet with Prime Minister Gairy and to deposit one million dollars in the cash-poor Grenada banks. Jones also initiated negotiations to purchase the Grenada Holiday Inn; the largest hotel on the island. Less than a month later, Gairy traveled to the United States to meet, not with officials in Washington, but with Jim Jones in San Francisco where he was photographed in the Peoples Temple with Jones , San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and California Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. Jones introduced Gairy to his congregation as "the valiant black leader arrested fifty-one times for resisting colonialism , internationally respected and recognized for his achievements."[151] If Gairy was arrested for resisting colonialism, it was by the British which presents a paradox as he then flew to London to receive an award from Queen Elizabeth. Sir Eric Gairy then set out on a peculiar campaign to discredit himself. Three weeks later he opened the United Nations general assembly with a plea for an international investigation into flying saucers. Rumors began to circulate that Gairy had recruited a secret police force from Grenada's prison to torture and kill his political opponents. In any event, the oppressive government of this staunch anti-socialist was overthrown on March 13, 1979 by a rebel insurrection headed by a London-educated lawyer, Maurice Bishop. Gairy was in New York at the time. Within a few months, Prime Minister Bishop announced that Russia and Cuba had agreed to provide physical and financial assistance to build the one thing Grenada needed the most -- a military jetport.
For the next four years, from five hundred to one thousand Cubans labored to construct a 10,000 foot airstrip bridging two peninsulas in the southwest corner of the island while a comparable number of CIA operatives under the cover of medical students, operatives, monitored their progress from the True Blue campus of St. George's Medical College located at the end of the George runway. One of the American leaders was John Pfister, a West agent Point graduate, a foreign service and a U.S. consul in Laos during the Vietnam War. Then in his late thirties, Pfister, whom Newsweek called a "mystery man" and whose colleagues nicknamed "Field Marshal Von Fritz," found it difficult to maintain the image of a medical student, but under that cover he succeeded in establishing a network of agents and at least three radio-equipped command centers on the island.
By mid-October of 1983, the Cubans had completed 95% of the project. Pfister informed his superiors in the U.S. that the airport would soon be operational and that it was time to begin "Operation Urgent Fury;" the code name for the CIA's planned coup. On October 13, Prime Minister Bishop was placed under house arrest. Six days later he was freed by several thousand supporters who carried him to a rally at Fort Rupert where he was shot and killed by an unknown assassin. President Reagan, citing the ensuing civil disturbance as a threat to the safety of the seven hundred American "medical students," ordered an invasion of Grenada. U.S . troops parachuted onto the airport and established headquarters on the True Blue campus. Pfister's ham radio operators guided the invasion force on their conquering march across the island. Operation Urgent Fury was such a success that the entire island was taken with the loss of only nineteen American lives, and some of those deaths were accidental. President Reagan had banned any news coverage of the operation so the only reports were from the American military and the "medical students" whom they had rescued.
Contrary to Reagan's claim, the invasion of Grenada was not prompted by the assassination of Bishop and the civil unrest that followed, but by the Cubans' near completion of the military jetport. The CIA wanted the strategically located jetport for relaying supplies to underground forces they supported in Central and South America. They did not want the Cubans to control it but were pleased to allow them to build it. The first planes to land were U.S. C141 transports. The CIA wrote Grenada's history; a history that ended in a U.S. military take-over but that began with the involvement of Jim Jones. Though the federal government never openly joined Jones in his support of Prime Minister Eric Gairy, they certainly opposed Gairy's political opponents. Ironically, in the end, the occupying U.S. Marines in Grenada set up their headquarters in the Holiday Inn; the same Holiday Inn that just a few years earlier Jones had offered to purchase, presumably for the CIA station that was eventually established on the True Blue campus. In the aftermath of Jonestown, over twenty thousand dollars of Temple funds remained unclaimed in a Grenada bank.
Ninety miles south of Grenada lies the capital city of Port of Spain, Trinidad, another focal point in Jones' work in Caribbean politics. The Temple's ocean-going ships, that reportedly smuggled everything from drugs to guns, often called on the Port of Spain. California's Lieutenant Governor, Mervyn Dymally, one of Jones' foremost political allies, was a native of Trinidad as was Shiva Naipaul, an Oxford graduate who authored a well written book on Jonestown published in England under the title Black and White. Though interesting in its approach to the the subject, Naipaul's book fails to expose Jones' affiliation with the CIA.
The one country outside the Caribbean that received the most attention from Jones was Chile. Chile had been listed as one of the "Nine Places to Hide" in the 1962 Esquire article that had such a profound effect on Jones career. The article reported:
The Central Valley of Chile, from the modern
capital city of Santiago south to Concepcion, is
as fertile and attractive as the central valley
of California ...where it is possible to grow
any animal or vegetable one might want and to
vary it with the rich seafood brought north by the Humboldt
Current from the radiation-free waters of the
Antarctic.., there would be friendly and
predominantly European neighbors.[152]
Regardless of any speculation that the Esquire article was some sort of coded message for CIA operatives, agency personnel did migrate to the South American country where they would later be instrumental in he murder of Chilean president Salvador Allende and the Nazi-like regime that assumed power. Chile was one of the sites Jones considered for his South American community, but the plan was abandoned early on as Jones' reputation as a left-wing humanitarian was more valuable to the agency in that he could befriend the deposed Chilean government and insure their silence regarding the CIA's plot to overthrow them. Central to Jones' work as an agent provocateur to the exiled Chileans was Laura Allende who, in response to Jones' invitation, visited the San Francisco Peoples Temple where he introduced her to the congregation,
I have seen sainted people, people that are
living epistles. And I think Laura Allende is
in that category. You see other people making
sacrifices, as she is, and you say to yourself ,
'What less can I do?'[153]
Other exiled Chilean officials, like the former Minister of Finance, were also guests of the San Francisco Temple, which boasted an active role in the Chilean refugee movement. Top Temple aide and political paralegal Jann Gurvich housed at least one such refugee and eventually relinquished her California apartment to the Chilean when she left the country for Jonestown. Somehow, Jones managed to obtain copies of Chilean torture films allegedly taken by the CIA during interrogations conducted in a ship anchored off the coast of Chile. Though the films have not survived, Jones required his congregation to critique the macabre movies and some of their reports, describing the torture of two women, have survived. One victim, who was pregnant, was given a Caesarean section without anesthetic while her husband was forced to watch the painful death of his wife and child. The other victim was repeatedly raped by a team of trained police dogs. Jones used the torture films as evidence of the true nature of the CIA, a terror tactic intended to frighten his congregation into remaining under his "protection" in the Peoples Temple. Jones' relationship with the exiled Chilean government undoubtedly provided the CIA with valuable information and helped to suppress stories of the agency's involvement in their overthrow
On a national level, Jones was very close to the Oval Office. He first worked in the Eisenhower administration planning the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, he was number two man in President Kennedy's British Guiana operation and boasted that Lyndon Johnson was a member of the Disciples of Christ, the denomination that had ordained him a minister. He worked for the election of Richard Nixon and counselled him on a Supreme Court appointment. He advised Carter and Mondale on U.S. Cuban relations and provided over 10% of their campaign volunteers in California.
Statewide, in California, Jones worked closely with then Governor Ronald Reagan and his successor Jerry Brown. Brown often attended services at the Peoples Temple as did Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally, who visited Jonestown on two separate occasions. California Assemblyman Willie Brown, Art Agnos and Senator Milton Marks were also supportive of Jones' work. In San Francisco, Jones directed the massive voter fraud that resulted in the election of Mayor George Moscone, Sheriff Richard Hongisto and District Attorney Joe Freitas. He also had at least a working relationship with City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein and City Manager Thomas Mellon.
Jones claimed that the Peoples Temple had helped every political prisoner in the United States. His statements are only partially true. He did have a relationship with nearly every political activist in the country but his intention was not to help them but to spy on their activities. With his left-wing humanitarian image, Jones was in the perfect position to play the role of an agent provocateur to the radical element in the country. Among the many domestic political activists courted by Jones were Angela Davis (head of the U.S. Communist Party), Jane Fonda and her husband Tom Hayden, Cesar Chavez, (leader of the United Farm Workers) and Dick Gregory, to mention just a few .
Since Jones' work in the agency was primarily concerned with the control of Black and Native Americans, it was only logical that he would infiltrate their existing organizations to learn as much as possible about their leaders, plans, and aspirations. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP) was an obvious objective. Jones, his adopted son, Johnny, and several Temple aides were elected to the board of directors of the NAACP as the Peoples Temple controlled several hundred of the two thousand member votes in the local San Francisco chapter. Eventually, Jones would exert such a tremendous influence on the NAACP that the Black membership began to question the motives of this Caucasian leader of their organization. Jones' control of the NAACP would wane but remain sufficient for him to be recommended for the distinguished "Martin Luther King Humanitarian of the Year" award in 1977.
The Black Muslims' Temple was several doors down the street from the Peoples Temple in San Francisco and Jones often took the opportunity to escort a Temple contingent to the Muslim services and they reciprocated. He had so gained their trust as to be invited to give the keynote address to the 20,000 who attended the Muslims' Spiritual Jubilee held in Los Angeles in 1976. Of the several dozen dignitaries on the stage of the Los Angeles Convention Center, Jones' was the only white face.
Certainly the Black Panther Party did not escape Jones' attention. The complicated and often confusing story begins, for lack of a better place, with a California conspiratorialist writer named Donald Freed. Freed had co-authored a book entitled Executive Action with the country's foremost authority on CIA assassinations, Memphis attorney Mark Lane. Freed was also the leader of "Friends of the Black Panthers," a Caucasian group of intellectuals who sympathized with what, despite public opinion, was a very valuable organization. When the co-founder of the Black Panthers, Huey Newton, was wrongly accused of crimes in California and fled in exile to Cuba, it was Donald Freed who recommended that he retain attorney Charles Garry as counsel. Charles Garry, who represented Johnny Spain, a Black Panther defendant in the San Quentin Six trial, encouraged Newton to remain in Cuba, something that eventually would have totally discredited Newton. Political paralegal and Temple spy Jann Gurvich worked in Garry's office to keep a finger on the pulse of the story. About this time, Jim Jones entered the story when he travelled to Havana, Cuba , for the express purpose of meeting with Huey Newton. What transpired is not known, but upon his return, Jones would criticize Newton in what may or may not have been intended as "private meetings with his top aides. Jones also recruited Newton's nephew, Stanley Clayton, into the Peoples Temple probably as a bargaining chip. Newton would ignore Garry's advice and return to the U.S. to face charges of which he was acquitted. Garry went on to represent Jim Jones, along with Donald Freed and Mark Lane, whom Jones hired to sue the CIA and other federal agencies for their alleged harassment of the Peoples Temple. Jones obviously used his attorneys to give the impression he was opposed to the CIA. There were as many agents provocateur (under the COINTELPRO project--a federal government attempt to discredit and destroy organizations like the Black Panthers) as there were legitimate workers in the Black Panthers and researchers in the CIA conspiracy field. It is very difficult to assess who was working for whom but, in the final analysis, there were only four people who were allowed to overtly escape Jonestown after the mass suicide had begun; Charles Garry in the company of Mark Lane, and Stanley Clayton in the company of Odell Rhodes, a Special Forces Green Beret who was once the majordomo of what was then President Kennedy's military pet project. What Jones was trying to accomplish with the Black Panthers is not known. It suffices to say that he courted a close relationship with the Black Panthers to monitor their activities for the CIA.
Another target of Jones' work as an agent provocateur was Dennis Banks, leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM). After having played a major role in the 1973 Indian uprising in Wounded Knee, South Dakota, Banks had fled to California where he fought extradition to South Dakota and what he believed would be certain death. His fears were not unfounded as his co-defendant, Russell Means, who surrendered to the authorities, had been the victim of a near-fatal knife attack in a South Dakota prison.
Dennis Banks was in deep trouble. His California sanctuary was in question, his children were forced into hiding on a reservation in Oklahoma and his wife, Ka-mook, and the couple's newborn child had been imprisoned in Oregon. In addition to all this, he was being plagued with a rash of informants and spies, provocateurs from the Treasury department and particularly from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Amidst this, the most critical period in Banks' life, entered the one man with the power to resolve all his problems at once: Jim Jones.
Jones introduced himself as a clergyman who had encouraged American Indians into his fold. They knew him as a man who often boasted of a Cherokee ancestry on his mother's side of the family. Though his facial features resembled the classic Native American, Jones' claims of Indian heritage have never been accepted outside the Peoples Temple. Characteristically, he said whatever was required for a particular situation, in this case to gain a representative sampling of Native Americans and the confidence of their national leader, Dennis Banks. Jones assured Banks that through his connections in Sacramento he could arrange to stay any attempts to extradite him to South Dakota. He also paid the $19,500 bail to free Banks' wife and child and arranged for the entire family to be reunited in California where, in an address to the Peoples Temple, the Indian leader expressed his appreciation. "A week ago, my wife was behind an iron door, my children in Oklahoma. You, in your love, have moved the iron door."[154] Banks honestly felt indebted to Jones but he began to question the motives of this self-appointed Caucasian patron of the Indian cause. Perhaps it was Jones'
unexpected generosity or his many questions about AIM or the fact that the Treasury Department had stopped their harassment as soon as Banks had aligned himself with Jones but, nevertheless, Banks' suspicions threatened to expose Jones' work with the federal government. The possibility that Banks might discover that Jones was a CIA operative forced the agency to classify him in the negative. Whether he lived or died depended largely on David Conn, a Treasury agent (according to a sworn statement signed by Banks and corroborated by others including Conn's ex-wife, Donna , who once said of the couple's employment with the Treasury Department, "We both have high priority numbers." David Conn was employed as a surveyor at the Chevron Oil Refinery in the San Francisco East Bay. He counted Temple members Elmer Mertle, Grace Stoen and Michael Prokes among his friends.
In May of 1977, as Jim Jones prepared his final departure to Jonestown, David Conn arranged a meeting with Dennis Banks in the El Cerrito home of Indian leader Lehman Brightman, presumably to discuss his possible extradition to South Dakota. At the meeting, Conn would speak of little besides Jim Jones. He claimed to be part of an interagency investigation into the Temple's shipment of weapons to Guyana. At other times, he claimed to have been investigating the Peoples Temple for "personal" reasons since about 1970. Banks couldn't understand what Jim Jones had to do with his possible extradition, except that he had promised to stay any attempts, that is until Conn strongly suggested that if he wanted immunity from extradition he first must issue a public statement condemning Jones and his Peoples Temple. Conn insisted that Banks meet that very evening with another Treasury agent he identified only as "Jim." Banks refused. The next day, Conn phoned to try and persuade Banks to attend a meeting with the Treasury Department. Banks wanted to bring his lawyer. Conn insisted he come alone. Again Banks refused out of fear he would be kidnapped and released perhaps unharmed but in South Dakota.
Jones proceeded to tell Banks and others that Patty Cartmell's Temple intelligence agents had gained access to the crawl space under the home of David Conn's ex-wife to overhear the plans of the Treasury agents. Banks fell for the deceit. He had been purposely manipulated into believing that he and Jim Jones shared a common enemy in the U.S. Treasury Department. Though he probably doesn't realize it, Banks' acceptance saved his life for, if of the charade he continued to question Jones' true motives, he would have had to have been killed either before or during the White Night in Jonestown.
By early September, Jones had taken his last leave of the United States. Banks was left without a patron and, due to Conn's proposal, on the horns of a dilemma. He took the only honorable way out and signed a sworn statement on September 6, 1977, attesting to what he believed was the Treasury Department's attempt to blackmail him into discrediting Jones.
With the help of Larry Lee Litke, an attorney for Alameda County, David Conn went, on to co-author a book about the Peoples Temple, entitled The Cult That Died. Though the work is interesting and rather accurate in its account of Jones' career, it fails to expose his employment with the CIA or the true nature of the Jonestown massacre.
In his public career, Jones played the role of a communist sympathizer, a socialist, a left-wing liberal Democrat, and a humanitarian who championed the cause of the Black and Native American people. But in reality, for the twenty-five years prior to his rise in San Francisco, Jones was a registered Republican whose ultra-conservative, right-wing politics were reflective of the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party and are best evidenced by the fascist form of his Peoples Temple. The politics of Jim Jones are those of the son of a mid-western, Bible-belt marshall and Ku Klux Klan member. Those were his true political roots, which surfaced only occasionally, as with his close relationship with the head of the John Birch Society in California.
It is difficult to grasp Jones' political maneuvering as most of the crucial exchanges occurred in private, unreported meetings. But the number of important political leaders who accepted him as a virtual head of state attests to a power that was obviously disproportionate to his ministry. Jones' political clout stemmed not from his Peoples Temple but from his employer: The Central Intelligence Agency.
Grenada - Anthony Thorne - 28-08-2015
XIII THE WHITE NIGHT
The assassination of Congressman Ryan and the mass suicide murder that followed was not the flippant reaction of a crazed preacher but a calculated political assassination and medical field test that had been planned or at least outlined ever since Jim Jones ordered the first White Night rehearsal five years earlier. The demise of Jonestown is an historic incident that has been widely reported, so rather than duplicate the heretofore published accounts, this chapter will explore some of the behind-the-scenes activities that occurred before, during and after the White Night.
A major item in Jones' preparation was the safety of the agency's personnel who had been assigned as his middle-management in the experiment. The exodus began several months before Ryan's visit when top Temple aides like Deborah Layton, Terri Buford, Bonnie Thielmann, Tim Stoen, and Stoen's wife, Grace Grech, feigned their defection from the Temple to disassociate themselves from the scheduled carnage in Jonestown and to help orchestrate the event from outside the organization. Thielmann and the Stoens would accompany Ryan to Guyana, but only as far as Georgetown, relying on the limited number of charter airplane seats as their excuse for not accompanying him to Jonestown and what they knew would be his death. There were other ways to "escape" the Peoples Temple. Lisa Layton staged her own death just eighteen days before the Event. Other top aides were conveniently sent to Georgetown just prior to the massacre. Jones' son Stephan and several others were in the capital for a basketball tournament with the Guyanese National Team. Beatrice Grubbs, Jonestown's resident expert on U.S. tax legalities, was also in Georgetown, missing the mass suicide for a dentist appointment of dubious necessity as, reportedly, Guyanese dentists regularly visited Jonestown to provide one of the few medical services beyond the abilities of the Jonestown clinic. But, for all the shuffling and positioning of people just prior to the Event, the story of one Gordon Lindsay is most interesting.
As shown earlier, the CIA's activities in Guyana were always conducted with the full cooperation of British Intelligence and Jonestown was no exception. In the early 1960's, Jones and the CIA had worked with the British in a cooperative effort to establish Forbes Burnham as Prime Minister of what was then a British colony. It was Phil Blakey, a British subject, whom Jones sent to Guyana to command the early stages of Jonestown when the site was used as a training camp for mercenaries bound to fight in Angola's Civil War. From the perspective of British Intelligence, the South American mission would always be closely connected with African politics. So it was with no great surprise that a British subject with experience in reporting African affairs be enlisted to tie up the loose ends and cover British tracks in the final stages of Jonestown. Such a man was Gordon Lindsay.
After a career reporting African political uprisings from the British point of view, Gordon Lindsay emerged as a freelance reporter in Los Angeles in 1978. He was working for the National Enquirer on an expose of the Peoples Temple; an expose that Jones loudly protested and that was never published. Jones claimed (in a conversation with Temple attorney Mark Lane) that the publisher of the National Enquirer worked for the CIA as demonstrated by his ability to convince the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown to intercede on Lindsay's behalf to acquire an extension on his Guyanese visa. It was rather odd that the U.S. government would ask a South American country to help an Englishman. Both Lindsay and Jones made a big fuss over an incident in which Lindsay flew very low over Jonestown in a plane he had chartered in Trinidad. Jones complained to Guyanese authorities that Lindsay's low altitude aerobatics so frightened an elderly resident that the woman had a heart attack and died. According to Lindsay, in all the months he spent on assignment in Guyana, this was as close as he was able to get to Jonestown. Actually, the incident successfully established Lindsay as an enemy of the Peoples Temple and provided several aerial photographs of Jonestown that impressed Will Holsinger (son equally of Joe Holsinger) whom Congressman Ryan had hired to investigate the activities of the Peoples Temple. In his conversations with Holsinger in California, Lindsay learned of Leo Ryan's congressional inquiry into Jonestown and suggested the Congressman invite the press to accompany him for some degree of protection on what could be a dangerous mission. Ryan, who always played to the cameras, agreed and Lindsay took it upon himself to invite the newsmen he wanted to attend. He convinced the National Broadcasting Corporation, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner to assign specific reporters to the congressional junket.
Lindsay managed to be hired as a guide by the 4 NBC-TV news crew, headed by Don Harris, with reporter Bob Flick, cameraman Bob Brown and sound man Steve Sung. They were NBC's combat crew, having covered the Vietnam War individually. The Washington Post assigned their Argentina correspondent, Charles Krause. The San Francisco Chronicle's first choice was their resident expert on the Peoples Temple, Marshall Kilduff, but they feared that Kilduff's presence might aggravate Jones, who had publicly protested the reporter's expose of his organization. They decided instead to send Ron Javers, a recent addition to their staff whose prior journalistic experience dealt primarily with investigating prison conditions in Pennsylvania and a bizarre Black cult known as "MOVE." The San Francisco Examiner assigned their award-winning journalist, Tim Reiterman and cameraman Greg Robinson. When the roster of newsmen was complete, Lindsay radioed the list to Jonestown. Jones, in turn, informed the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, which forwarded his report to the State Department in Washington. Including Lindsay, the news crew numbered eight, of whom five would return alive.
After several tactical delays in Georgetown (which most agree were engineered by Jones), Gordon Lindsay boarded the chartered plane to Port Kaituma and Jonestown. On board were Congressman Ryan; Jackie Speier, the Congressman's assistant; Dick Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy; Neville Annibourne, an official of the Guyanese Ministry of Information; Attorney Mark Lane, representing Jones; Attorney Charles Garry, also representing Jones; Jones; eight newsmen, including Lindsay; and as many Concerned Relatives as there were remaining seats on the plane. Ryan was well prepared but somewhat confused about the conflicting reports he had received about Jonestown. From ex-Temple members and Concerned Relatives in California, he half-expected to find a barbed-wire concentration camp where the inmates were drugged, beaten or tortured into submission for reasons no one could explain. On the other hand, during his few days delay in Georgetown, Dick Dwyer had shown him slides and home movies which gave the impression that Jonestown was a utopia. Ryan pondered the discrepancies during his one-hour flight over some of the most isolated jungle in the world. A small clearing soon appeared in the rain forest below. It was the Port Kaituma airstrip, the nearest airfield to Jonestown. The disembarking passengers were met by a contingent of Temple guards, a minister of Guyanese Region Development and a local Port Kaituma Policeman, Corporal Rudder. Rudder had no uniform, badge or credentials. His authority rested solely on the 12 (some say 30) gauge shotgun cradled by his young, sad-eyed assistant. Corporal Rudder stepped forward and announced,
I was informed by a superior officer that
Peoples Temple do not request the parties
present (to go) into the Peoples Temple..I don't
know the reasons. I was informed three days ago of
this...You can wait around.[172]
Mark Lane and Charles Garry emerged from a conference with the Temple guards to say that Congressman Ryan, Jackie Speier and Dick Dwyer had been given permission to enter Jonestown. They boarded the Temple's dump truck for the fifteen mile trip through the jungle to the remote settlement, leaving the reporters and the Concerned Relatives sequestered on the airstrip with Corporal Rudder and his unidentified assistant. Corporal Rudder escorted Don Harris to a shack in the village where Harris radioed Rudder's superiors to confirm his story and see if he could arrange for permission to visit Jonestown. Meanwhile, those on the hot and humid airstrip had sent one of the locals into the village for two cases of cold Banks Beer. They relaxed in the shade of a passenger shed and it was there that the young constable with the shotgun began telling them stories about Jonestown. He spoke of escapees who reported brutal treatment in the encampment and of strange night-time activities at the Port Kaituma airstrip that Temple members lit with red flares for mysterious landings in the dark. It was the beginning of a special relationship between the press and the young constable who carried the shotgun that would be used to kill Congressman Ryan.
After about two hours of waiting, a Temple farm tractor appeared in the clearing. A Caucasian woman standing behind the Black driver announced, "Everyone who wants to come out to Jonestown can come, except Gordon Lindsay. The truck is coming now."[173] Unlike Tim Reiterman or Ron Javers' colleague, Marshall Kilduff, Gordon Lindsay had never written a published article on the Peoples Temple, yet he was singled out as the only one denied entry into Jonestown. He accepted Jones' wish without protest or even a display of disappointment and, while the others boarded the truck for the forty-five minute ride to Jonestown, Lindsay boarded the twin engine Otter for its return flight to Georgetown where he filed his co-reporters' first stories. For the next several critical days, he would remain in the safety of the Pegasus Hotel relaying news of the historic event to the outside world.
By the time that the newsmen and relatives finally reached Jonestown, it was about seven o'clock and the sun was setting. Clearly, their visit was intended to be a night encounter. They soon joined Ryan, Dwyer, Lane, Garry and Jones in the open-air pavilion for a welcomed and reportedly delicious barbequed pork dinner. Mark Lane refused to eat the meal, choosing instead to consume a box of cough drops that he had brought with him. Some time later, Lane would be accused of coercion based on speculation that he feared that the dinner had been poisoned. In other words, Lane was an accessory in that he had prior knowledge that Jones had murder on his mind. Actually, the truth was much more basic. Jones had intentionally served a very healthful pork dinner to the guests, which included his Jewish attorney. No sooner had they finished eating than the evening's entertainment began with the singing of the Guyanese National Anthem and a rendition of "God Bless America." The very professional rock and roll band, the "Jonestown Express" took the stage directly in front of the visitors to accompany a number of entertainers like the "Soul Steppers" dance team and an elderly Black singer comedienne billed as the "Moms Mabley of Jonestown." The evening was well orchestrated in more ways than one. If Ryan and the newsmen didn't have a a mouthful of food, they had an earful of noise. Conversation had been reduced to screaming above the electrically-amplified music. Ryan did manage to comment to one of the newsmen regarding the strange, trance-like reactions of some of the elderly residents to music that ordinarily appeals only to the young. He said their reactions were "unnaturally animated." His implication was that they were drugged. Jackie Speier was quoted as telling Ryan, "There is no question in my mind that there is mind control being exercised here. While the band played on, the print media reporters interviewed Jones though the music was so loud that they couldn't even record the shallow exchange. The NBC news crew wandered about the Pavilion filming the residents and their visiting relatives. Though they wanted to see more of Jonestown, it was easy to confine them to the pavilion area as they were reluctant to venture into unlit areas as this was the middle of the jungle at night. Ryan had come with a list of residents he wanted to see. He had a letter for Lisa Layton but was told she had died two and a half weeks earlier. He asked to see Brian Bouquet as he had promised his relatives he would do. Temple members giggled because Brian Bouquet had been standing in front of Ryan for most of the evening, playing saxophone in the "Jonestown Express." After a few interviews, Ryan took the microphone and announced to the gathering: "I can tell you right now that by the few conversations I've had with some of the folks here already this evening that... there are some people who believe this is the best thing that ever happened in their whole lives."[174] The crowd responded with a roaring, applause that is said to have lasted for twenty minutes, well past the point of embarrassment. When Ryan was again allowed to speak he joked that he was sorry they could not all vote in his congressional district. Jones yelled back that they could, by absentee ballot. Ryan replied in a serious tone, "I want to pull no punches. This is a congressional inquiry."[175]
It was about 11PM when the crowd dispersed in unison like so many fish in a school responding to some mysterious mass communication. It was obvious that the evening encounter had drawn to a close. As the residents made their way back to their cabins, Jones concluded the interview with reporters, complaining of a conspiracy to destroy the Peoples Temple. When asked who was plotting his demise, Jones responded, "Who conspired to kill Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and John Kennedy? Every agency of the whole government is giving us a hard time. Somebody doesn't like socialism."[176] It was another calculated statement from the master of deceit. In so few words he gave the reporters the impression of a paranoid man with delusions of grandeur who was persecuted by the U.S. government for his socialistic beliefs. To add credence to his claim, at his side was Mark Lane, the foremost authority on the CIA conspiracies to assassinate King and Kennedy. Actually, Jones was working for the CIA which had issued a "hands off" order to the other agencies of the government permitting him to perpetuate his many crimes in the U.S. unabated. The "somebody" who didn't like socialism was Jim Jones.
Ryan, Dwyer, and the attorneys would spend the night in the Jonestown guest house that, until recently, had been occupied by Lisa Layton. The reporters were told that there was not enough room in the community to accommodate them. They said that they would be perfectly comfortable on the floor of the pavilion but Jones resisted and sent them, sleeping bags and baggage, back to Port Kaituma. As Don Harris boarded the Temple truck for the return trip he was handed a note that read, "Help us get out of Jonestown. Vern Gosney, Monica Bagby." He told only his NBC news crew.
Between the dinner, the darkness, the rock music and the deafening applause ,there was almost no opportunity for serious investigation or even conversation and the reporters left with little or nothing to show for their first day's visit to Jonestown, except an impression of Jones who, in Tim Reiterman's words, "seemed paranoid if not crazy." Jones had been manipulating the press for years and was a far better actor than they were investigators. "Crazy" was just the impression he wanted to effect.
The newsmen and visiting relatives were driven to "Mike's Disco and Rum House" where the Temple had reserved accommodations that were no better than the floor of the pavilion and not worth the bumpy, fifteen mile trip to Port Kaituma. But their comfort was not important to Jones; getting them out of Jonestown was all that mattered. The women in the group shared a bedroom while the men were told they could sleep on the kitchen floor.
By then it was after midnight and the reporters sat about the bar drinking rum and beer and discussing the events of the day with some disappointment at bp coming away with so little. Into the midst of their conversation wandered Corporal Rudder's unnamed assistant but the reporters did not recognize the young constable at first because he did not have the one thing that distinguished him from the other local Black men, his shotgun. After a few beers the young constable invited the print media reporters, Krause, Reiterman and Javers to accompany him to the village police station where he wanted to relate some information about Jonestown in private. They left the bar, one at a time, and regrouped outside so as not to alert the NBC television crew. (Reporters can be a very competitive lot.) They walked down a dirt road that followed the river, passed the Temple's ship --the "Cudjo" and into an adobe shack. It was so dark that they had to feel their way through the door. It was sometime between 2 AM and 4AM (reports vary) when the four men sat down around a wooden table in the small room lit only by a candle in a beer can.
The young constable recounted an incident that had happened a year and a half earlier when Leon Broussard escaped from Jonestown and staggered out of the jungle and into that very room. Broussard had told the constable he escaped after having been repeatedly beaten by Temple guards. He described an underground by cell used as solitary confinement for resident offenders and gave the constable directions on how to locate the torture chamber, which he did in his subsequent investigation. It was a root cellar-type cave containing a black box that resembled a coffin. When the constable asked Jones about the cave, he said it was for the storage of fresh produce though it was located in the jungle about 1/4 mile to the rear of the "Jonestown Experimental and Herbal Kitchen." What he quite accurately described was the sensory deprivation tank used, not to punish, but as an experimental tool. In the light of one candle, the constable opened a safe plastered flush in the wall. He retrieved a ledger and read the names of three Temple members who had been airlifted out of Port Kaituma two evenings before the Congressman's party arrived. One was an elderly woman, reportedly ill. The other two were middle-aged men, one with a cast on his arm, the other with a cast on his leg. The constable took their alleged injuries as additional evidence of beatings in Jonestown and their departure as Jones' desire to hide the evidence from the probing eyes of Ryan and the press. The reporters believed what is, in retrospect, a very unlikely story. Jones' techniques of punishment were far more sophisticated than breaking bones and, if he had done so, he never would have sent the victims out of his control and especially not to Georgetown where they could have told their story to Ryan and the reporters who were waiting there for permission to visit the interior. Nor would there be any medical reasons to send the three out of Jonestown. Between Larry Layton's X-ray machine and Dr. Larry Schacht's skills as a physician, the Jonestown clinic could provide as many, if not more, services as any hospital in Guyana. The chartered plane and the rather dangerous night-time landing was probably for another, more important reason. Conceivably, it was the last-minute evacuation of key agency personnel assigned to the experiment. Perhaps the woman was Lisa Layton or Charlotte Baldwin. The reporters never identified the three or even the constable who played a significant role in establishing their opinion of Jonestown. A fifth man, wearing a construction hard hat, entered the shack and, without invitation, joined in the conversation. He was introduced as the electrical engineer who, every morning at this time, shut down the town's generator as a part of a nationwide energy conservation program. HE was very, even suspiciously, knowledgeable on the subject of Jonestown. The conversation drifted to reports of automatic weapons and the constable confirmed that the government of Guyana had issued one such permit to the Peoples Temple. The discussion ended when the constable promised to accompany the reporters the next day to show them the underground torture chamber. He never did.
The reporters made their way in the dark back to "Mike's" Disco" for a few hours sleep before the Temple truck was to pick them up at the prearranged time of 8:30 AM. All three would survive the next day's carnage. All three would write books about Jonestown. All three were influenced by the unnamed constable, but none more than Tim Reiterman. It seems that Leon Broussard had left Port Kaituma and made his way back to San Francisco in the summer of 1977 to retell his story of the brutal treatment in Jonestown to none other than Tim Reiterman who doubted his claims. Now, a year and a half later and several thousand miles away, Broussard's testimony was being confirmed.
The Temple truck pulled up to "Mike's Disco" at about 10:30AM, two hours late. The driver cited mechanical problems but, in fact, his tardiness was just another means of restricting the reporters' access to Jonestown. After an uneventful trip they were greeted at the front gate by Marceline Jones who announced that a lavish breakfast and an all-day tour awaited them. Not wanting to be tricked into another non-productive day, Don Harris, the most outspoken reporter, said that they had a lot of work to do and no time for breakfast though "coffee would be nice." Impatiently looking at his watch, he said something to the effect that they would begin the tour of what they wanted to see in just a few minutes. Mrs. Jones backed off.
For the first time the reporters viewed the well-organized community in the light of day and they were both impressed and suspicious of what they saw. Everything seemed staged. A group of children lethargically played on the grounds as if they had been ordered to do so. Another group watched a children's movie on the videotape machine in the pavilion while others sat attentively in an outdoor classroom. It was Saturday and the reporters had learned that Jonestown maintained a typical Monday through Friday school week. No one seemed to be working. Everyone was relaxing in pastoral, picnic-like settings. Whenever a reporter would stray from the chosen path he was confronted by a friendly "Hi! Can I help you"? and herded back into line. They were too often told not to venture into certain areas because they would disturb the residents who were sleeping there. It was another wasted day. They did confront Jones with the constable's allegations of the presence of automatic weapons and an underground chamber; Jones denied the existence of both. The firearms had been locked away and the sensory deprivation tank long since destroyed in preparation for the day and the investigation that would inevitably follow.
Ryan announced over the public address system that anyone wishing to return to the United States with him should gather up their belongings and board the truck to the Port Kaituma airstrip. Vern Gosney, Monica Bagby, the Parks family and several others stepped forward. Jones spoke privately with each to either convince them to stay or to give them Last minute instructions. Fifteen residents, most Caucasian, wanted to leave. Jones gave each their passport and 5,000 Guyanese dollars for the passage home.
Some said they would return after visiting relatives in the U.S. Jones was noticeably shaken at little more than 1% of his followers who wanted to go home. He grasped his chest as if in pain and said to to his wife, "A pill," loud enough for the reporters to overhear. Tim Reiterman later reported that "Lovingly, his wife resisted his entreaty." Though Reiterman and the other reporters recognized that some aspects of the tour had been staged, they failed to realize that all aspects of the tour, including Jones' reference to "a pill", had been staged. They were convinced, and in turn convinced the world, of Jones' imaginary drug dependency. Their portrayal of a crazed drug addict was exactly the public image Jones needed to explain the bizarre events that would take place later that day.
From over the public address system echoed, "Bonny Simon! Bonny Simon! Please come to the radio room!" A few minutes later, a very upset Bonny Simon ran past Congressman Ryan. She was chasing after her husband Alvin and screaming, "I'll kill you! You bring those kids back here! Don't touch my kids!"[177] Alvin Simon, a full- blooded Pima Indian from Arizona, was herding his three small children towards the front gate and the truck that was about to depart for the Port Kaituma airstrip. Bonny caught up to her family near the pavilion and tried to wrestle the children from their father who obviously intended to take them back to the United States. With Ryan as an audience, Bonny and Alvin played tug-of-war with young Alvin, Jr. Ryan, Lane and Garry intervened and determined that questions of child custody should be settled in the courts. Alvin Simon conceded, deciding to remain with his children in Jonestown. Jones reassured everyone present that he would not punish Alvin for his attempt to leave and the situation calmed down. The U.S. State Department would later inform the Pima Indian tribe that Alvin Simon and his father Jose--a Pima chief and Jonestown resident--did not voluntarily drink the poison later that day. They had been injected.
Everyone was in position and everything on schedule for the planned assassination at the airstrip; that is until Ryan decided to stay another night in Jonestown to document others, like Alvin Simon, who might wish to return to the U.S. at some future date. Jones was not about to rely on some unrehearsed contingency plan to kill the Congressman. He had to force Ryan to leave. As a last resort, Jones called upon his knife expert Don Sly to get the Congressman Ryan on the road to his death.
Jones, Ryan, Lane and Garry were standing outside the pavilion when Don Sly approached the group, grabbed Ryan in a stranglehold, put a knife to his throat and screamed, "I'm gonna slit your throat you motherfucker." Ryan fell backwards on top of his attacker and the two attorneys wrestled the knife away but not before Sly reportedly cut himself between the thumb and forefinger. There was blood everywhere but mostly on the front of Ryan's shirt. Sly, an extremely strong athlete who had once trained for the Olympic swimming team, could have easily killed Ryan but the plan was not to kill him there, only to scare him into leaving for the airstrip where the assassination team was waiting. The knife attack was staged. The blood was real but it came from a Hollywood special effects capsule Sly had concealed in his hand. Ryan, obvious shaken, ghostly white and spattered with blood, still wanted to stay another night. Jones, who never apologized or showed any remorse over the incident , asked, "Does this change everything?" Ryan responded "It doesn't change everything but it does change some things." Jones assured Ryan he would have Sly arrested for the attempted murder although he had no intention of doing so.
Meanwhile, the truck loaded with newsmen, relatives and Jonestown defectors was delayed at the front gate because, according to the driver, it was stuck in the mud. Actually, they were stalling, waiting for Ryan. Back at the pavilion, Jones huddled with several of his aides as Dick Dwyer pleaded with and even ordered Ryan to leave. Finally, Ryan agreed to go with the others after Dwyer promised that he would return to Jonestown to document any other residents who might wish to leave but first he would see Ryan off at the airstrip. At that precise moment the truck was freed and Ryan and Dwyer had to run to catch up with it. Out of the huddle with Jones and running alongside the two men was the sixteenth Jonestown "defector," Larry Layton.
The ride to the airstrip was uneventful. The mood was one of relief; relief that everyone had gotten out alive, relief that Ryan had not been hurt in the knife assault, relief that it was all over--or so the thought. The only thing to spoil the moment was an apprehension everyone felt at Larry Layton's presence. Those who knew him warned the others that his defection was probably feigned, as he was too close to Jones. The truck swayed back and forth in the muddy ruts of the road built in the early days of Jonestown and into the clearing of the Port Kaituma airstrip built years earlier by United States mining concerns. The passengers disembarked and assembled in and around the only structure, a tin roofed passenger shed. Dick Dwyer quietly slipped into the village and returned with the unnamed constable before the group (which now numbered about thirty) had noticed he was missing. The airstrip was deserted except for some local onlookers and four (possibly six) armed men in Guyanese military uniforms camped near the end of the runway to guard a "disabled military plane" that someone said had a broken wheel.
Before long, two planes landed; the Otter from the day before and a six-seater Cessna that Ryan had ordered over the Jonestown radio after the defectors joined his party. It is interesting to note that just a day earlier Ryan could not charter enough seats to fly all the Concerned Relatives into Jonestown but he had no trouble arranging for this additional plane on short notice. In this story, when things worked smoothly it was because Jones wanted them to. Even with the additional plane there was still not enough room for everyone. Ryan decided that the defectors and the reporters with deadlines would be the first to fly to Georgetown; he and the others would wait for the Otter to return. Reporter Charles Krause begged defector Jim Cobb for his seat. While Jackie Speier organized the passengers and baggage, Ryan pat-searched the boarding male passengers following the advice of Dwyer and some of the defectors who suspected trouble from Larry Layton, among others. Layton managed to smuggle a handgun onto the Cessna. Everyone was milling about the two planes, except Dick Dwyer and the shotgun-toting constable who stood off the runway near the shed.
The Temple's dump truck returned and, along with a farm tractor towing a trailer, emerged from the Jonestown road and parked near the far end of the runway across from the disabled military plane. The truck remained stationary but the tractor-trailer moved down and across the runway to a vantage point between the Cessna and the Otter. When the driver of the tractor began questioning the defectors as to who was assigned to which plane, the others became alarmed and hurried to board and fly out of there before any trouble started. The tractor driver and his passenger: who rode in the high sided trailer (identified by Harold Cordell as Stanley Gieg, Tom Kice, Sr., Albert Touchette and Joe Wilson) walked over to the small group of Port Kaitumans and pushed them back out of the way. They then approached Dick Dwyer. The young constable handed them his shotgun and both he and Dwyer backed away. The Temple guards went back to the trailer and picked up automatic weapons described by survivors as M-16's. Shots were heard in the distance; probably the signal to begin the assault from the Temple guards in the dump truck. The Cessna, fully loaded, began to taxi when the shooting started. From inside the plane, Larry Layton shot Vern Gosney and Monica Bagby but, as difficult as it is to believe, he reportedly missed the pilot. According to Dale Parks, he then pointed the .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver at him and fired. There was noise but no bullet as if the gun had been loaded with a blank cartridge. Parks wrestled the revolver from Layton, ending that half of the attack. Meanwhile, from the trailer, marksmen fired a volley low into the crowd surrounding the Otter, hitting several below the waist. This first round was obviously intended, not to kill, but to immobilize the crowd, all of whom "hit the dirt." About half of the thirty had been shot but only Patty Parks died in the first round. She was struck high in the torso because she was bent over when the shooting began. Her death was probably an accident. Bob Brown bravely continued to film the assault as the Temple guards moved in for the kill carrying the shotgun they had confiscated from the constable. One blast to Brown's head and his brains splattered over his video camera. Greg Robinson, who had been snapping still photos as fast as he could, was the next to fall to the shotgun. With both photographers dead, the assassins turned to Ryan who lay wounded near the Otter and shot him point-blank in the head. Don Harris suffered the same fate. In all, five were dead, five seriously wounded, five slightly wounded.
The Temple assault team could have easily killed everyone at the airstrip. No one fought back and, thanks to Dwyer's advice to Ryan, no one could as they had been searched and disarmed moments before the attack. During the shooting, Bob Flick had pleaded with the Guyanese soldiers for protection or the loan of a weapon but they refused to even allow him near the disabled plane in their charge. In their words this was "Americans shooting Americans" and none of their business.
Obviously, it was not the intention of the Temple assault team to kill everyone or to stop the Jonestown defectors from leaving. The intention was to assassinate Congressman Ryan. Cameramen Bob Brown and Greg Robinson were killed just before Ryan because they were filming the assassination. Patty Parks' death was an accident. Only the motive for killing newsman Don Harris remains unclear. It is possible that he too was an intended target who had been deliberately recruited for the trip to Guyana and his death. Harris did share a common history with the other dead newsmen in their coverage of the Vietnam War. He was so close to the action that he witnessed the fall of Saigon from the roof of the U.S. Embassy. If he was an intended victim, the root of the reasoning may have been a result of his Vietnam experience. In short, he learned something he shouldn't have. But there is another very interesting, yet unfortunately unconfirmed, report that Harris' hobby was the study of Howard Hughes' connections with the CIA, which if true would be as good a motive as any for his murder.
Of the five slightly wounded, one was visiting relative Beverly Oliver, three were the print media reporters Javers, Reiterman and Krause. Krause, however, could hardly be considered wounded; his leg was scratched while he squeezed through the baggage compartment door of the Cessna for cover during the assault. The U.S. Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission, Dick Dwyer, was the fifth, claiming to have been grazed by a bullet in the buttocks. There was blood on his pants but that's all anyone saw. His wound, if it was a wound, did not stop him from assuming command of the group after the shooting stopped and the Temple assault team retreated. Dwyer was out of the line of fire and was probably not shot as further evidenced by the fact that he waited several days before seeking any medical attention in Georgetown. Years later, he claimed to still carry a bullet that was lodged near the base of his spine, but this is pure conjecture because he has never backed his claim with hard evidence such as a verified X-ray.
Despite Dick Dwyer's support of Jim Jones prior to the incident, his leadership of the survivors of the assassination went uncontested. He was, after all, the only ranking U.S. official on the airstrip. Dale Parks recognized his authority when he brought Larry Layton and his revolver, not to the local police, but to Dwyer.
There was a commotion at the end of the airstrip and Dwyer yelled, "They're coming back! They're coming back!," which was enough of a real threat to send any ambulatory survivors scrambling for cover in the nearby high swamp grass and jungle. Only the two pilots and Dwyer remained and after, a brief conversation the pilots boarded the Cessna and took off for Georgetown with Monica Bagby, leaving the others stranded in Port Kaituma under threat of another attack. There was no pilot to fly the Otter; besides, one of its engines had been damaged in the assault. The police radio that Don Harris had used the day before was conveniently inoperative (some say broken , others missing). There were no working telephones in Port Kaituma; no way to communicate with the outside world. There was but an hour or so of daylight left and, even if the Cessna had radioed Georgetown for help, there was not enough time for a rescue plane to arrive at the unlit strip before dark. Dick Dwyer quietly confiscated the group's only flashlight. Obviously, they would have to spend the night in Port Kaituma.
While hiding in and around the village from Dwyer's imaginary second assault, Tim Reiterman was confronted by several men he believed to be locals. One stepped forward, handed him a book on CIA conspiracies and said, "We were told that you, the group with the congressman, were CIA and heavily armed."[178] Reiterman replied that he was a reporter and neither armed nor employed by the CIA. He would later report that the man's peculiar remark was evidence that Jones had primed the locals to be against the congressional inquiry. He failed to realize that, from the perspective of a Port Kaituman, all Americans were the same whether they be congressmen, Concerned Relatives, reporters, or the heavily armed CIA technicians who had filmed the entire assassination from their vantage point within the so-called "disabled" military plane.
With the exception of the constable providing the murder weapon, neither the Guyanese police nor the military (if that is who they really were) played any role in the attack other than that of witness. The they were helpless because their only armed constable had been disarmed by the assailants. The soldiers, who incidentally had not been disarmed during the attack, remained aloof to the whole affair, that is until Dick Dwyer approached them. They agreed to house the severely wounded, not in the plane that they were guarding, but in their small camp tent. With old bedsprings for litters and rum for anesthetic, the four critically wounded were carried to the tent. The dead were left lying on the airstrip overnight, during which time the bodies were looted of everything but their clothing. This has been attributed to the local natives who have a reputation for stealing anything of value that isn't nailed down but the most valuable items on the bodies were their notes on Jonestown; the missing notes that someone took from the bodies under the cover of darkness. One at a time, the survivors emerged from the jungle and returned to the airstrip after Dwyer's false alarm. Dwyer sent them to the Port Kaituma Rum Shop where he had arranged for them to spend the evening. Everyone was sheltered by sunset. The wounded in the tent certainly could not move and the others in the Rum Shop certainly would not move. They were so afraid of a second Temple assault that they sent two escorts with any of their number who exited the rear door of the shop to relieve their bladders from another evening of over indulging in drink. Between the cases of beer at the airstrip, the first evening at Mike's Disco and Rum House, and the second evening at the Port Kaituma Rum Shop, whether intentionally or not the reporters would o pass their two days in Guyana's interior under the influence of alcohol. Only Dick Dwyer remained mobile during the long night. He shuttled between the Rum Shop and the tent on the airstrip, being away from both for hours at a time.
Out of the dark and into the Rum Shop stumbled the unidentified constable, obviously drunk. "I'll kill them! I'll kill them! I'll kill them all in Jonestown!" he screamed. The reporters tried to calm him down, fearing that in his enthusiasm he might decide to kill them instead. No one suspected that, at that precise moment fifteen miles away in Jonestown, the residents were killing themselves. The constable left the Rum Shop, never to be heard from again. This man, who knew so much about Jonestown, who had such a profound influence on the reporters and the stories they told to the outside world, who provided the murder weapon to kill Congressman Ryan, has never been questioned or even identified, which exemplifies what would be a mediocre investigation into the assassination. No attempt was made to even locate the murder weapon or the Temple guard who fired the fatal shotgun blasts. Nor were several critical questions even addressed. For example, though reports vary as to the caliber of the shotgun, all agree it was a single-shot, but even if it were a double- barrel the assassin would have had to reload to have fired the four fatal shots. Where did he get the additional ammunition? Reports indicate that the constable provided only the shotgun. Was the Temple assault team equipped with just the right ammunition for the constable's gun? If so, this is evidence of collusion as the Temple guards must have had prior knowledge that Dwyer's companion would be present during the attack and would give them his gun.
As absurd a miscarriage of justice as it would appear to be, in the final analysis, a U.S. Congressman was assassinated in full view of at least four dozen people, some of whom, like the constable have never been identified or even questioned as to what they witnessed. No attempt was made to bring anyone to justice or to even locate the murder weapon. Larry Layton would be the only one tried in U.S. courts for the crime and he was charged, not with murder, but with conspiracy to murder. As to who actually killed Leo Ryan, no one seems to care and everyone has a preconceived, precontrived rationale. To a privileged few, Ryan was killed by the CIA. To the rest of the world, Ryan was killed by the crazed Jim Jones. Though both opinions are basically correct, it is still difficult to fathom that U.S. authorities would not search for the man who pulled the trigger. In the Layton trial, the prosecution not only did not indict the other Temple guards identified as members of the airstrip assault team, they did not even subpoena them to testify. The investigation into Ryan's death was sloppy to the point of suspicion.
It was early morning, California time, when the phone rang in the Foster City home of Ryan's attorney and close friend, Joe Holsinger. It was the White House informing him that Ryan had been killed in Guyana. "How do you know this?" he asked. The White House spokesman answered that CIA personnel had witnessed the assassination. To pinpoint the agent the White House was referring to is difficult as there were many on the airstrip at the time. There was the U.S. Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission (by definition, a legal agent) who, when later asked about his employment with the CIA, gave the agency's standard, up-against-the-wall, reply, "I can neither confirm nor deny the allegation." Dick Dwyer would later leave Guyana and take up residence in, of all places, Grenada where he continued the work started by Jones in preparation for the U.S. invasion of the island nation. There is no doubt that Dwyer worked for the CIA. Then, there was Larry Layton, whose entire family had been cleared for top secret work by the federal government. Layton was too close to the true nature of the experiment to be anything but CIA. And then there were the current and former Temple members on both sides of the assault. All were top aides in a CIA operation and some realized it. Even the reporters were suspect. Charles Krause's position as the Buenos Aires correspondent for the Washington Post as well as his future work investigating political turmoil in Central and South America make it difficult, if not impossible, for him to deny at least an affiliation with the CIA. There are other suspects like the unnamed constable and the man who carried a book on CIA conspiracies through the enactment of a CIA conspiracy. But more than likely, the White House was referring to the group of CIA observers who filmed the entire event from their command center in the disabled plane that had the only operative radio outside of Jonestown. There were only three possible ways that the message could have been sent out of the interior. First, there was the Cessna that returned to Georgetown. If the message was sent by them, then one of the two pilots, or Monica Bagby, was a CIA operative. The other two possibilities were the two radios; one in Jonestown and the other in the disabled plane. Meanwhile, the assault team had returned to Jonestown to report their success. Jones switched on the reel-to-reel tape recorder to document the White Night. Into the microphone he said, "Take Dwyer to the East House." Many have seen this as a mistake on the part of Jones who supposedly thought that Dwyer had returned as he had said he would but, in reality, it was a calculated statement designed to give the impression that Jones had no knowledge of Dwyer's whereabouts or activities in order to disassociate him from the master-plan.
The Congressman is dead! The
Congressman is dead! Come to the
pavilion. What a legacy! What a
legacy! It's time to pass over.
This isn't just a suicide, it's a revolutionary suicide. Come my
children before the GDF (Guyanese
Defense Force) parachutes in here to
castrate, rape and kill.
Obviously, Jones was using the assassination as a mechanism to trigger the experiment. He had put Guyana's Prime Minister in power and neither the GDF nor any Guyanese authority were about to interfere with his project. It was all a bluff.
A few minutes earlier Jones had sent Mark Lane and Charles Garry to the East House under the armed protection of none other than Don Sly, the same man they had wrestled to the ground just a couple of hours earlier. Jones' odd selection of a bodyguard was a two-fold plan. Overall, his intention was to discredit Mark Lane and his association with Ryan's assailant after the incident was at least a vague reference to collusion. Besides, Sly got to show off the bandage on his hand that, in the minds of the attorneys, reinforced the impression that he had been injured in his attack on Congressman Ryan. Jones never intended to kill the attorneys. If Lane had been murdered in Jonestown just prior to his scheduled Congressional testimony about CIA assassinations, the press might have accused Jones of working for the CIA. Instead of taking Lane's life, Jones and the CIA decided to take his career, hence influence. The intention was to discredit Lane, hence he and Garry were allowed to "escape" the White Night. Don Sly disappeared, leaving only the Temple guards Jimmy Jones and Jim Johnson between the attorneys and the open jungle. Lane claims they convinced the guards to let them leave so they could write the truth about the Peoples Temple but the guards would have allowed them to leave anyway because that was Jones' plan. Together, Lane and Garry tore small strips of cloth from a spare pair of underwear, tied the strips to the vegetation and, like Hansel and Gretel, made their way through the jungle to Port Kaituma where the following morning they were reunited with the survivors of the airstrip attack. Later that day they would be rescued by the GDF who were obviously in no hurry to reach Port Kaituma or Jonestown. The troops didn't fly, but took the train, and then walked the last twenty miles fearing the train might be sabotaged. The delay allowed Jones the time to count bodies and record the results of the experiment.
Back at the pavilion, about a dozen staffers, under the direction of Dr. Larry Schacht and poisons expert Faith Worley, gathered around a metal vat to mix and distribute the Kool-Aid/ cyanide /tranquilizer potion, the recipe for which had been formulated some five years earlier during the first White Night rehearsal in 1973. Despite one report that Jones had threatened mass suicide by fire the year before, poisoned wine had always been the intended medium for the Temple's "Last Supper" communion. Early on, Jones had asked Faith Worley what poison to use. "Cyanide" was her reply. Jones agreed and reportedly added, "That's what the Germans used."
Recipe for Mass Suicide 15 gallons of grape drink mix
The grape Kool-Aid (many say it was actually an imitation product called Fla-Vor-Aid was as close to wine as practical but it was not a last minute substitution. Several months earlier, Jones was conducting a video-taped tour of Jonestown when he went out of his way to describe the community's stock of Kool-Aid in the supply room; another example of his offbeat sense of humor and evidence of his awareness of and plans to use the drink mix as flavoring.
100 pounds of potassium cyanide
More important than the flavoring was the cyanide, or rather the timing of the cyanide. It is critical to understand that even though Jones had rehearsed the White Night for over five years and had threatened mass suicide in 1977, he did not have the ability to carry it out until just two days before Ryan arrived in Jonestown when the Temple ship, "Cudjo" brought the plastic drum of poison from Georgetown to Port Kaituma. It was Wednesday, November 15th, when Harold Cordell unloaded the drum on the dock for the last leg of its long journey to Jonestown. Jones had purchased the cyanide compound from a chemical company in Upstate New York about the same time that the dates of Ryan's visit had been scheduled, which disproves the federal government's position that Jones did not plan the assassination or the suicide murder that followed.
Tranquilizers
Liquid Valium and Darvon were added to the potion to ease the pain of death--a twisted compassion in an inhumane act.
The medical staff filled hypodermic syringes, squeeze bottles and hundreds of paper cups with the poisoned brew. Jones called everyone to the pavilion and, with the reel-to reel tape recorder operating, he ordered the final White Night. "Please get the medication before it's too late... The GDF will be here ... Don't be afraid to die ... It's all over ... The Congressman is dead. How many are dead?"[179] He then took a few minutes to debrief the assault team before returning to the microphone. "Oh, God almighty. Patty Parks is dead."[180] Jones, who showed no remorse for the death of Ryan and the newsmen, or for that matter, the pending death of his congregation, was honestly upset with the news of Patty Parks' demise , which supports the theory that her death was an unintentional accident.
From time to time Jones left the pavilion and the services for various errands. Once he radioed the Temple's Georgetown headquarters in Lamaha Gardens to instruct them to begin their own White Night. When they asked how, Jones replied, "K-N-I-F-E" as he spelled out the murder weapon. Sharon Amos and her three children died from having their throats slit with a large knife. Some say that Amos killed her children and then herself but others claim they were all murdered by long-time Temple aide Charles Beikman, who witnessed the deaths but survived uninjured. Beikman was a Caucasian ex- Marine who operated the Temple's thrift store in Kumaha. As further evidence of premeditation, the store was closed seven days before the massacre.
The first to die in Jonestown were the babes-in-arms. On Jones' order, mothers holding small children were the first to line up in front of the vat of poison where the technicians squirted the potion into the throats of the children. The infants swallowed and screamed. "Don't be afraid," Jones reassured them. "It isn't painful, just a little bitter tasting." The very young were not a part of the experiment as they had not reached the age of reason. This first step was not to test the children but the willingness of the mothers to kill their children. Many mothers wandered aimlessly about the pavilion, holding their dead or dying offspring. In this first round, only the infants were poisoned, the mothers were not. Next to the vat of poison stood Annie Moore holding a box of colored Magic Markers. She placed a black "X" on any mother who cooperated in the murder. Their time would come soon as, clearly, the order of execution was by age.
The older children were next. One at a time they drank their paper cup of death. The adults followed and so did the trouble as many refused to drink the poison. Force-feeding would have been a waste of precious time. Uncooperative residents were captured by armed guards who had formed two concentric circles around the pavilion. The guards dragged them to the vat of poison where they were injected and somehow labelled involuntary (an essential procedure necessary to document the results of the experiment). The last to die were the seniors. Death from cyanide poisoning takes several minutes, during which time the victim suffers uncontrollably wild convulsions and finally succumbs to suffocation.
Eventually, only the guards, medical technicians and Jones were left standing. They gave three loud cheers at the successful completion of the experiment but they were not finished; there was still a lot of work to do. Corpses were counted, identified, recorded as suicide or murder and dragged by the arms to areas outside the pavilion that had been designated for the documented dead. They labored for several hours into the night.
The first outsiders to view the carnage arrived the following morning to find the dead in neat, orderly piles, head-to-head, toe-to-toe. Aside from the tropical birds pecking at the bodies, there were only two Jonestown residents found alive, a lone dog and Hyacinth Thrash, an old woman who reportedly slept through the entire White Night. Viola Burnham, wife of, the Prime Minister, was in charge of the expedition that included a contingent of Guyanese soldiers and Dr. C. Leslie Mootoo, the country's chief medical examiner. Mrs. Burnham and her guards ransacked the office, kitchen and Jones' cabin. They confiscated money, documents, weapons and just about anything of value. With the booty in hand, they then returned to Georgetown with Mrs. Thrash (who, by one report, was suspected of actually being Lisa Layton). Meanwhile, Dr. Mootoo and his two unnamed assistants stayed behind to examine the remains. Temple members Odell Rhodes, Stanley Clayton and Tim Carter (all of whom were in Guyanese custody) helped Dr. Mootoo identify and tag many of the bodies. About eight autopsies were performed on the site but, oddly, Dr. Mootoo selected only children as subjects and not Jim Jones. Eleven-year old Nawab Laurence was of particular interest as one of the medical assistants remembered the child entering the country through customs. The boy had been born a heroin addict in California. Jones had somehow (probably through Mendocino State Hospital) gained custody of the child who now lay dead. Dr. Mootoo determined that the examined had "died from asphyxia due to violent convulsions." Their stomachs contained cyanide and traces of Valium. He also reported that at least "eighty-three people had been injected with cyanide." Dr. Mootoo never addressed the unusual placement of the bodies. The "violent convulsions" of nine hundred dying people could never have resulted in the neat, orderly piles in which the corpses were found. The press would later quote Dick Gregory as saying that the positioning of the bodies was "evidence of a CIA conspiracy." Though his conclusion was correct, his rationale was ridiculously simplistic and served only to discourage anyone who might otherwise have investigated the CIA's role in Jonestown. (Dick Gregory had once co-authored a book with Mark Lane about the conspiracy to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King).
Dr. Mootoo and his assistants worked for thirty-two hours nonstop before they ran out of energy and supplies. One account claims that forensic pathologist Dr. Robert Stein of Chicago radioed Dr. Mootoo to offer U.S. assistance but Washington never gave him permission and later denied the offer. Another account claims that Dr. Mootoo asked the U.S. for help but, regardless of who initiated the exchange, no medical personnel were sent. Dr. Mootoo would later accuse the U.S. government of suppressing his initial investigation into the deaths in Jonestown by denying him both official U.S. aid and unofficial offers to help by private citizens like Dr. Robert Stein.
Washington was very slow to react. At first they relied on the State Department's request that Guyana dig a pit and bury the dead in Jonestown. When Mayor George Moscone, the relatives of the victims and the government of Guyana refused to accept this plan, a U.S. military team was dispatched to recover the bodies. The U.S. Army's Director of Operations in South America, Colonel William Gordon, left his station in the Panama Canal Zone to command the mission. Accompanying Colonel Gordon's troops were two doctors; Dr. Lynn Cook, a forensic pathologist from the University of South Carolina Medical Center, and Dr. Bruce Poitrast, an Army surgeon. This first official U.S. delegation arrived on the scene four days after the massacre. Since Jones had ordered that most of the dead be dragged outside the pavilion's roof, the four days of intense tropical sun, rain and high humidity had greatly accelerated decomposition. Most of the bodies were inflated like balloons near the bursting point. The first chore of the U.S. recovery team was to bayonet the bodies to release the internal gases. Over nine hundred corpses were stabbed, most split the length of their torso. (This may have been the basis of one claim that the stomach cavity of each of the Jonestown victims was used by the CIA to smuggle heroin into the United States). The U.S. medical experts on the scene did absolutely nothing because, according to Dr. Cook, "I didn't even have a pocket knife, no equipment and no preservatives for specimens." There is really no wonder in why the U.S. government waited so long to send only two doctors and no medical supplies or equipment to gather evidence. It was obvious, as it was to Dr. Mootoo, that Washington was trying to suppress any investigation into Jonestown. Acting on orders from the office of Zbigniew Brzezinski (President Carter's National Security Advisor) "all politically sensitive papers and forms of identification were removed from the corpses." The U.S. government had made it impossible to identify the victims that were then placed in bags and air-lifted by helicopter to the Georgetown airport for the flight back to the United States.
Shock wave after shock wave shook San Francisco as the headlines heralded an increasing death toll in Jonestown. First reports claimed 400 had died. Days later the figure was revised upward to 780 and finally, one week after the Event, the news media reported the total as 903. Jim Jones had claimed the lives of more San Franciscans than had the devastating 1906 earthquake. The U.S. and Guyanese troops sent to clean up the experiment explained that their confusion over the body count was the result of the fact that corpses lay concealed under other corpses and were not discovered until the bodies were removed. If this ludicrous explanation is to be accepted, then 503 bodies were hidden under a pile of 400. In the lowest common denominator, four bodies concealed another five. It is very unlikely.
There is one plausible, though purely speculative, answer to the mystery of the ascending death toll. U.S. troops sent to Jonestown expected to find what they were told were 1,200 residents. According to their reports, after the initial body count of 400, rather than look for more bodies around the pavilion, they spent much of the first few hours combing the surrounding jungle expecting to find the missing 800. Military helicopters were employed to fly low over the treetops and announce on loudspeakers that it was safe to return to Jonestown. Reportedly, no one answered their calls; no one emerged from the jungle. It is possible that only 400 residents committed suicide and the rest fled into the jungle. At first, 400 were reported dead because that was all that had died by the time that the military reached the settlement. As the escapees emerged from the jungle they were injected and their bodies dragged over to the pile. The revisions in the body count could have been made as the test persons were being located and murdered but this is only one possible scenario which would explain what has heretofore not made much sense.
Perhaps the mystery of the ascending body count was necessary to help cover-up the fact that, in the final analysis, the total count of 903 does not compare with the 1,200 that everyone, inside or out, agreed was the population of Jonestown. Approximately 300 people are missing. Some of these can be accounted for in the ranks of those top aides who "defected" from Jonestown just before the Event to escape any possible persecution for their association with the experiment. There were also those residents who had defected with the Ryan party or who were in Georgetown at the time for such questionable excuses as basketball games and dentist appointments. Even a meticulous study of Temple members who had recently defected, died, or for other reasons left Jonestown, accounts for less than 100 which should have left 1,100 to die in the Event that only claimed 903. The fate of the missing 197 is explored elsewhere in this work.
One of the basic misconceptions is that Guyana is in Africa. It is not. Guyana is an ocean away in South America, but to British Intelligence whose personnel trained mercenaries in Jonestown to fight in an African war, the project will always have legitimate (African connotations. So it is not surprising that British subjects like Gordon Lindsay, who played an active role in Jonestown, would also have had a history of involvement with British interests in Africa.
[FONT=Verdana]Gordon Lindsay's contributions to this story are too often underrated. He had been instrumental in the process of convincing Ryan to visit Jonestown and had single-handedly o...
Grenada - Magda Hassan - 26-12-2015
-DATE-
19831114
-YEAR-
1983
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
SPEECH
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
FUNERAL CEREMONY-CUBANS WHO DIED IN GRANADA
-PLACE-
HAVANA'S PLAZA DE LA REVOLUCION
-SOURCE-
HAVANA TV SERVICE
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19831115
-TEXT-
Castro Delivers Speech
FL142245 Havana Television Service in Spanish 2101 GMT 14 Nov 83
[Speech by Cuban President Fidel Castro at the funeral ceremony for Cubans
who died fighting in Grenada, at Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion -- live]]
[Text] Comrades: [Applause] Just over 7 years ago, on 15 October 1976, we
met here in this same place to say farewell to the flight that was taken by
57 Cubans, who were vilely murdered when their plane was sabotaged over
Barbados -- an action that was carried out by men who had been trained by
the CIA of the United States. Today, we are again here to say farewell to
24 Cubans, who, in Grenada -- another island that is not very far from
Barbados-- died as a consequence of the military actions of the United
States.
Grenada is one of the world's smallest independent states, both in
territory and population. If Cuba, despite its being a small,
underdeveloped country, could significantly help Grenada, it was due to the
very fact that our efforts -- which were quantitatively modest, but very
high in quality -- meant a lot to a country that has only 400 square km of
territory and just over 100,000 inhabitants. Thus, for example, the value
of our contribution to Grenada in projects, construction work, and material
for the new airport amounted to $60 million at international prices. In
other words, more than $500 per inhabitant. It was as though Cuba, with its
population of approximately 10 million persons, were to receive, as a
donation, a project worth $5 billion. In addition to this, there is the
work of our doctors, teachers, and technicians in various specialities.
And a yearly contribution of Cuban products amounting to approximately $3
million must also be added to the list. This means that there was an
additional annual contribution of $40 per inhabitant.
It is materially impossible for Cuba to help countries that have
significantly larger populations and territory, but, yes, we could give a
lot of help to a small country such as the small nation of Grenada. Many
other small Caribbean nations admired Cuba's generous aid to that sister
nation. These small nations that are used to the gross economic and
strategic interests of colonialism and imperialism probably thought that
this desinterested action of Cuba was extraordinary. In addition, it is
possible that some of them, in the midst of the dirty propaganda of the
U.S. Government, did not fully understand this aid.
Our people's friendship with Bishop and Grenada was very close and our
respect for the country and its sovereignty was so irreproachable that we
did not even dare to give an opinion on what was being done there and how
it was done. With Grenada, we applied the same principle that we practice
with all revolutionary countries and movements: absolute respect for its
policies, its ideas and decisions. We only gave our viewpoint on any matter
that it was asked for. Imperialism is incapable of understanding that the
secret of our excellent relations with the world's revolutionary countries
and movements is based on that very respect.
The U.S. Government despised Grenada and it hated Bishop. It wanted to
destroy Grenada's process and the example it was giving. It had also
prepared military plans for invading the island, something that Bishop
denotinced nearly 2 years ago, but it could not find a pretext for carrying
it out, Truly, Grenada's economic and social situation was advancing in a
satisfactory manner. The people had received numerous benefits, despite the
hostile attitude of the United States, and its economic GNP was growing at
a good rate in the midst of the world crisis.
Bishop was not an extremist, although yes, he was a true revolutionary,
conscientious and honest, never could we disagree with his intelligent and
realistic policies. On the contrary, we fully supported them, because they
were rigorously adapted to the concrete conditions and potential of his
country. Grenada had become a true symbol of independence and progress in
the Caribbean. Nobody could have been capable of imagining the tragedy that
was about to occur. Attention was concentrated on other parts of the world.
But regrettably, it was the Grenadian revolutionaries themselves who opened
the doors to imperialist aggression.
Hyenas emerged from the ranks of the revolutionaries. Today nobody can
truly saw that those who used the dagger of division and internal
confrontation did so mutuo proprio, or whether they did so inspired and
encouraged by imperialism. Either it was something that was carried out by
the CIA, or on the contrary, it could not have been carried out more
successfully.
What is true is the fact that alleged revolutionary arguments were used,
invoking the most pure principles of Marxism-Leninism and accusing Bishop
of practicing the cult of personalism and of departing from the Leninist
norms and methods of leadership. In our opinion there could be nothing more
absurd that attributing such learnings to Bishop. It was impossible to
imagine anyone who was more noble, modest, and unselfish. He could never be
blamed for being authoritarian, and if lie can be accused of a defect, that
defect was his excess of tolerance and confidence.
Perhaps those who conspired against him within the part),, in the Army, and
in the Grenadian security forces were a group of extremists with political
theories.
It simply was a case of a group of ambitious opportunists including enemies
who wanted to destroy the Grenadian revolution. Only history will have the
last word, but it would not be the first time in a revolutionary process
that one thing or another had occurred.
According to our criterion, objectively, Coard's group destroyed the
revolution and opened the doors to imperialist aggression. Whatever his
intentions were, the atrocious murder of Bishop and his most faithful and
[word indistinct] comrades constitutes an act which can never be justified
in that or any other revolution. As the declaration of the Cuban party and
Government said on 20 October, no crime can be committed in the name of the
revolution and liberty.
Bishop, despite his close and familial links with the leadership of our
party, never said a single word about the internal dissensions that were
developing. On the contrary, in his last conversation with us, he spoke in
self-critical terms about his work in relation to the attention he should
pay to the Armed Forces and mass organizations. Practically all the
leadership of our party and our government shared long, fraternal, and
friendly hours with him during the night of 7 October before his departure
on his return to Grenada.
Coard's group never had such relations, such intimacy, such trust with us.
What is more, we did not even know that group existed. What can be pointed
out in honor of our revolution is that notwithstanding the deep indignation
that the removal from office and the arrest of Bishop produced among us, we
totally abstained from becoming involved in the internal affairs despite
the fact that our construction workers and other collaborators in Grenada,
who did not hesitate to face the Yankee soldiers with the weapons that
Bishop himself had given them for their defense in case of foreign
aggression, could have been a decisive factor in the internal events, But
it was never supposed and we would never have allowed those weapons to be
used in internal Grenadian conflicts. And we would never have favored using
them to spill one drop of Grenadian blood.
On 12 October, Bishop was removed from office by the Central Committee, on
which the conspirators had gained a majority. On 13 October, he was
arrested in his home. On 19 October, the people rose up and freed Bishop.
On the same day, Coard's group ordered the Army to fire on the people, and
Bishop, Whiteman, Jacqueline Creft, and other brave revolutionary leaders
were murdered.
The Yankee imperialists decided on the invasion when the internal
dissension, which became widely known on 12 October, had barely begun to be
noticed. The message sent by the leadership of the Cuban Party to Coard's
group on 15 October is publicly known. In it, we expressed our deep concern
about the consequences -- internal as well as external -- of the division
that had arisen, and our appeal to the common sense, serenity, wisdom, and
generosity of the revolutionaries. This reference to generosity was an
appeal that violence not be used against Bishop and his followers.
This group of Coard's which took power in Grenada from the first moment
showed itself to have great reservations toward Cuba because of our
well-known and unquestionable friendship with Bishop. The national and
international press published our strong condemnation of the events of 19
October, the day on which Bishop was murdered.
Our relations with Austin's brief government, in which the true leader was
Coard, were cold and tense. So much so that at the time of the criminal
Yankee invasion, there was not the slightest degree of coordination between
the Grenadian Army and the Cuban construction workers and collaborators.
The essential points of the messages sent to our embassy in Grenada between
12 and 25 October, the day of the invasion, have been published.
Those documents will remain for history as unchallengeable proof of our
clean position of principles with relation to Grenada. Imperialism,
however, presented the events as the rise to power of a group of hardline
communists who were faithful allies of Cuba.
They were really communists. They were really hardliners. Could they really
be faithful allies of Cuba or were they really unconscious or conscious
tools of Yankee imperialism? Go look for the answer in the history of the
revolutionary movement and you will see more than once the connection
between imperialism and those who assume apparently extreme positions on
the left.
Aren't Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, the butchers of Kampuchea, today the most
faithful allies of Yankee imperialism in Southeast Asia. We in Cuba, since
the beginning of the crisis in Grenada, have been calling the Coard group,
in order to call it something, have been calling it the Pol Potian group.
Our relations with the new leaders of Grenada had to be subjected to a deep
study, as was announced in the statement of the party and Government of
Cuba on 20 October.
In this statement we also said that out of a basic consideration for the
people of Grenada we would not be precipitate in taking any step in
relation to technical and economic cooperation which could affect essential
services, vital economic interests of the people of Grenada. We could not
resign ourselves to the idea of leaving the Grenadian people without
doctors, nor leave the airport without completing it, since it was vital to
the economy of the country. Without a doubt, at the termination of this
project, our builders would have withdrawn from Grenada and the weapons
distributed by Bishop would have been returned to the government. It is
even possible that our very bad relations with the new government would
have forced us to leave much sooner.
What placed Cuba in a morally complex and difficult situation was the
announcement that Yankee naval forces were moving toward Grenada. Under
these conditions we, under no circumstances, could abandon the country. If
imperialism really intended to attack Grenada our, duty was to remain
there. To withdraw at that moment would have been dishonorable and could
even have stimulated the aggression -- now in Grenada and tomorrow in Cuba.
The events took place with such incredible rapidity that even if evacuation
had been considered there would not have been time to carry it out. But in
Grenada the government was morally indefensible and the country, in which
there had been a divorce among the party, the government, and the Army in
relation to the people was also militarily undefendable, because a
revolutionary war is only possible and justifiable in union with the
people. Therefore, we could only fight if we were directly attacked. There
was no other alternative.
Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that despite these adverse
circumstances a number of Grenadian soldiers died fighting heroically
against the invaders. The internal acts which had taken place,
nevertheless, [applause] in no way justified the Yankee intervention. Since
when has the Government of the United States been chosen as the judge of
conflicts between revolutionaries in a country? What right does Reagan have
to rend his garments over the death of Bishop, who he hated so much and
fought against? What reasons could exist for his brutal violation of the
sovereignty of Grenada, a small, independent country, a respected
recognized member of the international community? It is as if another
country felt it had the right to intervene in the United States over the
repugnant assassination of Martin Luther King and so many other terrible
abuses which have been committed against the black and Hispanic minorities
in the United States, or for intervening because John Kennedy was
assassinated.
The same thing can be said about the contention that 1,000 U.S. citizens
were in danger. Many more U.S. citizens are in dozens of countries
throughout the world. Does this mean that there is a right to intervene
when internal conflicts emerge in those countries? Could small Grenada
intervene if a problem of internal politics emerges...[leaves thought
unfinished] First, in the United States, England, and Trinidad there are
tens of thousands of Grenadians; can small Grenada intervene if a problem
of a political nature arises internally which would imply some risk for its
compatriots in each of those countries? Leaving aside the fallacy and lie
of such pretexts used to invade Grenada, is this really an international
norm which can de defended? A thousand lessons of Marxism could not teach
us better about the dirty, treacherous, and aggressive entrails of
imperialism than the aggression unleashed against Grenada on the dawn of 25
October and its subsequent behavior.
To justify the invasion of Grenada and the actions it carried out
afterward, the U.S. Government and its spokesmen told 19 lies, and of these
19 lies, the first 13 of them were personally told by Reagan.
1. That Cuba was involved in the coup d'etat and Bishop's death. [Crowd
chants: "Lies"]
2. The U.S. students were in danger of being taken as hostages. ["Lies"]
3. That the invasion's main objective was that of protecting the lives of
U.S. citizens. ["Lies"]
4. That the invasion was a multinational operation carried out at the
request of Mr Scoon and the east Caribbean countries. ["Lies"]
5. That Cuba was thinking of invading and occupying Grenada. ["Lies"]
6. That Grenada was becoming an important Soviet-Cuban military base.
["Lies"]
7. That the airport that was under construction was not for civilian
purposes, but for military use. ["Lies"]
8. That the weapons that were on Grenada would be used for exporting
subversion and terrorism. ["Lies"]
9. That the Cubans fired first. ["Lies"]
10. That there were more than 1,000 Cubans on Grenada. ["Lies"]
11. That the majority of the Cubans were not builders but professional
soldiers. ["Lies"]
12. That the invading forces were careful not to destroy anything or cause
civilian casualties. ["Lies"]
13. That the U.S. troops would only remain in Grenada for 1 week. ["Lies"]
14. That rocket silos were being built on Grenada. ["Lies"]
15. That the "Vietnam Heroico" was transporting specialized weaponry.
["Lies"]
16. That Cuba was warned about the invasion. ["Lies"]
17. That 500 Cubans were fighting in the mountains. ["Lies"]
18. That Cuba had given orders to carry out reprisals against U.S.
citizens. ["Lies"]
19. That the press was excluded in order to protect the journalists.
["Lies"; chants, applause]
None of these assertions has ever been proven. None of them were true. And
absolutely all of them have been refuted by events. This cynical way of
resorting to lies to justify the invasion of a small country brings to mind
the methods used by Adolf Hitler during the years that he planned and
finally unleashed World War II.
The U.S. students and officials of the School of Medicine that is located
there have acknowledged that they had received full guarantees for U.S.
citizens, and that the necessary means to leave the country, for those who
wanted to, were at their disposal. Moreover, Cuba had informed the U.S.
Government on 22 October that no foreign citizen, including the Cubans, had
been bothered. In addition, Cuba had offered its cooperation in resolving
any type of problem that emerged,to thus resolve any problem without
violence or intervention in the country. None of the U.S. citizens were
bothered in any way when the invasion took place. And if they were placed
in danger, it was due to the war that was unleashed by the United States.
The instructions that Cuba gave to Cuban personnel that they must not
interfere with any action to evacuate U.S. citizens through the runway area
that was under construction, located close to the university, contributed
to preventing risks for the U.S. civilians resident in the country.
We assertion that Reagan made regarding the danger that the same type of
incident could occur in Grenada that occurred in Iran, thus appealing to
the fears of the U.S. population, which was humiliated by that episode, is
an argument that is demagogic, full of political chicanery and dishonest.
The assertion that the new airport was to be used for military purposes, an
old lie that the Reagan administration has used a lot, was categorically
refuted by the capitalist English enterprise that was providing and
installing the electrical and technical equipment for that airport.
The English technicians of the Plessy Company, known internationally for
its specialty in this field, were working together with the Cuban builders,
to whose function as civilian workers they bear witness.
At the airport several countries of the European Community were cooperating
in one way or another. They are members of the NATO alliance. Can anyone
imagine that they would cooperate with Cuba in Grenada to build a military
airport? However, the idea that Grenada was becoming a Soviet-Cuban base is
disproved by the fact that there was not a single Soviet military adviser
on the island. In the documents themselves, supposedly secret, which fell
into the hands of the United States and which were published by the Yankee
government several days after the invasion, the agreement between the
Governments of Cuba and Grenada are mentioned. According to the documents,
our country would send 27 military advisers, which could be increased to 40
later on, figures which agree with those published by Cuba on the number of
advisers. A total of 22 of them were there on the day of the aggression. To
these, a similar number of translators and mission personnel has to be
added.
Nowhere in the very hackneyed documents is there anything dealing with the
idea of military bases in Grenada. What is contained is the fact that the
arms supplies by the Soviet Union to the Grenada Government for the Army
and the military were subject to a clause prohibiting the export of the
arms to third countries. This denies the idea that Grenada had been turned
into an arsenal to supply subversive and terrorist organizations, as the
current U.S. Administration likes to call all national liberation and
revolutionary movements.
Not a single weapon left Grenada for other countries, and this, therefore,
Reagan will never be able to prove. The affirmation that Cuba was about to
invade and occupy Grenada is so unreal, absurd, insane, and foreign to our
principles and international policy that it does not deserve any serious
consideration. What has been proved is the absolutely scrupulous manner
with which we abstained from meddling in the domestic affairs of the
country, despite our profound sympathy for Bishop and our total rejection
of the plot and coup by Coard and his group which could only serve the
interests of imperialism and its plans of destroying the Grenadian
revolution. The messages containing precise and categoric instructions to
our embassy in Grenada, which were given wide publicity by the Cuban
Government, constitute an irrefutable demonstration of the clean position
of principles observed by the leadership of our party and state in
connection with the internal incidents in Grenada.
The civilian nature of nearly all the Cuban collaborators in Grenada has
been demonstrated before the entire world by the hundreds of foreign
newsmen who saw them in our country and had the opportunity of interviewing
each and every one of them, whose ages exceeded 40 by nearly 50 percent.
Who could question their status as civilian workers; workers with long
years of experience in their work? When the U.S. Government's spokesmen
were asserting that there were between 1,000 and 1,500 Cubans in Grenada at
the time of the invasion, and that hundreds of them were continuing to
fight in the mountains, Cuba published the exact number of Cuban citizens
in Grenada on the day of the invasion -- 784 Cubans, including the
diplomatic personnel with their families and children. Likewise, the
organizations they were attached to, the activities they perform, the
instructions they were given to fight in their areas of work and camps if
they were attacked, and the impossibility -- because of the information we
had -- that there were hundreds in the mountains was also published. Later
on, the names and occupation of each of the collaborators and the known or
probable location of each of them were published. The facts have
demonstrated that Cuba's information was rigorously close to the truth.
There is not a single bit of information of that voluminous published
report that could be denied. Equally false and cynical is the affirmation
that the Cubans started the hostile actions.
The truth of the matter, what is irrefutable, is that at the time that the
landing of troops on the runway and around the camps took place, the Cuban
personnel were asleep and the weapons were stored. They had not been
distributed. In the midst of the air landing, the weapons were distributed.
There were not enough to go around to all the collaborators. The Cuban
personnel went to the positions assigned to them in the case of such an
emergency. Even after our personnel were organized and armed, they were
able to see how the U.S. paratroopers assembled on the runway, and how the
first aircraft were landing. It was the weakest moment for the invaders. If
the Cubans had fired first, tens, perhaps hundreds of casualties would have
been inflicted on the North Americans in those first hours. [applause]
What is rigorous history, what is rigorously true, is the fact that the
fighting started when U.S. troops advanced against the Cubans on a war
footing. And it is also true that when a group of collaborators, who had no
weapons, were captured, they were used as hostages and placed in front of
the U.S. troops.
The invasion of Grenada was carried out suddenly and treacherously, without
any type of warning or prior notice, in the style of Pearl Harbor, in the
Nazi style.
The note that the U.S. Government addressed to the Cuban Government on
Tuesday, 25 October, which had the intention of answering our note of
Saturday, 22 October, was delivered at 0830 [1330 GMT], 3 hours after the
troops had disembarked and when U.S. troops had been attacking our fellow
Cubans for 90 minutes. In addition, during the afternoon of the 25th, the
U.S. Government sent a deceitful note to the Cuban Government that made one
believe that there was a possibility that the fighting would stop under
reasonable and honorable conditions, thus preventing more bloodshed.
Despite the fact that the note was answered immediately, accepting that
possibility, the U.S. Government proceeded to land the 82d Airborne
Division during the early morning of the 26th and strongly attack the only
resisting Cuban position. Is that the conduct of a serious government? Is
that the way to issue a warning about the attack? Is that the way to
prevent more bloodshed?
Mr Scoon has publicly declared that he supported the invasion, but that he
had not made a prior request to anyone asking them to invade Grenada. It
was several days after the landing that Mr Scoon, who was given haven on
board the helicopter carrier "Guam," signed a letter in which he officially
asked for the intervention.
In no way could Reagan support any of his false assertions. When it was
said that the ship "Vietnam Heroico," which was berthed in the port of St
George's on the day of the invasion, was carrying sophisticated weapons and
this fact was used as a pretext for not using the ship for the evacuation
of the Cuban hostages in Grenada, the captain was immediately questioned as
to whether he, by chance, had any weapons on board. And now it has been
learned that he had only one feared weapon aboard -- the vessel's name:
Vietnam. [applause]
The deceitful implication that Cuba had given instructions for attacks
against U.S. citizens in other countries received an adequate and dignified
official and public answer from our government based on the real event and
proven by the history of the revolution that Cuba has always opposed
reprisals against innocent persons.
The U.S. Government has not had the decency to report on the number of
Grenadians who have been arrested, nor the total number of those who have
died, including the civilian casualties, A hospital for the mentally ill
was bombed, causing the death of dozens of internees. And what happened to
Mr Reagan's promise that U.S. troops would withdraw within 1 week?
In his first address to the American people at 0830 on the morning of the
invasion -- in an address that had been drafted before the landing --
President Reagan himself asserted that the situation was under control. On
the same day, his spokesmen described the resistance that the invading
troops were encountering. The military outing that had been planned by the
Pentagon to be executed in 4 hours did not count on the tenacious and
heroic resistance of the Cuban collaborators and Grenadian soldiers.
[applause]
Who has told the truth and who has lied cynically about the events in
Grenada? They did not permit foreign journalists to witness and report the
events in the country -- not even the U.S. press. The fallacy that it was
only for security measures is superficial and ridiculous. What they were
obviously trying to do was monopolize and manipulate information, to lie to
world public opinion and to the U.S. people itself with no obstacles
whatsoever.
This was the only way to spread deliberate lies and all kinds of falsehoods
which, after their initial impact and their effect on the U.S. people,
would not be easy to clarify and refute.
Even in this, the method used by the U.S. administration was Fascist. What
remains intact today of those 19 affirmations? Where are the silos for
strategic rockets which were being constructed in Grenada? Nevertheless,
all those lies, which the world did not believe, told by the President and
his spokesmen, produced an evident impact on U.S. public opinion. Moreover,
the invasion of Grenada was presented to the U.S. public as a great victory
of Reagan's foreign policy against the socialist camp and the revolutionary
movement.
The event was associated with the tragic death of 240 U.S. soldiers in
Beirut, with the memory of the hostages in Iran, with the humiliating
defeat in Vietnam, and with the resurgence and power and influence of the
United States in the world. U.S. patriotism, pride in the country, the
greatness and glory of the nation were appealed to in a dirty and dishonest
way. Thus, it was accomplished that a majority of U.S. public opinion -- it
is said that 65 percent at first and then 71 percent -- supported the
monstrous crime of invading, with no justification whatsoever, a sovereign
country, the repugnant manner of attacking by surprise, press censorship,
and other similar procedures employed by the U.S. Government to justify the
invasion of Grenada. Hitler acted no differently in 1938 when he occupied
Austria and annexed the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, also in the name of
German pride German greatness and glory, and the happiness and security of
the German subjects.
If an opinion poll had been taken at that time in Hitler's Germany, in the
midst of the chauvinistic wave unleashed by the Nazis, 80 or 90 percent of
the population would have approved those aggressions. The real, lamentable,
and truly dangerous fact, not only for the peoples of the Caribbean,
Central America, and Latin America but also for all the peoples of the
world, is that when world opinion unanimously condemned the military
action, which was aggressive, unjustifiable, in violation of the
sovereignty of the peoples and of all international norms and principles,
the majority opinion in the United States, manipulated, disinformed, and
deceived, supported the monstruous crime committed by the U.S. Government.
There is something that causes more concern. When this change of internal
public opinion was produced, many U.S. politicians, who at first opposed
the events, submitted to the action of Reagan. And the press, censored,
humiliated and kept on the edge of the events, ended up moderating its
complaints and criticisms. Are these perhaps the virtues of a society in
which opinion and political and information institutions can be crudely
manipulated by its rulers, as they were during the epoch of fascism in
German society? Where is the glory, the greatness, and the victory of
invading and conquering one of the smallest countries in the world, with no
economic or strategic significance? Where is the heroism of fighting
against a handful of workers and civilian collaborators, whose heroic
resistence despite the element of surprise, the scarcity of ammunition, the
disadvantage of the terrain, being at a disadvantage in number of and in
weapons, facing the forces of air, sea, and land of the most powerful
imperialist country in the world?
This handful of workers forced them to use the 82d Airborne Division when
the last redoubt was defended at dawn on 26 October by just 50 fighters
[applause] Not even from the political, military, or moral viewpoint did
the United States obtain any type of victory. All it could be called,
maybe, is a Pyrrhic military victory, but it has truly suffered a very deep
moral defeat, as we have indicated on another occasion. The imperialist
U.S. Government wanted to kill the symbol that was the essence of the
Grenadian revolution. But, the symbol was already dead. It had been
destroyed by the Grenadian revolutionaries themselves with their divisions
and their colossal errors.
It is our belief that the Grenadian revolutionary process could not survive
after Bishop's death and the death of his closest comrades, after the Army
had fired against the people, and after the party and the government had
divorced themselves from the masses and isolated themselves from the world.
In wanting to destroy a symbol, the United States killed a cadaver, and at
the same time it resurrected the symbol. [applause] It challenged every
international law to this end and thus received the repudiation and
condemnation of the world. Can there be such disdain for the rest of
humanity? Is this disdain so real that it in no way affected Reagan's
appetite during the course of the 3 November breakfast, as Reagan himself
stated to the press? Regretably, if all of this is true, and this seems to
be the case, the invasion of Grenada must make us become aware of the
realities and dangers that threaten the world.
Mr O'Neill, speaker of the House of Representatives, said that it was
sinful that a man totally uninformed, ignorant of international problems,
who does not even read documents, was President of the United States. But
when one considers that the United States possesses a powerful and
sophisticated conventional and nuclear arsenal, and the President of that
country, without consulting anyone, can launch a war, it is not only
sinful, but can become even more dramatic and tragic for all humanity.
A triumphant air reigns in the Reagan administration. The echoes of the
last shots are barely disappearing when there is already talk of
intervention in El Salvador, in Nicaragua, and even in Cuba. In the Mideast
and South Africa the interference and military aggressions of imperialism
against the progressive countries and the national liberation movement do
not cease. The first of the 572 Pershing and cruise missiles that they plan
to deploy in Europe, surrounding the USSR and other socialist countries
with a deadly ring of nuclear arms, are being installed. These missiles are
capable of reaching their territories in a matter of minutes. It is not
only small countries, but all of humanity that is threatened.
The bells that toll today for Grenada may very well toll tomorrow for the
whole world. The most prestigious and experienced scientists and doctors
affirm that man cannot survive a global nuclear conflict. The destructive
power of accumulated nuclear weapons surpasses a million times the
primitive bombs that annihilated the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in a
matter of seconds. The aggressive and warmongering policy of the Reagan
administration can lead to global destruction.
The arms buildup is occurring during the most acute economic crisis
witnessed by the world since the 30's and while the problems of the
development of the vast majority of the world's countries are yet to be
resolved. What confidence can one have in a government that acts with the
precipitation, rashness, and cynicism with which the U.S. Government acted
in Grenada? Reagan did not even bother to listen to the advice of a
government as closely linked with it politically, ideologically, and
militarily as Great Britain.
It is not amazing that in a poll conducted recently more than 90 percent of
the British citizens asked were vehemently against the United States'
having the unilateral prerogative to use the cruise missiles being
installed there.
In our hemisphere, only 1 and 1/2 years ago a NATO power used sophisticated
weapons to spill Argentine blood in the Malvinas Islands. The Reagan
government supported this action. It did not take into consideration the
OAS or the so-called security pacts and agreements. It tossed them aside
contemptuously. Now, based on the alleged request of a phantom Organization
of Eastern Caribbean States, it invades Grenada and spills Caribbean and
Cuban blood.
In Nicaragua, in addition to the cost of 45,000 lives paid to gain liberty,
almost 1,000 sons of that noble people have died as a result of attacks by
mercenary bands that are organized, trained, and supplied by the U.S.
Government.
In El Salvador, more than 50,000 people have been assassinated by a
genocidal regime whose Army is supplied, trained, and directed by the
United States.
In Guatemala, more than 100,000 people have been killed by the repressive
system installed by the CIA in 1954, when it overthrew the progressive
Arbenz government. And how many have died in Chile since imperialism
promoted the overthrow and assassination of Salvador Allende? How many have
died in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and Bolivia during the past
15 years? How costly imperialist domination has been to our people in terms
of blood, sacrifice, misery, and mourning. The unjust social systems
imposed on our nations by imperialism have exacted a similar price.
Imperialism is bent on destroying symbols because it knows the value of
symbols, of examples, of ideas. It sought to destroy them in Grenada; it
wants to destroy them in El Salvador, in Nicaragua, and in Cuba. But
symbols, examples, and ideas cannot be destroyed. [applause When our
enemies believe they have destroyed them, what they have actually done is
strengthen them. [applause] In their attempts to exterminate the first
Christians, the Roman emperors spread Christianity throughout the world.
Thus, any attempt to destroy our ideas will simply strengthen them. Grenada
has already increased the patriotic conviction and combative spirit of the
Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, and Cuban revolutionaries. [applause]
It has been proven that one can fight their best troops and that they
should not be feared. [prolonged applause] The imperialists must be fully
aware that they will encounter fierce resistance wherever they attack a
revolutionary people. Let us hope that the Pyrrhic victory of Grenada and
the triumphant atmosphere that has intoxicated them will not lead them to
commit grave and irreversible errors. They will not find in El Salvador,
Nicaragua, or Cuba the unusual conditions of division that prevailed among
the revolutionaries and the break with the people that they found on tiny
Grenada. [applause, chanting of slogans]
In more than 3 years of heroic struggle, the Salvadoran revolutionaries
have become experienced, fearsome, and invincible fighters. They are
thousands of men who know the terrain like the backs of their hands. They
are veterans of dozens of victorious encounters. They are used to fighting
and winning in the face of 10 to 1 odds against elite troops trained,
armed, and advised by the United States. Their unity is more solid and
indestructible than ever.
In Nicaragua, they would have to face a deeply patriotic and revolutionary
armed people who are united, organized, full of fighting spirit, and
unconquerable. [applause]
As for Cuba, if they needed an elite division on Grenada to fight a handful
of isolated men in a small, unfortified redoubt, 1,000 miles from their
fatherland, how many divisions would they need against millions of fighters
in their own country alongside their own people? [applause, chanting of
slogans]
Our country, as we have said before, can be swept off the face of the
earth, but it can never be conquered and subjugated. [applause, chanting of
slogans] Under the current conditions on our continent, a U.S. war on a
Latin American people would lift the spirit of all Latin American peoples
and would turn their feelings against the aggressors. An unfathomable gulf
would open between peoples who, finding themselves in the same hemisphere,
are called upon to live and cooperate in peace, friendship, and mutual
respect.
The Grenadian experience will be examined, point by point, to draw from it
the greatest advantage in case an attack like this happens again in an area
where Cuban collaborators may be working, or in our own homeland.
[applause]
The Cubans who were captured and turned virtually into hostages lived
through an unforgettable experience, in terms of what a country that has
been occupied by invading Yankee troops is really like. The physical and
psychological treatment experienced by the captured collaborators was
outrageous and negligent, and toward the end they were offered the
opportunity to go to the United States, having been offered all kinds of
promises. However, they could not break their will of iron; not one
defected. [applause, chanting of slogans]
We did not manipulate the news in our country; we hid nothing from the
people. The information we received directly from Grenada following the
invasion was transmitted to our people as it arrived, even though the news
of 26 October proved to be exaggerated. As a matter of principle, not once
did we try to minimize the gravity of the events or the magnitude of the
risks that our fellow countrymen were facing. We are deeply grateful to the
International Red Cross Committee [applause] for the interest shown and for
the dedicated and efficient efforts it undertook to ensure the rapid
identification and evacuation of the wounded, the sick, the prisoners, and
the dead. We also thank the Governments of Colombia and Spain for their
[applause] initial efforts in this regard. [applause]
On bidding farewell to our beloved brothers who died heroically in combat,
fulfilling their patriotic and internationalist duties with honor, and in
expressing our deepest solidarity to their loved ones, we have not
forgotten that there are Grenadian and U.S. mothers who are also crying for
sons who died in Grenada. [applause] To the mothers and family members of
the fallen Grenadians, we express our condolences. We also express our
condolences to the mothers and family members of the dead North Americans,
because they, who are also suffering the loss of a dear one, are not
responsible for but are victims of their government's warmongering and
aggressive adventures. [applause]
Every day, every hour, every minute, in our work, our study, or our combat
posts, our dead in Grenada will be present. [applause] The men whom we will
bury this afternoon fought for us and for the world. They may look like
bodies -- and Reagan wants to turn all of our people, men, women, the
elderly, and children, into bodies; Reagan wants to turn all of humankind
into bodies -- but the peoples will struggle to preserve their independence
and their lives. They will struggle to prevent the world from being
rendered a huge cemetery. They will struggle and pay the necessary price
for humankind's continued survival. They are not bodies, they are symbols.
They did not even die in the land that gave them birth. Over there, far
from Cuba, where they were offering their noble efforts in their
internationalist work for a poorer and smaller country, they also gave
their blood and their lives. But while in that trench, they knew that they
were defending their people and homeland. It is not possible to express
man's generosity and capacity for sacrifice more clearly. Their example
will multiply; their ideas will multiply; they will multiply in us. There
will be no power, no weapon, no strength that can prevail over patriotism,
internationalism, the feelings of fraternity, and the communist conscience
that they represented. We will be like them both in combat and at work.
[applause]
Fatherland or death, we will win! [applause]
-END-
http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/castro/db/1983/19831114.html
Grenada - Magda Hassan - 26-12-2015
Lightning Wars (Grenada)
exerpted from the book
Toxic Sludge Is Good For You:
Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
"The Torturers' Lobby"
by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton
![[Image: redblueline.gif]](http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/PageMill_Images/redblueline.gif)
The 1983 US invasion of Grenada, a tiny island nation with a population of 160,000 and a per capita income of $390 per year, marked the adoption of the new military doctrine. Following a violent coup within Grenada's leftist government, the Reagan administration seized the opportunity to return Grenada to the fold of capitalism by send in an invasion force of 6,000 US troops to storm the island. Grenadan troops, outnumbered, outgunned and demoralized by the recent coup, offered little resistance. "With the equipment we have, it's like Star Wars fighting cavemen," said one soldier. Three days after the troops landed, the fighting was essentially over.
Unlike the invasion of Normandy Beach during World War II, the invasion of Grenada took place without the presence of journalists to observe the action. Reagan advisors Mike Deaver and Craig Fuller had previously worked for the Hannaford Company, a PR firm which had represented the Guatemalan government to squelch negative publicity about Guatemala's massive violence against its civilian population. Following their advice, Reagan ordered a complete press blackout surrounding the Grenada invasion. By the time reporters were allowed on the scene, soldiers were engaged in "mop-up" operations, and the American public was treated to an antiseptic military victory minus any scenes of killing, destruction or incompetence. In fact, as former army intelligence officers Richard Gabriel and Paul Savage wrote a year later in the Boston Globe, "What really happened in Grenada was a case study in military incompetence and poor execution." Of the 18 American servicemen killed during the operation, 14 died in friendly fire or in accidents. To this day, no one has been able to offer a reliable estimate of the number of Grenadans killed. Retired Vice-Admiral Joseph Metcalf III remembered the Grenada invasion fondly as "a marvelous, sterile operation.''
After reporters protested the news blackout, the government proposed creating a "National Media Pool." In future wars, a rotating group of regular Pentagon correspondents would be on call to depart at a moment's notice for US surprise military operations. In theory, the pool system was designed to keep journalists safe and to provide them with timely, inside access to military operations. In practice, it was a classic example of PR crisis management strategy- enabling the military to take the initiative in controlling media coverage by channeling reporters' movements through Pentagon designated sources.
The first test of this "pool system" came on December 20, 1989, when President Bush sent US troops into Panama to oust General Manuel Noriega. Until his fall from official grace earlier that year, Noriega had been a longtime informant for the CIA and US Drug Enforcement Agency. As vice-president, in fact, Bush himself had personally honored Noriega for his assistance to US anti-drug efforts. For that reason alone, the invasion of Panama required careful management to keep the media from raising embarrassing questions.
Once again, the invasion was carried out with blinding speed. The Pentagon held the National Media Pool captive on a US base in Panama for the first five hours of the fighting, by which time the heaviest action was already over. Outside of Pentagon pictures spoon-fed to journalists, little real information reached the American public. In El Chorrillo, the desperately poor neighborhood in Panama City where General Manuel Noriega's headquarters were located, at least 300 civilians died in the attack and resulting crossfire, some burned alive in their homes. Aside from the victims and US Army film crews, however, no one was allowed to observe the attack. The media dutifully reported the Pentagon's claim that only 202 civilians and 50 Panamanian soldiers died in the entire invasion, even though estimates from other sources ranged as high as 4,000 civilian deaths.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Public_Relations/TorLob_Grenada_TSIGFY.html
Grenada - Magda Hassan - 26-12-2015
The US invasion of Grenada, 1983 - Howard Zinn
![[Image: GrenadaInvasion1983.jpg]](https://libcom.org/files/images/history/GrenadaInvasion1983.jpg)
Historian Howard Zinn's account of the American invasion of the small Caribbean island of Grenada, ostensibly to 'protect' US citizens, but in fact to re-assert US military and financial dominance over the region.
In the autumn of 1982, President Reagan sent American marines into a dangerous situation in Lebanon, where a civil war was raging, again ignoring the requirements of the War Powers Act as the government did with Cambodia in the Mayaguez affair. The following year, over two hundred of those marines were killed when a bomb was exploded in their barracks by terrorists.
Shortly after that, in October 1983 (with some analysts concluding this was clone to take attention away from the Lebanon disaster), Reagan sent US forces to invade the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada. Again, Congress was notified, but not consulted. The reasons given to the American people for this invasion (officially called Operation Urgent Fury) were that a recent coup that had taken place in Grenada put American citizens (students at a medical school on the island) in danger; and that the United States had received an urgent request from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States to intervene.
An unusually pointed article in the New York Times on October 29, 1983, by correspondent Bernard Gwertzman demolished those reasons:
The formal request that the U.S. and other friendly countries provide military help was made by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States last Sunday at the request of the United States, which wanted to show proof that it had been requested to act under terms of that group's treaty. The wording of the formal request, however, was drafted in Washington and conveyed to the Caribbean leaders by special American emissaries.
Both Cuba and Grenada, when they saw that American ships were heading for Grenada, sent urgent messages promising that American students were safe and urging that an invasion not occur… There is no indication that the Administration made a determined effort to evacuate the Americans peacefully… Officials have acknowledged that there was no inclination to try to negotiate with the Grenadian authorities… "We got there just in time," the President said... A major point in the dispute is whether in fact the Americans on the island were in such danger as to warrant an invasion. No official has produced firm evidence that the Americans were being mistreated or that they would not be able to leave if they wanted.
The real reason for the invasion, one high American official told Gwertzman, was that the United States should show (determined to overcome the sense of defeat in Vietnam) that it was a truly powerful nation: "What good are manoeuvres and shows of force, if you never use it?"
The connection between U.S. military intervention and the promotion of capitalist enterprise had always been especially crass in the Caribbean. As for Grenada, an article in the Wall Street Journal eight years after the military invasion (October 29, 1991) spoke of "an invasion of banks" and noted that St. George's, the capital of Grenada, with 7,500 people, had 118 offshore banks, one for every 64 residents. "St. George's has become the Casablanca of the Caribbean, a fast-growing haven for money laundering, tax evasion and assorted financial fraud…"
After a study of various U.S. military interventions, political scientist Stephen Shalom (imperial Alibis) concluded that people in the invaded countries died "not to save U.S. nationals, who would have been far safer without U.S. intervention, but so that Washington might make clear that it ruled the Caribbean and that it was prepared to engage in a paroxysm of violence to enforce its will." He continued:
There have been some cases where American citizens were truly in danger: for example, the four churchwomen who were killed by government- sponsored death squads in El Salvador in 1980. But there was no U.S. intervention there, no Marine landings, no protective bombing raids. Instead Washington backed the death squad regime with military and economic aid, military training, intelligence sharing, and diplomatic support. The story in Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala and South East Asia was tragically similar.
https://libcom.org/history/1983-the-us-invasion-of-grenada