CHAPTER 26
RYAN
The congressman kept adding members to his entourage. One of Jones’s top lieutenants, a Vietnam vet named Tim Carter, returned to San Francisco posing as a defector to infiltrate the Concerned Relatives and kept Jones apprised of Ryan’s latest plans.
By the time the congressman arrived in Guyana shortly past midnight on Wednesday, November 15, his party included the NBC crew; reporters for the Washington Post, the National Enquirer, and the two San Francisco papers; as well as over a dozen relatives, including the Stoens, the Olivers, and Steven Katsaris. Jones was beside himself.
His Guyanese allies did their best to help him obstruct the visit. Minister of Home Affairs and Immigration Vibert Mingo told the Temple that Congressman Ryan and the NBC crew were cleared to enter the country, but that he would revoke the visas of the other reporters. He made good on his word. When San Francisco Chronicle reporter Ron Javers landed at Timehri airport, he was detained on a trumped-up currency violation: He’d exchanged $100 for Guyanese dollars in California, and customs officials told him it was illegal to bring the local currency into the country. They held Javers at the airport for twelve hours until the American Embassy intervened. Meanwhile, the Concerned Relatives and the other journalists arrived at their hotel to find their reservations canceled. They spent the night in the lobby, and, the next morning, an immigration official showed up and restamped their passports to reduce their permitted stay from five days to one. Again, the American embassy intervened.
On Wednesday afternoon Ryan and Washington Post reporter Charles Krause drove to the Temple’s headquarters at 41 Lamaha Gardens, where they were met by the stony faces of Sharon Amos and Jim McElvane, the church’s six-foot-seven security chief, whom Jones had summoned to Guyana the previous day. The congressman asked to speak to Jones over the radio, but Amos said Jones was too ill to do so. Some of the Concerned Relatives had followed Ryan to the Temple house, and they also were refused entry. The group then met privately with Ambassador John Burke, who told them his hands were tied: Jonestown was private property; if they tried to force their way in, they could be arrested for trespassing.
On Thursday, Ryan held a press conference at his hotel and stated he was worried about the mental health of the Jonestown residents. Despite Jones’s repeated declarations that Ryan would never enter the community, the congressman announced he’d chartered a twenty-passenger plane and was flying up to Port Kaituma the next day.
That night, Jones held a rally:
Jones: “I can assure you, that if he stays long enough for tea, he’s gonna regret it … son of a bitch. You got something to say to him, you want to talk to him?”
Crowd: “No!”
Jones: “Anybody here care to see him?”
Crowd: “No!”
Jones: “I don’t know about you, I just wanted to be sure you understood where I’m coming from. I don’t care whether I see Christmas or Thanksgiving, neither one. You don’t either. We’ve been debating about dying ’til, hell, it’s easier to die than talk about it … I worry about what you people think, because you’re wanting—trying to hold onto life, but I’ve been trying to give mine away for a long time, and if that fucker wants to take it—he can have it, but we’ll have a hell of a time going together.”
On Friday, November 17, Charles Garry and Mark Lane flew to Georgetown. When Garry discovered Lane was on the flight, he refused to sit next to him, still furious at him for inciting Jones’s paranoia. But when the duo arrived at Lamaha Gardens, however, they agreed on one thing: Jones should welcome Ryan into Jonestown. Refusing him admittance would only validate the congressman’s contention that Jones was hiding something, and when he returned to Washington, he’d probably hold hearings on the matter.
The lawyers met with Ryan at his hotel, and he told them his chartered flight was leaving that afternoon. When they radioed the news to Jones, the Temple leader started ranting about conspiracies. Garry interrupted him.
“Cut the horseshit,” he said. He gave Jones two alternatives: He could either tell the congressman to go to hell or he could let the delegation in. Garry told Jones that if he refused Ryan, he would resign as Temple attorney. Jones fell silent for several moments before saying in a weak voice, “Very well.”
The twin prop DeHavilland Otter carrying the congressional party soared toward the northwest rain forest as scheduled. On it rode Congressman Leo Ryan; his aide Jackie Speier; Deputy Chief of Mission Dick Dwyer; an official with the Guyanese Ministry of Information named Neville Annibourne; Garry and Lane; four members of the Concerned Relatives, Beverly Oliver, Anthony Katsaris (Maria’s brother), Jim Cobb, and Carolyn Houston Boyd (the Houston girls’ aunt); and a group of eight journalists that included NBC reporter Don Harris; NBC sound technician Steve Sung; NBC producer Bob Flick; San Francisco Examiner reporter Tim Reiterman; San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson; San Francisco Chronicle reporter Ron Javers; Washington Post reporter Charles Krause; and National Enquirer freelancer Gordon Lindsay.
The relatives who knew their chances of getting into Jonestown were slim, including the Stoens and Steven Katsaris, volunteered to stay behind.
While the plane was aloft, Jones had his aides radio the Georgetown air traffic control tower to report that the Port Kaituma landing strip was too muddy to use. But the Otter’s pilot flew over it anyway, and found it in perfectly good condition. He got permission to land, and touched down at three forty-two.
The Temple’s yellow dump truck was parked on one side of the airstrip, and several Temple members stood beside it, including security guards Jim McElvane and Joe Wilson, and Jones’s advisor Harriet Tropp. Tim Carter, the defection ruse over, was also there, and when Dwyer attempted to introduce him to the congressman, Carter walked away. A lone policeman approached the party and stated that he had orders to keep them out of Jonestown; in fact, they weren’t even permitted to leave the airstrip.
The Temple aides invited Jones’s lawyers to the settlement, and as they drove away on the dump truck, Congressman Ryan gathered the press to make a statement. He’d always assumed that the Temple leader wouldn’t let him into Jonestown, and was about to condemn this rejection when the truck came racing back: now Ryan, Speier, Dwyer, and Annibourne were invited in. Garry told the reporters and relatives that he’d try to get them in later that afternoon or the next day. Alone on the airstrip, the group took shelter from the scalding sun under the airplane wings, and the newsmen paid a couple of teens to fetch them cold beer.
As the congressman’s group drove down the three-mile dirt road leading to Jonestown, it hit a barricade: Logs had been deliberately strewn across the road, making it impassable. They waited for the bulldozer to arrive and clear the way. When they finally pulled into the settlement, around five that afternoon, Marceline Jones greeted them cheerily, with nary a mention of the barricade. She brought them to the pavilion, where she offered them iced tea and showed them a display of handicrafts. When she started leading them on a tour, however, Ryan politely insisted on speaking to Jones. He wanted to settle the matter of the group stranded at the airstrip as soon as possible.
Thirty minutes later, Jones arrived wearing a red shirt and sunglasses, flanked by his lawyers. Ryan cordially explained that his purpose in coming was to determine whether residents were being held against their will, and told Jones that the best way to silence his critics would be to admit his entire party. Pressured by his lawyers, Jones made only one exception: Gordon Lindsay, who’d penned the scathing article for the National Enquirer.
As the dump truck turned around to retrieve the rest of the entourage from Port Kaituma, Jones watched it go with apprehension.
“I hope to God I have done the right thing,” he said, to no one in particular.
* * *
The truck returned just after sunset. The pavilion was packed, and residents stared openly at the guests as they walked through the crowd to a table near the stage where Jones sat with his advisors. As
the reporters immediately began peppering Jones with accusatory questions, the visiting relatives sought out their family members.
The night before Jones had warned residents: “As far as your relatives coming up to talk to you, be civil, but don’t get engaged into long conversation with them … tell them how happy you are, tell them what your food is, how much food, that you wouldn’t go back to the United States if someone were to give you a ticket tomorrow.” If they disobeyed these orders, they’d be on the floor, he warned.
Beverly Oliver took a walk with her two sons, and asked them if they’d received any of her letters. They hadn’t. She then asked why they hadn’t written her, and they replied that Jones had said she was a CIA agent, and that she and the rest of the Concerned Relatives wanted to kill everyone in Jonestown.
Maria Katsaris refused to return her brother Anthony’s embrace, and during dinner, she made weird comments about the guests’ food being poisoned. Temple security chief Jim McElvane came over and sat next to them, precluding any private conversation.
Meanwhile, Ryan and Speier camped out at a table set to one side of the pavilion, interviewing residents. To counteract rumors that Jonestown was bugged, they showed people a card instructing them to nod their heads if they wanted to leave. No one did. But Speier noted a patterned response to questions and wondered whether residents were too intimidated to be honest with her. Furthermore, several residents she wanted to speak with were supposedly sick or otherwise unavailable. Ryan brought letters from worried family members, and these, as ordered, were duly handed to Temple censors, unopened, as soon as the residents left his table. FBI agents would later find them in a file marked “Letters brought in by Ryan.”
Earlier, residents were served a hearty dinner of barbecued pork, biscuits, callaloo greens, and punch, as well as the first coffee they’d tasted in months. They knew the food was for show, but it was delectable just the same, and such small joys were hard-won in Jonestown.
At the lead table, Jones raged about conspiracies. As he careened from one topic to the next, his tongue lolled sloppily in his mouth, making the reporters wonder whether he was high or, perhaps, mentally ill. Their uneasiness was only heightened when Jones abruptly stated, “Sometimes I feel like a dying man.” He repeatedly mentioned death, but when the reporters asked about the mass-suicide threats, he acted offended. “I only said it is better that we commit suicide than kill,” he said, adding that he’d rather kill himself than give John Stoen back to his mother. As if on cue, the six-year-old was trotted out so Jones could point out physical similarities between them, even making the boy bare his teeth to “prove” they had the same dental structure.
As the newsmen grilled Jones, the adult residents cast worried glances in his direction while their children, oblivious, horsed around. The band played the Guyanese national anthem, and then “God Bless America.” A robust black youth named Poncho Johnson sang “The Greatest Love of All,” a tune elevating hope and self-reliance, and a well-dressed young couple got up to dance, as scripted.
Anthony Katsaris invited Maria to take a stroll so they could be alone. She accepted, but when he asked her pointed questions, she was surly and evasive. Their exchange became heated, and when he grabbed her arm to stop her from walking away, she yelled for the guards. Frightened, he returned to the pavilion before they showed up.
After the talent show, Marceline interrupted Ryan’s interviews to introduce him to the crowd. In the NBC footage of the event, he was casually dressed in slacks and a red-and-blue-striped polo shirt, but spoke with a statesman’s aplomb. He noted that he’d run into a former student from his days teaching high school, as well as an old classmate of his daughter. Then he got down to business, telling the audience: “This is a congressional inquiry. I think that all of you know that I’m here to find out more about questions that have been raised about your operation here, but I can tell you right now that, from the few conversations I’ve had with some of the folks here already this evening, that whatever the comments are, there are some people here who believe this is the best thing that ever happened to them in their whole life.”
The residents’ applause, which lasted a full minute, reverberated off the metal roof. The NBC cameraman turned his lens from Ryan to pan over the ecstatic crowd for a few moments, then returned to the congressman, who waited for the noise to subside with an awkward smile. He attempted to speak several times, but was drowned out each time by applause, whistling, shouting, and drums. The ruse was working.
Around eleven that night, residents started to fade into the darkness toward their cottages, and the press and relatives boarded the dump truck for a guest house in Port Kaituma. Despite the newsmen’s protests, Jones only allowed Ryan, Speier, Dwyer, and Annibourne to spend the night in Jonestown. As Dwyer stood off to one side of the pavilion, a young man named Vern Gosney walked up to him and whispered that he wanted to get out of Jonestown “immediately.” Dwyer told Gosney that it was too late to arrange anything that night, but that he’d be happy to help him the next day. Later, when Dwyer told Ryan about the encounter, the congressman showed him a note Gosney slipped NBC reporter Don Harris earlier in the evening. It stated simply: “Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby. Help us get out of Jonestown.” Gosney, a former heroin addict, had moved to the community with his five-year-old son, hoping to stay clean, only to realize Jones himself was a junkie.
Nevertheless, Dwyer went to bed that night feeling satisfied with the visit; the congressman had been warmly received, and only two people wanted to leave.
On Saturday, Jones gave the residents a free day, but he scripted the seemingly relaxed atmosphere of the camp: the girls’ drill team practicing their dance moves under an awning, a group of teens playing basketball, children watching cartoons in the pavilion.
Congressman Ryan was up shortly after dawn to resume his interviews, and since he was running out of time to complete them, he asked Dwyer to talk to Gene Chaikin for him.
Gene was in the infirmary; as usual, Jones had him drugged and hidden from view. Medical records show that he was admitted a few hours before Ryan arrived, and prescribed Valium by Dr. Schacht. Although Ryan had visited Gene the evening before, there had been too many people around for a private conversation, and something about Gene’s demeanor unsettled him. Ryan handed Dwyer a letter from Gene’s brother. Ray Chaikin had asked the congressman to show his brother the letter, but not to let him keep it—he was worried that Gene would be harassed if it was found on his person.
When Dwyer got to the infirmary, he found Gene lying on a cot and asked him to accompany him to the building’s small deck, before handing him the letter. In it, Ray Chaikin pleaded with his brother to take advantage of Ryan’s visit to come home; he’d included an airplane ticket. Dwyer asked Gene if he wanted to leave, but Gene shook his head. “They just don’t seem to understand that my home and family are here now,” he said. He told the diplomat that he hoped Ray would someday visit him in Jonestown. Dwyer jotted down a release on the back of the envelope that allowed him to disclose their conversation to Ray, and Gene signed it. Dwyer returned to the pavilion; Gene Chaikin was never seen alive again. His medical chart shows that on November 17, he refused to eat, and on November 18, he refused water. After Dwyer left, he was given 10 mg of Valium, a strong dose usually reserved for patients suffering from high anxiety.
The Temple dump truck was two hours late picking up the reporters from their Port Kaituma boardinghouse. By the time they reached Jonestown, at ten-thirty in the morning, the newsmen were anxious for a scoop. Marcie started her canned tour, but they grew restless and broke off on their own. Washington Post reporter Charles Krause walked up to a large dorm called the Jane Pitman Gardens, and when no one answered his knock, he tried pulling back a shutter to look inside. Someone on the inside held the shutter in place, so he jumped to the conclusion that the inhabitants were being held against their will. He demanded to be let in. An aide told him that the residents merely wanted to protect th
eir privacy, but he insisted, and was finally allowed to enter with the other reporters. They found a group of elderly black women inside, none happy at having their quarters invaded by pushy young white men. The reporters noted that the living space was crammed with bunk beds, but also that each woman had personalized her space with embroidered pillows and quilts.
In the pavilion, a group of children watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as the NBC crew set their camera equipment for a final interview with Jones. The Temple leader sat in a chair dressed in the same red shirt and sunglasses as the night before, and NBC correspondent Don Harris sat down facing him, wearing a light-blue leisure suit. Harris again asked Jones about the rumors of mistreatment and imprisonment. Jones again denied everything. Harris then pulled out Gosney’s note and handed it to him. Jones read it in silence, before looking at Harris with disgust.
“People play games, friend,” Jones said. “They’ll lie, they’ll lie. What can I do about liars? Are you people gonna … leave us, I just beg you. Please leave us.” The print reporters, crouched out of range of the television camera, scribbled his words in their notebooks. “If it’s so damn bad, why is he leaving his son here? Can you give me a good reason for that? I’d take my son with me.”
As Dwyer stood nearby, waiting for the interview to conclude, a grandmotherly woman with white hair and cat’s-eye glasses walked up to him. “We want to leave,” Edith Parks said. The Parks family had planned to escape through the jungle, but discovered that morning that the plastic bags containing clothing and food that they’d hidden in the bush were missing, and feared Jones was onto them. There were seven people in her party, Edith told Dwyer. The diplomat pulled Ryan aside and asked him to tell Jones that more people wanted to leave, and then he walked to the radio room to call for a second plane.
A Thousand Lives Page 24