Seductive Poison

by Deborah Layton

  28. Visitors were infrequently permitted access to Jonestown. The entire community was required to put on a performance when a visitor arrived. Before the visitor arrived. Rev. Jones would instruct us on the image we were to project. The workday would be shortened. The food would be better. Sometimes there would be music and dancing. Aside from these performances, there was little joy or hope in any of our lives. An air of despondency prevailed.

  29. There was constant talk of death. In the early days of the Peoples Temple, general rhetoric about dying for principles was sometimes heard. In Jonestown, the concept of mass suicide for socialism arose. Because our lives were so wretched anyway and because we were so afraid to contradict Rev. Jones, the concept was not challenged….

  31. At least once a week, Rev. Jones would declare a “white night,” or state of emergency. The entire population of Jonestown would be awakened by blaring sirens. Designated persons, approximately fifty in number, would arm themselves with rifles, move from cabin to cabin, and make certain that all members were responding. A mass meeting would ensue. Frequently, during these crises, we would be told that the jungle was swarming with mercenaries and that death could be expected at any moment.

  32. During one “white night,” we were informed that our situation had become hopeless and that the only course of action open to us was a mass suicide for the glory of socialism. We were told that we would be tortured by mercenaries if we were taken alive. Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands.

  33. Life at Jonestown was so miserable and the physical pain of exhaustion was so great that this event was not traumatic for me. I had become indifferent as to whether I lived or died….

  36. I am grateful to the United States government and Richard McCoy and Daniel Weber; in particular, for the assistance they gave me. However, the efforts made to investigate conditions in Jonestown are inadequate for the following reasons. The infrequent visits are always announced and arranged. Acting in fear for their lives, Temple members respond as they are told. The members appear to speak freely to American representatives, but in fact they are drilled thoroughly prior to each visit on what questions to expect and how to respond. Members are afraid of retaliation if they speak their true feelings in public.

  37. On behalf of the population of Jonestown, I urge that the United States Government take adequate steps to safeguard their rights. I believe that their lives are in danger.…

  Deborah Layton Blakey

  One month after my escape, on June 14, 1978, my attorney, Marny Ryan (no relation to Congressman Leo Ryan), and I completed the affidavit.

  She mailed and telegramed copies of my allegations to a multitude of influential organizations and individuals including: the Associated Press Newswire; Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State; the heads of the other government and intelligence agencies, as well as to officials in three different divisions of the State Department: Douglas J. Bennett, Jr., Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations; Ms. Elizabeth Powers, Special Consular Services, Department of State; Stephen A. Dobrenchuk, Chief, Emergency and Protection Service Division, Department of State.

  A strongly worded cover letter by my attorney, addressed personally, read:

  I am enclosing an affidavit signed under penalty of perjury by Deborah [Layton] Blakey. Ms. Blakey recently escaped from the Peoples Temple and is extremely concerned for the welfare of not only John Victor Stoen, but also the remaining U.S. citizens in Jonestown.

  She points out that while the State Department has made some contact with American citizens living in Jonestown, its investigation to uncover the actual conditions is inadequate. I continue to regard this matter as extremely important and again request your assistance in reaching some solution …

  On that same day Marny Ryan sat with me as I recounted my story to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Marshall Kilduff and the San Francisco Examiner’s Tim Reiterman. Despite my fear, I had come to believe that without my going public there could be no hope or peace for my friends in the jungle. Only the Chronicle would print my allegations. Within hours, it was picked up by the Associated Press news service. I did not know that Congressman Leo Ryan would read the article and contact me a few months later.

  JUNE 15, 1978

  GRIM REPORT FROM JUNGLE

  The Peoples Temple jungle outpost in South America was portrayed yesterday as a remote realm where the church leader, the Rev. Jim Jones, orders public beatings, maintains a squad of 50 armed guards and has involved his 1100 followers in a threat of mass suicide …

  … [Layton] said the 1100 followers were told to drink a bitter brown liquid potion, after which they supposedly would fall asleep and then be shot by Jones’ guards. The rehearsal went as far as having the community drink a phony potion before Jones called it off …

  … Peoples Temple officers in San Francisco last night relayed—via shortwave radio from Guyana—a refutation of the charges from two of the South American mission’s residents, identified as Lisa and Larry Layton, the mother and brother of Deborah Layton.

  … “These lies are too ridiculous to refute,” Lisa Layton said. “… We are treated beautifully here …”

  … Larry Layton said, “We are treated beautifully.”

  What else could they say? Jim had certainly summoned them into the radio room in a rage and instructed them on what to say.

  I was petrified after the article appeared. Tim Reiterman had frightened me with his distant, perfunctory questioning. I knew he didn’t believe me and I wondered if Jim had gotten to him. Marshall Kilduff on the other hand seemed genuinely concerned. He didn’t act as if he had been raised with wet nurses and nannies as Jim had said.

  What would Jim do when he saw this? Would he hurt Mama and Larry? I prayed he wouldn’t send a hit man for me. My work colleagues had been protective and supportive after the article, but they could not insulate me outside of the office. I walked home via different routes and answered the phone by picking up the receiver and not speaking until I heard who was on the line.

  Three days later I received another unsigned, typed letter addressed to me c/o my sister in Davis.

  Debbie,

  We know what you have done … about the money—that could have been understood and forgiven. But we don’t understand what you are doing now. We wonder, is someone making you do these things, or are you possibly being set up, and you don’t know about it?

  This is very hard for us to understand, why you would do this. And the people are having trouble understanding why you would do this to them. We would like an explanation as soon as possible. We don’t understand why you have done these things to the ones who have loved you the most. We want to build trust. If somebody is trying to hold some lie over your head, let us know. We can help.

  You can still pick up the pieces with the various members of the press, and turn it around for good.

  As the weeks passed, the letters ceased and life seemed to quiet down. My friends at work accepted that I was a strange celebrity, and never brushed me off. Much to my father’s dismay, I moved in with John. John understood my fears and concerns. After all he had his mother, sister, stepfather, and adopted brother in Jonestown, too. I felt safe with him. I could talk about things with him no one else could understand. We grew closer.

  My biggest puzzlement was adjusting to time alone. I was unaccustomed to having free time. Since boarding school, I’d constantly had someone telling me what to do, where to be, and how to think. I was not yet equipped to do it on my own. Now, for the first time I had time to question all I had been taught and to think about myself a
nd life in new ways.

  John and I lived in an apartment building in the run-down Tenderloin district of San Francisco. For now, I was comfortable in the studio. Someday I would be able to afford to live in a nice place. Papa had offered me money, but I had already taken too much from him and needed to learn to make it on my own. After all, that’s why I was there.

  Life seemed simple now. I no longer had to read through and decipher a thousand layers of deceit. Every morning, in a café near the office, several of my co-workers and I met and ordered a coffee drink called a “latte.” For lunch, we walked to a Japanese restaurant on the edge of Chinatown and ordered a wonderful noodle dish called “udon.” I felt extravagant eating at cafés and bistros. And then there were our two daily fifteen-minute coffee breaks. I’d watch in wonder as people pulled out books to read. I hadn’t read a book for pleasure since boarding school!

  Soon, I migrated onto the trading floor of a small yet prestigious investment bank where I would remain for the next eight years. Working closely with this young band of aggressive entrepreneurs, “evil capitalists” whom Father had condemned, my seven years of indoctrination slowly faded away.

  A brand-new world opened its doors to me. I was very honest and told the personnel director about my history. He was kind and accepting about it, and I was relieved. In this fraternity of “evil capitalists,” I found understanding and compassion. I was unlearning the falsehoods that Jim had so thoroughly ingrained in my vulnerable young mind. Little by little his brainwashing was losing its hold over me.

  I was discovering many faults in how I viewed people. Ned Blackwood, one of the traders and a former Marine, became my mentor. It was his kindness that helped show me that there were good people outside of the Peoples Temple, that actions and deeds are what make a person. In the Temple I had been taught that all white men are bad, that wealth is antirevolutionary, and that all men are homosexual. I still didn’t know any better. One day a rich stockbroker ordered lunch but left it in the kitchen, untouched. I looked around to make sure no one was watching, then took the sandwich out of the bag, set it on a napkin, took it back to my desk, and ate it. After all, I thought, he was rich and I was not. He could afford to buy another one. The following day the same very rich man stood at my desk, asking me for advice on one of his accounts. He casually laid his hand on my desk and I saw that it was manicured. I almost gasped. Just as Jim had warned, not only was he a capitalist but he was flaunting being gay! When he left my desk, I immediately went over to Ned on the trading desk.

  “Ned, what a capitalist homo he is!” I could hardly contain my disbelief. “He’s wearing clear nail polish!”

  Ned stopped watching his screen, set down his phone, and looked inquisitively into my eyes.

  “Where do you get these absurd beliefs? You say some of the oddest things. Yes, Debbie, he is wealthy. He is also a generous man and just because his hands have been manicured does not mean he’s gay. I get mine done before a business trip, too. Now, about the sandwich I saw you take yesterday…. That was wrong.”

  “But, Ned, he can afford it.”

  “Yes, that’s true. But, it isn’t the point. That lunch was his, not yours, and he works incredibly hard for his money. He has the right to save his lunch, nibble at it, or toss it in the trash untouched. Only then, if you feel you deserve it, may you retrieve it from the garbage. But before then, you have no claims to his possessions. It is not your prerogative to determine how he should or shouldn’t spend his money. You make enough money to purchase your own lunch, Debbie. You’re twenty-five years old and making over thirty grand. I’d call that excellent. You’re a sales assistant without a B.A. You’re bright and a very quick study, but you have a lot to learn. What in the world did they teach you over there in England? It’s almost as if you haven’t really lived here. You don’t know the television shows, you never seem to know who the sports teams belong to…. Sometimes I think there’s a link missing. It’s as if you’re a wild child found in a jungle and are just now learning how the world works.”

  As I tried to acclimate to a free world, Leo Ryan was mounting a campaign against Peoples Temple. After the publication of my affidavit he had begun to receive more letters from the parents of members in Jonestown who had not heard from their loved ones in a long time. Grandparents were worried about their children and their grandchildren. Maria Katsaris’s father, Steven, also contacted Ryan, asking for his help in bringing his daughter home. Ryan called and asked to meet with me.

  I met Congressman Ryan, the Democratic representative from California’s Twelfth District, on September 1, 1978, in San Francisco. I was anxious and shy. At first he acted as though he didn’t believe me. But once I began my story, he admitted that he had several constituents whose children were in Jonestown and that my information corroborated theirs and confirmed his fears. He listened intently as I finished describing the conditions, the intimidation, the lack of food, and the weekly suicide drills we practiced in Jonestown.

  “As a member of the House Committee on International Relations,” he explained, “I am considering leading a congressional delegation to Guyana …”

  I wondered what that meant and if it would drive Jim into a frenzy.

  “… and I want the State Department fully apprised of the appalling conditions in Jonestown, as your affidavit describes, where American citizens are being held against their will.”

  Maybe he would meet with Mama and convince her to come home, I thought.

  After several hours of conversation, the congressman requested that I fly to Washington and repeat my story to a congressional committee. On November 9, I flew to Washington, D.C., with Grace Stoen and Maria’s father, Steven Katsaris, to tell my story.

  At last, someone had taken notice.

  19

  Descent into the Abyss

  The air was chilly on the morning of November 13, 1978. The capital’s autumn leaves of reds, yellows, orange, and purples swirled around me as I waited for my ride. What if they didn’t believe me? Congressman Ryan had said that it was hard to believe. How was I going to convince the State Department?

  A sleek black limousine pulled up slowly and stopped. The driver, an older gentleman with a dark olive complexion and wavy charcoal hair, walked around to open the door. I descended into the warm interior with soft and luxurious seats; a bright gold leaf blew in and settled on the armrest next to me. I felt like an impostor, an alien in a world I had once inhabited long, long ago. Although I was twenty-five, I still felt like a sixteen-year-old. My life had been on ice for nearly a decade.

  The car turned and slowly pulled to a stop in front of a large building with colorful flags whipping about in the breeze. I waited where Congressman Ryan had suggested, just inside the doors. People were scurrying around me, down the stairs, in and out of the revolving door. Their casual air of freedom mesmerized me. What was it like never to have been weighed down with apocalyptic thoughts? Never to have been at the mercy of a tyrant? I envied their nonchalance and unshakable self-esteem.

  I knew that my presence in D.C. would put me in potential danger. My thoughts traveled back to the first weeks after my escape, my fears of being followed, the phone calls at night with no one on the other end, my sense that my every move was being monitored. Ryan’s husky voice interrupted my brooding. “How was your trip?”

  “Congressman … um … Leo. …”

  “Are you worried about convincing these old farts?”

  “Well …”

  “Don’t be. You’ll do just fine.”

  How often I had heard those very same words from the officials at the embassy in Georgetown. He grabbed my shoulders and took my coat. We entered a dark hallway with a closed door every twenty paces, then turned down another hallway. Ryan waved to passers-by and stopped momentarily to chat with a couple of well-dressed women. Suddenly, a door opened and we entered an enormous wood-paneled conference room. A gigantic oval mahogany table occupied the center and about twenty maple-colored
chairs were arranged around it.

  Ryan positioned himself at the door to greet the distinguished officials he had summoned to attend my testimony. Gentlemen in pin-striped suits, pastel-colored shirts, and uniform white collars continued to file in. I felt homely and awkward in my dress and high heels. My stomach was churning and I prayed it wouldn’t growl. I sat down, in an attempt to conceal my angst. The men took my lead, set their Styrofoam cups, yellow legal pads, pencils, and copies of my affidavit on the table, and sat down.

  I could see from their furtive glances that many of them were dubious. I imagined they were relieved that their daughters would never get themselves into such a ludicrous situation. I caught someone’s eye and smiled. But I felt defensive. I wanted them to listen and believe me. I wanted to scream that it could happen to anyone’s child.

  Ryan began to speak.

  “I first heard about the incredible and courageous story of Deborah five months ago when she made public her disturbing affidavit chronicling her life in Peoples Temple and recently in Jonestown. This document, which each of you now has before you, was also hand-delivered to your offices several weeks ago. I hope you took the time to read it. This eleven-page document, ‘Affidavit of Deborah Layton Blakey Re: the Threat and Possibility of Mass Suicide by Members of the Peoples Temple’ dated June 1978, was sent to you, as officials of the State Department, to various members of Congress, and was reported in the news.”

  I surveyed the crowd apprehensively. They sat quietly, their eyes focused on Ryan and then me. I tried to sit higher up in the enormous chair. They listened politely and sipped their coffee.

  “And now Deborah,” Ryan reached his arm out to me and smiled benevolently, “will tell you the frightening details of life with the Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana. Please take notes.”