The Road to Jonestown

by Jeff Guinn

  There was one misstep, though. As Temple membership grew, Jones saw the opportunity to have more influence in town and county elections. Temple members began packing halls at campaign debates, unsubtly cheering every utterance by their candidate of choice and sitting silently otherwise. When the Ukiah adult school program hosted a debate in the spring of 1970, Jones arrived with a substantial number of followers who applauded one candidate and ignored the rest. Such blatantly partisan tactics were not usually practiced in Mendocino County. Supporters of the other candidates complained on the spot to adult school principal Billy Tatum, who had been designated program chairman. Tatum, angry and embarrassed, stalked to the podium and accused Jones of “rigging the debate.” Jones, stung at being verbally attacked in front of his followers, responded by threatening to resign his teaching position. Soon Jones was gone from the adult school faculty. Tatum said he fired Jones; Jones said he resigned, and also gave up his high school teaching position. In the next election cycle, Temple members again swarmed to debates and, if anything, were even more loudly supportive of their candidates and dismissive of the opposition. It wasn’t the best approach for a church trying to set a positive, secretly socialist, example, but Jones didn’t want to appear intimidated. No members objected; any outsiders finding fault with Father were at fault themselves.

  There were other, ample opportunities for the Temple to shine through community service. In particular, it opposed the use of illegal drugs, and in this the Temple was aligned with most local parents. Peoples Temple initiated a drug rehabilitation program that focused almost exclusively on teens. The majority of clients, whose families usually did not pay for their participation, were drawn from black churches and ghettos in San Francisco, but some came from Mendocino County.

  The Temple process for breaking addiction to drugs was simple. When clients first arrived, they were quarantined in a special house designated for that purpose. There were no doses of methadone to gradually wean them free. Instead, they immediately went without drugs—“cold turkey.” Temple counselors were present at all times, and when the shrieking, vomiting, cramping, and other immediate aspects of the rigorously enforced cleansing process were complete, individuals would move to homes of Temple members. They remained part of those households while they continued rehabilitating. Eventually convalescents either returned to their own homes or else were absorbed into the Temple community—those who did were helped to find jobs and become self-supporting. Among the youthful addicts who entered the Temple program, only a few dropped out. Everyone successfully completing the process and emerging drug-free was evidence of the Temple’s commitment to productive community involvement that benefited everyone. This was the sort of example that the Temple wanted to offer.

  But Jones’s ambitions ranged far beyond Mendocino County. He envisioned a revival of his traveling ministry, this time far more wide-ranging and impressive than his previous road evangelism in the Midwest. He also wanted a permanent Temple presence in San Francisco, where there was potential for broader social and political influence. Raising the Temple’s socialist example from a local to a state or even a national level required vision, charisma, and energy, all of which Jones had in abundance, and vast amounts of money, which he didn’t. And so, while his Mendocino County followers rejoiced in their present-day fellowship and sense of exalted socialist vision, Jones concerned himself with paying for what would come next.

  He began by gaining complete control of the funds he already had. At least theoretically, a Peoples Temple Board of Elders considered all expenditures. But in a handwritten document dated April 6, 1969, the membership signed a statement instructing Temple treasurer Eva Pugh “to transfer all funds from the church treasury to a missionary account to be used by our Pastor James Jones at his discretion.” Now, not a cent could be disbursed by others without Jones’s approval, yet he had the authority to use Temple money as he personally saw fit.

  But that authority wasn’t the same as the knowledge of how to accumulate, invest, and report income to the Temple’s best possible advantage while still operating, if barely, within the law. Any prominent religious entity overtly involved in social reform and politics was certain to attract scrutiny from state government and tax entities, and would have to be properly defended in any investigation. There were ways to do it, but Jim Jones didn’t know them. Neither did anyone else in his inner circle or among current Temple membership. What Jones desperately needed now was someone with comprehensive legal expertise, and who was also committed to the same socialist goals as the church.

  He found him.

  * * *

  In 1967, Mendocino and neighboring Lake County opened a joint Legal Services Foundation to help lower-income residents who needed help and either couldn’t afford or else had no idea how to find it. Its director was twenty-nine-year old Tim Stoen, who joined the Mendocino County district attorney’s office after graduating from Stanford Law School. Ferociously intelligent and equally ambitious, Stoen described himself as “a theological conservative and a social radical.” He wanted to act on his beliefs, not just talk about them.

  The offices assigned to the new service entity were dilapidated, and Stoen needed every penny of its limited budget for legal assistance, not redecoration. He contacted other local agencies, asking for donated materials and volunteer labor. Nobody stepped up. Then someone suggested Stoen contact a Redwood Valley church called Peoples Temple—its members were supposed to be community-minded and willing to pitch in for a good cause. When Stoen called the Temple office, explained his problem and requested help, he was asked to name a time and place. Stoen suggested Tuesday morning. When he arrived that day, Stoen told a reporter in 2003, he found “20 to 30” Temple members, “black and white,” already at the building, “carrying paint and Tide and hammers and nails. What I think is going to take two weeks they do in one day. They come back the next day, put in some Masonite paneling and disappear. They don’t ask for a word of thanks. . . . That was my introduction to Peoples Temple.”

  Stoen remembered that the pastor of Peoples Temple also served on the Legal Services Foundation board of directors. He’d met Jim Jones while interviewing as a candidate to run the agency. During that brief meeting, Jones shrewdly took Stoen’s measure—here was someone who could be a great asset to the Temple. Before the Temple contingent went out to spruce up the agency office, Jones informed them that they were undertaking a critical assignment. Garry Lambrev remembers, “It was like Jim was courting [Tim].”

  The courtship went on for several months. When impoverished clients came to the agency for help with marital or teen problems, it was natural for Stoen to refer them to the free marriage and drug counseling programs available at Peoples Temple. Through contact with Temple members, Stoen learned more about the Temple’s avowed goal of reaching out to the lowest in society, of setting the kind of generous-spirited example that Tim Stoen believed in so strongly himself. Though he customarily drove down to Berkeley on Sundays to attend a Presbyterian church, Stoen developed great admiration for Peoples Temple and its pastor.

  Still, Stoen moved back to the Bay Area for a while. He was interested in running for office, and the political prospects were better there. He did some work at a legal aid office in Oakland, where his clients were mostly poor and black. It was a reasonably fulfilling life. Stoen had enjoyed a financially comfortable upbringing, and his private law practice left him well compensated. He rented a nice apartment, wore expensive clothes, and bought a Porsche. Besides his work in Oakland, Stoen assuaged his social conscience by attending rallies in support of environmental concerns and social justice. Peoples Temple remained in his thoughts.

  One Sunday in September 1969, Stoen drove north and attended his first Temple service. He was impressed by the spirit of the meeting that stretched into late afternoon, and stunned to learn that there was an evening meeting yet to come. He skipped that one, but returned on subsequent Sundays. Each time Stoen was expected, Garry Lambrev says,
“Jim would say something like, ‘Next week Tim Stoen is coming, and we have to be prepared.’ ” With Stoen in the congregation, Jones’s sermons stressed reaching out and raising up. Political rants were kept to a minimum, as were healings. As Jones anticipated, apparent miracles didn’t impress Stoen as much as the Temple’s social mission. At a Temple New Year’s Eve gathering, Stoen told Jones that he was going to join his church. In March 1970, he left the Bay Area and returned to Ukiah, where he rejoined the county DA’s office. They were thrilled to have him back on staff—Stoen’s ability was such that he automatically was a standout wherever he was employed. Jones took no chances that Stoen might change his mind at the last minute—he sent Temple members down to San Francisco to help Stoen move.

  After returning to Ukiah, Stoen also worked for Peoples Temple, though as an unpaid advisor rather than a salaried employee. It benefited Jones to have a member who served in the highest rank of the county legal system. There was no need for Stoen to stress his Temple affiliation to supervisors or co-workers, though he occasionally mentioned it. But frequently, after weekday work and on weekends, Stoen immersed himself in Temple business, often in grueling one-on-one sessions with Jones, who rambled about grandiose plans and schemes and expected Stoen to find legal means to implement them. Stoen didn’t think Jones was divine himself, but rather in some way chosen to carry out divine acts. What the man lacked in sophistication, he more than made up for in charisma and genuine commitment. Being associated with him was uniquely empowering—Jones had such vision, such energy, and Stoen was quickly caught up in it. Jim Jones Jr. says, “Tim Stoen believed, as much or more than anybody. He loved my dad.”

  The feeling was apparently mutual. Jones’s most veteran followers recognized that the young lawyer and their leader had a relationship that differed from those between Jones and any other Temple member. Father constantly looked to Stoen for advice. Jones always made at least token efforts to give the appearance that he valued the opinions of his inner circle; that closeness was their reward for dedicating themselves to his service. But it was different between Jones and Stoen—they always seemed deep in conversation, with Father, for once, listening just as much as he talked. Some jealousy was inevitable, but what other Temple members didn’t realize was that there was no real personal relationship between the two men—Jones and Stoen talked business rather than shared confidences. Before formally joining the Temple, Stoen had concluded that God was too slow in moving mankind toward better behavior. That made Jones’s unwavering commitment to action especially appealing. Temple good work was never complete; its demands on members were constant, and Stoen gladly accepted the challenge.

  When Stoen made his return to Ukiah and joined the Temple, he brought a fiancée with him. Grace Grech was much younger, just nineteen, the very pretty working-class daughter of a San Francisco butcher and a seamstress. Grace was distinguished by naturally high spirits. After high school graduation, she went to work as a secretary while attending City College at night. Despite their age difference, Tim and Grace got along well. Though she’d been raised as a Catholic, one Sunday when her boyfriend asked her to drive up to Redwood Valley with him for another type of church service, Grace agreed. Her initial impression of Jim Jones wasn’t positive, but in 1970 when Tim told her that he wanted to return to Mendocino County, work in the district attorney’s office there, and also join the Temple, she agreed, thinking it would be for only a little while. On June 27 of that year, Grace and Tim were married in the Temple, with Jones officiating. Soon afterward, she shocked her husband by saying, “I don’t want to go back to Peoples Temple anymore.” She didn’t like Jim Jones. But Marceline talked to her, and Grace was persuaded to stay.

  The newlyweds’ lives were almost completely consumed by the Temple, Grace’s as well as her husband’s. Of course, Tim had a lot to offer Jones and the church, but Jones also seemed vastly impressed by Grace. He insisted that she, too, had valuable services to render the Temple. Though the rest of the membership liked her well enough—while many had trouble feeling comfortable with Stoen, who was so intellectually intimidating, Grace was charming—everyone, Grace included, was astonished when Jones eventually announced she was to be a Temple counselor, one of a select group responsible for offering advice and direction to any other members experiencing personal problems. Grace felt overwhelmed, but proved successful in her new role, mostly due to genuine sweetness: “She didn’t sometimes have a kind of hard edge like a lot of the rest of the leaders,” Alan Swanson remembers. “She was nice, like Marceline. Grace seemed like she really cared about you.”

  Seven years later, when they had become enemies, Jim Jones filed a deposition that emphasized how much influence Tim Stoen had in Peoples Temple, and in Jones’s own life:

  When [he] joined my church . . . I was thrilled. Besides the addition of another sincere, committed member I was overjoyed to have his help because in my rapidly growing church I needed a concerned, dedicated lawyer badly. . . . I trusted him fully and entrusted him with more responsibility than any other single member of the organization. . . .

  He was my chief legal advisor and I did nothing either with respect to the church or with respect to my own personal legal affairs without first consulting him and getting his legal approval.

  When Stoen joined in March 1970, Peoples Temple was a backcountry church with modest membership and some local influence. Inspired by its fiery, messianic pastor, the Temple had ambitious goals, but neither the funds nor the legal expertise necessary to achieve them. But now Jim Jones had Tim Stoen as his right hand, and, very quickly, everything changed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  MONEY

  Since resettling in Mendocino County, Peoples Temple had looked mostly to its membership for contributions. Collection plates passed at Redwood Valley meetings added contributions from visitors and prospective members, but bedrock income was derived from active members’ tithes. Ten percent of personal income was the required minimum. Fifteen percent was encouraged, and 20 percent preferred. Eventually 25 percent became the norm. Some members voluntarily tithed 30 percent or even more. No one felt unfairly dunned; many churches required tithing.

  But virtually all employed Temple members held low-salaried jobs—hospital orderlies, office clerks, public school teachers. Alan Swanson had a paper route. Everyone could have tithed half their paychecks, and still Peoples Temple would have been relatively poor. Collections at meetings yielded little extra, even though Jones constantly hectored everyone to give generously. A running joke among members was that it wasn’t wise to wear penny loafers to services, because Jim would insist on getting those pennies, too. Even in 1969 and 1970, as the congregation expanded, most new members were relatively low-income. Jones envisioned a Temple business empire modeled after the Peace Movement of Father Divine, but start-up costs for care facilities and children’s homes and other quasi-charitable ventures were prohibitive. Since tithing wasn’t sufficient, Jones looked beyond it. Members had more to contribute than portions of their working-class salaries. Since the avowed purpose of the Temple was equal opportunity and a corresponding lack of obsession with personal possessions, a document was eventually circulated for members to complete and sign:

  I [name] am a member of Peoples Temple Christian Church, also known as Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ. I am fully aware of, and I fully believe in the ideals and standards of this church, and of its pastor, Jim Jones. Because of this belief, and my faith in its humanitarian works, I have donated and given, and will in the future donate and give, certain items and monies to this church to be used as this said church or said pastor sees fit. I have given these items and monies freely and willingly, without any pressure of any kind. I have no intention of ever asking for or receiving them back again.

  In the event that I should resign my membership in this church, or that my membership should be terminated in any way whatsoever, I hereby promise and affirm that I will never ask for nor expect to recei
ve any of these items or monies back again. They have been given as a gift, and they are no longer my property or the property of my heirs.

  There were lines for the signatures of the member and of two witnesses.

  Members were now expected to reduce their personal property to a minimum. Donated clothing had an obvious use—extra coats, sweaters, shirts, dresses, and shoes were all passed on free of charge to the needy in Temple giveaways. But members gave up other things, too—furniture, televisions, jewelry, anything Jones or Temple leaders might deem an extravagance. No one was forced to comply, but everyone did—this was a way to demonstrate commitment to the cause. Jones emphasized his own compliance. In his early ministry, he had dressed in natty attire to offer a successful appearance. But in Redwood Valley he wore only secondhand clothes, and belittled “celebrity preachers” who wore expensive suits and drove fancy cars. Jones was among the first to sign the new donations release, and praised the noble sacrifices of his followers when they did, too.

  The resulting inventory of donated property was examined, priced, and put up for sale in Temple-operated secondhand stores. The income generated, usually several hundred dollars each week, was then used for additional Temple ventures, in particular acquiring houses around the county that could be converted into care facilities. These were frequently leased to and operated by Temple members, who would then pay the Temple annual rents—$15,000 was a typical sum. Additionally, the facility would be staffed by Temple members, who tithed substantial portions of their salaries. Clients usually paid from disability insurance or Social Security checks. The care provided always met or exceeded state requirements. Everyone benefited.

  In 1970, Jones took the next step toward the Temple’s financial growth. In the months since he’d made his first San Francisco inroads at the Martin Luther King memorial, Jones had offered occasional guest sermons at Macedonia Missionary Church on Sutter Street. Macedonia did its best to publicize these visits, including buying ads in the San Francisco Chronicle. One of these, besides touting Jones’s appearance, urged white readers to “Worship with the Negro Community.” Macedonia’s goal of integrated attendance seemed to perfectly match the aspirations of Peoples Temple.