The Road to Jonestown

by Jeff Guinn

  Jones spent much of summer 1975 touting the Promised Land to followers, encouraging them to ask to go there. Those who’d accompanied him on trips to Guyana vied to offer the most enthusiastic descriptions. Sandy Ingram gushed that the ragged patch gouged out of the jungle so far by the Pioneers resembled nothing so much as “a magnificent estate.” Jones continually emphasized how Temple members in America lived under the threat of confinement in CIA or FBI concentration camps. According to Edith Roller’s journal, by mid-July when Jones asked how many at a Geary Boulevard service were ready to move to Guyana, “only a scattered few” failed to raise their hands.

  Most Temple members thought Jones really did want everyone to go. Privately, he was more practical. The plan, always, was to restrict the Jonestown population to five hundred or six hundred. That was maximum capacity for the projected housing to be built there, and a sustainable number for the food that could be produced on-site, at least during early years as they experimented with various crops and livestock. But he hoped that half of the Temple’s 4,000 to 5,000 members would want to go. The competition would better ensure that those chosen would stick it out under living conditions that were far rougher than Jones led followers to believe.

  Jones, Carolyn, Maria, and a few others began making “priority lists” of members who would ideally go first—some rugged young men and women who could physically handle grueling jungle labor, teens who couldn’t stay out of trouble in San Francisco and Los Angeles, teachers to conduct classes, and, most critically, older members whose pensions could be used to help defray the costs of maintaining the Guyanese mission. Leola Clark, who received monthly checks of $223.10 in disability payments and $130.10 from Social Security, was deemed “very desirable.” Simon Elsey, with a $935 monthly pension, was even better, but he was reluctant to go. Though Melvin Murphy’s monthly pension was $500, he had pending “legal problems.” Jones didn’t want requests for assistance from U.S. law enforcement bringing the Temple to the attention of Guyanese courts. Guyana had no official extradition agreement with the United States, but it still wasn’t worth the risk.

  Whether they were included on the priority list or not, all members were urged to give even more to the Temple in support of Jonestown. No keepsake was too precious to be sacrificed. Every possible penny was wrung out of current Temple operations. Members living communally had been allowed to make many of their own meals. Now all communals in San Francisco were required to come to the Geary Boulevard temple to eat what was served there. Rheaviana Beam took charge of food purchasing and preparation. Buying in bulk, soliciting donations of day-old goods from bakeries, she soon bragged that meals for each communal cost the Temple only 16 cents per day. The resulting menus were unexciting—cereal moistened with nonfat powdered milk, peanut butter and bologna sandwiches, dinners with lots of starches and very little meat—but at every meeting Jones emphasized that each bland bite choked down was in service to the greater good.

  He occasionally mentioned another potential sacrifice. Not everyone might get to the Promised Land, since so many malign forces were dedicated to preventing Peoples Temple from setting its persuasive socialist example. If the Temple couldn’t be discouraged by constant harassment, then the U.S. government would order the CIA and FBI to consider more violent means. Jones preached that the message to these enemy agencies must be, “If you come for one of us, you’re coming for all of us.” In a September sermon he added, “I love socialism, and I’d die to bring it about. But if I did, I’d take a thousand with me.” His followers surely assumed that he meant a thousand of the Temple’s enemies, but a few weeks later Jones sternly noted, “A good socialist does not fear death. It would be the greatest reward he could receive.” Loyal Temple members must not only be willing to dedicate their lives, but also their deaths, to the cause. Several times Jones specifically mentioned Masada, the mountaintop fortress in Israel where almost one thousand Jewish revolutionaries, women, and children committed suicide rather than surrender to a Roman army about to breach the walls. More than nineteen centuries later, their courage and sacrifice still resonated with all who refused to accept subjugation. Individual suicide was wasteful, but mass suicide that sent a message of defiance, and that encouraged future generations to fight oppression to the death, was admirable.

  That same September, Jones reemphasized that point to the Planning Commission in an especially terrifying way. It began with an apparent treat. The Temple grew grapes on ranch property it owned in Mendocino County, never a big crop, but enough sometimes to make some wine. Jones generally forbade drinking alcohol, but on this night at the Geary Boulevard temple he told the P.C. members that it was all right for once. Each of them drank some, and after their cups were emptied Jones informed them that their wine had been laced with poison—all of them would die within forty-five minutes to an hour. There was no antidote. They were doomed.

  Jones had prepped two committee members about what he was going to do. When the deadly announcement was made, Patty Cartmell screeched, jerked up from her chair, and tried to run from the meeting room. Michael Prokes, using a pistol loaded with blanks, fired several shots. Cartmell collapsed and lay moaning on the floor.

  Jones watched as everyone else sat around, some staring into space, some talking about dying, a few lamenting that they would no longer be around to protect the Temple children from the FBI and CIA and the rest of the evil outside world. After three-quarters of an hour, several said they were beginning to feel faint. Jones let them describe their symptoms for a few minutes, then announced that there was no poison in the wine. It had been a test of their loyalty; now they knew that they had it in them to face death unflinchingly. Cartmell got up and rejoined the group. No one criticized Jones for tricking them. Decades later, several of those present claimed that they knew all along that it was a hoax, exactly the kind of dramatic thing Jones liked to do to make a point. Terri Buford said that, in retrospect, she and the others missed the most important message: “Yes, we proved that we were willing to die, but what that night really proved was that [Jones] already had the intention or at least was considering the possibility that, at some point, he would kill us all.”

  * * *

  During fall 1975, Temple business continued mostly as usual. Jones touted the Promised Land in Guyana, preached against racism—in one service, he demanded that all white Temple members fast for five days so that they could understand the hunger endured by generations of oppressed blacks—and kept the Temple a constant presence at public meetings and government hearings, never favoring one political side over another, but making sure that the Temple and its good work was never far from the thoughts of city leaders.

  In October there was a startling defection—Elmer and Deanna Mertle and their children fled the church. The Mertles had been valued members; their canny marketing sense had been instrumental in helping develop the Temple’s outreach through letters and pamphlets, and they’d been exemplary parents to communal kids. But constant demands by Jones for even more time and contributions wore them down, and when their daughter was badly beaten after being called on the floor, they had had enough. Fearing retribution by Jones—they’d seen his previous antagonism toward defectors firsthand—they went to court and legally changed their names to Al and Jeannie Mills. They also decided, once they felt certain they’d slipped any Temple pursuers, to contact government officials and offer testimony regarding all the wrongs being done by Jones and his staff: the beatings, the harassments, and, especially, the bilking of members’ property in the name of Peoples Temple and the socialist cause. The newly minted Millses hadn’t forgotten losing some of their own property to Temple legal shenanigans after being asked to travel to Peru and Kenya on Promised Land scouting trips.

  Elmer and Deanna, now Al and Jeannie, were clever, determined people, armed with inside Temple knowledge—potentially the worst sort of enemies that Jones could have imagined. At almost any other time, under almost any other circumstances, he would have been
obsessed with either bringing them back into the Temple fold or else finding some means of guaranteeing their silence. But less than three weeks after the Mertles left, Jones’s attention was claimed by another even more pressing matter, this one not an emergency but an opportunity that offered Jim Jones and Peoples Temple the chance to become much more influential, even, for the first time, politically powerful.

  On November 5, State Assemblyman Willie Brown called on Tim Stoen and asked the Temple attorney to arrange a meeting between Jim Jones and George Moscone, who was embroiled in a runoff election for mayor of San Francisco.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CITY POLITICS

  George Moscone’s background was classic poor-boy-makes-good. Born in 1929, Moscone was the product of a single-parent San Francisco family; his mother, Lee, threw out her drunken husband, George Sr., when the boy was nine, and raised her only child on a meager secretarial salary, working a second job on weekends to make ends meet. Young George’s greatest asset was personal charm. This, combined with striking good looks, made him instantly likable.

  Moscone paid his own way through the College of the Pacific, working on staff at public parks, and then went on to Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, defraying tuition costs by working as a school janitor. Another poor, ambitious Hastings student was doing the same; co-workers Willie Brown and George Moscone became fast friends. Moscone was also pals with John Burton, whose brother Phil established himself as a leader among Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. That connection, along with his friendship with Brown as the latter swiftly rose in California state politics, left Moscone well positioned to fulfill political ambitions of his own. He understood and quickly mastered the mechanics of politics—gladhanding, fund-raising, creating the right image to impress voters (Moscone and his lovely wife, Gina, had four photogenic children)—but Moscone also burned with genuine social commitment.

  San Francisco was almost unique among American metropolises in that it had hybrid government, combining county and city offices. Its mayor was also chief county executive. The county Board of Supervisors was also the city council. San Francisco elections were always hard-fought; the Board of Supervisors was elected at-large, meaning the top few vote getters gained office without regard to where in the city they lived. Candidates representing black, working-class, or gay districts rarely had enough campaign money to compete with conservative whites representing the established business leadership. But Moscone, who earned his first political stripes in a losing campaign for State Assembly in 1960, put so much effort into walking San Francisco streets and making personal appeals to voters that he was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1963. A year later, he gave up his place on the board to run successfully for a seat in the California State Senate. Soon afterward, Moscone was voted majority leader by his Democratic colleagues.

  Willie Brown was Democratic whip in the State Assembly. The friends made a formidable team as they regularly opposed policies proposed by Republican governor Ronald Reagan, and often won the day for their own proposals. These included a free lunch program for impoverished public school children and decriminalization of sex between consenting adults.

  By the early 1970s, when Reagan set his sights on the presidency, Moscone was considered a strong gubernatorial candidate among Democrats. But California secretary of state Jerry Brown, the son of a former governor, had the political muscle to take that nomination, so Moscone turned his attention back to his hometown. Joseph Alioto was stepping down as mayor. No one knew San Francisco better than Willie Brown, and the wily state assemblyman counseled Moscone to run. The city’s gay population was undergoing explosive growth—these men and women would enthusiastically support a candidate willing to grant them real political influence. Blacks would certainly back Moscone. If sufficient additional support could be found among middle- and working-class whites, the overall coalition might be—should be—enough to elect him. So in December 1974 Moscone announced he would run on a platform of more fairly redistributing power among city residents. He’d already demonstrated his personal skills as a campaigner. There was considerable basis for confidence.

  But Moscone wasn’t the only strong candidate vying to succeed Alioto. Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican John Barbagelata, both current city supervisors, put together their own well-structured campaigns. Feinstein was a centrist who promised more equitable representation in city government, but not the kind of radical shake-up that would result if Moscone was elected. Barbagelata ran on a conservative platform. On November 4, 1975, Moscone received a plurality but would have to face Barbagelata in a runoff. In the December 11 runoff, Moscone was favored to win. In any previous San Francisco election, it would have been virtually automatic.

  But not in 1975. Barbagelata’s give-us-our-city-back message resonated with voters beyond the city’s conservative Republicans. Many white, straight middle-class taxpayers who traditionally voted Democratic were concerned that their hard-earned quality of life was in danger of disruption from the demands of blacks and gays. Feinstein’s supporters in particular considered themselves pragmatic liberals; Moscone was too radical for their taste. If they chose to sit out the runoff, then Moscone would lose. He had to have black votes, plenty of them, to win, and Willie Brown knew who could deliver them. That’s why Brown asked Tim Stoen for help getting Moscone and Jim Jones together, the sooner the better.

  Moscone and Jones already knew each other. As two men who were both intensely committed to raising up those in San Francisco’s poorest communities, their paths occasionally crossed. Tim Carter remembers Moscone and Harvey Milk, who owned a camera store and was perhaps the city’s most prominent gay activist, attending various Temple programs. Willie Brown knew Jones, too. But prior to the 1975 mayoral race, Moscone and Brown considered Jones to be the pastor of another black—or mostly black—church who was, thankfully, more actively involved himself in pressing city social issues than leaders of other San Francisco black churches. Peoples Temple also appeared to be the right kind of black church, one with the sort of law-abiding members whose support for Moscone wouldn’t alienate white voters leery of the Black Panthers and ghetto rioters. Moscone and Brown certainly realized Jones’s desire for more influence; this was what they had to offer in exchange for his help. Jones would want a quid pro quo. He put them off for a while, giving them more time to grow anxious. On November 13, Jones and Moscone sat down together at Moscone’s campaign headquarters. In his memoir, Tim Stoen writes, “Moscone did not offer [Jones] any deal,” but that is disingenuous. Moscone already knew that Jones would expect not only access, but actual influence in the form of a place for himself on some prominent city board, and additional appointments for his followers, in return for help in the runoff campaign.

  What form that help took is a matter of ongoing debate. A spokesman for the Moscone campaign later told the San Francisco Examiner that Jones and the Temple “provided about 150 [runoff] election day workers for Moscone.” There has been considerable speculation that Moscone didn’t want campaign workers so much as he wanted Jones to ensure that his 1,500 or so San Francisco followers went to the polls on December 11 and voted for him. But as Moscone and Brown both must have known even before requesting the meeting, only a handful of the city’s Temple members were even registered voters. What Moscone wanted, and Jones supplied, were people, many more than 150, getting out into the Western Addition and urging all the registered voters there to vote in the runoff. The Temple’s letter-writing office was pressed into Moscone’s service, too: Jones bragged that his followers produced three thousand letters a day to potential voters. These services were valuable, but Jones had an additional asset that served Moscone even better—the Temple fleet of Greyhound buses. On December 11, Western Addition voters were picked up at designated stops, or even at their individual homes if that was what they wanted, taken in the Temple vehicles to polling places, and dropped back in their neighborhoods or residences afterward.


  Jim Jones Jr. remembers some of the Temple bus fleet doing even more: “I sat in on a meeting with Moscone and my dad where they worked on finding people in L.A. who were eligible to vote in San Francisco. Then they actually sent our buses down there and brought them north to vote on that election day. There were a lot of them, and it was a planned-out thing. If my dad committed to something, he followed through.”

  On December 11, Moscone nipped Barbagelata by 51 percent to 49, winning by the razor-thin margin of about 4,400 votes out of 198,741. That total almost matched the 207,647 total from the original election on May 4, meaning Barbagelata had picked up a far greater percentage of votes from the other original candidates than did Moscone. Jones and Peoples Temple tilted the balance in favor of Moscone; both the mayor-elect and his defeated opponent knew it. Barbagelata demanded a recount, which only gained him a few dozen more votes. Afterward, Barbagelata charged that members of Peoples Temple, among other unregistered voters, had cast fraudulent ballots for Moscone, and called for a thorough investigation. Jones and the Temple had not only worked on behalf of Moscone but for the successful election of liberal Joseph Freitas as district attorney, too. Freitas and his staff—which soon included new hire Tim Stoen—duly investigated and reported no wrongdoing. Stoen, in his memoir, writes that there was no investigation specifically targeting the Temple.

  When Moscone called Jones five days after the runoff, Jones had the conversation taped. A Temple secretary noted, “Moscone acknowledges in essence that we won him the election promises J an appt.” That, in Jones’s mind, would be only the beginning. The Temple also produced a list of members Jones deemed qualified both for “salaried job appointments” and “commission appointments,” with capsule descriptions of each.