November 25, 1978, KSFO news report, Guyana: How It Was, by Tony Russomanno,

November 25, 1978, KSFO news report, Guyana: How It Was, by Tony Russomanno,

 

In 1978, Tony Russomanno of KSFO Radio in San Francisco was the world’s only radio reporter to cover the death of Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. His reports earned him the Armstrong Award and the RTNDA Edward R. Murrow International Award, among several others.

 

The transcript of “Guyana: How It Was,” a radio documentary on the Jonestown deaths which Russomanno produced after his return from Guyana, appears below.

 

Saturday, November 25, 1978

 

KSFO news report

 

Steel drums are playing reggae music.

 

Tony Russomanno: If I think about it, it’s unbearable. Unbelievable. So I’m not thinking, just working. Twenty-two hours a day, living on warm beer, sleeping on the floor, pumping out the news, covering the story. I’m medium cool, an extension of my tape recorder. I’m connected to some larger device, and it’s okay, as long as I don’t stop. But now it’s hot and humid, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a full week after more than 900 people died out there in the jungle, because they couldn’t stop the device that led to their destruction, and their decomposing bodies are being shuttled around in airplanes above my head.

 

Georgetown, Guyana is slowing down and coming apart. And on this day, the best view of it all is obtained in the middle of the noisy open air of the veranda of the seedy turn-of-the-century Park Hotel. Four of us are spectator participants. Myself, two brothers – Tim and Mike Carter – and Michael Prokes, a former reporter for a Sacramento TV station who interviewed Jim Jones a couple of years ago and put down his camera and joined him. I’d heard that all three were Jonestown insiders, supposedly members of the ruling clique, yet they survived the death ritual. I asked Mike Carter how they managed to get out.

 

Mike Carter: Well, we had been asked– before this had all started, we had been asked to– by a woman named Maria Katsaris to – he and I were asked to help this gentleman over here to help deliver a suitcase, and uh, he said it’ll be heavy, he’s going to need some help, so we agreed to do that.

 

Russomanno: Maria Katsaris was the treasurer of Peoples Temple and one of Reverend Jones’ mistresses. The suitcase was filled with 500,000 dollars cash and a sealed letter. The instructions came from Katsaris.

 

Mike Carter: Well, all I heard was: take it to the embassy, uh, and later we found out it was to go to the Soviet Embassy.

 

Russomanno: How did you find that out?

 

Mike Carter: When we looked into it, we uh– there was a letter in there, and uh, we had dumped the money, and you know, we had this letter, and it said, you know, to the Soviet– you know, it had the address of the embassy here in Georgetown.

 

Russomanno: Mike Carter watched his wife and child take poison, before he and his brother and Prokes took off with the suitcase. They only got a couple of hundred yards down the road before ditching it in a chicken coop, stuffing their own pockets with cash, taking off again. They thought they’d come back some other time. They did, the next day with Guyanese police to identify bodies. And the police took the money and the letter addressed to the Soviet embassy.

 

Reggae music continues to play in the background.

 

Russomanno: It took us a long time to complete that interview, because I kept trying to make sense out of it. And around us, the scene was getting even stranger. As the Carters told their story, a survivor and a defector walked over to the center of the veranda to listen in. But they were afraid of each other now, and they circled warily around us, with each appealing for protection to a huge Guyanese guard, a black man who stood totally disinterested, wearing a five-inch wide Star of David medallion with Hebrew inscriptions.

 

While all this was going on, off to one side of the veranda, two dozen nine-year-old ballerinas in leotards danced to a classical recording. And on the other side, a benefit party for a local leprosy foundation was being entertained by a steel band playing “Jingle Bells” in ninety degree heat.

 

Steel band plays “Jingle Bells”

 

Russomanno: If I hadn’t caught the entire scene on tape and in my scribbled notes, I’m sure I would’ve blocked it out of my mind as some surrealistic nightmare. But I remember thinking at that moment, I’ve got to get out of this place right now. I’m Tony Russomanno. KSFO News sent me to Guyana, and I saw it all come down. For the next hour, this is how it was.

 

Music stops.

 

Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, our next speaker is a person who needs no introduction in this community, who’s paid his dues, a person who you can count on, whenever you need support for whatever your cause is, a true friend of the black community, and a person all of us should all be proud of and should support in every way we can. I like to introduce you to Reverend Jim Jones.

 

Thunderous applause.

 

Jones: Wherever poor people are, we are seen only as niggers to be used. No matter where we live, or what language we speak, and a lot of white people better begin to recognize this soon in America, or their fate will be just as bad as anyone else that is being oppressed.

 

Charles Krause: Suddenly shots–

 

Unidentified man 1: We waited for them to come back and kill us–

 

Unidentified man 2: The congressman was shot dead less two feet from where I had been lying.

 

Jerry Parks: The next thing I heard was my mother say, “Oh my God, look, they’ve shot Patty’s head off.”

 

Charles Krause: I dove behind this wheel and -– and closed my eyes, and lay there pretending I was dead.

 

Russomanno: The murder of Representative Leo Ryan, three newsmen and a defector at Port Kaituma was the event that made most people aware of Jonestown for the first time. But the news media, and the people in the government, had been hearing strange stories about Reverend Jim Jones for years. At first the stories told by defectors – reports of beatings, druggings, sexual abuse, and mad practice suicide drills – seemed too bizarre to be true. A Ukiah newspaper laid it all out more than a year ago, followed by a major exposé in New West magazine. But Jones was a well-respected man, and he held political power.

 

Mark Lane: We have now completed an independent investigation into the charges against Peoples Temple, Jim Jones and Jonestown, and we’ve concluded that there is no substance to those charges, that those charges are false.

 

Russomanno: Kennedy assassination investigator Mark Lane was hired by Jones in what was becoming a desperate attempt to blunt increasing criticism from a growing number of people. Lane has modified his statements somewhat, in light of events, but he still basically stands by what he said at his October 3rd press conference in San Francisco.

 

Mark Lane: Our inquiry has led us to conclude that intelligence organizations and other organizations of the United States government have been involved in an effort to destroy Jonestown and the Peoples Temple and Jim Jones.

 

Russomanno: But it’s apparent that the government – at least the governments of San Francisco and California – supported Jones and his work. He presented himself as a champion of liberal causes and was appointed chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority by our late mayor, George Moscone. He opposed Proposition 6, and was supported by our late supervisor Harvey Milk. He and his followers marched to support the right of reporters to maintain the confidentiality of sources. He spoke at a rally on the Golden Gate Bridge to urge the construction of a suicide barrier.

 

Reverend Jim Jones was well known to Governor Jerry Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, and San Francisco District Attorney Joseph Freitas, all of whom were visitors to his Temple. The D.A.’s office once cleared Jones of voting fraud charges. Is it coincidence that Jones’ number two man at the time was also one of Freitas’ top assistants? State Attorney General Evelle Younger has now reopened that investigation.

 

Indeed, Jim Jones, through long hours, hard work, and his ability to turn out large crowds on short notice for political rallies, had worked himself into the mainstream, the liberal heart of the National Democratic Party, as letters of support from First Lady Rosalyn Carter and the late Senator Hubert Humphrey attest.

 

It was for a long time a battle of letters: defectors and relatives of Temple members pleaded with government officials and the State Department to investigate Jones, while cult followers and Jones’ powerful friends praised him and his work. Finally, one congressman – Democratic Representative Leo Ryan of San Mateo – accepted the burden of finding the truth.

 

Leo Ryan: I’ve had pretty serious complaints from relatives uh, of people who are in residence in Guyana on this plantation or this uh, agricultural station or whatever you want to call it, uh, about the condition of life, the– the uh– the– the manner in which they’re treated, and so on, and uh, they’re– they’re pretty serious charges, and I think it’s not– I don’t think it’s particularly fair to– to listen to one side, I want to give uh, those who are down there in charge a chance to uh– to tell their side of the story.

 

Jerry Parks: Upon finding out that he was going to have to let the congressman in, the ambassador, and some reporters, they immediately started getting the guns out.

 

Russomanno: Jerry Parks, one of the people in Jonestown who wanted to get out. He was working on a plan of escape for himself, his family, and several others even before hearing of Ryan’s visit.

 

Jerry Parks: While we were getting this worked out – we’d worked on this for weeks – and it was just coming close to the days when I– we were going to wait until our half a day off and leave that afternoon so we wouldn’t create too much suspicion, ‘cause you had to be on your job, and you were checked in, you know, daily, and they knew whether everybody was on their job or not. So we found out the congressman was coming, the ambassador, some American reporters, and uh, we’d even talked about approaching them when they got there knewing– knowing very well that we could really create a problem, you know.

 

Russomanno: But Jones had warned his followers not to approach the outsiders. And even though Jones had not granted advance permission for the reporters and a small group of Concerned Relatives to enter the camp with Ryan, everything seemed to be going well. A slick Peoples Temple gospel choir entertained at a large party in Ryan’s honor. And the congressman stood up to say he was impressed.

 

Leo Ryan: I can tell you right now that, from the few conversations I’ve had with some of the folks here already this evening, that uh, 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.

 

Thunderous applause, shouting, clapping.

 

Russomanno: But then a reporter noticed the elderly members of the community who joined in the singing were moving mechanically, without feeling, as if ordered to look happy. Meantime Jerry Parks’ independent plan of escape took a turn.

 

Jerry Parks: We were going to try to take off that same day, but we didn’t get it worked out enough, and we thought they were on to us, so I was contacting each one of my family telling we had to get out of there. I was trying to talk my s– my son into it, I was then going to contact my daughter and her boyfriend and get us all together and try to leave at the same time. I told my mother about it, and she is the first one, and when she found out about it, she went right straight to the congressman and the ambassador, and told them that she wanted to go home and her family.

 

Russomanno: Somehow Jones immediately got wind of the plan. Parks was called to the central pavilion, and Jonestown officials tried to talk him out of leaving, telling him they were working on ways to shorten the work hours and improve the food. Meantime another cult member decided he wanted out and slipped a note to NBC reporter Don Harris. Listen carefully as Harris takes that note to Jones.

 

Don Harris: Doesn’t it concern you, though, that– that this man, for whatever reason, (unintelligible word) of your group–

 

Jim Jones: (Interrupting) People play games, friend. They lie, they lie– What can I do about liars? Are you people going to– Leave us, I just beg you, please leave us. We’ll– We won’t bother nobody, anybody wants to get out of here can get out of here, we have no problem about getting out of here, they come and go all the time– I don’t know what kind of game– People like– Who– Who– People like publicity. Some people do, I don’t.

 

Russomanno: The note startled Jones. You could see him jump. Suddenly his mood changed. He became cynical. The one thing he couldn’t tolerate was the idea of anyone wanting to leave.

 

Charles Krause: He kept talking about how he wished he were dead. How all of this, people who left, lied about Jonestown, and you could just sort of see him kind of unraveling. Sixteen people had indicated they wanted to leave with us.

 

Russomanno: Washington Post reporter Charles Krause.

 

Charles Krause: Suddenly we noticed that there were some agitations and problems in the pavilion, and we ran towards it. It turned out that someone had tried to stab Congressman Ryan.

 

Leo Ryan: Yeah, and he said uh, something about uh, rob and choke and kill and uh– or– my– I don’t– I don’t know, but they obvio– what he said was, he intended to kill me.

 

Jerry Parks: I left the congressman and the ambassador and the reporters on the truck. There were 31 of us all total, including uh, all of us. We drove down the road to the uh, gate, one of the security guards jumped on the– the truck and rode from there into [Port] Kaituma with us, looking very mean and uh, uh, sadistic.

 

Charles Krause: It was decided that we just better get out of there. We were in the process of boarding people onto the two planes that had come, when suddenly we noticed the– the dump truck and the tractor from Jonestown had suddenly returned and were on the other side of the runway. Three men from Jonestown were walking across towards where we were near the plane.

 

Ron Javers: And I never saw anybody like that before with murder and absolute mayhem in their eyes. And at that point I turned to Bob Brown and I said, “I think we’re in for it now, Bob.” And he said “Uh-huh.” And the next thing we knew, bang, the shooting started.

 

Russomanno: San Francisco Chronicle reporter Ron Javers. He, Krause, and Parks survived to tell their stories.

 

Ron Javers: I guess the shooting continued for anywhere from five to eight minutes, uh, as close as I could tell. And then there were just bodies all over the field.

 

Charles Krause: I was standing by the uh, door of the plane. Suddenly shots – I heard shots, everyone heard shots – and people started to scatter. I ran around the other side of the plane and– and dove behind its wheel and– and sort of closed my eyes, and– and lay there pretending I was dead.

 

Jerry Parks: And they started opening up fire immediately on the plane. All you could hear was these gunshots all over the place. We was all trying to get down on the plane. I was struggling with my seatbelt, trying to get it unfastened, (unintelligible word) up above the window. And I– and uh, glass was shattering, the shots was coming through the plane, I could feel one go right over the back of my head. The next thing I heard was my mother saying, “Oh my God, look, they’ve shot Patty’s head off.” And I looked back, and there was my wife hanging in the seat, with the whole top of her head gone.

Ron Javers: There were shots all around. And I felt a shot hit my side. And um– And I just felt as though, all right, this is it, there’s just no way I’m going to live through this.

 

Charles Krause: I was hit, and then I think Brown was hit. At that point we were all scrambling around on all fours, trying to move around the fuselage of the plane to– to get behind the wheels. All of us were down, and you know the kind of thing you hear, when they’re shooting, hit the deck. We– we hit the deck, and hit it flat.

 

Steve Sung: So everybody dive, everybody hit the deck. And the congressman and Don Harris, our correspondent, tried to run underneath the big wheel on the other side of the plane. And we ran around, trying to take pictures at the same time, but– but we hit the deck instantly.

 

Russomanno: NBC sound engineer Steve Sung, tied by cables to cameraman Bob Brown. Brown was hit in the first volley, but he kept his camera on, recording the scene.

 

Steve Sung: He hit the deck instantly, right? So I hit right next to him practically, like two feet away from him, because his minicam– there’s a cable connecting to each other, we can’t– we can’t be separated. I lie face down, I have my arm over my head, basically, as though you go to sleep with a baby, you know? One arm– my right arm was on my head like this, my left hand was this, and my face is pushed against, kissing the floor, as close as possible. I don’t want to move because I know they keep shooting. And next thing I heard, they’re walking towards us, one of the men, and somehow, one shot hit Bob Brown in the leg, I believe, I don’t know what part of the body, he screamed. “Ouch!” and called “Shit,” or something, I don’t know what he do. And the next thing I know, the– the guy came close and blows his brain off. And next thing I know, I said “Oh, next one will be me who get killed.” Right? So I– I just didn’t think about it. I just thinking about little– my little daughter, and next thing I know, I have tremendous pressure, explosion right next to my head, and my arms just feel like falling apart. I– I wouldn’t dare to move one single muscle. That probably– that saved my life. I guess the reason it saved my life is because my arms with my head– my– my head, so the bullet missed the brain and it hit my arms instead, and I didn’t move. And the blood was all over the place, so they thought I probably dead. That really saved my life.

 

Willie Nelson sings “Time of the Preacher”

 

Russomanno: The Peoples Temple gospel choir.

 

“Something’s Got a Hold on Me” plays

 

Russomanno: You’re listening to a KSFO radio documentary, Guyana: How It Was.

 

Unidentified Male: Ladies and gentlemen, I like to introduce you to Reverend Jim Jones.

 

Thunderous applause.

 

Jim Jones: Wherever poor people are, we are seen only as niggers to be used. No matter where we live, or what language we speak, and a lot of white people better begin to recognize this soon in America, or their fate will be just as bad as anyone else that is being oppressed.

 

Willie Nelson sings “Time of the Preacher”

 

Woman: They murdered my child, obviously, they murdered my child.

 

Jim Jones: The center of that power structure, the heart of that multinational corporate system that’s creating so much misery and slavery and devastation worldwide, is right here, as American as Rockefeller Standard Oil. We are living in the same mess, controlled by the same people, the same interests, they only know how to exploit us until they have no more use for us, then throw us on the scrap heap to be forgotten.

 

Willie Nelson sings “Time of the Preacher”

 

Spokesman: There are reports, as yet unconfirmed, that members of the Peoples Temple community in Guyana are perhaps engaging in mass suicide.

 

Russomanno: Sunday, November 19th. None of us wanted to believe that State Department spokesman in Washington. How incredibly irresponsible, I thought, for the government to say something that couldn’t possibly be true.

 

Archie Ijames: We are non-violent people. Reverend Jim Jones has always deplored violence–

 

Russomanno: Archie Ijames, a top aide to Jones in San Francisco.

 

Archie Ijames: We also wholly deny the charge of intention to commit mass suicide. The charge is sensational and patently untrue.

 

Odell Rhodes: There was a general meeting called after the congressman and his party left. And uh, Jones told us that uh, these people wouldn’t reach the States, he– Well, he denounced the people who were members who had left and told the– tell the public there uh, these people wouldn’t reach the States and that uh, everyone there would commit suicide.

 

Russomanno: Jonestown resident Ordell [Odell] Rhodes was one of the few to witness the final ritual and live.

 

Odell Rhodes: They took the equipment into a– a tent that was used as a– as a library and school, and uh, they brought over syringes, large size syringes, you know, minus the needles, and they had uh, small uh, plastic containers with a liquid solution in it, and a large vat of uh, what appeared to be punch. And they would uh, draw up in the mouth in the syringes, and he had babies and children go first, and they would take the syringe, and the nurse or other people who were administering it would simply put it into the person’s mouth, and they would swallow, and then give them a small drink of punch to wash it down.

 

Reporter: Were the people willing to do this?

 

Odell Rhodes: Well, the first person that went up was a young mother. I’d say she was about 27 or so. She had a small baby, and uh, I’d say the baby was approximately one and a half, something like that. She walked up and just– she administered it to her own baby, and then she took her own. And then she went over to a field and sat down, and that’s uh– You know, uh, it was hard to believe. You know, I could understand older people maybe, but I couldn’t understand these young people just doing that.

 

News Announcer: Reverend Jones was said to have a mesmerizing effect on his followers. Is that what led these people into mass suicide? Or was the mesmerizing effect one that from the end of a semi-automatic weapon? Because those weapons were there, and I know they were used.

 

Mark Lane: They– They were high on something, or not really high, sort of euphoric, and calm, and relaxed. And they said “We’re going to die. Isn’t that beautiful? We’re all going to die together. It’s (unintelligible word). It’s beautiful.”

 

Russomanno: Attorney Mark Lane stayed behind in Jonestown when the Ryan party left Saturday. He and attorney Charles Garry were in a hut when a guard named Poncho and another man told them about the planned revolutionary suicide.

 

Mark Lane: At that point, I said to Poncho, “Well at least, if you’re insistent upon this, at least you know that Charles and I will be able to tell the story of the last minutes of Jonestown.” And he said, “Yeah, right.” And he embraced me, and the other man did too, and they said good-bye and they started to leave. I said, “Wait, how do you get out?” He said, “Well, when everyone’s dead, you just call the plane.” I said, “I don’t have a phone, I don’t have a plane, I don’t know how to work that radio. How do I get out of here?” “Walking,” he said, “you go over that hill. That’ll take you to the road.’ They took a few steps back and he said, “Jim Jones is the greatest man in the world.” And Charles Garry gave him a salute, and he returned the salute, and we took off over the hill, and then we heard Jim Jones saying, “Mother, mother, mother, mother, mother, mother!” And then there was silence.

 

Willie Nelson sings “Time of the Preacher”

 

Russomanno: The children of Jonestown were the first to die. Again, the Peoples Temple choir.

 

Marceline Jones sings “Black Baby”

 

Russomanno: These are the children of Jonestown.

 

Children sing “Welcome”

 

Russomanno: You are listening to a KSFO radio documentary, Guyana: How It Was.

 

Dr. Lowery: But uh, you know, my mother is a very, very religious woman. And I would not describe her as a, you know, cultist or a cult member at all. She’s not that type of a person.

 

Reporter: What is her name?

 

Dr. Lowery: Ruth Lowery.

 

Reporter: Ruth?

 

Dr. Lowery: Yeah. Ruth Lowery.

 

Russomanno: What did she think what she was going to find when she got to Jonestown?

 

Dr. Lowery: Well, yeah, I think this is important: uh, my mother really went down there because she thought that she was going to be uh, serving as some missionary type capacity.

 

Russomanno: In the letters uh, from your mother, did she say anything about her work as a missionary? Did she believe she was doing missionary work?

 

Dr. Lowery: I only got one letter, one letter from her this year about uh, four or five months ago, and in that letter I had no reason to believe that she was in any type of distress whatsoever, okay. Uh– She also sent a picture, and you know, I do know my mother, and she did not look apprehensive in the least. That’s why (stumbles over words) at this moment I have some hope, but then, you know, reality, I don’t know, uh, she may have been forced – not coerced, but forced – into– into drinking the stuff, if the reports are true. ‘Cause she– like I said, she’s very religious, and als– but also very, very strong-willed. And you know, she’s uh, not amenable to just, you know, some– someone suggesting that she drink poison knowingly, I mean she just wouldn’t. I mean, that’s why I have hope that she’s still alive. Although she’s not– Like I told you, uh, about, I guess it was five years ago now, she sustained a uh– a very large stroke, okay, and she completely rehabilitated herself, and so I mean, I really– I would be suspect if she drank something like this willingly. You understand?

 

Russomanno: Yeah.

 

Dr. Lowery: You know what I mean? (Pause) I mean when I was a kid, she never would even lie to– to get me out of trouble. (unintelligible), you know, kind of mother I had, you know, she was very very good. And she only wanted to help people, she never thought badly of anyone. You know, I mean– I– I can’t say that about very many people at all, but uh, uh, you know, honestly, and this is not (unintelligible word) about my mother, but it’s– it’s true.

 

Reporter: What are you going to do tonight? Are you going to try to get a hotel room?

 

Dr. Lowery: No, I’m going to try to get to Jonestown.

 

Reporter: Tonight?

 

Dr. Lowery: Um-hmm. I mean, I have to try to get some provision to get there. You know, if I wait till the morning, I don’t know, maybe all the rides will be taken. Listen, you guys gotta help me get down there. (laughs)

 

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