Jim Jones, Peoples Temple, Mendocino State Hospital

CALIFORNIA CONCENTRATION CAMP

About a hundred miles north of San Francisco lies a
patchwork quilt of small horse farms and rolling vineyards
known as Mendocino County. The county is known,
internationally, for its production of fine wine grapes and
nationally for its production of high-quality marijuana: the
county's leading cash crop. Most of the region's sparse
population is concentrated in the cultivated flat lands
between the Coastal and Mayacamas mountain ranges in an area
the native Pomo Indians named "Deep Valley" or Ukiah. Ukiah,
the county seat, was a sleepy rural community of 10,000 in
1965 when the Reverend Jim Jones and his followers arrived
in the heat of mid-summer. The Peoples Temple would remain
headquartered in the Ukiah area for the next nine years,
during which time they would infiltrate every aspect of
county government, sway political elections, purchase a
sizable portion of the real estate and businesses and, in
short, become the ultimate power in Mendocino County; the
only safe place in the United States.

The Temple's advance team had primed the local press for the
pilgrims' arrival. George Hunter, the managing editor of the Ukiah Daily Journal nd his reporter wife Kathy were
offered gifts intended to produce the favorable press
coverage necessary if the Caucasian locals were to tolerate
what would be their only Black neighbors. Kathy Hunter wrote
the front page article that introduced the Peoples Temple to
Ukiah in the July 26, 1965 edition of the Ukiah Daily Journal Represented in the group and indicative of the
substantial background of the membership are
nurses, teachers, a pilot, a traffic engineer,
an electronics man, salespeople and private
businessmen. One of the new- comers has already
purchased an apartment house, another has bought
a Ukiah motel, and still another is negotiating
the purchase of a rest home here.

Far from being a closed, tightly knit group
living in a communal existence, members of the
church live their own lives as part of the
community as a whole, held together only by
their belief that all men-- white, black,
yellow, or red--are one brotherhood.[62]

As early as February of 1965, the Temple's advance team had
initiated negotiations to purchase the Evangelical Free
Church on the corner of Bush and Henry streets in Ukiah.
Jones would hold services in the building until November of
1965 when he withdrew his offer to purchase what was the
only available church in town. The Temple reportedly broke
off negotiations when their Indiana corporations lost their
licenses because they failed to file the required annual
reports. Actually, they had formed a new corporation, "The
Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ of Redwood Valley"
that could have easily purchased the church. The stated
purpose of the new corporation, chartered on November 26,
1965, was to "further the word of God" but apparently not at
the Evangelical Free Church building. Jones abandoned his
first California headquarters after occupying it for five
months, presumably rent-free.

Jones next acquired the free use of a classroom at the
Ridgewood Range, a religious colony located about ten miles
north of Ukiah. The Peoples Temple met in that classroom for
about two years until late 1967 when the Christ's Church of
the Golden Rule, who owned the building, ordered the Temple
off their property, reportedly fearing that Jones was trying
to take over their church. The Temple then met in a 4-H
exhibition barn at the Mendocino County Fairgrounds until
early 1968 when Jones moved the services to the house he had
purchased for his family in Redwood Valley, a remote village
about seven miles outside Ukiah. The group first met in
Jones' two-car garage under conditions so crowded as to
discourage outsiders from dropping in on Temple services.
Ukiah is primarily middle-class conservative Caucasians.
Even though the locals could

have provided sizable contributions, Jones did not recruit
or even want their membership as they had no place in the
experiment. There were Caucasian management personnel but
few, if any, were from Mendocino County. Just about all of
Jones' White lieutenants were hand-picked from Indiana and
other parts of California. The only Blacks in Ukiah were
those who Jones had brought from Indiana. Their numbers
would increase as Jones succeeded in recruiting Blacks from
the Oakland ghettos to relocate in Ukiah, live in Temple-
owned housing, sign up for welfare with a Temple aide in the
county office and provide the labor, the money and the
subjects for the experiment being planned. Temple aide Edith
Parks described the period when Jones was turning away the
locals who were sampling the services of his new church in a
letter to Virginia Morningstar, dated April 26, 1968 which
began "burn this." Thankfully, she did not.

... All work at something. They have to, rent
is $90-$125 for small houses and groceries are
so high. Most of them pay 25 percent tithes. It
will take care of them all later some way. Jim
is turning them away from church. 85 for Easter.
35 last Sunday. People are awakening and are
worried but he says it is too risky! He sends
them back to their own churches and tells them
to pray and work where they are. There isn't
time to re-educate new ones, even those who have been taught far ahead of our "type" of religion.
A few have even been allowed to come and they
jumped in with both feet. You don't have to
teach them anything. They know & they know who
he is & what he is here for. He knows every
thought, act or deed. In the message Sunday he
said everything that is to happen in the future
has been seen & met for all who will meet
conditions they must. He knows just what will
happen to each one, even how they will die ...

It will happen yet, right here, too. If only I
could write it all but the American people have
already been conditioned to go the way they are
going and acting, so they will think we need the
laws that will be put through Congress, each one
taking away more of our rights! Just watch who
is for them! Reagan is a full-fledged
fascist.[63]

Edith Parks' letter was indicative of the prevailing
attitude of the Temple's Caucasian aides. She was more
political than religious and strangely cryptic in her
communications. Why was it "too risky" to allow just anyone
to join? Why was there not enough "time to re-educate new
ones?" Had the life expectancy of the

Peoples Temple been set as early as 1968? Probably. By
describing those who were allowed to join as knowing the
truth about Jones and his mission, she reveals the extent of
her own knowledge. Note her use of the third person "they".
"They" must work. "They" pay tithes. Jones knew how "they"
would die. Edith Parks and her family had joined the Peoples
Temple in its early stages in Indianapolis and would play an
important role in the final hours of Jonestown. Even though
she was a lifetime member, she did not include herself in
the ranks of the Black congregation. This "us and them"
attitude, though contrary to the Temple's public doctrine of
racial integration, was the true relationship between the
Caucasian hierarchy and the Black Parishioners.

Temple membership doubled to three hundred in the first
three years in Ukiah but by 1968 they still had no permanent
headquarters other than the cramped quarters of Jones' two-
car garage. The church in town would first appear the
logical solution but, even though it was affordable and
accommodating, Jones let the deal fall through as the
property was too public. Anyone in town might wander in off
the streets. Likewise the exhibition barn at the fairgrounds
was much too public. The Ridgewood Range provided the
private classroom setting Jones needed to indoctrinate his
Caucasian lieutenants but it would not serve as the Black
church they were planning.

So it was with three hundred people in his garage that Jones
set out to build his first California church in the summer
of 1968. The first step was to submit a building permit to
construct a forty-one foot swimming pool next to his Redwood
Valley home. Immediately upon completion of the pool, a
second

permit was issued to build a roof over the pool with the
stated purpose of creating a youth center. When the roof was
finished in October, Jones applied for and received a third
permit to enclose the structure as a church. Possibly the
only church in America built over a swimming pool. The word
"church" is really not approhriate. There were no crosses or
statues or pictures of deities or saints. The redwood
structure was rustic and modern and not at all like a
church. Only a star-shaped stained glass window, which was
more Satanic than Christian, gave the impression that this
was a house of worship. The rural setting of Jones' estate
provided the privacy required to conduct his business in
secret and stands as an example of the Temple's introverted
personality. It was a closed group that did not attempt to
recruit or even mingle with the locals. Though the location
of the Redwood Valley Temple is understandably desirable,
the roundabout method of construction used to build a church
over a swimming pool is without apparent reason. The indoor
pool was used for recreation, quasi-baptisms and
occasionally punishment, but its role as the focal point of
the Redwood Valley Temple has never been fully understood.

As in Indiana, Jones used the threat of an unseen enemy to
bind his congregation together and, in this case, provide a
logical reason for his plans to fence and fortify the Temple
compound. In May of 1968, he placed a half-page ad in the UDJ to answer allegations and threats he
said were generated by the local John Birch Society after he
had led his people in a march to protest the Vietnam War.
Since the Ku Klux Klan was not active in Northern
California, Jones selected the John Birch Society as
representative

of the White supremacists who opposed the alleged
socialistic politics of the Temple. Actually, Jones was
close friends with Walter Heady, the society's local
president. Heady often visited the Temple and was even
allowed to address the congregation and present films. Jones
often consulted Heady on political matters and the two men
would maintain communication for years to come. Kathy
Hunter, reporter, wife of the editor and co-owner of the
Ukiah Daily Journal, reciprocated for the half-page ad by
penning an article which appeared in the paper's June 3,
1968 edition under the headline, "Local Group Suffers Terror
in the Night."

A telephone rings in the middle of the night,
but when it is answered the only sound is
someone's breathing on the other end--then the
click of a receiver. Or it rings and, in a
measured voice--all the more chilling because of
its utter lack of emotion--comes the threat:
'Get out of town if you don't want to get blown
out of your classroom window.' Besides his
duties to his parish and his many community
services, Jones also teaches in Anderson Valley
and Ukiah.[64]

Temple members continually complained to the authorities
about night riders who shot out windows and threw dead dogs
onto the Temple grounds. All the

attacks were staged. The dogs were among the unfortunate
strays gathered by the Temple's animal shelter. Not content
with the public's acceptance of persecution, Jones arranged
two attempts on his life during his 1968 campaign to
publicly justify his ever increasing militarism.

Bill Bush was a professional hair dresser who had recently
moved to Ukiah to open a beauty shop with his partner Jim
Barnes. Bush also donated his services at the Mendocino
State Mental Hospital where he worked with many members of
the Peoples Temple. He lived with his common law wife
Beverly and their son Billy in the first floor apartment of
a duplex house. His partner, Jim Barnes lived upstairs with
his children and Temple member Jerry Livingston. According
to the accepted story, Livingston seduced Bush's wife who,
along with young Billy, was spending most of her time at the
Peoples Temple. There is speculation that Livingston had
actually seduced Jim Barnes but, in any event, one Sunday
morning Bill Bush arrived at the Temple's front steps, mad
as hell at the loss of his lover. He demanded that Jones
allow him to see his son. Jones frustrated Bush at first by
refusing to answer, then teased him to the point where Bush
lost his temper and a scuffle ensued. Don Sly, the Temple's
swimming Instructor and knife expert, intervened and
produced a knife he claimed to have wrestled from Bush. Ten
years later Don Sly would once again be called upon to stage
a phony knife attack, this time against Congressman Ryan.
Even though Bush was probably innocent, the following
morning he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon
after the police had received dozens of depositions from
Temple members attesting to what they termed was attempted
murder. The crime was front-page

news in the__ U_ k_ i_ a_ h__ D_ a_ i_ l_ y__ J_ o_ u_ r_ n_ a_ l but as soon as the alleged
threat against Jones had been established, he dropped all
charges and Bush was released after Paying a misdemeanor
fine.

Another staged death threat occurred during one of the
Temple's evening services when Jones stepped out into the
parking lot for a breath of fresh air. There were several
witnesses standing nearby when a shot rang out. Jones
grabbed his stomach, blood spurted from between his fingers
and he fell to the pavement. Only bodyguard Jack Beam was
allowed to attend to the fallen leader who lay so still as
to suggest to those in view that he was dead. All at once
Jones rose to his feet and presumably back from the dead.
"I'm not ready. I'm not ready," he proclaimed to the
bewildered witnesses. A few minutes later he returned inside
to address a tumultuous congregation. He wore a clean shirt
and waved the bloody one, challenging anyone to analyze the
blood he claimed was his. It probably was. It was common
practice for Temple nurses to draw real human blood to use
in their fake faith healings. The next day, the bloody shirt
was put on display in a glass case installed near the podium
as a constant reminder of both the unseen enemy and Jones'
supernatural powers. The Temple's special effects department
had prepared the blood-filled plastic bag that hung like a
long necklace under his shirt. When the unidentified gunman
fired the shot from his hiding place, Jones simply slapped
the bag to break it and release the blood.

Throughout his career, all the phony death threats against
Jones were contrived to strengthen his hold on the
congregation and to give public the impression that he was
either persecuted or paranoid

which would help to explain the otherwise unexplainable end
he had planned for the Peoples Temple. The two assults in
the summer of 1968 also served to explain to the locals why
Jones was fortifying the Temple compound. A chain-link
fence, complete with barbed wire, was installed around the
perimeter and a guard tower built by the front gate. Armed
guards patrolled the fence with German shepherds twenty-four
hours a day. Mrs. Vera Rupe was one of the first neighbors
to notice the security guards who made no attempt to conceal
their weapons as they paced the fence or drilled in the
parking lot. She and her husband filed a complaint with the
police charging the Temple with possission of illegal
submachine guns and harassment. They claimed the guards
spied on them with binoculars and the search lights on the
tower kept them awake at night. Jones had powerful allies in
the sheriff's office who not only ignored the complaint, but
issued no less than six concealed weapon permits to Temple
guards. The armed guards, barbed wire, search lights and
attack dogs made the compound look like a concentration camp
and in many respects it was. The fortifications were
intended not only to keep people out but also to keep people
in.

Through his connections in government Jones arranged to be
appointed to several positions of power in Mendocino. He
first approached the superintendent of the Anderson Valley
School District located in Boonville some fifty miles
southwest of Redwood Valley. A deal was struck in which
Jones would enroll sixteen Temple children in the school
district in exchange for a position teaching social studies
to sixth graders in Boonville. The district received
thousands more in state aid and Jones received a paying job
that was more

important to his plans than has been previously recognized.
The meager salary Jones received from his teaching job could
not have justified the cost of transporting sixteen children
one hundred miles a day. He had several other reasons for
teaching in Boonville. The Temple students were inner-city
Blacks whose presence in the Ukiah School District was
unique and disruptive. Jones defused a potentially difficult
situation in his own back yard by transporting the Blacks
fifty miles away in what might be the ultimate in forced
busing. Mike Cartmell was the Caucasian leader of the
displaced students and his instructions were to make certain
that the Temple students did not socialize with the
exclusively White Boonville children. It was segregation and
not integration that would keep the peace in Boonville.
Jones taught there for about two years until June of 1969
when he resigned and withdrew the Temple children. One
report claims that he had a homosexual relationship with one
of his students during this period. Jones counseled the boy
after having been apparently responsible for his parents'
divorce. The two would spend weekends in San Francisco where
Jones demanded a minister's discount on the hotel room he
registered under "The Rev. Jim Jones and Son." Though there
were no eyewitnesses to such activities, what really matters
here is not how Jones recruited his sixth graders but that
he was recruiting them. The timetable was perfect. Some
eight years later, as Jones was moving his Temple to South
America, his sixth graders had just graduated from Santa
Rosa Junior college. They went on to join the ranks of the
guards and medical staff of the experiment.

Sixth graders are of particular interest to the CIA for it
is at this level of education that the

federal government studies every student in the country in
the only mandatory national examination: the I.Q. test. Many
argue its validity but nevertheless the federal government
has required the I.Q. test for decades. It was originally
developed in the early nineteen hundreds as a means [TAR not
true?] to evaluate the mental capacity of immigrants from
southern Europe. The U.S.gov ernment was afraid that Italians
would dilute the human stock of America and so they
developed this entrance exam to exclude what they perceived
as the mentally deficient. Unlike most tests that measure
one's ability to regurgitate information, the I.Q. test
measures one's potential to learn. It is a logical
progression, designed to evaluate not what a person knows,
but his ability to ascertain and solve problem situations
common to all languages and cultures. At home point in time
the federal government required school systems to administer
the test to sixth graders and forward the forms to
Washington where they are now computer corrected. The
students and even their 'schools are often denied access to
the test results. The I. Q. test is not given to further the
education of the student or to help the schools. The I. Q.
test is given to further the interests of the agencies of
the federal government, like the CIA, whose business it is
to track the talented.

A hundred miles was a long way to travel each day; could
there have been a specific attraction in Boonville?
Boonville is the only community in the United States to have
developed its own language. Years earlier, this remote town
had invented "Boontling" a truly American language that
served to bind the community together as well as confuse and
deceive outsiders. Boonville has a national reputation

for keeping to itself yet the Rev. Jim Jones broke the
barriers and even recruited from its ranks. Perhaps it was
he who was being tested under difficult circumstances; a
test he apparently passed. In the end, Jones did retain the
services of some of his sixth grade class. Some came to
Jones because the CIA had assigned them. Some came because
they were duped and some came because they were brainwashed
in a painstakingly slow process that began in the sixth
grade.

Jones used the same scenario to get a job teaching American
history and government in Ukiah's fledgling adult education
program. The evening classes were closed to all but the
Temple hierarchy and remains as an example of how Jones used
an existing system to his own ends. He would have taught his
class anyway. With the arrangement, he received the free use
of a classroom and even a salary for his efforts. Rather
than draw from the CIA's labor pool, Jones would maintain
ultimate security and actually create some of the operatives
that would aid him in the experiment.

In 1967, Superior Court Judge Robert Winslow appointed Jones
foreman of the Mendocino County Grand Jury. The following
year, he was appointed to the Juvenile Justice Commission,
an advisory board to the courts. Between the two positions
he had the ability to bring charges for or against anyone in
the county, especially considering his close relationship
with Assistant District Attorney Tim Stoen.

In May of 1967, Jones formed the Legal Services Foundation
of Mendocino County, a nonprofit group offering free legal
services to the needy, most of whom were his followers who
needed the services of an attorney to petition the courts
for welfare support, to

transfer property, or to settle a divorce or child custody
case. In August, Marceline Jones resigned her seat on the
foundation's board of directors to make way for her husband
to be appointed vice president. Also in August, the
foundation acquired the free use of an office in Ukiah and
their first directing attorney, the former Assistant
District Attorney Tim Stoen. Tim Stoen always played an
important role in the Peoples Temple as Jones' second-in-
command and the Temple's legal counsel. Some say he remains
so to this day, but must believe Stoen's claims that he
defected from the Temple in 1976. However, back in April of
1969, Tim Stoen was on a mission for Jim Jones when he left
the Legal Services Foundation to accept a position with the
Legal Aid Society of Alameda County where he was assigned to
the West Oakland Black ghetto. Stoen counseled Blacks who
were on welfare and in trouble with the law; the perfect
demographic for the experiment. Many were offered a fresh
start in the country atmosphere of Redwood Valley. A Temple
aide in the Mendocino County Welfare Department would
register the recipient who would sign over his check to the
Peoples Temple in exchange for the housing, food and
camaraderie he enjoyed under its care. His time was then
free to work as a volunteer in whatever project the Temple
had undertaken. The test persons themselves would provide
the money and the labor for the experiment in which they
would die.

There was always something to do in the political
department. Temple members wrote letters in support of or in
opposition to nearly every political issue of the day in the
local, state and national arenas. Temple aides had
infiltrated every county government office. Many of the
elected officials owed

their positions to Jones who controlled sixteen percent of
the votes in Mendocino.

The Temple paid cash for the only shopping center in Redwood
Valley and opened "Valley Enterprises" where propaganda was
created and printed for public relations, recruitment and
donations. The center also housed the Temple's bus garage as
Jones had purchased eleven used Greyhound buses to transport
his people. "More Things" on State Street in Ukiah was
another Temple business that sold the personal Temple
possessions members who donated, not only of the Temple
household articles and jewelry, and jewelry, but also their
labor as sales clerks. "Relics and Things" was opened in
1976 on School and Henry Streets as a last-ditch effort to
divest the congregation of any personal wealth before
transporting them off to Guyana.

Patty Cartmell the head of Jones' intelligence operations
founded the
"Ukiah Answering Service;" operations, home-operated
business that employed seven Temple members to monitor the
phone messages of the county's professionals and the radio
communications of the sheriff's department. It was one of
Cartmell's more overt intelligence operations.

The Temple also operated a number of convalescent homes and
a forty acre foster care ranch for boys that added many
Social Security and welfare checks to its income. Over fifty
of the Temple's seniors were convinced to cash in their
life-insurance policies and donate the money to the Temple.
Aides sold photographs Jones as talismans. According to of
Birdie Marable, "I made $80 to $100 a meeting." The mailings
from Valley Enterprises were generating about 800 per day in
donations mailed to the Temple. At least thirty-two
expensive real estate properties were

donated, the Temple, greatly adding to its wealth. One such
San Francisco apartment house was in turn sold for $127,000.
Jessie Boyd, an elderly Black member, gave twenty-five
percent of her meager income to the Temple and still she was
forced to bake and contribute seven or eight cakes a week.
Later she recalled,

I bought all the fixings myself, and the church
would take it over to the Safeway or Albertson's
and sell each one for five dollars.

I can't tell you how much I may have given in
little bits of cash.[65]

Other elderly women sewed quilts that the Temple sold for
about fifty dollars each. Temple children, unskilled and
underage, were taken to San Francisco and dropped off on a
busy corner to beg for donations. At the end of the day, a
bus would pick up the kids and the money canisters for the
ride back to Redwood Valley. To avoid punishment, the child
had to provide at least five dollars for every hour spent on
the streets. The money, in small and large increments,
continued to flow into the Temple at many times the rate
necessary to offset its six hundred thousand dollar annual
budget. Tim Stoen was concerned that bank or government
officials might become suspicious and investigate the origin
of such large sums of cash so he advised Jones to open no
less than fifteen bank accounts to evenly distribute the
wealth. He was quoted as saying, "I told him to move the
money around.

tenement houses. Each was charged rent that when totaled and
weighed against expenses, netted the Temple an additional
eight to ten thousand dollars a month. The Temple also
operated dormitories at Santa Rosa Junior college where as
many as twenty-five Caucasian members were packed into a
cardboard-partitioned, single family house. Student board at
Santa Rosa added another twenty-eight thousand dollars to
the coffer every year.

Feeding his flock was a monumental task that Jones lessened
by milking government poverty programs. Each member applied
for and received government food rations thanks in no small
part to the Temple aides who had infiltrated such government
funded programs. The surplus powdered milk incident is a
prime example.

On March 5, 1971, Mrs. Eunice Mock, supervisor of the
Mendocino County surplus commodities program, and a
colleague were driving along a county road near Redwood
Valley when they spotted two open pick-up trucks loaded with
between fifty and eighty cases of USDA powdered milk. Mrs.
Mock was the sole distributor of such commodities in
Mendocino County and, since she had no knowledge of such a
substantial order, she suspected fraud and followed the
trucks until they pulled over to the side of the road. One
of the truck drivers, Temple member James Bogue, approached
Mock's car to ask why she was following them. When she asked
about the cases of milk that were clearly stamped "USDA",
Bogue said that it was for the poor and none of her
business. She copied down the license numbers and drove off
to file a complaint with the authorities who discovered that
one of the trucks was registered to the Peoples Temple. When
confronted, Bogue said that the milk was not from Mendocino
but was intended for the

county's poor and that he was "incensed with the idea that
the church was involved." His rebuttal did not satisfy the
Department of Agriculture that dispatched two fraud
investigators to speak with Jones in Redwood Valley. Jones
denied that the truck was owned by the Temple. He also
denied any knowledge of the milk in question and avoided
further questioning by grabbing his chest as if in pain and
retiring to his parsonage where he phoned Tim Stoen for
help. Stoen was in the middle of an important county Board
of Supervisors meeting but left abruptly when he received
the message. He arrived at the Temple and immediately
questioned the rights of the investigators and defended
Bogue, Jones and the Temple. Reports vary slightly from one
account to the next but apparently both the investigators
and the Board of Supervisors questioned the priorities of
the Assistant District Attorney who said that his church
came first and the county second. He proved his point by
having County Supervisor Al Barbero Phone San Francisco
Supervisor Dianne Feinstein to enlist her help in stopping
the investigation. Feinstein was called because the powdered
milk had originated in a San Francisco warehouse operated by
the Community Health Alliance, a nonprofit, government-
funded organization headed by Temple member Peter Holmes.
Obviously, Holmes had been using his position to steal food
from the government to feed the Peoples Temple; a practice
that would have continued had it not been for the chance
encounter with Mrs. Mock. As it was, the Temple returned the
milk to San Francisco and the USDA continued its
investigation for several weeks after which the Department
of Health seized control of the warehouse and Peter Holmes
resigned. No charges were

ever filed. Neither the theft nor the Temple's involvement
was ever reported in the news.

Aside from the donations it received from the outside and
the tithes it received from its members inside, the Temple
was financed almost exclusively by agencies of the federal
government through tax-funded jobs, poverty programs and
give-aways. Many members were employed at the Mendocino
State Mental Hospital or in the school system or the welfare
office, all under the U.S. Department of Health, Education
and Welfare. Under the Department of Justice, there were
Temple members in law enforcement, in the grand jury and the
district attorney's office. Black members contributed their
government checks from the Social Security Administration
and the welfare division of HEW. The USDA provided food and
the California Highway Patrol provided inexpensive, high-
powered police cruisers that Jones purchased at auction and
issued to his aides as company cars. Though they removed the
CHP emblem from the car doors, they neglected, possibly
intentionally, to repaint the familiar "black and whites."

Throughout his career, Jones received millions of dollars
from the federal government, millions he used to finance the
experiment in Jonestown. In the end, even the tractor that
transported the assassins to the site of congressman Ryan's
murder was "U.S. government surplus." Had Jones only
mastered the system and taken advantage of its bureaucratic
inefficiencies, or did he have inside help? A phone call
from the Washington D.C. headquarters of a government agency
to its state or local office, asking them to co-operate with
the Peoples Temple, would have been sufficient for Jones to
perpetrate the massive fraud. To this day, no federal agency
has ever

expressed any remorse or responsibility for financing
Jonestown or even any embarrassment at having been duped
into doing so.

April 4, 1968 was a turning point. The assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. created a void in the Black
leadership; a void Jim Jones rushed to fill. As stated,
there were few, if any, Blacks in Mendocino County so Jones
looked south to the ghettos of Oakland and San Francisco for
his victims. Tim Stoen and other trusted aides had already
been planted in key government positions in the Bay Area
when Jones set out to recruit the Black subjects for the
experiment. He held services in San Francisco and Oakland
inner-city school auditoriums, churches, meeting halls and
theaters attracting as many Black welfare recipients as
possible. From the outside, Jones' rainbow family and
multiracial Peoples Temple appeared to be the cutting edge
of the integration movement but, from the inside, both the
old and new Black recruits were segregated from the
Caucasian leadership. This obvious inequality would be
recognized and recorded only once when, a few years later in
1976, eight Black members would send a letter of resignation
to Jim Jones, in which they complained,

You said that the revolutionary focal point at
present is in black people.... There is no
potential in the white population according to
you. Yet, where is the black leadership, where
is the black staff and black attitude? Black
people are being tapped for money, practically