Drinking the Kool-Aid: Part Four, Revolutionary Suicide

Jim Jones had taken his people to the Promised Land: Jonestown in Guyana. Now, forty years after the Jonestown Massacre, we examine how the final horror unfolded.

This is Part Four of a short series of posts on the events leading up to The Jonestown Massacre on 18 November 1978. To understand how Jones and his followers had ended up in Guyana, see Drinking the Kool-Aid: Part Three, The Promised Land.

Under siege

Jim Jones had sought refuge from investigators and the press in Guyana. Jonestown, the settlement he founded, housed nearly a thousand members of the Peoples Temple cult. In reaction to some legal issues, he had marshalled his followers to defend the settlement against the impending attack of the “conspiracy”. During so-called “White Night” events, he had questioned the settlers on the courses of action to take in the case of an invasion, and had primed them to commit “revolutionary suicide” by drinking glasses of a drink they were told was poison.

By November 1978, Jones was in terrible physical and mental shape. He saw his days through a drug-induced haze and was barely coherent, his once strong voice now just a soft mumble.

On 14 November 1978, the “conspiracy” invaded in the form of Congressman Leo Ryan of California on a fact-finding mission to investigate human rights violations in Jonestown. He flew to Guyana with a delegation that included his aides and US government officials, press reporters and cameramen, and representatives of the Concerned Relatives group. This latter group including Tim and Grace Stoen who had failed to retrieve custody of their son from Jim Jones, who claimed that he was the boy's father.

Welcome to paradise

The delegation arrived in the capital, Georgetown on 15 November. Two days later, a smaller party arrived at an airstrip at Port Kaituma, 10 km from Jonestown. Only Ryan and three others were initially accepted into Jonestown, while the rest of Ryan's group was allowed in after sunset. Audio tapes confirm that Jones had practised convincing Ryan that there was nothing untoward and everyone was happy. The delegation was warmly welcomed and treated to a musical performance. Meanwhile, Jones was ranting about government conspiracies and his hatred of the press.

During the performance, a note was handed to one of Ryan's aides, reading, “Dear Congressman, Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby. Please help us get out of Jonestown.”

Ryan and his colleagues Jackie Speier, Neville Annibourne and Richard Dwyer, spent the night at Jonestown while the rest of the delegation found accommodation in Port Kaituma. Hours later, in the early hours of 18 November, 11 Temple members—including the head of security's family—defected by walking to the town of Matthew's Ridge. They had clearly sensed the danger in the settlement.

That afternoon, the Parks and the Bogue families, along with in-laws, asked to be escorted out of Jonestown by the Ryan delegation. Jones finally gave permission to the two families, along with Gosney and Bagby, to leave. There was an emotional moment when a father asked that his two children leave with Ryan, but his wife loudly denounced him and rejected the idea. Jones told the delegation that the defectors were lying and were trying to destroy Jonestown.

The scene at the Port Kaituma airstrip where gunmen killed five people, including Congressman Leo Ryan

Death at the airfield

Most of the delegation departed in a large dump truck to the Port Kaituma airstrip. However, Ryan and Dwyer stayed behind to process more defectors. A Temple loyalist, Larry Layton, demanded to join the group.

Soon after the dump truck had left, Temple member Don Sly grabbed Ryan while wielding a knife. Sly was wrestled to the ground and Ryan was unhurt. Ryan left in a hurry, and was picked up by the truck which had returned after hearing about the commotion, and headed to the airstrip.

Because of all the defectors, now totalling fifteen, further planes had been ordered to fly everyone out. They had to wait about 30 minutes for the planes to arrive at 5.10 pm.

Layton was a passenger on the first plane to take off. As it was taxiing, he produced a handgun and started shooting the passengers, wounding Bagby and Gosney. Layton was disarmed by Dale Parks who he tried to kill.

At the same time, some nine members of the “Red Brigade” security squad opened fire on the next plane to leave. Ryan was killed after being shot more than twenty times. Four others, reporter Don Harris, cameraman Bob Brown, photographer Greg Robinson and Temple member Patricia Parks were also killed. Nine were injured. All the pilots fled in one of the planes, leaving the dead and wounded on the airstrip.

Actual footage from the runway. The filming stops as the truck pulls up and the firing starts

The final White Night

In the early evening, Jones called a meeting under the pavilion. Before everyone arrived, aides prepared a large metal tub with grape Flavor Aid*, poisoned with Valium, chloral hydrate, cyanide and Phenergan.

Jones told the gathering:

One of those people on that plane is gonna shoot the pilot, I know that. I didn't plan it but I know it's gonna happen. They're gonna shoot that pilot and down comes the plane into the jungle and we had better not have any of our children left when it's over, because they'll parachute in here on us

Jones urged Temple members to commit “revolutionary suicide”, as had been practised in the White Night events. According to Jonestown defectors, its theory was, “you can go down in history, saying you chose your own way to go, and it is your commitment to refuse capitalism and in support of socialism.”

There was some resistance to the idea. One of the options Jones had put forward in the past was to be airlifted to the Soviet Union. However, when told that the Congressman had been killed, all resistance faded.

Mothers used syringes without needles to squirt the poison into their children's mouths before drinking the poison themselves. Death occurred within five minutes of drinking it. Noticing that some adults were reluctant to drink the poison after watching others die, Jones urged them to drink, saying, “Die with a degree of dignity. Lay down your life with dignity; don't lay down with tears and agony.” He also said,

I tell you, I don't care how many screams you hear, I don't care how many anguished cries...death is a million times preferable to 10 more days of this life. If you knew what was ahead of you — if you knew what was ahead of you, you'd be glad to be stepping over tonight.

All of this is captured on a 44-minute cassette tape, known as the “death tape”. Cries and screams of children are heard throughout the majority of the tape. Listen to it here, if you can.

Jim Jones was found dead, lying between two other bodies. He had fired a bullet into his left temple.

909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, lay dead on the ground.

In an ironic twist, a few hours earlier Leo Ryan had told Jones' lawyer that he would issue a report that would describe Jonestown “in basically good terms”. None of the 60 relatives he had targeted for interviews wanted to leave, and the 14 defectors constituted a very small portion of Jonestown's residents and even if 200 of the 900+ wanted to leave, “I'd still say you have a beautiful place here”.

*Flavor Aid was a cheaper substitute for the more popular Kool-Aid

This series on the Jonestown Massacre will be concluded in Part Five, tomorrow

Previous posts in this series:
Drinking the Kool-Aid: Introduction
Drinking the Kool-Aid: Part One, The Making of a Cult
Drinking the Kool-Aid: Part Two, Total Control
Drinking the Kool-Aid: Part Three, The Promised Land*

References:
https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?post_type=who_died
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/17/an-apocalyptic-cult-900-dead-remembering-the-jonestown-massacre-40-years-on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown