WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.779 918. I want you to sip at that number for a second. 00:00:03.279 --> 00:00:07.980 918. It's a number that feels so abstract, almost 00:00:07.980 --> 00:00:09.919 like a statistic from a history book, you know? 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.800 It just doesn't feel real. It doesn't. But if 00:00:11.800 --> 00:00:13.800 you try to visualize it, I mean, that is a small 00:00:13.800 --> 00:00:16.079 town. That is a completely packed high school 00:00:16.079 --> 00:00:19.000 gymnasium. That's a line of people stretching 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:22.160 for blocks and blocks. And on November 18th in 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:26.820 1978, every single one of those lives was just 00:00:26.820 --> 00:00:30.390 extinguished. It remains to this day the largest 00:00:30.390 --> 00:00:34.649 loss of American civilian life in a a non -natural 00:00:34.649 --> 00:00:36.850 disaster, with the sole exception of September 00:00:36.850 --> 00:00:38.990 11th. And yet and this is the thing that really 00:00:38.990 --> 00:00:40.710 drove me crazy while we were prepping for this 00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:43.789 deep dive. Culturally, we have reduced this massive, 00:00:43.850 --> 00:00:47.890 complex tragedy to a punch line. A meme. Oh, 00:00:47.929 --> 00:00:49.609 absolutely. We've all heard it. I'm sure we've 00:00:49.609 --> 00:00:51.350 all probably said it at some point in a business 00:00:51.350 --> 00:00:53.729 meeting or a political argument. Oh, don't drink 00:00:53.729 --> 00:00:56.270 the Kool -Aid. It's just become shorthand, hasn't 00:00:56.270 --> 00:00:58.710 it? It means don't blindly follow a bad idea 00:00:58.710 --> 00:01:02.170 or watch out for corporate groupthink. Exactly. 00:01:02.369 --> 00:01:05.890 But when you actually open the files on the People's 00:01:05.890 --> 00:01:09.530 Temple Agricultural Project, which is the official 00:01:09.530 --> 00:01:13.310 name for Jonestown, you realize that phrase isn't 00:01:13.310 --> 00:01:16.840 just. It isn't just disrespectful. It's actually 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:19.819 a complete lie. It completely rewrites history. 00:01:19.939 --> 00:01:22.980 It does. And look, let's just get the pedantic 00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:24.719 fact check out of the way right now so we don't 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:26.920 have to dwell on it. Right. It wasn't Kool -Aid. 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:29.280 The forensic evidence from the scene, the, you 00:01:29.280 --> 00:01:31.739 know, the. empty boxes littering the pavilion, 00:01:31.959 --> 00:01:34.780 they were for flavor aid, a cheaper off -brand 00:01:34.780 --> 00:01:37.500 competitor. Trivial detail, really. It is. But 00:01:37.500 --> 00:01:39.159 the much more important correction, and this 00:01:39.159 --> 00:01:40.659 is the one we are going to spend the next hour 00:01:40.659 --> 00:01:43.719 unpacking, is the idea that this was a mass suicide. 00:01:44.019 --> 00:01:47.040 Right. Because that word suicide. It implies 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.420 a choice, doesn't it? It implies willingness. 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:51.599 And what we're going to see, what the evidence 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:54.260 just overwhelmingly shows, is that for a huge 00:01:54.260 --> 00:01:58.019 percentage of those 918 people, the babies, the 00:01:58.019 --> 00:02:00.000 toddlers, the seniors, and the people staring 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.040 down the barrel of a rifle, choice had absolutely 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:05.040 nothing to do with it. That's the mission today. 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:08.400 We need to dismantle that myth, the myth of their 00:02:08.400 --> 00:02:11.020 crazy cult that killed themselves, and instead 00:02:11.020 --> 00:02:14.340 look at the machinery of how this happened. Because 00:02:14.340 --> 00:02:16.379 Jonestown didn't just appear out of thin air 00:02:16.379 --> 00:02:19.139 in a jungle in Guyana. No. It didn't start with 00:02:19.139 --> 00:02:22.020 crazy people. It started in the heart of the 00:02:22.020 --> 00:02:23.759 American political establishment. That's the 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:25.879 part that just completely blew my mind in the 00:02:25.879 --> 00:02:27.259 research. The question I kept writing in the 00:02:27.259 --> 00:02:29.860 margins of all these notes was just how. How 00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:31.960 do you go from being this politically connected, 00:02:32.219 --> 00:02:35.659 progressive, racially integrated church group 00:02:35.659 --> 00:02:37.620 in San Francisco? I mean, these people were dining 00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:39.780 with vice presidents. How do you go from that 00:02:39.780 --> 00:02:42.740 to dead in the mud in South America? It is a 00:02:42.740 --> 00:02:45.599 terrifying slide and it's not a straight line. 00:02:45.740 --> 00:02:49.340 It's not one single event. It's a study in isolation, 00:02:49.620 --> 00:02:52.400 in political radicalism and the slow creeping 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:55.340 psychology of total control. So let's start there. 00:02:55.419 --> 00:02:57.539 Let's start not in the jungle, but in the city, 00:02:57.580 --> 00:02:59.680 because I think most people have this image of 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:02.919 Jim Jones as this. This fringe lunatic. You know, 00:03:02.919 --> 00:03:05.060 a guy in sunglasses shouting on a street corner 00:03:05.060 --> 00:03:07.099 somewhere. Right, a classic cult leader architect. 00:03:07.319 --> 00:03:09.419 But the source material, it paints a completely 00:03:09.419 --> 00:03:11.819 different picture of him in the mid -1970s. Oh, 00:03:11.819 --> 00:03:14.259 completely. If you were living in San Francisco 00:03:14.259 --> 00:03:19.379 in, say, 1975 or 1976, Jim Jones wasn't a fringe 00:03:19.379 --> 00:03:22.650 lunatic. He was a power broker. He was in many 00:03:22.650 --> 00:03:24.969 ways the establishment. So the People's Temple, 00:03:25.150 --> 00:03:28.110 it started in Indiana back in the 50s, but they 00:03:28.110 --> 00:03:30.389 moved to California in 65. Is that when they 00:03:30.389 --> 00:03:32.770 started gaining this political influence? That's 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:34.430 when it really ramped up. When they established 00:03:34.430 --> 00:03:36.949 themselves in San Francisco, they became a machine, 00:03:37.110 --> 00:03:39.629 a political machine. Let's drill down into that 00:03:39.629 --> 00:03:42.389 machine aspect because our notes say he was instrumental 00:03:42.389 --> 00:03:45.349 in the mayoral election of George Moscone. How 00:03:45.349 --> 00:03:47.550 does a preacher become instrumental in a major 00:03:47.550 --> 00:03:49.909 city's mayoral race? It comes down to one thing. 00:03:51.379 --> 00:03:53.419 The People's Temple didn't just have a congregation. 00:03:53.800 --> 00:03:56.520 They had a mobilized, incredibly disciplined 00:03:56.520 --> 00:03:59.560 voting bloc. Jones could snap his fingers and 00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:02.240 have thousands of volunteers walking precincts 00:04:02.240 --> 00:04:04.259 handing out flyers. Getting out the vote. Getting 00:04:04.259 --> 00:04:05.860 out the vote, which is the most important thing. 00:04:05.979 --> 00:04:08.400 And a tight local election, which that one was, 00:04:08.439 --> 00:04:11.319 that is pure gold. Moscone won that election 00:04:11.319 --> 00:04:14.379 by a very, very slim margin. And he knew who 00:04:14.379 --> 00:04:16.579 to thank. He knew exactly who tipped the scales. 00:04:17.389 --> 00:04:19.870 And he was grateful. He knew it enough to give 00:04:19.870 --> 00:04:22.649 Jones a job. And we're not talking about some, 00:04:22.670 --> 00:04:26.069 you know, ceremonial thank you position. No, 00:04:26.069 --> 00:04:28.550 no. This was a serious appointment. This was 00:04:28.550 --> 00:04:32.089 real power. Mayor Moscone appointed Jim Jones 00:04:32.089 --> 00:04:34.509 as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing 00:04:34.509 --> 00:04:36.329 Authority. Stop and think about that for a second. 00:04:36.889 --> 00:04:39.589 The man who would later orchestrate the Jonestown 00:04:39.589 --> 00:04:42.310 massacre was the chairman of the Housing Authority 00:04:42.310 --> 00:04:45.629 for a major American city. He was in charge of 00:04:45.629 --> 00:04:48.420 public housing. He was leading public meetings. 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:51.740 He was deciding the fate of tenants and multi 00:04:51.740 --> 00:04:53.639 -million dollar budgets. And if you look at the 00:04:53.639 --> 00:04:56.160 records from those meetings, he was already practicing 00:04:56.160 --> 00:04:58.420 his methods of control, wasn't he? It was pure 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:01.079 theater. Jones would pack the meeting room with 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:03.519 hundreds of temple members. If he made a motion, 00:05:03.759 --> 00:05:06.660 the room would erupt in cheers. If someone dared 00:05:06.660 --> 00:05:09.199 to oppose him, the room would boo them into silence. 00:05:09.839 --> 00:05:12.519 He was basically road testing his control tactics 00:05:12.519 --> 00:05:15.829 on a municipal level. And his network, it went 00:05:15.829 --> 00:05:18.069 way beyond the mayor's office. I'm looking at 00:05:18.069 --> 00:05:19.550 some of the names here in the source material. 00:05:19.889 --> 00:05:22.029 Well, they're icons of the Democratic Party. 00:05:22.430 --> 00:05:25.889 Walter Mondale, Rosalind Carter. It's absolutely 00:05:25.889 --> 00:05:29.170 true. In September of 1976, there was this massive 00:05:29.170 --> 00:05:32.589 testimonial dinner held in Jones's honor. The 00:05:32.589 --> 00:05:35.689 guest list was a who's who of California and 00:05:35.689 --> 00:05:37.829 national politics. Who was there? Governor Jerry 00:05:37.829 --> 00:05:40.589 Brown was there. Assemblyman Willie Brown, who 00:05:40.589 --> 00:05:42.689 was arguably the most powerful politician in 00:05:42.689 --> 00:05:45.639 the entire state. He was there, and he famously 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:47.839 compared Jones to Martin Luther King Jr. and 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:50.720 Mahatma Gandhi. Wow. Alter Mondale, who was running 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:52.959 for vice president at the time, said a glowing 00:05:52.959 --> 00:05:56.639 endorsement that was read aloud. Rosalind Carter, 00:05:56.939 --> 00:05:59.360 the future first lady, actively campaigned with 00:05:59.360 --> 00:06:01.939 him. She shared a stage with him. Why? I mean, 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:03.579 looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, 00:06:03.779 --> 00:06:06.060 it seems completely insane. Did they not see 00:06:06.060 --> 00:06:08.360 the cracks? Were there no warning signs? You 00:06:08.360 --> 00:06:09.920 have to look at what Jones was selling on the 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:11.939 surface. He wasn't selling, come join my crazy 00:06:11.939 --> 00:06:15.639 cult. Racial integration and social justice. 00:06:15.839 --> 00:06:17.839 The optics were good. The optics were fantastic. 00:06:19.180 --> 00:06:21.620 The People's Temple was one of the few truly 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:24.420 integrated organizations at the time. You had 00:06:24.420 --> 00:06:27.160 young white college kids sitting next to elderly 00:06:27.160 --> 00:06:29.379 African -American women. You had professionals, 00:06:29.560 --> 00:06:32.560 laborers all together. To a progressive politician 00:06:32.560 --> 00:06:34.839 in the 70s, that looked like the Dream Coalition. 00:06:35.579 --> 00:06:38.300 Jones was a master at hiding the abuse behind 00:06:38.300 --> 00:06:40.699 this shield of progressive politics. He had a 00:06:40.699 --> 00:06:43.759 whole PR team, right? The notes mention public 00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:46.759 relations women. Yes. He had a dedicated team 00:06:46.759 --> 00:06:49.279 within the temple whose entire job was to polish 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:51.680 the image and manage the narrative. They courted 00:06:51.680 --> 00:06:53.759 the press. They courted politicians. They made 00:06:53.759 --> 00:06:56.439 sure that whenever any dignitaries visited one 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:58.579 of their facilities, all they saw were happy 00:06:58.579 --> 00:07:01.259 children singing and a vibrant, productive community. 00:07:01.519 --> 00:07:03.480 They were incredibly aggressive about managing 00:07:03.480 --> 00:07:05.079 the narrative. Okay, so he's the king of San 00:07:05.079 --> 00:07:07.079 Francisco. He's got the mayor on speed dial. 00:07:07.180 --> 00:07:09.600 He's got the future first lady singing his praises. 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:11.800 Which brings us back to that central question. 00:07:12.040 --> 00:07:14.980 why leave? Why pack up a thousand people and 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:17.079 move them to a remote, undeveloped jungle in 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:19.420 Guyana? It's that classic push and pull dynamic. 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:22.560 The pull was that Jones was a malignant narcissist 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:26.860 who wanted total, absolute dominion. In San Francisco, 00:07:27.060 --> 00:07:29.319 for all his power, he still had to deal with 00:07:29.319 --> 00:07:32.040 laws. He had to deal with the press, with critics, 00:07:32.180 --> 00:07:34.680 with defectors. He wanted a kingdom where his 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:38.139 word was the only law. Guyana offered that possibility. 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:40.740 Why Guyana specifically, though? Was it just 00:07:40.740 --> 00:07:43.319 a random spot on the map? Not at all. It was 00:07:43.319 --> 00:07:45.560 very, very calculated. The source material breaks 00:07:45.560 --> 00:07:48.279 down the reasoning really clearly. First, it's 00:07:48.279 --> 00:07:50.560 English speaking. That's huge. It's huge if you're 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:52.100 moving hundreds of Americans, you don't have 00:07:52.100 --> 00:07:54.560 to deal with an immediate language barrier. Second, 00:07:54.759 --> 00:07:57.220 Guyana had a socialist government at the time, 00:07:57.240 --> 00:08:00.100 led by Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. Jones could 00:08:00.100 --> 00:08:02.699 pitch his project as a sort of socialist fellow 00:08:02.699 --> 00:08:05.319 traveler experiment. So he's speaking their language 00:08:05.319 --> 00:08:07.819 politically. Exactly. And third, and this was 00:08:07.819 --> 00:08:10.339 absolutely crucial for his followers, Guyana 00:08:10.339 --> 00:08:12.879 had a predominantly black leadership. Right, 00:08:12.939 --> 00:08:14.600 because the demographics of the temple were, 00:08:14.699 --> 00:08:16.959 what, about 70 percent African -American? Yeah. 00:08:17.019 --> 00:08:19.160 Roughly 70 percent of Jonestown's population 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:23.310 was black. And Jones sold Guyana to them as a 00:08:23.310 --> 00:08:26.129 sanctuary. He hammered this message home constantly. 00:08:26.529 --> 00:08:28.730 The U .S. is racist. The U .S. is going to put 00:08:28.730 --> 00:08:31.069 you in concentration camps. A race war is coming. 00:08:31.230 --> 00:08:34.090 In Guyana, a black -led socialist country, you 00:08:34.090 --> 00:08:36.509 will finally be free. It's a powerful pitch. 00:08:36.629 --> 00:08:38.610 It's an incredibly powerful pitch if you've experienced 00:08:38.610 --> 00:08:41.549 racism in America. But he was also pitching the 00:08:41.549 --> 00:08:43.830 Guyanese government, right? He had to get their 00:08:43.830 --> 00:08:45.629 permission to bring a thousand Americans into 00:08:45.629 --> 00:08:47.720 their country and set up shop. And that's where 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:49.899 his manipulative genius comes in again. He didn't 00:08:49.899 --> 00:08:51.700 just go to them and say, we want to start a farm. 00:08:51.759 --> 00:08:53.659 He looked at the map. He was clever. He was. 00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:56.460 The spot they chose was in the deep interior, 00:08:56.620 --> 00:08:59.080 in the northwest of the country, right near the 00:08:59.080 --> 00:09:01.840 border with Venezuela. Now, Guyana and Venezuela 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:04.259 have had this longstanding, very contentious 00:09:04.259 --> 00:09:07.179 border dispute for over a century. Venezuela 00:09:07.179 --> 00:09:10.230 claims that entire chunk of territory. So Jones 00:09:10.230 --> 00:09:12.830 saw a geopolitical angle. He did. He went to 00:09:12.830 --> 00:09:14.750 Prime Minister Forbes Burnham and basically said, 00:09:14.830 --> 00:09:17.649 let me put a thousand American citizens right 00:09:17.649 --> 00:09:21.409 on your disputed border. We will be a human buffer 00:09:21.409 --> 00:09:24.149 zone. Venezuela will never dare to invade if 00:09:24.149 --> 00:09:25.909 they know they have to run over American citizens 00:09:25.909 --> 00:09:29.250 to do it. That is just, it's chilling. He's literally 00:09:29.250 --> 00:09:31.629 using his own followers as human shields, as 00:09:31.629 --> 00:09:34.149 a bargaining chip to get land. They were always 00:09:34.149 --> 00:09:36.539 just tools to him. He used them as a voting bloc 00:09:36.539 --> 00:09:38.980 in San Francisco, and he used them as a geopolitical 00:09:38.980 --> 00:09:42.000 buffer in Guyana. They were pawns. So that's 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:44.700 the pull, the allure of a private kingdom. What 00:09:44.700 --> 00:09:47.019 was the push? Because the move wasn't a slow, 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:49.899 organized trickle. At a certain point, it turned 00:09:49.899 --> 00:09:53.309 into a panic. The push was the press. Despite 00:09:53.309 --> 00:09:55.370 all his political connections, all his PR work, 00:09:55.529 --> 00:09:58.049 rumors were leaking out. Defectors were starting 00:09:58.049 --> 00:09:59.830 to talk to journalists about the beatings, about 00:09:59.830 --> 00:10:01.649 the forced confessions, about financial fraud. 00:10:01.870 --> 00:10:04.710 And in the summer of 1977, a publication called 00:10:04.710 --> 00:10:07.110 New West Magazine was preparing to publish a 00:10:07.110 --> 00:10:09.690 massive expose. This is the Marshall Kilduff 00:10:09.690 --> 00:10:12.809 article. That's the one. And back then, there 00:10:12.809 --> 00:10:16.250 was sometimes this professional courtesy where 00:10:16.250 --> 00:10:19.179 editors would read the article. To the subject 00:10:19.179 --> 00:10:21.100 before publication, you know, for fact checking. 00:10:21.220 --> 00:10:23.000 A courtesy that doesn't exist anymore. Not so 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:25.919 much. An editor from the magazine read the article 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:29.019 to Jones over the phone. Jones listened to all 00:10:29.019 --> 00:10:31.100 these detailed allegations of physical abuse, 00:10:31.259 --> 00:10:36.059 of financial crimes. He hung up the phone and 00:10:36.059 --> 00:10:39.620 he decided to run. He fled to Guyana that very 00:10:39.620 --> 00:10:42.820 night. Just like that. Gone. And the great exodus 00:10:42.820 --> 00:10:46.210 began. Hundreds of his followers were ordered 00:10:46.210 --> 00:10:48.269 to follow him over the next few months. They 00:10:48.269 --> 00:10:49.990 left their jobs. They sold their homes. They 00:10:49.990 --> 00:10:51.690 signed over their life savings to the temple, 00:10:51.809 --> 00:10:54.190 said goodbye to their families, and they flew 00:10:54.190 --> 00:10:55.909 to South America. They thought they were building 00:10:55.909 --> 00:10:58.250 a socialist paradise. They did. That was a promise. 00:10:58.450 --> 00:11:00.309 So let's talk about that paradise. Because the 00:11:00.309 --> 00:11:02.710 brochure, I'm sure, was beautiful. The People's 00:11:02.710 --> 00:11:05.129 Temple Agricultural Project. It sounds noble. 00:11:05.350 --> 00:11:07.210 It sounds like a Peace Corps mission. But the 00:11:07.210 --> 00:11:09.570 reality, let's unpack the reality of day -to 00:11:09.570 --> 00:11:12.029 -day life inside Jonestown. It was a bait -and 00:11:12.029 --> 00:11:14.659 -switch operation. of the absolute highest order. 00:11:14.840 --> 00:11:18.580 The brochure promised a tropical utopia, self 00:11:18.580 --> 00:11:22.700 -sufficiency, brotherhood, racial harmony. The 00:11:22.700 --> 00:11:26.440 reality was a poorly run, overcrowded labor camp. 00:11:26.659 --> 00:11:28.840 Let's start with the physical conditions. What 00:11:28.840 --> 00:11:31.139 are we talking about? Well, start with the environment 00:11:31.139 --> 00:11:34.000 itself. It's the jungle. It is incredibly hot. 00:11:34.139 --> 00:11:37.539 It is relentlessly humid. And the soil is terrible. 00:11:38.110 --> 00:11:39.710 This is something that often gets overlooked 00:11:39.710 --> 00:11:41.730 in the story. They're an agricultural project. 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:43.690 The soil is kind of important. You would think. 00:11:43.990 --> 00:11:46.490 But the soil in that region is a low fertility 00:11:46.490 --> 00:11:49.250 clay. It's just not meant for the kind of intensive 00:11:49.250 --> 00:11:51.269 agriculture they were attempting. They couldn't 00:11:51.269 --> 00:11:52.730 grow enough food. They were never going to be 00:11:52.730 --> 00:11:54.669 self -sufficient. So they were hungry. They were 00:11:54.669 --> 00:11:57.250 starving. We have menus and survivor accounts 00:11:57.250 --> 00:11:59.649 that are just heartbreaking. The average diet 00:11:59.649 --> 00:12:02.370 was rice, rice for breakfast, maybe some rice 00:12:02.370 --> 00:12:04.669 water for lunch, and then rice with some boiled 00:12:04.669 --> 00:12:07.240 greens or beans for dinner. If you are extremely 00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:10.019 lucky, you might get an egg. And on this diet, 00:12:10.080 --> 00:12:13.620 they were working. How long? 11 plus hour days. 00:12:14.139 --> 00:12:16.700 6 .30 in the morning to 6 .00 at night, six days 00:12:16.700 --> 00:12:19.960 a week. Chopping wood, clearing fields in that 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:23.159 sweltering heat, all on a massive calorie deficit. 00:12:23.600 --> 00:12:25.980 People were fainting in the fields from malnutrition. 00:12:26.179 --> 00:12:28.360 But not everyone was starving, right? I remember 00:12:28.360 --> 00:12:30.460 reading a very specific detail about Jim Jones' 00:12:30.740 --> 00:12:33.440 personal cottage. No, the king was not starving. 00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:36.639 Jones lived in a cottage that looked modest from 00:12:36.639 --> 00:12:39.059 the outside, but inside he had a refrigerator. 00:12:39.299 --> 00:12:41.500 And that refrigerator was stocked with soda, 00:12:41.559 --> 00:12:44.320 with meat, with eggs. So while his followers 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:46.679 are literally collapsing from hunger, he's in 00:12:46.679 --> 00:12:48.679 his air -conditioned room drinking a cold Coke 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:52.440 and eating a steak. That hypocrisy is just infuriating. 00:12:52.539 --> 00:12:54.700 But it also serves a purpose in the control system, 00:12:54.899 --> 00:12:57.179 doesn't it? It establishes him as a different 00:12:57.179 --> 00:12:59.820 species. He's the leader. He deserves the protein. 00:12:59.899 --> 00:13:02.059 You are the worker. You deserve the rice. It 00:13:02.059 --> 00:13:05.039 reinforces the hierarchy perfectly, but the physical 00:13:05.039 --> 00:13:07.940 hardship, the hunger, the exhaustion, that was 00:13:07.940 --> 00:13:10.409 just one layer of the control. The psychological 00:13:10.409 --> 00:13:13.590 control was arguably even more intense. We have 00:13:13.590 --> 00:13:15.269 to talk about the loudspeaker. The tower. The 00:13:15.269 --> 00:13:18.649 tower. Jones installed this massive PA system 00:13:18.649 --> 00:13:21.429 that covered the entire settlement, every cabin, 00:13:21.490 --> 00:13:26.399 every field. And he was on it. Constantly. Survivors 00:13:26.399 --> 00:13:28.600 talk about this with genuine trauma in their 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:31.440 voices. You'd wake up to his voice. You'd work 00:13:31.440 --> 00:13:33.720 all day to his voice. You'd eat your meager dinner 00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:36.820 to his voice. He would be ranting, reading the 00:13:36.820 --> 00:13:39.960 news, giving orders, sometimes rambling incoherently 00:13:39.960 --> 00:13:41.820 deep into the night. You could never escape it. 00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:43.679 You couldn't turn it off. There was no off switch. 00:13:43.980 --> 00:13:46.340 Yeah. It's a classic brainwashing technique. 00:13:46.830 --> 00:13:49.470 If you bombard the human brain with constant 00:13:49.470 --> 00:13:51.649 noise and information and you couple that with 00:13:51.649 --> 00:13:54.149 sleep deprivation and malnutrition, it becomes 00:13:54.149 --> 00:13:55.929 nearly impossible to form an independent thought. 00:13:56.009 --> 00:13:57.990 You are just a vessel for the leader's voice. 00:13:58.210 --> 00:14:00.330 And the information he was feeding them through 00:14:00.330 --> 00:14:03.570 that speaker was, well, let's call it curated. 00:14:03.889 --> 00:14:06.190 It was terrifyingly curated. You have to remember, 00:14:06.309 --> 00:14:09.710 they have no TV, no radio from the outside world, 00:14:09.850 --> 00:14:12.879 no newspapers. Their mail is completely censored, 00:14:12.879 --> 00:14:16.080 both outgoing and incoming, so Jim Jones is their 00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:18.539 only window to the world. And he painted the 00:14:18.539 --> 00:14:21.100 world outside as a complete and utter hellscape. 00:14:21.299 --> 00:14:23.360 What kind of stuff was he telling them? He would 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:25.940 read news reports, but they were often from Soviet 00:14:25.940 --> 00:14:29.019 outlets like DSS or from Radio Havana. He would 00:14:29.019 --> 00:14:32.139 spin everything. He told them that the Ku Klux 00:14:32.139 --> 00:14:34.419 Klan was marching openly in the streets of every 00:14:34.419 --> 00:14:36.659 American city. He told them the U .S. government 00:14:36.659 --> 00:14:39.159 had finally started rounding up African Americans 00:14:39.159 --> 00:14:41.500 and putting them in concentration camps. Which 00:14:41.500 --> 00:14:44.139 was a fear he'd been stoking for years. For years. 00:14:44.679 --> 00:14:47.779 He told them that society back home had collapsed 00:14:47.779 --> 00:14:50.100 into fascism. So if you're sitting in the jungle, 00:14:50.159 --> 00:14:52.679 you're exhausted, you're hungry, and the only 00:14:52.679 --> 00:14:54.539 voice you ever hear is telling you that your 00:14:54.539 --> 00:14:57.879 home is burning to the ground, you believe it. 00:14:58.220 --> 00:15:00.240 You have no way to fact -check any of it. It 00:15:00.240 --> 00:15:03.039 creates that perfect siege mentality. We can't 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:05.179 go back. Because there is nothing to go back 00:15:05.179 --> 00:15:07.659 to. This jungle is the only safe place left on 00:15:07.659 --> 00:15:10.320 Earth. Precisely. And to reinforce that paranoia, 00:15:10.340 --> 00:15:14.299 they had movie nights. But they weren't watching 00:15:14.299 --> 00:15:17.220 comedies. No. Jones curated the film selection 00:15:17.220 --> 00:15:19.100 very carefully. They watched The Parallax View. 00:15:19.299 --> 00:15:22.240 They watched the Casa Gavras film, Z. They watched 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:25.779 The Day of the Jackal. These are all dents. paranoid 00:15:25.779 --> 00:15:28.679 political thrillers about assassinations, government 00:15:28.679 --> 00:15:31.960 conspiracies, shadowy cabals. Exactly. He was 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:34.740 using popular entertainment to validate his paranoid 00:15:34.740 --> 00:15:38.379 worldview. He'd say, see, even the movies admit 00:15:38.379 --> 00:15:40.600 it. The government is out to get us. The CIA 00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:43.639 is everywhere. So you're exhausted. You're terrified 00:15:43.639 --> 00:15:45.580 of the outside world. You're constantly listening 00:15:45.580 --> 00:15:48.059 to his voice. But what if you still stepped out 00:15:48.059 --> 00:15:50.340 of line? What if you complained about the food 00:15:50.340 --> 00:15:52.960 or fell asleep during one of his late night rants? 00:15:53.529 --> 00:15:55.750 Then you would meet the discipline system. There 00:15:55.750 --> 00:15:57.990 was no jail in Jonestown. They had something 00:15:57.990 --> 00:16:00.909 far worse. They had the box. Can you describe 00:16:00.909 --> 00:16:03.929 the box? It was a plywood container. Roughly 00:16:03.929 --> 00:16:06.029 six feet long by four feet wide by three feet 00:16:06.029 --> 00:16:08.669 high. Barely big enough for a person to cram 00:16:08.669 --> 00:16:11.070 themselves into. It was buried partially underground 00:16:11.070 --> 00:16:13.990 to keep it stable. If you misbehaved, you were 00:16:13.990 --> 00:16:16.110 locked inside. It's basically a coffin. It's 00:16:16.110 --> 00:16:17.690 a coffin. And in the tropical heat, it would 00:16:17.690 --> 00:16:20.649 become an oven. Total darkness, sensory deprivation, 00:16:20.789 --> 00:16:22.750 heat exhaustion, insects. People were kept in 00:16:22.750 --> 00:16:25.509 there for hours, sometimes days. And that was 00:16:25.509 --> 00:16:27.590 for the adults. The notes mentioned something 00:16:27.590 --> 00:16:30.409 even more disturbing called the well for children. 00:16:30.730 --> 00:16:32.809 This is one of the hardest things to even read 00:16:32.809 --> 00:16:36.950 about. If children misbehaved, and misbehaved 00:16:36.950 --> 00:16:39.970 could mean anything from stealing a cookie to 00:16:39.970 --> 00:16:42.429 not paying attention, they would sometimes be 00:16:42.429 --> 00:16:44.690 taken to the settlement's main well in the middle 00:16:44.690 --> 00:16:46.919 of the night. And what happened there? They would 00:16:46.919 --> 00:16:49.659 be dangled by a rope down into the dark shaft, 00:16:49.980 --> 00:16:53.419 sometimes upside down. Imagine the absolute terror 00:16:53.419 --> 00:16:56.500 of a child spinning in the dark, thinking they 00:16:56.500 --> 00:16:57.940 are going to be dropped into the water below. 00:16:58.159 --> 00:17:00.940 It's just it's pure psychological torture. It 00:17:00.940 --> 00:17:02.919 is. There's no other word for it. It's systemic 00:17:02.919 --> 00:17:05.819 torture designed to break the will. It is. And 00:17:05.819 --> 00:17:07.980 for the people who couldn't be broken by the 00:17:07.980 --> 00:17:10.559 box or the ones who kept resisting, there was 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:13.059 the extended care unit. Which sounds so benign. 00:17:13.099 --> 00:17:15.299 It sounds like a hospital wing. It was sedation 00:17:15.299 --> 00:17:18.170 ward. Yeah. The medical team in Jonestown, which, 00:17:18.269 --> 00:17:20.230 and this is important, included actual doctors 00:17:20.230 --> 00:17:22.130 and nurses who had been radicalized by Jones, 00:17:22.410 --> 00:17:27.269 used powerful psychiatric drugs as weapons. Thorazine, 00:17:27.369 --> 00:17:31.150 sodium pentothal, Demerol. What would they do 00:17:31.150 --> 00:17:34.190 with them? If someone was a problem case or was 00:17:34.190 --> 00:17:36.950 caught talking about wanting to leave, they would 00:17:36.950 --> 00:17:39.329 be forcibly injected and drugged into a stupor. 00:17:39.829 --> 00:17:42.710 They called it giving them special care. But 00:17:42.710 --> 00:17:45.170 it was a chemical lobotomy. It was a way to silence 00:17:45.170 --> 00:17:47.940 dissent. without leaving marks. So we have the 00:17:47.940 --> 00:17:50.539 physical control, the information control, and 00:17:50.539 --> 00:17:53.200 the punishment. But this brings us to the most 00:17:53.200 --> 00:17:55.619 famous, or maybe the most infamous, part of the 00:17:55.619 --> 00:17:58.839 Jonestown mythology. The rehearsals. The white 00:17:58.839 --> 00:18:01.700 knights. This is where the story pivots. It shifts 00:18:01.700 --> 00:18:04.740 from a dystopian labor camp into an active death 00:18:04.740 --> 00:18:07.220 cult. And it seems to correspond with Jones' 00:18:07.359 --> 00:18:10.339 own decline. His health was failing. He was abusing 00:18:10.339 --> 00:18:13.140 drugs himself. A cocktail of uppers to preach 00:18:13.140 --> 00:18:15.859 for hours and downers to sleep. He was claiming 00:18:15.859 --> 00:18:18.279 he had lung cancer, which the autopsy later proved 00:18:18.279 --> 00:18:20.279 was a complete lie. And his paranoia was just 00:18:20.279 --> 00:18:22.680 spiraling. Completely off the charts. He was 00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:25.440 utterly convinced the CIA was coming, that mercenaries 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.220 hired by his enemies were hiding in the trees 00:18:27.220 --> 00:18:29.160 waiting to attack. So he started the drills. 00:18:29.380 --> 00:18:31.799 The white knights. It would happen at any time, 00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:34.140 usually deep in the night. The sirens would start 00:18:34.140 --> 00:18:37.839 wailing across the compound. Alert! Alert! Alert! 00:18:38.259 --> 00:18:41.980 The entire community. All 900 people, from the 00:18:41.980 --> 00:18:44.339 toddlers to the elderly, would have to wake up 00:18:44.339 --> 00:18:46.660 immediately, run to the Central Pavilion, and 00:18:46.660 --> 00:18:49.220 line up. And armed guards were there. This wasn't 00:18:49.220 --> 00:18:51.940 a fire drill. No. The Red Brigade, which was 00:18:51.940 --> 00:18:54.660 his personal security force, would surround the 00:18:54.660 --> 00:18:57.799 pavilion with rifles and crossbows. Jones would 00:18:57.799 --> 00:18:59.440 get on the microphone and tell them that the 00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:01.640 mercenaries were in the trees. He would paint 00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:04.180 this terrifying picture. They're coming to kill 00:19:04.180 --> 00:19:06.000 us. They're coming to torture the babies. And 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:08.160 he gave them choices, right? The outline says 00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:10.819 it wasn't always suicide immediately. In the 00:19:10.819 --> 00:19:13.079 early drills, he usually offered four options. 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:16.440 Option one, fleeing to the Soviet Union. which 00:19:16.440 --> 00:19:18.519 was a logistical fantasy, but it sounds like 00:19:18.519 --> 00:19:21.619 a plan. Option two, stay and fight to the death. 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:24.839 Option three, flee into the jungle, which everyone 00:19:24.839 --> 00:19:27.059 knew meant certain death by snake bite or exposure. 00:19:27.339 --> 00:19:30.319 Or option four, revolutionary suicide. And they 00:19:30.319 --> 00:19:31.740 practiced it. They actually went through the 00:19:31.740 --> 00:19:34.319 motions. They did. Yeah. We have these chilling 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:36.480 accounts from defectors like Deborah Layton. 00:19:36.819 --> 00:19:39.500 Jones would have his staff bring out a vat of 00:19:39.500 --> 00:19:41.319 liquid. He would get on the mic and announce, 00:19:41.500 --> 00:19:44.000 this is poison. Tonight is the night we will 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:46.789 die with dignity. He would tell them they had 00:19:46.789 --> 00:19:49.849 45 minutes to live, and then everyone would be 00:19:49.849 --> 00:19:52.210 ordered to line up and drink it. Can you imagine 00:19:52.210 --> 00:19:54.990 that psychological space? Believing you have 00:19:54.990 --> 00:19:58.049 just willingly drunk poison, holding your child, 00:19:58.150 --> 00:20:00.089 and just counting down the minutes to your own 00:20:00.089 --> 00:20:02.710 death. And then when 45 minutes had passed and 00:20:02.710 --> 00:20:04.849 no one had died, Jones would laugh. He would 00:20:04.849 --> 00:20:07.069 get back on the microphone and say, this was 00:20:07.069 --> 00:20:09.390 a loyalty test. I needed to see if you were ready 00:20:09.390 --> 00:20:12.630 to lay down your lives for our cause. It's not 00:20:12.630 --> 00:20:15.049 just a test, though. It's conditioning, isn't 00:20:15.049 --> 00:20:17.450 it? It's absolutely conditioning. It's desensitization. 00:20:17.789 --> 00:20:20.470 If you go through a mock execution 10 times, 00:20:20.589 --> 00:20:23.170 by the 11th time, you are numb to it. You've 00:20:23.170 --> 00:20:25.109 already accepted the concept of your own death. 00:20:25.269 --> 00:20:28.410 You stop fighting the idea. There was one particular 00:20:28.410 --> 00:20:30.890 siege, though, that was more than just a drill. 00:20:30.990 --> 00:20:34.170 It lasted for days. The Six Day Siege. That's 00:20:34.170 --> 00:20:37.359 right. This was in September of 1977. It was 00:20:37.359 --> 00:20:39.720 sparked by a custody battle back in the U .S. 00:20:39.720 --> 00:20:43.400 over a young boy named John Victor Stone. Jones 00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:46.000 claimed he was the biological father. The mother 00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.480 and her estranged husband wanted the child back. 00:20:49.019 --> 00:20:51.440 Jones was terrified the Guyanese courts would 00:20:51.440 --> 00:20:53.279 side with the parents and force him to hand the 00:20:53.279 --> 00:20:56.440 boy over. So he manufactured a crisis to prevent 00:20:56.440 --> 00:20:59.519 that? He manufactured a full -blown crisis. He 00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:01.599 had one of his loyalists fire a rifle in the 00:21:01.599 --> 00:21:04.039 jungle, and then he claimed it was a sniper attack 00:21:04.039 --> 00:21:07.130 on him. He announced that mercenaries hired by 00:21:07.130 --> 00:21:09.730 the Stone family were surrounding the camp. For 00:21:09.730 --> 00:21:12.109 six days and six nights, the entire community 00:21:12.109 --> 00:21:14.720 was on lockdown. People armed with machetes and 00:21:14.720 --> 00:21:17.160 farm tools patrolled the perimeter, staring into 00:21:17.160 --> 00:21:19.420 the dark jungle, waiting for an enemy that didn't 00:21:19.420 --> 00:21:21.859 exist. It just cements that us versus them narrative. 00:21:22.019 --> 00:21:24.240 The world wants to destroy us, so we must be 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:26.819 ready to die for our beliefs. Exactly. But there's 00:21:26.819 --> 00:21:29.200 this weird subplot here that I honestly didn't 00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:31.220 know much about until we really dug into these 00:21:31.220 --> 00:21:33.460 sources. The Soviet connection. They weren't 00:21:33.460 --> 00:21:34.960 just looking at the jungle for enemies. They 00:21:34.960 --> 00:21:37.480 were looking east to Russia. It's one of those 00:21:37.480 --> 00:21:39.420 bizarre aspects of the whole story. But yes, 00:21:39.579 --> 00:21:42.619 the People's Temple was actively and seriously 00:21:42.670 --> 00:21:45.289 negotiating with the Soviet Union to move the 00:21:45.289 --> 00:21:48.690 entire community, all 900 people, to Russia. 00:21:48.829 --> 00:21:51.710 He was pivoting his whole ideology. He was. He 00:21:51.710 --> 00:21:54.990 went from Guyana is our socialist paradise to 00:21:54.990 --> 00:21:58.450 Guyana is unsafe. The imperialists have found 00:21:58.450 --> 00:22:01.769 us. Our true spiritual motherland is the USSR. 00:22:02.190 --> 00:22:04.599 And they were actually learning Russian. In the 00:22:04.599 --> 00:22:06.619 middle of the jungle. They were. There were mandatory 00:22:06.619 --> 00:22:08.920 Russian language classes in Jonestown. They studied 00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:11.359 the Soviet Constitution. They had actual visits 00:22:11.359 --> 00:22:14.220 from Soviet diplomats. Fyodor Timofeev, who was 00:22:14.220 --> 00:22:16.960 the Soviet consul in Guyana, came to Jonestown 00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:19.740 in October 1978, just a month before the end. 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:23.220 Jones gave speeches declaring the USSR their 00:22:23.220 --> 00:22:25.940 spiritual motherland. It adds this strange layer 00:22:25.940 --> 00:22:28.740 of almost hope, doesn't it? Like maybe some of 00:22:28.740 --> 00:22:30.319 the people there thought, OK, this is hell, but 00:22:30.319 --> 00:22:31.940 if we just hold on a little longer, we're going 00:22:31.940 --> 00:22:34.349 to Moscow. I think it absolutely served that 00:22:34.349 --> 00:22:37.589 purpose. It kept people compliant. Just endure 00:22:37.589 --> 00:22:39.609 this a little longer and we'll be safe behind 00:22:39.609 --> 00:22:42.950 the Iron Curtain. But time ran out because in 00:22:42.950 --> 00:22:47.170 November of 1978, the outside world finally came 00:22:47.170 --> 00:22:49.789 knocking on the door. Under Congressman Leo Ryan. 00:22:50.009 --> 00:22:52.890 Leo Ryan, a Democrat from California representing 00:22:52.890 --> 00:22:55.589 a district near San Francisco. He was a real 00:22:55.589 --> 00:22:58.079 maverick. He was the kind of guy who, when he 00:22:58.079 --> 00:23:00.579 wanted to investigate prison conditions, he had 00:23:00.579 --> 00:23:03.160 himself secretly locked up in Folsom Prison for 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:05.380 a week. He didn't rely on reports. He went to 00:23:05.380 --> 00:23:07.759 the source. He wanted to see things with his 00:23:07.759 --> 00:23:10.720 own eyes. And he had been hearing from this group 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:13.140 called the Concerned Relatives. Right. This was 00:23:13.140 --> 00:23:15.299 a group of families back in the Bay Area who 00:23:15.299 --> 00:23:18.240 were terrified for their loved ones. They were 00:23:18.240 --> 00:23:19.960 getting these censored letters or no letters 00:23:19.960 --> 00:23:22.059 at all. They were hearing stories from the few 00:23:22.059 --> 00:23:24.220 who had managed to escape. They showed him the 00:23:24.220 --> 00:23:26.559 affidavits, the letters, everything. And Ryan 00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:28.799 decided he was going to Guyana to investigate. 00:23:29.039 --> 00:23:31.599 And he didn't go quietly. This wasn't some secret 00:23:31.599 --> 00:23:34.299 fact -finding mission. No, he brought the heat. 00:23:34.750 --> 00:23:36.930 He brought reporters from NBC, from The Washington 00:23:36.930 --> 00:23:39.609 Post, from the San Francisco Examiner, and he 00:23:39.609 --> 00:23:41.289 brought some of the concerned relatives with 00:23:41.289 --> 00:23:44.109 him. His plan was to shine a massive spotlight 00:23:44.109 --> 00:23:48.569 on Jonestown. So November 17th, 1978, they land 00:23:48.569 --> 00:23:51.130 at the small airstrip in Port Kytuma, which is 00:23:51.130 --> 00:23:54.210 the closest town. Jones, through his lawyers, 00:23:54.470 --> 00:23:56.970 initially tries to block them. But eventually, 00:23:57.170 --> 00:24:00.450 he realizes he has to let them in. What happens 00:24:00.450 --> 00:24:02.630 when the congressman finally walks into Jonestown? 00:24:02.750 --> 00:24:05.990 At first, it's a party. Jones knows he has to 00:24:05.990 --> 00:24:08.970 play the game. He puts on a big show. That evening, 00:24:09.029 --> 00:24:10.690 there's a musical performance in the pavilion. 00:24:11.009 --> 00:24:13.609 The Jonestown Express, their house band, plays. 00:24:13.890 --> 00:24:16.730 People are singing, dancing. The guests are given 00:24:16.730 --> 00:24:18.970 the best meal anyone in Jonestown had seen in 00:24:18.970 --> 00:24:21.049 months. So on the surface, it looks like the 00:24:21.049 --> 00:24:23.009 paradise he always promised. On the surface, 00:24:23.109 --> 00:24:25.910 yes. But the reporters, they were trained observers. 00:24:26.109 --> 00:24:28.289 They noticed things. They noticed that people's 00:24:28.289 --> 00:24:31.450 eyes looked glazed. They noticed that whenever 00:24:31.450 --> 00:24:33.789 they tried to ask someone a question, the person 00:24:33.789 --> 00:24:35.970 would kind of glance over at Jones before answering. 00:24:36.130 --> 00:24:39.059 And Jones himself. He was unraveling. He was. 00:24:39.359 --> 00:24:41.359 There are audio recordings of his interviews 00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:44.079 with the press that night. He's sweating profusely. 00:24:44.079 --> 00:24:45.980 He's slurring his words. He's going off on these 00:24:45.980 --> 00:24:49.019 long rambling rants about conspiracies. He looks 00:24:49.019 --> 00:24:51.660 and sounds like a man on the absolute edge of 00:24:51.660 --> 00:24:54.500 a cliff. And then the next day, the entire facade 00:24:54.500 --> 00:24:57.019 just cracks wide open. And it happens with a 00:24:57.019 --> 00:24:59.539 simple note. It does. A temple member named Vern 00:24:59.539 --> 00:25:03.130 Gosney. He sees his chance. He discreetly tries 00:25:03.130 --> 00:25:05.849 to pass a small, crumpled piece of paper to Don 00:25:05.849 --> 00:25:08.529 Harris, the NBC reporter. A huge risk. A life 00:25:08.529 --> 00:25:11.230 or death risk. The note has two names on it, 00:25:11.269 --> 00:25:14.609 Vern Gosney and Monica Bagby. And the message 00:25:14.609 --> 00:25:17.230 is simple and desperate. Please help us get out 00:25:17.230 --> 00:25:19.569 of Jonestown. That's the smoking gun. That proves 00:25:19.569 --> 00:25:21.740 it. It proves that people are being held against 00:25:21.740 --> 00:25:24.200 their will. Jackie Spire, who was a young aide 00:25:24.200 --> 00:25:26.599 to Congressman Ryan at the time and who survived 00:25:26.599 --> 00:25:28.440 the attack and went on to become a congresswoman 00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:31.559 herself, she said the entire mood shifted instantly. 00:25:32.059 --> 00:25:34.900 They knew at that moment that something was very, 00:25:35.039 --> 00:25:37.880 very wrong. So Ryan confronts Jones. He says, 00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:40.700 people here want to leave with me. And surprisingly, 00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:43.319 Jones tries to bluff his way through it. He says, 00:25:43.380 --> 00:25:46.519 fine, anyone who wants to go can go. He probably 00:25:46.519 --> 00:25:49.309 thought no one would dare. But then. People start 00:25:49.309 --> 00:25:51.950 standing up, the Parks family, the Bogue family. 00:25:52.170 --> 00:25:54.190 They start grabbing their children and walking 00:25:54.190 --> 00:25:56.869 toward the congressman's truck. In total, about 00:25:56.869 --> 00:25:59.930 16 people decide to leave. And Jones is just 00:25:59.930 --> 00:26:02.049 watching this happen, watching his authority 00:26:02.049 --> 00:26:04.970 crumble in real time. He's watching his control 00:26:04.970 --> 00:26:08.269 evaporate before his very eyes. And to a malignant 00:26:08.269 --> 00:26:10.710 narcissist like him, this is the ultimate death. 00:26:10.910 --> 00:26:12.710 He's sitting there in the pavilion and witnesses 00:26:12.710 --> 00:26:16.190 heard him muttering, I have failed. All is lost. 00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:18.700 He views a dozen people leaving as the total 00:26:18.700 --> 00:26:20.579 and complete destruction of his entire world. 00:26:20.700 --> 00:26:22.940 And if his world ends, then everyone's world 00:26:22.940 --> 00:26:25.599 has to end. So the group leaves. They get on 00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:27.599 the tracks to head back to the airstrip. Ryan, 00:26:27.799 --> 00:26:30.079 the journalists, the defectors, they must have 00:26:30.079 --> 00:26:31.480 thought they'd made it. They must have felt such 00:26:31.480 --> 00:26:33.500 relief. But Johns had already given the order. 00:26:33.700 --> 00:26:36.160 He sends the Red Brigade, his most loyal security 00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:39.220 team, after them on a tractor trailer. And he 00:26:39.220 --> 00:26:41.779 plays one last devastating trick. He sends a 00:26:41.779 --> 00:26:44.339 mole, a man named Larry Layton. Larry Layton 00:26:44.339 --> 00:26:46.940 pretends to be a defector. He begs to go with 00:26:46.940 --> 00:26:49.480 them, and he gets on one of the planes. So now 00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:52.700 we are at the airstrip in Port Kytuma. It's late 00:26:52.700 --> 00:26:54.960 afternoon. There are two planes waiting on the 00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:58.200 tarmac, a small six -seat Cessna and a larger 00:26:58.200 --> 00:27:01.500 19 -seat Twin Otter. The group is rushing to 00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:04.400 board. Larry Layton gets into the Cessna. As 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:06.720 the engine starts to rev, he pulls out a handgun 00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:09.039 that he had hidden and starts shooting the passengers 00:27:09.039 --> 00:27:11.690 inside that small plane. And at the exact same 00:27:11.690 --> 00:27:14.450 time, the tractor arrives at the other plane. 00:27:14.650 --> 00:27:16.750 The tractor trailer pulls up right beside the 00:27:16.750 --> 00:27:19.190 Twin Otter. The men from the Red Brigade jump 00:27:19.190 --> 00:27:21.589 off. They have shotguns and rifles, and they 00:27:21.589 --> 00:27:23.970 don't hesitate. They just open fire on the group 00:27:23.970 --> 00:27:26.269 of people boarding the plane. It is a complete 00:27:26.269 --> 00:27:28.990 massacre. Congressman Ryan is killed. He's hit 00:27:28.990 --> 00:27:31.269 multiple times. He tries to take cover, but they 00:27:31.269 --> 00:27:32.809 walk up to him and execute him, shooting him 00:27:32.809 --> 00:27:35.009 more than 20 times. And the journalists. Don 00:27:35.009 --> 00:27:38.089 Harris, the NBC correspondent. Bob Brown, his 00:27:38.089 --> 00:27:40.470 cameraman. Greg Robinson, a photographer for 00:27:40.470 --> 00:27:42.529 the San Francisco Examiner. They were all shot 00:27:42.529 --> 00:27:45.970 and killed. Patricia Parks, one of the defectors 00:27:45.970 --> 00:27:48.049 who had bravely chosen to leave just an hour 00:27:48.049 --> 00:27:50.750 before, is also executed. There is footage of 00:27:50.750 --> 00:27:52.750 this, isn't there? Bob Brown's camera captured 00:27:52.750 --> 00:27:54.690 the beginning of it. It's some of the most terrifying 00:27:54.690 --> 00:27:58.150 footage ever recorded. Bob Brown kept filming 00:27:58.150 --> 00:28:01.190 until the moment he was shot and killed. You 00:28:01.190 --> 00:28:03.190 see the tractor pull up. You see the men raise 00:28:03.190 --> 00:28:06.089 their guns. and then the camera just drops to 00:28:06.089 --> 00:28:08.190 the ground. While this is happening at the airstrip 00:28:08.190 --> 00:28:11.549 back in Jonestown, Jones calls everyone back 00:28:11.549 --> 00:28:14.309 to the pavilion, the final assembly. And this 00:28:14.309 --> 00:28:16.029 brings us to what's known as the death tape. 00:28:16.549 --> 00:28:19.509 The FBI found a 44 -minute audio recording of 00:28:19.509 --> 00:28:21.690 this final meeting. We've both listened to it, 00:28:21.710 --> 00:28:23.869 and haunting doesn't even begin to cover it. 00:28:23.930 --> 00:28:26.009 It's the sound of a massacre happening in real 00:28:26.009 --> 00:28:29.910 time. It is. Jones gets on the mic, and his voice 00:28:29.910 --> 00:28:33.619 is eerily calm, almost soothing. He tells them 00:28:33.619 --> 00:28:36.420 the congressman is dead and then he lies to them. 00:28:36.539 --> 00:28:39.099 He creates this immediate existential threat. 00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:41.440 He says the Guyanese army is coming. They're 00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:43.160 going to parachute in here. They will torture 00:28:43.160 --> 00:28:45.779 our seniors. They will kill our babies. So he's 00:28:45.779 --> 00:28:49.079 creating a scenario where death by his hand is 00:28:49.079 --> 00:28:51.940 the only merciful option. Death is preferable 00:28:51.940 --> 00:28:53.920 to what's coming. He says those exact words. 00:28:53.980 --> 00:28:56.839 He says death is a million times preferable to 00:28:56.839 --> 00:28:59.700 10 more days of this life. He frames it not as 00:28:59.700 --> 00:29:03.029 a defeat, but as a noble act of dignity. A revolutionary 00:29:03.029 --> 00:29:05.829 suicide. But, and this is so, so important to 00:29:05.829 --> 00:29:07.849 remember, people pushed back. It wasn't just 00:29:07.849 --> 00:29:10.569 blind, unanimous acceptance. No. And we absolutely 00:29:10.569 --> 00:29:12.269 need to say her name. Christine Miller. She was 00:29:12.269 --> 00:29:14.609 a 60 -year -old woman. And on that tape, you 00:29:14.609 --> 00:29:16.849 can hear her voice clear as day, rising out of 00:29:16.849 --> 00:29:19.069 the crowd. She argues with him. She's surrounded 00:29:19.069 --> 00:29:21.970 by armed guards staring down this madman. And 00:29:21.970 --> 00:29:23.630 she argues for life. What does she say to him? 00:29:23.730 --> 00:29:26.650 She appeals to logic. She says, is it too late 00:29:26.650 --> 00:29:29.410 for Russia? Can we still go to Russia? She says, 00:29:29.430 --> 00:29:31.029 I feel like as long as there's life, there's 00:29:31.029 --> 00:29:33.390 hope. She looks at all the children and she says 00:29:33.390 --> 00:29:35.470 they deserve to live. And how does Jones respond? 00:29:35.869 --> 00:29:38.990 He talks over her. He uses that calm, patronizing 00:29:38.990 --> 00:29:41.890 tone. He says, peace, peace, peace. He completely 00:29:41.890 --> 00:29:45.369 gaslights her. He frames her desire to live as 00:29:45.369 --> 00:29:47.849 a lack of faith, as a lack of revolutionary consciousness. 00:29:48.349 --> 00:29:51.500 And then the crowd. The crowd, whipped up into 00:29:51.500 --> 00:29:54.039 this frenzy of fear, starts shouting her down. 00:29:54.200 --> 00:29:56.539 You're disrupting us. Sit down. Be quiet. That 00:29:56.539 --> 00:29:58.660 just breaks my heart. She's trying to save all 00:29:58.660 --> 00:30:00.539 of them and they are shouting her down. Jones 00:30:00.539 --> 00:30:02.559 wins the argument through intimidation. Yeah. 00:30:02.599 --> 00:30:04.720 And then the vat is brought out. Large metal 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:07.539 tub filled with grape flavor aid. And it's laced 00:30:07.539 --> 00:30:10.480 with a cocktail of cyanide, valium, and chloral 00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:12.640 hydrate. Then he orders the children to be poisoned 00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:15.339 first. This is the part that proves, beyond any 00:30:15.339 --> 00:30:18.420 doubt, that it wasn't suicide. He was a monster. 00:30:19.069 --> 00:30:21.490 But he was a clever monster. He knew that if 00:30:21.490 --> 00:30:23.569 the parents drank first, they might have second 00:30:23.569 --> 00:30:25.450 thoughts, and the children would be left behind 00:30:25.450 --> 00:30:27.930 as orphans. So he killed the children first to 00:30:27.930 --> 00:30:29.970 break the parents' will to live. And the tape 00:30:29.970 --> 00:30:32.230 captures it. You can hear. You can hear the crying. 00:30:32.470 --> 00:30:35.390 You hear the babies crying. And then, slowly, 00:30:35.750 --> 00:30:39.599 the crying stops. And Jones is on the microphone 00:30:39.599 --> 00:30:42.839 the whole time saying things like, die with dignity, 00:30:43.079 --> 00:30:46.099 lay down your life with dignity, stop this hysterics. 00:30:46.299 --> 00:30:47.839 Once the children were gone, the parents had 00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:50.140 nothing left to live for. The will to live was 00:30:50.140 --> 00:30:53.319 completely gone. Obel Rhodes, one of the survivors, 00:30:53.579 --> 00:30:56.119 described people just wandering around in a daze, 00:30:56.160 --> 00:30:58.339 waiting their turn to get their cup of poison. 00:30:59.319 --> 00:31:01.240 But we have to remember the perimeter. The Red 00:31:01.240 --> 00:31:03.220 Brigade was standing there, circling the pavilion. 00:31:03.380 --> 00:31:05.720 If you tried to run, you were going to be shot. 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:08.039 So it was death by poison or death by bullet? 00:31:08.200 --> 00:31:10.559 That is not a choice. That is not suicide. That 00:31:10.559 --> 00:31:12.940 is mass murder. It's a miracle anyone survived 00:31:12.940 --> 00:31:15.660 at all. How did it happen? You mentioned Odell 00:31:15.660 --> 00:31:17.859 Rhodes. There were a few incredible stories. 00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:21.599 Odell Rhodes, he saw an opening. He told one 00:31:21.599 --> 00:31:23.039 of the nurses he was going to get a stethoscope 00:31:23.039 --> 00:31:25.460 for the doctor, and he just kept walking into 00:31:25.460 --> 00:31:28.299 the dark and hid under a building. An elderly 00:31:28.299 --> 00:31:31.579 man named Grover Davis laid down in a ditch and 00:31:31.579 --> 00:31:33.940 just pretended to be dead for hours. Another 00:31:33.940 --> 00:31:36.970 senior. Hyacinth Thrash actually slept through 00:31:36.970 --> 00:31:39.549 the entire thing in her cottage. She was hard 00:31:39.549 --> 00:31:41.589 of hearing. She woke up the next morning, walked 00:31:41.589 --> 00:31:44.089 outside, and saw the bodies. And there was that 00:31:44.089 --> 00:31:46.430 group with the suitcase, right? A final mission? 00:31:46.670 --> 00:31:49.650 Yes. Just before the end, Jones gave a final 00:31:49.650 --> 00:31:52.390 mission to three men. Tim Carter, his brother 00:31:52.390 --> 00:31:54.950 Mike Carter, and Mike Prokes. He gave them a 00:31:54.950 --> 00:31:56.630 suitcase containing over half a million dollars 00:31:56.630 --> 00:32:00.589 in cash. $550 ,000. In a suitcase. The temple 00:32:00.589 --> 00:32:03.369 was rich. They had millions stashed away. Jones 00:32:03.369 --> 00:32:05.430 told them to run the suitcase to the Soviet embassy 00:32:05.430 --> 00:32:07.329 in Georgetown. But they didn't make it. They 00:32:07.329 --> 00:32:09.470 took the suitcase. They ran into the jungle as 00:32:09.470 --> 00:32:12.250 ordered. Yeah. And then at some point, they realized 00:32:12.250 --> 00:32:14.670 the absolute absurdity of it all. They dumped 00:32:14.670 --> 00:32:17.369 the money and just ran for their lives. And speaking 00:32:17.369 --> 00:32:21.509 of money, the will. After the Guyanese army arrived 00:32:21.509 --> 00:32:24.150 and found the bodies, they found letters on the 00:32:24.150 --> 00:32:26.450 bodies of Marceline Jones and Carolyn Leighton. 00:32:26.869 --> 00:32:29.109 Who did they leave all the temple's assets to? 00:32:29.559 --> 00:32:32.660 The Communist Party of the USSR. There were millions 00:32:32.660 --> 00:32:35.759 of dollars in offshore bank accounts in Panama, 00:32:36.000 --> 00:32:38.660 in the Bahamas. They've accreted it all to the 00:32:38.660 --> 00:32:41.000 Soviet Union. It just shows how deep that delusion 00:32:41.000 --> 00:32:43.680 went. Even in their final moments, they thought 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:46.539 they were soldiers for the Soviet cause. In the 00:32:46.539 --> 00:32:48.759 aftermath, people just couldn't process this. 00:32:48.940 --> 00:32:50.720 So, of course, the conspiracy theory started 00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:52.619 almost immediately. We still hear them today. 00:32:52.740 --> 00:32:55.960 It was the CIA. It was a government mind control 00:32:55.960 --> 00:32:59.220 experiment like EmCulture. It's a comforting 00:32:59.220 --> 00:33:01.880 thought in a very weird way, isn't it? It's easier 00:33:01.880 --> 00:33:04.220 to believe that some shadowy, evil government 00:33:04.220 --> 00:33:07.759 agency used mind control rays than it is to believe 00:33:07.759 --> 00:33:09.619 that a charismatic preacher from Indiana could 00:33:09.619 --> 00:33:12.059 talk 900 people into their own deaths. Was there 00:33:12.059 --> 00:33:13.880 ever any credible evidence for those theories? 00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:16.539 The House Select Committee on Intelligence investigated 00:33:16.539 --> 00:33:19.420 it thoroughly. They found zero evidence of any 00:33:19.420 --> 00:33:22.700 CIA involvement. But Jones did use brainwashing 00:33:22.700 --> 00:33:25.519 techniques. He studied them. He studied North 00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:28.140 Korean indoctrination methods. He studied Maoist 00:33:28.140 --> 00:33:31.039 struggle sessions. He didn't need the CIA. He 00:33:31.039 --> 00:33:33.339 was a self -taught master of psychological manipulation 00:33:33.339 --> 00:33:36.400 and terror. What happened to the site, to Jonestown, 00:33:36.460 --> 00:33:38.880 the place itself? The jungle took it back very 00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:41.039 quickly. Locals from Port Kaituma looted the 00:33:41.039 --> 00:33:43.259 buildings for wood and corrugated tin. Then a 00:33:43.259 --> 00:33:45.299 fire in the 1980s destroyed most of what was 00:33:45.299 --> 00:33:48.500 left. For 40 years, it was just vines and overgrowth, 00:33:48.579 --> 00:33:50.960 completely reclaimed by nature. But recently... 00:33:51.390 --> 00:33:53.849 I read something about plans for tourism. Yeah, 00:33:53.869 --> 00:33:57.549 this is a very recent and a very controversial 00:33:57.549 --> 00:34:00.769 development. In late 2024, the Guyanese government 00:34:00.769 --> 00:34:03.309 announced plans to turn the site into a dark 00:34:03.309 --> 00:34:05.750 tourism attraction. They want to clear the paths, 00:34:05.869 --> 00:34:08.409 maybe put up some signs and open it to visitors. 00:34:08.550 --> 00:34:10.730 Selling tickets to a massacre site. It's causing 00:34:10.730 --> 00:34:12.570 a lot of pain and anger for the families and 00:34:12.570 --> 00:34:15.289 survivors. Is it a way to create a memorial and 00:34:15.289 --> 00:34:18.949 educate people? Or is it just exploitation? It's 00:34:18.949 --> 00:34:21.139 a very, very tough line to walk. As we wrap this 00:34:21.139 --> 00:34:23.280 up, I want to go back to Christine Miller and 00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:25.900 I want to go back to those armed guards. I think 00:34:25.900 --> 00:34:27.480 that's the most important takeaway from all of 00:34:27.480 --> 00:34:29.500 this. We look at those horrifying aerial photos 00:34:29.500 --> 00:34:32.719 of the bodies face down, often with their arms 00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:35.800 linked, and it can look strangely peaceful or 00:34:35.800 --> 00:34:40.880 orderly, but it wasn't. It was chaos, then terror, 00:34:40.980 --> 00:34:43.860 then silence. The question that just haunts me, 00:34:43.900 --> 00:34:46.559 the one that's impossible to answer is, if the 00:34:46.559 --> 00:34:49.719 guards hadn't been there. If the crossbows and 00:34:49.719 --> 00:34:51.800 the rifles hadn't been blocking the only road 00:34:51.800 --> 00:34:54.019 out. How many would have walked away? How many 00:34:54.019 --> 00:34:55.960 would have just run into the jungle? I think 00:34:55.960 --> 00:34:57.739 the vast majority. I think if they had a real 00:34:57.739 --> 00:35:00.780 genuine choice with no guns pointed at them, 00:35:00.820 --> 00:35:03.179 they would have chosen life. They drank that 00:35:03.179 --> 00:35:05.059 poison because they look at the guns and realize 00:35:05.059 --> 00:35:07.619 they had absolutely nowhere else to go. So let's 00:35:07.619 --> 00:35:09.559 just retire the phrase drinking the Kool -Aid. 00:35:09.579 --> 00:35:11.559 It's not just wrong on the facts. It insults 00:35:11.559 --> 00:35:14.280 the victims. It erases the coercion. It erases 00:35:14.280 --> 00:35:17.630 the guns. Agreed. Remember the 918? Remember 00:35:17.630 --> 00:35:20.090 they were teachers and nurses and social workers 00:35:20.090 --> 00:35:22.630 and hundreds of children. They wanted to build 00:35:22.630 --> 00:35:25.269 a better world and they were betrayed and murdered 00:35:25.269 --> 00:35:27.530 by the man they trusted to build it for them. 00:35:27.590 --> 00:35:29.789 This has been a heavy one, but thank you for 00:35:29.789 --> 00:35:32.409 taking this deep dive with us. Always. Take care 00:35:32.409 --> 00:35:34.369 of yourselves out there. We'll see you next time.