Jonestown conspiracy theory



Jonestown was the communal settlement made in northwestern Guyana by the Peoples Temple, a cult from California. Jonestown was founded in the mid-1970s by the cult leader, Jim Jones, for whom it was named, but it was occupied only for a few years. It stood amidst jungle, about seven miles (11 km) southwesterly from Port Kaituma.

Jonestown gained lasting international notoriety in 1978, when nearly its whole population died in a mass murder-and-suicide ordered by Jones, who was among the slain, numbering somewhat over nine hundred men, women and children.

Conspiracy theory
Early reports claimed that about 400 Temple members had been killed, and the remainder had fled into the jungle; see headlines in the New York Post and stories in the New York Times and San Francisco Examiner.

This death count was revised over the next week until the final total of more than 900 was reached. In explaining the discrepancies, U.S. officials first claimed that Guyanese officials "couldn’t count" (despite the fact that locals were charged with the task of puncturing the abdomen of each corpse to prevent their swelling and possibly exploding in the heat), then that bodies had been heaped in piles, hiding one another, though no explanation was made how 400 bodies could hide another 500.

According to the New York Times, the first official on the scene, Guyanese Coroner Dr. Leslie C. Mootoo, determined that all but three of the people in Jonestown had been murdered: 80-90% had been injected with poison, while the remainder were shot or strangled. The coroners for the few autopsies of Jonestown victims conducted in Delaware were not informed of Dr. Mootoo’s findings The bodies were left to rot in the Guyanese jungle for up to a week before being flown to New Jersey. Relatives and New Jersey officials complained about being kept from the remains, and according to the New York Times Dr. Sturmer, President of the National Association of Medical Examiners, sent an open letter to the U.S. Army, complaining about the handling of remains, and the illegal cremations of most of the Jonestown victims.

On September 27, 1980, a column by respected investigative reporter Jack Anderson was published under the title "CIA Involved In Jonestown Massacre." This was the first allegation of CIA involvement in the Jonestown incident. According to Anderson, both Richard Dwyer and Jim Jones had ties to the CIA, with Dwyer's ties dating to at least 1959; when quizzed directly about this alleged CIA involvement, Dwyer responded "no comment." At one point on the sound-recording made during the mass suicide, Jones' own voice commands, "Take Dwyer on down to the east house" and a short time later, Jones says "Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him." This is considered by some to be evidence that Richard Dwyer, a U.S. embassy official, was really a CIA operative.

In 1987, The Jonestown Carnage: A CIA Crime (1978) by S.F. Alinin, B.G. Antonov and A.N. Itskov was published in the USSR. The book says Jones' group was not religious but rather socialist, opposing imperialism and the US government. Alinin and the other authors argued the inhabitants of Jonestown decided to emigrate to the USSR and sent an official request to the Soviet embassy in Guyana. Then the members of the cult were assassinated by CIA agents and mercenaries to prevent further political emigration from the USA and to repress the opposition to the US regime. The Soviet embassy head in Guyana, Feodor Timofeyev, visited Jonestown earlier in 1978, praising it for being a socialist haven, wagging its collective finger in the face of the US government.