01x01 - The Promised Land

[bunniefuu]

[cheering and applause]

Thank you, thank you. Wonderful.

People see me as

a representative of the I Am,

as Jehovah-Jireh,

some people see a great deal

of God in my body.

They see Christ in me, a hope of glory.

[applause]

[Stephan Jones]

My dad, he was a fiery speaker.

We are going to have to unite

against a common enemy!

[cheering]

[Stephan Jones]

Incredible voice

and a wonderful message

[inaudible dialogue]

that spoke to almost anyone.

♪♪

[helicopter blades whirring]

[Peoples Temple member]

Hundreds of us here

are so extremely happy,

but I just must say this,

I can't help but say,

that none of this would've been possible

had it not been for Jim Jones.

[ominous music playing]

[inaudible dialogue]

-[helicopter blades whirring]

-[indistinct radio chatter]

[Charles Krause]

We flew in by helicopter

and from the air

it just looked like confetti

but each one of those pieces

of confetti was the shirt

or dress of a dead person.

♪♪

♪♪

[Thom Bogue]

Jones would talk about

it would be like the shot

heard around the world.

And there'll be a record of it.

And it'll never be forgotten.

[symphonic theme music playing]

[inaudible dialogue]

[music continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible dialogue]

[music continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[inaudible dialogue]

[music continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[Yulanda Williams]

This was a time in America

where people were imagining

what society could be.

We had the Black Panthers movement.

[all chanting indistinctly]

We also experienced the Hare Krishnas

New Churches, of course.

But most interesting to me

was Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.

[reporter] Reverend Jones,

how do you account

for such an avid following

as you seem to have?

I'm principled and dedicated to my people

and they are also committed

to the Christian ethic,

the Judeo-Christian ethic of service.

We've just kind of grown up together.

♪♪

[Williams] It was a church

that did good works in the community

-Thank you, bless you.

-[crowd cheering]

[Williams]

with a very charismatic preacher.

Now will each of you

give a very fond embrace to your neighbor.

[Stephan Jones]

Folks have really not done a good job

of showing what was

attractive about my father.

I'm not here to protect his memory at all

but, so, what you see

in the media about my father,

one who didn't experience

the Temple can't help

but think why would

anybody follow that guy?

There must've been something wrong

with these people from the start.

[indistinct singing]

[vocalizing]

Dad was dynamic at times.

In the middle of a service,

he would, out of nowhere

jump off the stage,

wrap an African-American

woman up in his arms

and just love her up and kiss her

and my heart would melt.

[inaudible dialogue]

The people who joined it,

I adored many people in the Temple.

Some of the very, very best people

I've ever known.

[Williams]

First time that I got there,

I was greeted by

a rainbow coalition of people,

and this was the first time

I had been in an atmosphere

where it's one church,

multiracial and multigenerational as well.

And then, when I heard Jim Jones,

he spoke about how much he respected

the Civil Rights Movement

and how important it was that we continued

to live out

Dr. Martin Luther King's dream.

[inaudible singing]

So, for me, it was excitement.

-[crowd cheering]

-[inaudible dialogue]

[Grace Stoen] I was a member

of the Peoples Temple

for six years

and I thought I had

a great purpose in my life.

I would do anything for Jim Jones,

in the beginning anyway.

But over time, Jim started

behaving strangely.

One night, I went to

a meeting after a service.

We were told not to fall

asleep and I wanna say

it was like three o'clock in the morning.

I remember, I did fall asleep.

I had a g*n on my forehead

by Jim Jones and he goes,

"I love you very much

but don't fall asleep

'cause I will k*ll you."

[Bogue] Jim Jones,

he spoke about the issues

that people cared about during that time.

You have to understand, this

was a time of great upheaval.

The Vietnam w*r had just ended.

We had protests going on

racial divide in our country,

and a lot of tension between people.

Jim Jones became friends with these

political people of the day

that were being brought into

the church to talk before us.

People like Angela Davis

Harvey Milk

Moscone.

And little did they know after they left,

Jim Jones twisted and represented

what they said to show us

how evil society was becoming.

The poverty that is reeking

at our very doors in every city.

[cheering]

[Bogue] So, we would need to

go somewhere and develop our own society,

you know, where we could

build a place where everybody was equal.

-[helicopter blades whirring]

-[indistinct radio chatter]

♪♪

My first experience was fantastic.

This is like Mowgli in Jungle Book

to see, oh, you know, look at these

beautiful wild birds and macaws, parrots,

that you rarely got to see in real life

and how abundant the wildlife was.

It seemed like everybody was just happy

and untethered to the world around us.

I really like it here and it's fun

and I really don't wanna go to sleep

because it's so fun here and,

and there's so much to do.

[inaudible dialogue]

They were bringing in electricity

building beautiful homes

where we wouldn't have to pay rent,

all the food we needed,

our medical would all be taken care of.

It was something

that was absolutely amazing.

[grunting]

We were safe and secure.

The great Utopia, the better life

helping each other

as one, big, happy family.

[kids chattering]

[Peoples Temple member]

We're building equipment

and doing things to set up a little town,

an actual community

or a country of our own

where we can live the way we like to live

with our own lifestyle

not to be interfered with people

from the outside world.

[Stoen]

I'd left the Peoples Temple,

but I still had loved ones

that had moved to Jonestown.

I started hearing that people

were being badly mistreated.

People were there against their will

and what people that were there were told

and what they were involved in

were quite different,

making their lives a complete misery.

Myself and other relatives

approached Congressman Leo Ryan.

And many people there

were his constituents

and he agreed to help us.

[dramatic music playing]

Me with other relatives, journalists,

a TV news crew

and Congressman Ryan with his aide

met a JFK Airport.

May I check your sticker there?

[Jackie Speier]

I was quite anxious about the trip.

Of course my mom said,

"No, you, you shouldn't go."

Um

You know, this was 1978,

there were not many women

as senior staff members

in Congress at the time.

And I thought, if I didn't go,

this would set women back

in our, um, efforts to be treated equally

and so that was the reason why I went.

We had a duty to protect

the American citizens who were there,

constituents of Congressman Ryan.

♪♪

[Krause]

I was 31 years old in 1978.

I had worked for The Washington Post

at that point for about six years.

So I got a call from the editor telling me

that there's some Americans

living in the jungle in Guyana,

the congressman is going down there,

and he said, "Yeah,

it's becoming a big story."

And they wanted me to go with him.

In my mind, it might've been

a style story that is a,

you know, a kind of feature

about these Americans

who had left the United States,

uh, to live in, in,

in a very remote part of the world.

[Tim Reiterman]

I'd been covering this story

for, you know, for months and months

and written a number of stories

about Peoples Temple.

One man said he escaped from Jonestown.

People describe it as, as a work camp,

a real hellish experience

and there was one really

important hole in my reporting

and that is that I hadn't

been to Jonestown.

I honestly thought

the worst thing would happen

would be I would be barred

from entering Jonestown

because I was an enemy of the church

and they wouldn't let me in.

[inaudible dialogue]

[Stoen]

The concerned relatives

that went, you know,

of course, we were grateful

that Congressman Ryan,

uh, was willing to step in

to help us to see our loved ones.

But at the same time,

I knew it was very dangerous.

I warned Congressman Ryan,

he said, "Grace,

why do you keep saying this?"

and I said, "You know,

I wasn't there for six years

and not realized what

this person's capable of."

I felt that at least I was

going in with that knowledge

and I wanted everybody else

to go in with that knowledge.

I remember reminding

everybody one more time,

I said, "I just want everybody

to know there's a possibility

that you could lose your life."

And I remember a crew member from NBC,

telling me to shut up

and I said, "Okay, I'm done.

I've, I've warned you people once, twice."

I said, "I'm done."

[Krause] I was hearing from

the concerned relatives'

stories that seemed really quite amazing,

people were being tortured,

people were being starved,

and, you know, that it was a kind of

gulag in, in, in the jungle.

And that could be true, I suppose,

but it sounded almost as if

it sounded like they were

exaggerating quite a bit.

It just didn't seem possible

that it could be that bad.

♪♪

♪♪

We got to Georgetown, Guyana,

and it was a very tense situation

because we did not have

an invitation from Jim Jones

to travel to Jonestown.

So when we arrived,

we immediately got a message

from the Peoples Temple

saying, "Stay away."

[Leo Ryan] The petition

was handed to us this morning,

which obviously says,

uh, "Yankees, go home."

And, uh, that's the present,

somewhat hostile attitude

of the, uh, Peoples Temple.

I'm doing everything I can at this point

to give Jones every possible opportunity

while we are here to address

any one or all of us, beginning with me.

I'm trying to find out what the facts are.

I intend to keep pushing

as long as I'm here.

[Jim Jones speaking]

[Bogue]

One evening in Jonestown,

Jim Jones had called

everybody to the pavilion

and he made an announcement

that Congressman Ryan was coming down.

[Jim Jones speaking]

He prophesied

that Ryan would never make it to Jonestown

because he saw his plane

falling out of the sky like a bird.

[indistinct chatter]

[Speier] We had been stuck in

Georgetown now for three days.

And we negotiated

with Jim Jones' attorneys

trying to finally get

an invitation to go there.

So when we arrived in Georgetown,

for the first three days,

there were no planes.

After three days, Congressman Ryan

approached the concerned relatives.

He told us that the plane was available,

that there were a certain amount of seats

and that so many were taken

for the news crew.

"There's this many seats

and you need to decide

among you, you know, who's gonna go."

-Could I?

-I don't know.

I'm not in charge of anything

but I certainly

[Stoen] Well, people started

arguing for these seats

and I just stepped back and I said,

"I'm not gonna fight over a seat."

And Congressman Ryan said,

"You know, Grace, let us go in,

"we'll open up the doors

and then, you know, there can be,

you know, another chance,

maybe, for people to go in."

I wanted to be able to see my son,

I just wanted to be able to visit him.

And hopefully, get him back.

[ominous music playing]

[Reiterman]

We were going to be flying

into Port Kaituma airstrip,

a very tiny town, you know,

not very far from Jonestown.

When we approached Port Kaituma,

the pilot said they got a report

and it came from Peoples Temple, actually,

that the airstrip was unserviceable.

They tried to get us not to land.

The pilot circled, however,

and decided it was safe enough to land.

Local officials there said

Peoples Temple had not

given us permission to enter.

[Ryan]

I'm Congressman Ryan.

I'm from the United States government

and we're here to inquire into the, uh,

health and the welfare of

American citizens who are here.

[indistinct]

I will have to get instructions.

-[Ryan] From?

-From my chief inspector.

Before any permission

can be granted by me.

But I'm just carrying out duties.

-[Ryan] Good.

-That I will continue to do.

[Ryan]

Sure, I, I, I have no intentions of

hurting or stopping

or anything like that and I,

I want to do it with a great

respect for your government

and for the rules of your country.

Finally, they brought a truck for us.

It took us an hour to go about

three miles in this truck.

It was so muddy, it couldn't go very fast.

Very remote.

It's just hard to explain

how remote Jonestown was.

The whole situation was very weird,

I mean, there we were

in the middle of the jungle,

in the middle of nowhere

having no idea what to expect.

♪♪

[children singing indistinctly]

[Speier]

We finally got to Jonestown.

Some of the members took us on a tour.

[indistinct chatter]

That tour was, um impressive.

A childcare center, a medical clinic.

They had carved out a life there.

You couldn't not be impressed.

But there was no sign of Jim Jones.

[upbeat music playing]

[indistinct singing]

Later that evening

well, they put on a show in the pavilion

and there was dinner

and people were singing and dancing.

-[singing continues]

-[music continues]

♪♪

-[slow romantic music playing]

-[singing continues]

At the end of the performance,

they asked Congressman Ryan

to come up to the stage,

which he did.

I'm very glad to be here,

this is a congressional inquiry.

I think that all you know

that I'm here to find out

more about, uh, questions

that have been raised

about your operation here.

Well, I can tell you right now that

from the few conversations I have had

with some of the folks here

already this evening that, uh,

whatever the comments are,

there are some people here

who believe that this is the best thing

that ever happened to them

in their whole life.

-[crowd cheering]

-[mouths] Yeah.

[cheering continues]

[whistling]

[cheering continues]

[[inaudible dialogue]]

[cheering continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[cheering continues]

[inaudible dialogue]

[Krause]

These people were sitting there

and they were clapping.

It was, you know, the beginning

of a feeling that I had,

that, "Well, this place

is not quite as, you know

There's, there--

Something's going on here."

We had the performance,

the congressman had finished his speech.

Suddenly there he was,

Jim Jones was seated

at the end of the table.

[Reiterman] When I first

introduced myself to him,

he said, "I've read many of your stories.

"You don't have to sh**t me,

you know, your words

have that kind of effect."

That he didn't like what I had written.

[inaudible dialogue]

[Krause] Journalists started

asking questions and Jones,

he wasn't making sense.

He would start to answer a question

and then all of a sudden,

he would start saying,

"They're trying to hurt us

and they're doing this

and they're doing that"

and, you know, and,

"Why is all this happening?"

And then he would kinda wind his way back

to whatever the question was, sort of,

and it really

was disturbing, I mean, it

He, he, he clearly was not someone who was

coherent, uh, half the time.

[Reiterman]

Jim Jones didn't appear to be

the same sort of charismatic leader

that he was in the United States.

His eyes, you know,

even with his dark glasses

I could see, were sort of like,

they had a gelatinous cast

to them like he wasn't well,

you know, he was exhibiting,

you know, really sort of paranoid feelings

about his many enemies.

He said the ex-members

were out to destroy him.

It made me feel as though

not only the 900 people who lived there,

but those of us who were visiting

Jonestown and reporting in Jonestown

were also in his hands.

[Speier] The first thing

I noticed, he dyed his hair.

He was sweating, agitated.

[cheering]

After the performance was over,

Don Harris, the NBC reporter, was

walking around the,

the edge of the pavilion

and two members of the Peoples Temple

had independently slipped him notes.

So he came up to us

at the end of the evening

and hands us these two notes

and my heart sunk

because then it was confirmation

that people were being

held there against their will.

[inaudible singing]

♪♪

[Bogue]

We all played our role.

We were all happy,

you know, clapping our hands,

excited that a congressman

would come and see us

as we were instructed to do,

and we did very well at it,

and that includes me.

I remember smiling and clapping too

but inside not really caring

one bit of what was going on.

Then I saw this one lady

pass a note to a reporter

up in the cottage area

and I knew that wasn't a good thing,

only because we really

weren't supposed to have

any direct contact with them on our own.

So I went and told my dad what I had seen.

And he knew what that meant also,

that actually it meant

there were gonna be problems.

So he went and told me to tell

my mother and my sisters

and everybody that, you know,

we need to get together

because we were gonna leave

one way or the other.

♪♪

[Krause] Jones did not want

us to sleep in Jonestown

and so, the journalists,

we went back to Port Kaituma

the little town nearby,

in what was a kind of open-air nightclub.

Later that night, the sheriff told us

that there had been incidents

where people from Jonestown

had tried to escape

but had been, sort of,

apprehended and taken back.

So the pieces began,

some things began to come together

that were disturbing to say the least.

♪♪

[eerie music playing]

[Reiterman] We were waiting

for the truck to arrive

for our second, second day's visit.

Don Harris knew that

some Peoples Temple members

wanted to leave.

We didn't know how many.

We were apprehensive

going back into Jonestown.

[Steve Sung]

I was a sound man for NBC News.

Don Harris was anxious to get back,

he wanted to confront Jim Jones.

He wanted to investigate,

is that true that you're holding them

without, uh, free will?

We're gonna go ask him about the note.

[Don Harris] That leaves

only one thing to be explored,

and that's this question of--

There's a lot to be explored.

[Harris] Well, for, for us,

the thing of fear.

This is a good example.

Last night, someone came

and passed me this note.

Well, now you see

what we're talking about,

he wants to leave his son here.

If Jonestown's such a bad place,

why does he want to leave his son here?

[Harris]

Doesn't it concern you at all that

this man, for whatever reason,

one of the people in your group--

People play games, friend.

They lie, they lie.

What can I do about liars?

Are you people gonna leave us?

I just beg you, please leave us.

We'll We will bother nobody,

anybody wants to get out of here

can get out of here,

we have no problem

about getting out of here.

They come and go all the time.

I don't know what kinda game,

people like, who people like publicity,

some people do, I don't,

but some people like publicity

but if it's so damn bad,

why is he leaving his son here?

Can you give me a good reason for that?

[Harris] I'll ask him.

I'd take my son, I'd take my son with me.

[Krause]

When he told Jim Jones

that some people wanted to leave,

that was particularly tense

and, and confrontational.

Jones was one of these people

who would try to counter every argument

with something, you know.

"Well, what about this? What about that?"

[inaudible dialogue]

That really, sort of, was,

set off the, um,

rest of the-- what happened.

[inaudible dialogue]

[Tim Carter] I'd been in

the Temple about six years.

When I was watching Jim Jones' interview

with Don Harris,

I was not thinking that six hours later

everybody would be dead.

But when he handed him

the note something changed.

He felt trapped.

[inaudible dialogue]

I guess that he felt betrayed.

He took every person leaving

as a personal betrayal.

I saw Jones getting angrier

and angrier and angrier.

Literally saw his jaws just clench

and his face turn red.

And then a storm came up

from literally out of nowhere.

The sky turned black, the wind came up

and there was just an absolute

torrential downpour.

You could barely see

five feet in front of you,

it was raining so hard.

What I felt, um

I felt evil itself flow into Jonestown,

that's what it was a cold chill.

The coming down, it's coming down.

Whatever's gonna happen,

this is the beginning of it.

♪♪

People absolutely

were not free to leave.

[inaudible dialogue]

Dad was a fearful man, he created fear.

He was constantly managing

his own insecurities

and there were many.

I believe Dad's entire

opinion of himself,

the only esteem he had

was in his perception

of other people's perception of him.

And so that meant the attention

always had to be on Dad.

For Dad, the temple

didn't exist beyond him.

The world didn't exist beyond him.

It's the ultimate addiction,

I think, adulation.

[inaudible dialogue]

♪♪

♪♪

[Speier]

People wanted to leave Jonestown.

So there was this desperation.

And I was thinking about

all that we had to do

to, to leave safely.

I said, "Come with me

and I'm going to take an oral affidavit

and we will get you out of here."

They were actually being fairly quiet.

They just wanted to leave.

What is her name?

Tracy.

Okay, well, get them.

I've got them!

Okay. We're gonna get them all, okay?

I need, I'm gonna need

an oral affidavit from you all, okay?

[indistinct chatter]

Right. Now, I'm coming right back.

I'm going to get an oral affidavit

from both of you.

Now do I both understand you

to say that you both

want to leave Jonestown,

On this day, November 18th, 1978?

Yeah.

And my name is Jackie Speier

and I'm an attorney

on the staff of Congressman Leo Ryan,

U.S. government.

And what is your wish today?

To go back, to go back home.

And where is home?

The U.S.

Alright, then.

[Speier] They were scared.

They had done something

incredibly bold and courageous.

As I went to one of the cabins

to retrieve one of the defectors,

you know, there was a man who looked like

he could be a guard

standing at the doorway,

trying to prevent the member

to get her belongings and to leave.

We were able to do that.

We went back to the pavilion.

And then word spread,

and then more and more people

wanted to leave.

You bring those kids back here!

You You bring 'em back!

Don't you take my kids!

[indistinct chatter]

Mother!

[Speier]

And there was a couple there,

one wanted to leave,

the other wanted to stay

and they have the child between them,

and they were pulling

on this child's arms.

The atmosphere got incredibly tense.

As I was interviewing

those that wanted to leave,

Jim Jones was hovering nearby

and he was basically saying to them,

"Come on, you know you've got

a good life here, you wanna stay.

"I can't believe for a moment

that you're gonna be leaving me,

you're my whole world."

Words that were intimidating to them

and he was trying to be intimidating.

But I was focused on providing

what little protection I could at the time

but making it clear that we were

gonna take them out of there.

[Reiterman]

So the number of people leaving

just grew throughout the day.

And I asked Leo Ryan,

"How many are going?"

And he said, "More than a dozen.

They're coming out of the woodwork."

It ended up being 15.

[Speier] We recognized that we didn't have

enough seats on the plane,

so we then ordered a second plane

and Congressman Ryan then decided

he was gonna stay behind

because there were more people

that wanted to leave

than we had seats on the plane,

so he would assist

with the second airlift out.

♪♪

We're starting to travel

and then all of a sudden

there's this noise erupting.

This roar that came up

from the pavilion area

and Don Harris jumped off the truck.

[Speier] And out walks Congressman Ryan

in a now blood-stained shirt.

Someone had attempted to knife him.

[Reiterman]

One of the Peoples Temple members

grabbed him and pressed a knife

to his throat and said,

"I'm gonna k*ll you."

[Krause] Someone else

had grabbed that person

and the knife, instead of

going into the congressman,

ended up stabbing the guy

who tried to k*ll him,

so it was his blood,

it was the assassin's blood

that was on his shirt.

[Krause] It was clear we

really had to get out of there

as quickly as possible.

It did signal that there was more going on

than, than maybe, maybe I realized.

This was a very, very traumatic moment.

And the fact that somebody had tried

to k*ll the congressman

was just the prelude to

what was really gonna happen.

[dramatic closing theme music playing]

[music continues]