THE CIA AND THE DEATHS IN GUYANA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170037-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 28, 2011
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: September 25, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-R
' RADIO IV REPORTS, INC
4701 W:LLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20015 656-4068
PROGRAM Good Morning America STATION W J L A TV
ABC Network
DATE September 25, 1980 7:00 AM CITY Washington, DC
SUEJECT The CIA and the Deaths in Guyana
JOAN LUNDEN: This morning Jack Anderson has some new
details on one of the most disturbing events of our recent his-
tory, the mass deaths of more than 900 people in Guyana. Now,
some of the material you will be hearing has never been heard
before, and some of what you will hear is disturbing.
JACK ANDERSON: Two years ago, Americans awoke to the
shocking news of a mass suicide in the jungles of Guyana. A
staggering 900 men, women and children were ordered by their
leader, Jim Jones, to drink poison%Kool-Aid.
Now, I criticized the State Department here on Good
Morning America for failing to give adequate protection to Cali-
fornia Congressman Leo Ryan. He was murdered during his inves-
tigation of the Jones jungle commune. I now have reason to be-
lieve that our government may have known even more about the vio-
lent nature of the commune than I first suspected.
Congressional investigators have dug up disturbing new
evidence that our government may have deliberately withheld. infor-
mation from Ryan. Apparently, the government allowed the Congress-
man to go to Guyana, despite the known risk, to avoid disclosing
undercover CIA activity. Investigators have now obtained an actual
tape recording made by Jones during the terrible final hour of
the murder-suicide ritual. V
November 18th, 1978. The meeting pavilion in the jungle
commune. Jones at the microphone. Ryan has finished his investi-
gation and has headed for a nearby airstrip. Jones tells his fol-
lowers that-one of his guards will shoot the pilot of the plane
taking Ryan home.
OFFICES INS WASHINGTON D.C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? 'AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
Materlol aipplied by Radio N Reports, Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly aernonsttoted or exhibited.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170037-6
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170037-6
JIM JONES: [Unintelligible] going to shoot that pilot,
and down comes that plane into the jungle. And we had better
not have any of that [unintelligible] left when it's over.
So, to sit here and wait for a catastrophe that's going
to happen on that airplane, it's going to be a catastrophe.
ANDERSON: Jones hammers away at the theme that Guyanese
or American authorities will shortly return to massacre the com-
mune's children. There are unbelievers in that group, Including
this woman.
WOMAN: And I ,feel like that as long as there's life,
there's hope. That's my feeling.
MAN: But someday we're going to die. Someplace that
[unintelligible], because everybody dies.
WOMAN: I think what I feel. And I think we all have
a right to our own destiny as individuals.
MAN: Right.
WOMAN: I think I have a right to choose mine, and
everybody else has a right to choose his.
ANDERSON: Jones' cajoling soon turns to exhortation.
He has just learned that Congressman Ryan has been shot.
JONES: Please get her slime medication. It's simple.
It's simple. There's no convulsions with it. It's just simple.
Just please get it before it's too late [unintelligible]. I tell
you, get moving, get moving, get moving.
ANDERSON: Now the heart-wrenching and final episode
of this macabre drama.
JONES: Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for
people who are socialists and communists to die. No way for us
to die. We must die with some dignity.
Mother, mother, mother, mother, mother,. please. Mother,
please, please, please don't -- don't do this. Don't do this.
[Unintelligible] with your child, but don't do this.
Hurry, my children, hurry. [Unintelligible] from the
hands of the enemy. Hurry, my children. Quickly, quickly,
quickly, quickly. No more pain now. No more pain [unintelli-
gible]. No more pain.
ANDERSON: Well, that's how it ended. And despite all
the investigations, much of it remains a mystery that wet-re still
trying to solve.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/28: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170037-6