Cult verdict —'We bred a little Hitler’

Press, 30 November 1978, Page 17

Cult verdict —'We bred a little Hitler’

By

WILLIAM SCOBIE,

Anger is growing m California over what is seen as the failure of politicians, lawmen, and United States diplomats to investigate the pseudo-reli-gious “People’s Temple” cult led by the Rev. Jim Jones, who joined with more than 900 followers in the macabre mass suicide at the sect’s jungle colony in Guyana. “We tried and tried to make officials believe Jones was a sick and dangerous man,” says one young woman in Berkeley, California, whose father and brother were cult members, “but no one would pay attention. All those deaths, all that madness, could have been avoided.” Police in Berkeley are protecting the family run= ning a “deprogramming” group for former followers of Jones. It is called the “Human Freedom Centre” and the feelings one hears

expressed there seem almost as bitter against the authorities as against the crazed leader of this San Francisco-based cult.

“Temple members have threatened us and harassed us,” says a man who had repeatedly tried to pry his 22-year-old daughter away from the Jones sect. “But right now it’s hard to hate those dumb guys on Geary Street,”

He was referring to the two dozen or so cult members w’ho remained inside the “People’s Temple” headquarters in San Francisco, and who seemed as stunned and shocked as anyone by the Jonestown tragedy. It is believed that only a few hundred loyal members of the cult remain in California. Defections had increased in recent months as reports of abuses grew, following Jim Jones’s departure in 1977, with most of the Temple’s funds for

the South American settle ment.

At the height of his bizarre career, Jones — a short, pudgily handsome, 46-year-old fundamentalist preacher who came to California from a small mid-Western church 12 years ago — claimed 20,000 followers. The actual number was smaller, but Jones and hundreds of hard-core faithful became a powerful force in California politics. At short notice, Jones could assemble hundreds of followers to cheer a candidate. His “foot soldiers” walked precincts getting out the vote. Politicians were grateful. They attended his Temple meetings, dined with him, appeared with him on the same podium. He knew, or had met, Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally, the Mayors of Los Angeles and San Francisco, even Vice-Presi-

dent Walter Mondale and Mrs Ro'salynn Carter.

Now Jones’s foimer political friends have fallen away as fast as once they latched on to him, as the horror stories multiply.

A few stand firm. Judge Robert Winslow, who helped to elevate the cult leader to posts on a grand jury, a juvenile crime commission, and a housing commission, says: “Jones was an impressive man when he began his ministry in the 19605. He seemed then to have a sincere commitment to the underprivileged. It was only recently that he grew dictatorial and paranoid, seeing conspiracies everywhere.”

But all the while Jones, a white man who claimed to be part Indian, was practising “miraculous” cures for the benefit of his mostly -black following, he was also persuading or bullying people into handing their income and property to the Temple, and — as scores of former cultists now charge — ordering severe beatings for worshippers who failed in assigned tasks.

“We bred a little Hitler in San Francisco,” says John Francis, whose children became cult members, “and nothing was done to ;top him.” Timothy Stoen, a San Francisco lawyer who once served as a top aide to Jones, says that the ‘Prophet of God,” as the cult leader styled himself, ’requently held mass suicide drills, and that these and other coercive “mindprogramming” techniques were reported to United States authorities.

Stoen says that while a Temple official he had transferred about SSM — money taken from Jones’s poor-black faithful — to foreign bank accounts. He was sure the church’s assets were much greater. Others with Stoen at the Human Freedom Centre say that Jones demanded that sexual con-

tact among Temple members had either to be performed with him, or approved by him. Offenders might be beaten or humiliated. A woman who had had an affair with a young man in the Guyana commune was forced to have sex with the man before an audience of several hundred, one defector charges. Jones claimed to cure cancer and the palsy; to have resurrected the dead — even himself. During one dramatic ceremony it appeared he had been shot by a hidden assassin. Fie was carried away, covered

in blood, only to walk back a minute later, all smiles, wearing a fresh, spotless shirt. The crowd went wild.

Members were urged to denounce each other at “catharsis sessions” which lasted until dawn. Transgressors faced the “Board of Education” — a wooden paddle wielded by a muscular disciple. Nurses stood by to treat the injured.

One girl, Linda Mertle, aged 16, said that she could not sit down for 10 days after being beaten — but still managed to utter the ritual “Thank you Father.” Her parents planned to sue Jones for SIM for the alleged injury to their daughter, plus return of property handed to the temple. Security was tight. Members were frisked on entering the temnle. Guards stood in the aisles. Jones was flanked on the podium by a “planning commission” which also spied on the congregation and made people sign confessions of criminal or “immoral” acts, which could be used against them if they defected.

Mainly poor, often elderly. the members gave between a quarter and a half of their income to the

“Observer,” London

treasury. Many handed over jewellery, furs, silver, even their homes and life insurance. Visits of important people to the . temples were skilfully stage-man-aged. Church members were put on show as rescued junkies and criminals. Their children were happy orphans. The congregations were used to build up Jones’s power base. They voted as a block, rang doorbells, delivered leaflets, packed public meetings. and signed letters by the thousand for write-in campaigns. In some close elec-

tion battles they backed candidates who knew better than to refuse the help of the man called “Emperor Jones.”

The great exodus to Guvana was carried out quietly, small groups travelling by night. “The Rev. chose Guyana,” says Dan Philips, one of the church trustees, “because the blacks there are Englishspeaking Christians and could be proselytised. He acquired several thousand acres of jungle to build ‘Jonestown’ and buried money there.” None of this hoard reached the men. women, and children who were set, from dawn to dusk, to clear land for crops. The few who returned said “catharsis sessions” were intensified. Slackers had their heads shaved or were denied food.

Behind his temple doors in California Jones had claimed to be an amalgam of Christ and a “reborn Lenin.” He had visions of race wars in which the blacks would be driven into the gas ovens and the Western world destroyed by nuclear war. It was to escape this that he led his followers to a Promised Land in the jungles of Guyana.