Was Jonestown A CIA Medical Experiment? - Ch. 3

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III FROM THE CRADLE TO THE COMPANY

Lynetta Putnam was born on April 16, 1902 in a small
settlement on the Wabash River in Southwestern Indiana
though this cannot be confirmed as all records of her birth
have been lost. Little is known of Lynetta's early life.
Reports are vague and sometimes contradictory but it is
known that she was a breed apart from others of her
generation. As her contemporaries enjoyed the frivolity of
the Roaring Twenties Lyetta pursued a college degree with a
headstrong aggression that was her predominant trait. She
attended Jonesboro Agricultural College in Arkansas,
followed by two years at Lockyear Business college. Though
she was better educated than most men of her time, Lynetta
abandoned plans for a career in business for a short-lived
stay in the field of anthropology. Not content to be an
"armchair anthropologist" and determined to prove she was as
capable as any male counterpart, she aspired to study
primitive Black African tribes. She worked hard and her
dream came true when, still in her mid-twenties, she
traveled to a tiny African village. Had she pursued this
career, Lynetta may have reached the
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prominence of Margaret Mead or one of her other, more

successful, colleagues; but Lynetta had yet another calling.
As she lay sleeping in an African hut, a recurring dream
beckoned her to return to the United States. In the dream,
her deceased mother advised her to marry as she was destined
to bear a son; a messiah who would right the wrongs of the
world. Perhaps the dream was only a manifestation of some
deep fear that she was growing too old to bear children but
, regardless, Lynetta left Africa and returned to Indiana to
marry a most unlikely mate, James Thurmond Jones, a semiinvalid, sixteen years her senior. He was forty-three, she
was twenty-seven.
James T. Jones, a resident of the east Indiana hamlet of
Crete, came from a family of Quakers. While serving in
France during World War I, he was a casualty of chemical
warfare. Mustard gas had scarred his lungs for life. He
worked, when he was able, on farm, road and railroad crews
but he spent most of his time alone in his house or at the
local Veteran's Administration Hospital as even the
slightest exertion would leave him breathless. By most
accounts, he was an uneducated , ill-mannered, bad tempered
loner and a known member of the Ku Klux Klan. His Position
in the KKK may have been of some significance as the
organization's national headquarters was only seventy miles
away in Indianapolis.
So the aggressive, well-educated anthropologist gave up her
work in Africa to marry and help support a semi-invalid
pensioner sixteen years her senior, whose only interest in
society was his involvement in the racist Ku Klux Klan. It
would appear that the marriage was a terrible mismatch.
Actually, James and Lynetta shared only two things in
common; their interest in the
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Black race and their only son, born May 13, 1931, James
Warren Jones. It would seem that the child's destiny was set
at birth.
Crete, Indiana was no more than six dilapidated farmhouses
surrounding a grain elevator owned by Lynetta's foster
grandfather and surrogate father, Lynetta's Lewis Parker.
The newlyweds farmed a small plot of land that was probably
a gift from Parker whom Lynetta described as being "generous
to a fault."
Unfortunately, the produce they grew and
James' disabled veteran's pension were not sufficient to
support the family. It was the height of the Depression,
Parker lost his extensive grain holdings and could no longer
help support his granddaughter. Lynetta was forced to get
job a job but the nearest employment opportunities were five
miles west in the small town of Lynn. James' father was also
in Lynn as was the nearest school system; a consideration
as "Little Jim" approached school age. James sold the land
and the Joneses moved to Lynn, where the local townspeople
met a not-so-typical family. No one in Lynn nor in the
remaining residents of Crete would remember pregnancy or the
event that was Lynetta's later described as the birth of the
anti-Christ.
In Lynn, Big Jim spent most of his days in the pool hall or
at home, listening to the Cincinnati Reds game on the radio
or just sleeping. His nights were a mixture of KKK business
and his duties as "Night Marshall"; a title that, along with
a gun, had been bestowed upon him by the town fathers.
Almost everyone avoided Big Jim. Lynetta was never accepted
by the local women. She was the bread-winner in her family,
not the bread baker. She was too aggressive, too rough,
nearly masculine in her dress and manner. She
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enjoyed taunting the neighbor wives by rolling her own

cigarettes and defiantly puffing as she passed the appalled
spectators. Above all, she was known for her foul
disposition and abusive language. Lynetta could swear better
than any man in town. Little Jim was different too. His head
of thick blue-black hair stood out in a community populated
by blond Germans, most of whom worked in the town's
predominant industry: casket making. There was talk that
Lynetta was part American Indian or that the child's true
father was a Black man. One surviving account contends that
Lynetta was married, not at age twenty-seven, but age twenty
nine. She turned twenty-nine one month before delivering
Little Jim. Though just small town gossip, the accusations
might have been serious in Lynn where it was the unwritten
law that Blacks, Indians and Catholics were not welcomed. To
this day, that part of the country is still extremely
racist. A common sight along the highway are billboards
proclaiming the righteousness of the Ku Klux Klan and the
popular slogan, "Nigger don't let the sun set on you here."
When the sun did set, it was the night marshall's job to
enforce the unwritten law. Big Jim did his duty and Little
Jim was twelve years old before he even saw a Black Person.
Little Jim completed his first eleven years of education at
the Washington Township School where his teachers remember
him as a bright but devilish organizer with a foul mouth, no
doubt inherited from his mother. Lynetta's example was not
all bad. She had taught little Jim not only _
h_
o_
w to read but
_
t_
o read. By the third grade he was signing out books from
the library that were intended for high school students. He
was rarely seen without a book in his hand and it
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was not just for show.

Even in grammar school, it was
said that he was more knowledgeable than some of his
teachers. Medicine, psychology and Nazi Germany were his
favorite subjects. Though his IQ score was well above
average at 120, Jim's grades were not outstanding. School
work bored him, while the world he discovered in books urged
him on to bigger things. Even at this early age, he was more
of an adult than a child.
Lynetta had worked in a variety of odd jobs before settling
on a position in an auto aircraft engine assembly plant
twenty miles south in Richmond. Since she was gone for most
of the day and Big Jim was absolutely no help, Little Jim
was sent to a neighbor woman who babysat the child after
school. It has been said that Jim was raised as a Methodist
but neither Lynetta nor Big Jim attended any church. It was
the neighbor woman, Mrs. Myrtle Kennedy, who instilled a
fiery religious belief in the boy or at least that is what
Jim would later say about his "second mother." Actually, Jim
was never intrigued by Mrs. Kennedy's Bible stories as much
as he was intrigued with the power religion exerted over
her. He wondered why she donated her time to teach Bible
classes at the Methodist Church or why her husband gave up
his weekends to help maintain the church property. Jim
learned his lessons, but he learned more about people than
he did about the Bible. During this period he began to
indiscriminately tour the local churches. He could be seen
with the Methodists or the Quakers or the Nazarenes, or the
Disciples of Christ or the Pentecostalists. The wife of the
local Pentecostal minister befriended Little Jim and he was
often seen at her home, reading the Bible and practicing
what she saw
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as his tremendous talent as a preacher. Jim's childhood was

spent studying religion from every possible angle.
Little Jim conducted his first "pretend church" in the loft
of a carriage house in his back yard. He would gather
together the neighborhood children and officiate at services
that were a combination science fair and revival. Jim sat,
like a judge, in the only chair while the others gathered
round the table to examine a slide in his microscope or the
chicken to which he had tried to graft a duck's leg.
Sometimes he preached from the Bible, sometimes he helped
them with their homework or conducted funerals for their
deceased pets, some of which he had killed just to create
the services in which he would be in charge. A neighbor, at
the time, later recalled Little Jim's "pretend church,"
He would preach a good sermon. I remember
working about two hundred feet from the Jones
place. He would have about ten youngsters in
there, and he would put them through their
paces... line them up and make them march. He'd
hit them with a stick and they'd scream and cry.
I used to say, 'What's wrong with those other
kids, putting up with it?' But they'd come back
to play with him the next day. He had some kind
of magnetism. I told my wife, 'You know he's
either going
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to do a lot of good or he's going to end up like

Hitler.[50]
Hitler could hardly have escaped the attention of the German
population of Lynn in the late thirties nor could he be a
stranger to the impressionable young boy who studied Nazi
Germany before the war. Little Jim often mimicked Hitler,
slicking his hair to one side and awaiting the "Heil,
Hitler" password that would admit a playmate into the loft.
Other times, he wore a white, hooded robe, like his father's
KKK outfit but, unlike his father, Little Jim would parade
in his costume during the light of day. There has never been
any evidence to suggest a local Nazi Party influence on
either Big or Little Jim, but there is no doubt that Little
Jim embraced the Nazi philosophy, at least from a distance.
It was more than just play. He studied and understood the
Nazis. Understanding world politics, even having an interest
in the subject is extremely rare for a little boy and though
he was an adult in many ways, Little Jim was only just a
boy.
The Joneses never had much money. There was only Big Jim's
pension and Lynetta's pay from the factory that had since
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shifted operations to fill defense contracts during World

War II. Between the two incomes they were able to raise
Little Jim whose childhood was at least indirectly financed
by the War Department. Big Jim's brother, Bill, tried to
help. He lived with the Joneses until he reportedly fell to
his death from the G Street Bridge in Richmond. Years later,
Lynetta would claim that Uncle Bill had been murdered.
Soon after the war, toward the end of Jim's junior year in
high school, Lynetta and Big Jim
____________________
[50]
Pending
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separated. They never had much of a marriage. They had

always slept in separate beds, some said due to Jim's
coughing spells but moreover theirs was but a marriage of
convenience held together and perhaps even prompted by the
sake of the child Jim. Now that he was close to finishing
school and capable of earning a living, there was no further
need for the charade. Big Jim moved into a room at the
Waldon Hotel in Lynn where he died three years later.
Lynetta and son moved to Richmond where Jim enrolled as a
senior at Richmond High School and accepted a full time
position as an orderly at Reid Memorial Mental Hospital.
After a year as both a full time student and orderly, Jim
graduated in mid-semester and the announcement in the
Richmond High Year Book attests to his interest in medicine
, "Jim's six syllable medical vocabulary astounds us all."
While working at Reid Memorial, Jim met Marceline Baldwin, a
nurse four years older than he, who had graduated from a
federally-funded program to work at the hospital. Marceline
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and her roommate , Evelyn Eadler, were often seen in the

company of young Jones in Richmond's coffee shops and movie
theaters. On June 12, 1949, soon after his graduation, Jim
and Marceline were married in a double ceremony with
Marceline's sister and her groom. Evelyn Eadler was the maid
of honor. The brides' father, Walter Baldwin, was a
respected Republican city council member and the wedding,
held at the Methodist church where he was known as an elder,
was attended by the mayor and the city fathers of Richmond.
Immediately following the ceremony, without so much as a
honeymoon evening, the newlyweds moved to Bloomington where
Jim had enrolled in Indiana University as a business major.
He had been rooming with a student who later remembered him
as
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"maladjusted," an embarrassment who was generally ignored by

the other students. Jim continued his studies while
Marceline supported the couple, working nights in surgery in
the hospital across the street from their one room
apartment. She spent her days taking care of their home and
studying for her credentials in nursing education. After
completing three semesters on the Bloomington campus, Jones
decided to change his major to the social services and move
to Indianapolis to pursue a law degree. This was a critical
point in Jim's (or any other young man's) life when thoughts
of the future encouraged him to set a course. Instead of
concentrating on one of his interests, Jim decided to pursue
them all in a unique career. He would combine his interest
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in science, medicine, religion, business, social services

and law to become a faith healing preacher. There were many
such evangelists but none who were as intelligent, talented
or knowledgeable as Jim Jones. It will never be known
whether the sum total of his interests and experience
dictated his career choice or the career choice had guided
him through the various experiences on the way to a predetermined goal. It suffices to say he was perfect for the
job. Jones saw more than just the Cadillacs, flashy clothes,
power, money, religious groupies and the other benefits of
the occupation. With his background in science and medicine,
he knew what the experts have since discovered; the power of
the spirit to heal the body. Jones was well ahead of the
times as this holistic approach to medicine would not be
accepted until years later through the combined efforts of
scientists and evangelists, such as President Carter's
sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton. Most of Jones's faith
healings were faked stage shows but
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that should not discount his desire and ability to study the
subject from a scientific point of view.
Ronnie Baldwin, Marceline's ten-year-old cousin, came to
live with the Joneses in their small apartment behind the
Shriner's Temple in Indianapolis. Ronnie had been remanded
to a foster care home after the untimely death of his
father. His mother, it was said, was "incapable" of caring
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for the boy. Ronnie would remain with the Joneses for about
a year during which time Jim used the boy to create the
image that he was a family man which helped to dispel some
of the suspicion associated with being the only White face
in a Black crowd. Since Marceline supported the family, Jim
was free to attend classes, lectures and church services. He
attended Black church services with young Ronnie who, after
a year of being dragged from one Black church to another was
only too glad to move back with his mother. Jones studied
the various techniques of Black ministers and preachers
while attending Butler University part time. It would take
him ten years to earn a bachelor's degree in education.
Jones helped supplement Marceline's income by working part
time as a night watchman. Like his father he carried a
revolver and like his father he carried it to enforce law
and order which, considering the place and time, carried
with it an extreme prejudice against communists and Blacks.
On one occasion, he and Ronnie, hand-in-hand, attended a
lecture on communism that he promptly left after being told
the meeting was under surveillance by the FBI. It was the
McCarthy Era and there were many such communist witchhunts,
especially in right-wing, KKK country like Indianapolis.
Considering his later work, the incident raises a question
as to whether Jones was afraid of being spied
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on or afraid of being exposed as a spy. The incident, which

occurred in 1952, may well be the first recorded report of
Jim Jones' work for government intelligence.
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In June of 1952, Jones officially entered the ministry when

he accepted a position as student pastor at Somerset
Methodist Church in a poor, White neighborhood of
Indianapolis. He studied for the Methodist ministry and
preached a doctrine of racial equality that alienated the
exclusively White congregation but attracted new Black
parishioners to the services. He had met many Black churchgoers while touring the Negro houses of worship with young
Ronnie. He invited all to come and hear him preach at
Somerset. Many did and the conservative church elders asked
Jones to resign. He did.
Meanwhile, Jones had been establishing a name for himself at
church conventions in Columbus and Detroit. Even under the
scrutiny of fellow preachers, he stole the show. He was a
spell-binding orator with a particular talent to "discern";
a popular revivalist's trick. Jones would call out the names
of various people in the audience and discern some secret
about them. He would reveal their phone number or some
physical complaint or past illness. The subject would step
forward and the young preacher would pray for them and, with
a slap on the forehead, they would "fall out"; a phenomenon
that is a combination of emotional overload and a severe
blow to the head. Some would rise immediately, brush
themselves off, and return to their pew, while others would
lie on the floor for hours, quietly or in convulsions.
Following the theatrics, the collection plate would be
passed through the faithful. All the ministry know that
discerning is a hoax but they admired Jones'
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skill, his style of showmanship and extraordinary memory to

say nothing of the professional detective work it required
to gain the discerned information without the subject's
knowledge. Jones was great. He could repeat social security,
insurance policy, and driver's license numbers for dozens of
people, all from memory. Never once in his career did he
speak from notes. Perhaps his success was due in part to his
access to government files.
While researching the discerned information, occasionally,
Jones would discover that the subject had recently
complained of some ailment. A prime example was the elderly,
somewhat feeble, Black woman who had complained to a doctor
about a sore throat. The information may have come from the
doctor's office or the pharmacy or from Marceline at the
local hospital but, in any event, Jones would call out her
name during the services and discern something that
impressed the congregation. He would then claim that through
the divine intervention of the Holy Spirit he had a
revelation that she had cancer of the throat. Religious
fanaticism aside, the subject would tend to believe him,
especially in the wake of her recent complaint and his
uncanny knowledge of information contained in the most
personal files. She would come forward and Jones or
Marceline or some other Caucasian aide would force their
fingers down the subject's throat until she choked and
gagged. Through slight of hand they would emerge from the
clutch with the "cancer"; a spoiled chicken liver dripping
with blood from a concealed capsule. It was all very
authentic, even the blood was real, having been drawn from
Jones or an aide prior to the show. Cancer passings were
common practice. In addition to throat cancer, there
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was a rectal passing as well but, like the violence in a

Greek play, it was performed off stage and left to the
audience's imagination.
Jones worked his Black congregation into such a fury that
each healing was an outburst of emotion that electrified the
air. Of course the collection plate was circulated
immediately. The money was counted in a back room while
things calmed down on stage. An aide would whisper the
total to Jones in the pulpit who would select another
subject, pass another cancer and pass another collection
plate. The series would continue, sometimes for several
hours, until the total donations equalled the estimated
total contents of their pockets.
Many of the faith healings were performed on and by
preacher's assistants in disguise, the especially when Jones
took his show on the road to Ohio where the locals were less
likely to recognize the accomplice. The most convincing
healings were those in which the subject was an innocent
believer. Their spontaneous emotion was far more effective
than anything that could be staged.
After being forced out of Somerset Methodist in 1954, Jones
rented an abandoned church building in a poor neighborhood
of Indianapolis. He dubbed his first business the "Community
Unity" and, as the name implies, it was more of a social
services office than a church. He had conducted services in
the loft as a child and in borrowed churches, on street
corners and in backyards since, but now he had a pulpit of
his own. The Community Unity defies description. Even
though some worshiped there on Sunday, it was not a church,
it was not recognized by any denomination nor was Jones
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an ordained minister; he would not be for another eight

years. The Community Unity defies description.
No one would argue with the fact that Jones was a brilliant
religious showman, whose talent in the pulpit could have
been successful with any demographic but Jones never tried
to recruit wealthy Caucasians; he wanted an exclusively
Black congregation. By almost all accounts, his congregation
was both Black and White and later Native American) but this
multi-racial image is simply not true. His organization
resembled the caste system of ancient Egypt. The capstone at
the peak of the pyramid was the pharaoh, everything and
everyone else existed to support him. The next lower level
consisted of a group of priests, physicians and merchants
who carried out the pharaoh's will and knew _
s_
o_
m_
e of the
state secrets. Below them was a larger group of slaves who
comprised the broad foundation for this social structure
modeled after the design of the pyramids. Jones, of course,
was the pharaoh. Below him was a group of several dozen
trusted aides; the middle management, the spies who
collected the "discerned" information and the medical
technicians who drew the blood and prepared the rancid
chicken livers for the phony faith healings.___
T_
h_
e_
y__
w_
e_
r_
e___
a_
l_
l
________
C_
a_
u_
c_
a_
s_
i_
a_
n_
.
Below them was the largest group; the
congregation, and they were all Black. Jones did use his
White lieutenants to his advantage but the primary purpose
of his work was to extort money from the Blacks. Everyone
admired him; the Blacks for his self-proclaimed divinity and
the Whites for his ability to convince the Blacks of his
divinity and fleece their pockets at the same time. Everyone
admired him and many of these early recruits would follow
him across two continents to their bitter end.
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One such early recruit was the Caucasian assistant. pastor

Jack Beam, an employee of a local pharmaceutical company.
Beam was a tough, abrasive personality. He was Jones'
second-in-command, body-guard, strong-arm man and assistant
in the faith healings. In the technique of interrogation
known as "good cop -- bad cop," Beam was the bad cop; the
threat of violence if the manipulated subject did not comply
with the wishes of the good cop Jim Jones. Beam Provided
Jones with the ability to intimidate any Black parishioner
who stepped out of line or strayed from the flock without
tarnishing his own benevolent image. Virginia Morningstar
later summarized the Blacks' generally accepted impressions
of Beam, "I always felt as if he (Beam) was a hit man...I
never felt he was legitimate.[51]
Most of the early followers were recruited from other
churches. Jones would target a desirable congregation and
arrange to bring a contingent of his followers to their
services. As was the custom, Jones would give a guest sermon
and the hosting minister would reciprocate the following
Sunday when he would escort some of his congregation to
services at the Community Unity. Many visiting parishioners
left their previous church to return to the Community Unity
which attests to Jones' superior talents. Many others were
drawn to Jones through his weekly broadcasts on radio WPFB
in Middletown, Ohio. During this period, he often looked
east to Ohio for new followers. Perhaps it was the larger
Black population or the predominant German population or the
federal jurisdiction over his interstate business that made
Ohio attractive, but regardless, it shows how Jones was
reaching out for a select congregation rather than
broadening his ministry
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____________________
[51]
51 George Klineman, Sherman Butler and David Conn, _
T_
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e
_
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t _
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a_
t _
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: _
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e _
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a_
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o_
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J_
o_
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s
_
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_
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e (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1980), p. 48.
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in order to attract more local Indianapolis residents. In

1954 and 55, Jones toured the small towns between Cincinnati
and Columbus with a traveling revival show held in local
Pentecostal churches or under the circusy atmosphere of a
rented tent. He recruited a strong following in Xenia,
Dayton and Hamilton and many followed him back across the
state line to Indianapolis.
Jones rarely, if ever, mentioned the word "God," except in
later years when he cursed what he called the "Impotent Sky
God." His sermons were more apt to quote the newspaper than
the Bible. His was a ministry of current events; a down-toearth religion;a more concerned with pleasing the federal
government's requirements to receive financial support than
pleasing God for some after-life reward. The Community
Unity, like his subsequent churches, was more political and
social than religious. Even according to Jones' own account
it was not a church but a "movement." Meanwhile, the Jones
household grew as fast as the congregation. A middle-aged
woman, named Esther Mueller, moved in to help Marceline with
the housework. She would cook and clean and remain their
personal maid until her death in Guyana. An eighteen-yearold blonde girl, described only as "Goldie" was another
addition to the family. Her relationship with Jim and
Marceline has never been established beyond one report that
the couple was helping her to start a career in nursing. In
1954, the Joneses adopted a pretty nine-year-old girl named
Agnes whose mother had unexplainably given up her daughter
to the young preacher and his wife.
By 1956, Jones had amassed sufficient funds to purchase a
modest church building on Fifteenth and North New Jersey
Streets in an inner-city neighborhood
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of Indianapolis. He named his new headquarters the "Wings

of Deliverance." Of course, Sunday was his busy day. At 8 AM
he would broadcast a short sermon on radio WOWO in Fort
Wayne. The regular service at the Wings of Deliverance was
at 10:45 AM. The miracle service, which included the faith
healings, was scheduled for 2:30 PM. the evangelistic
service was held at 7:45 PM, followed by an evening sermon
broadcast on WIBC in Indianapolis. The different services
allowed Jones to reach more people than his little church
could hold while the individual theme of each performance
enabled him to attract and please a variety of believers.
Shortly after the Wings of Deliverance opened its doors,
Jones organized a huge, five day religious convention that
was held in an Indianapolis hall in June of 1956. Headlining
the bill was the popular Southern author and faith healing
evangelist, the Reverend Bill Branham and, of course the
aspiring young preacher Jim Jones who sacrificed top billing
for the sizable crowds that Branham would attract. The event
was widely publicized and drew some eleven thousand to the
opening ceremonies. As usual, Jones stole the show and the
new parishioners he recruited into his flock were exceeded
only by the dollars he put into his pocket. It was at this
convention in the summer of 1956 that the Wings Of
Deliverance became the Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church and
the odyssey began.
Jones preached an anti-communism doctrine that reflected the
philosophy of the McCarthy Era in general, and the KKK and
American Nazi Party in particular. Though, in retrospect, it
might seem a bit absurd, Jones' stated campaign was to fight
communism through communalism. He made reference to the
communal
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lifestyle of Christ's apostles and quoted such passages

from the Bible as, "And they sold their possessions and
goods and imparted them to every man as every man had need."
He established Jim/Lu/Mar; an Indiana corporation for profit
owned by Jim, his mother, and his wife. The corporation's
charter states that its purpose was to receive donations of
real estate. Like many others, Esther Mueller donated her
home and possessions in exchange for Jones' promise to
provide her needs for life. Esther alone, contributed
$27,000; considerable sum in 1950 dollars.
So much money flowed into the Peoples Temple that, within a
year, Jones purchased a second, more impressive church
building on Tenth and North Delaware Streets in a nicer
neighborhood of Indianapolis. The massive front steps, the
three-story facade, the stained glass window and uptown
address was a quantum leap forward in the young preacher's
career especially since he did it all on his own, without
help from any established denomination. The new Peoples
Temple seated 400 and the adjacent brick parsonage was large
enough to one day house forty. Jones had purchased the
property from Rabbi Maurice Davis for fifty thousand
dollars. He took possession of the building with a small
down payment and a promise to pay the balance, interestfree, in one year's time. He did so 364 days later. Jones
would purchase two other church properties in his career.
Both the Peoples Temple in San Francisco and Los Angeles
were, like the first in Indianapolis, former Jewish
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synagogues. This defies all probable odds and leaves one to

wonder what made former synagogues so attractive to Jones.
Perhaps it was the church-like atmosphere but with geometric
designs in the stained glass instead of portrayals of
Orignal page 121
Jonetown
Christian Saints. Jones liked the eternal flame that was

left by the previous tenants. He kept it lit in place of the
traditional Christian cross. The Peoples Christian Cross.
The Peoples Temple was not a Christian religion. There is
convincing evidence that it was not even a religion, but it
is unclear why Jones was attracted to former Jewish temples;
an interesting pattern for a closet racist whose favorite
subject was Nazi Germany.
In mid 1958, Jones set out to help the federal government
solve a very serious problem. During the Korean War,
American servicemen had fathered many children who had been
abandoned both by their fathers (who returned to the States)
and their mothers, many of whom were prostitutes. The
illegitimate children had been remanded to special
orphanages in Seoul. The government of South Korea expressed
its discontent to Washington over the burden of supporting
their children and warned the U.S. that the racially-mixed
orphans would never be accepted in Korean society as Korean
racial prejudices are extreme by American standards. They
would probably die from neglect in the orphanage unless the
U.S. took them in. The scenario would be repeated twenty
years later in the wake of the Vietnam War but this was the
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first time Washington had to deal with it and individual

adoption seemed the only solution. From his pulpit at the
Peoples Temple, Jones encouraged his congregation to adopt
these war babies and, to set a good example, he and
Marceline traveled to the West Coast in October of 1958, to
adopt two orphans sent from Seoul to California. The newest
additions to the Jones family were four-year-old Stephanie
and two-year-old Chioke who they renamed Lew Eric. During
this, their first trip to California, Marceline conceived
their only child. In May of the
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Jonetown
following year, Marceline was eight, months pregnant and

stayed behind as Jim, Stephanie, and a contingent of
supporters traveled to Cincinnati for one of their exchange
services. On the way back home, Jones rode in one car while
young Stephanie rode in another car with Mable Stewart, the
Temple's nursing home supervisor, and four of her workers.
All six would die in a car crash of undetermined cause.
Jones would lament over the deaths for years to come. He
would recall a premonition he had received earlier that
evening which prompted him to lead the Cincinnati
congregation in a chorus of,
On up the road
Far in the distance
I saw a light
shining in the night...
Then I knew...
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Biographers would later claim that Jones sabotaged the car

to silence Mable Stewart and her assistants who had been
questioning the untimely deaths of several senior
parishioners Jones had placed in their care. The death of
young Stephanie exempted Jones from any suspicion and, if he
did actually sabotage the car, that was probably the reason
he wanted his daughter to ride with Mable Stewart. Jones, if
only in later years, was capable of murder. Three weeks
after the accident, on June 1, 1959, Marceline gave birth to
Stephan Gandhi Jones, named for Stephanie and the East
Indian leader. Within the year, the Joneses would adopt
another child; a Black baby boy about Stephanie's age who
they named James Warren Jones Jr. Later they adopted
Suzanne, another Korean War
Orignal page 123
Jonetown
orphan and Tim Tupper, a blue-eyed, blond who completed what

Jones proudly called his "Rainbow Family."
Once he had attracted a sizable Black congregation, Jones
knew that he had to do something spectacular to keep them in
the fold and that nothing could bind a group together like
the threat of a common enemy. Since none existed, he created
one. Temple members began receiving late night phone calls
and anonymous letters that warned the parishioners that
their affiliation with the racially-integrated Peoples
Temple had put them at odds with the powerful Klu Klux Klan
and the Nazi Party. Several Temple services were interrupted
while Jones emptied the building after allegedly receiving a
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bomb threat. All the threats were staged to create the image
that some unseen "bad people" were threatening such "good
people," led by Jim Jones (who went so far as to paint
swastikas and racial insults on the homes of his Black
followers). The fake threats served to bind the Black
congregation together under the leadership of their new hero
but the overall effect was to disguise what was essentially
a Caucasian experiment in the control of Blacks.
By 1960, the Temple's social programs exceeded those offered
by the city of Indianapolis. Jones had opened a free soup
kitchen that served one hundred meals a day to the city's
destitute. He established a youth center to educate and
entertain idle teenagers and several nursing care homes for
the elderly; at least those who had a house to donate and a
pension to support them. The social programs provided good
publicity and implied the Temple's sense of social
conscience and wholesome community spirit when in reality
the programs were profit-making businesses. Jones allocated
only $25 a week to the soup kitchen.
Orignal page 124
Jonetown
Temple volunteers gleaned over-ripened, stale and discarded

food from local businesses, turning the losses of local
grocers into tax-deductible, charitable contributions. All
food stores, restaurants included, throw away everything
from bones and meat scraps to dented cans and bruised
produce. The Temple offered the businessman a grossly
inflated tax deduction for what would have been his loss. A
good example might be a grocer who was stuck with a hundred
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dollars worth of bananas that had spoiled. The Temple

allowed him to turn a hundred dollar loss into a five
hundred dollar tax deduction while they used the free
bananas to make pudding for the soup kitchen and the nursing
homes that received most of the donated food. Meanwhile,
Jones used the inflated needs of the free soup kitchen to
exact hundreds of dollars from anyone who pitied the poor.
The youth center often provided able-bodied slave laborers,
but the most profitable program was the nursing home
business. Elderly victims, hand-picked by Jones, would
donate their houses, savings and pensions to Jim/Lu/Mar in
exchange for the companionship, security and attention they
needed in their later years. The major advantage to Jones
was that most of the money was paid in advance for the longterm services that never equalled the cost and continued
only as long as the patient lived. Many residents of Temple
nursing homes would die prematurely under suspicious
circumstances. Twenty-four such seniors lived in Jones' home
that had been partially converted into a care facility
managed by Marceline's parents. Walter Baldwin had taken an
early retirement from politics to live with his daughter and
son-in-law and run their business as the Joneses were
getting ready to leave Indianapolis. The Baldwins would be
semi-
Orignal page 125
Jonetown
involved in the Peoples Temple for the next eighteen years

until, on the final day, they departed Jonestown as
Congressman Ryan arrived.
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It is easy to view Jones as a showman, a trickster and a

crook but, despite his often brutal extortion tactics, he
was not interested in personal financial gain. He never
spent the money on himself. He did buy a used black
limousine but that was expected, especially at funeral
services. His clothes were old, he had no expensive habits
like drinking or smoking, he led an austere life and
reinvested all the profits into the Temple and his growing
household. Jones did not desire money; ; he wanted power. In
the end, his personal reward was not money but a bountiful
sex life.
News of Jones' alleged good work spread and, in 1960, the
Peoples Temple was accepted into the Christian Church,
Disciples of Christ denomination; a distinction they would
enjoy until the end. The affiliation with the Disciples of
Christ would provide some capital and the much needed
security of a well-established tax-exempt status.
By all accounts, Jones was truly brilliant. He was extremely
intelligent, well-read, and highly skilled in perception and
deception. Everyone respected his abilities. To the Blacks
he was a White messiah whose miracles were evidence of his
alleged close relationship with God. He was equally admired
by his Caucasian assistants, not for his demi-divinity, but
for this talent to attract, organize, control and deceive
Black people; a rare ability for a White man. Sometime prior
to 1960, Jones' work caught the attention of the Central
Intelligence Agency. Always on the lookout for talented
people to recruit, the
Orignal page 126
Jonetown
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federal agency recognized Jones' power over Blacks and

offered to help in his career in exchange for his services
rendered. He may not have had a choice but, in any event,
Jim Jones joined the CIA.
END 03
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Was Jonestown A CIA Medical Experiment? - Ch. 3

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Orignal page 103

III FROM THE CRADLE TO THE COMPANY

Orignal page 104

prominence of Margaret Mead or one of her other, more

Orignal page 105

Orignal page 106

enjoyed taunting the neighbor wives by rolling her own

Orignal page 107

was not just for show.

Orignal page 108

as his tremendous talent as a preacher. Jim's childhood was

Orignal page 109

to do a lot of good or he's going to end up like

shifted operations to fill defense contracts during World

Orignal page 110

separated. They never had much of a marriage. They had

and her roommate , Evelyn Eadler, were often seen in the

Orignal page 111

"maladjusted," an embarrassment who was generally ignored by

in science, medicine, religion, business, social services

Orignal page 112

Orignal page 113

on or afraid of being exposed as a spy. The incident, which

In June of 1952, Jones officially entered the ministry when

Orignal page 114

skill, his style of showmanship and extraordinary memory to

Orignal page 115

was a rectal passing as well but, like the violence in a

Orignal page 116

an ordained minister; he would not be for another eight

Orignal page 117

One such early recruit was the Caucasian assistant. pastor

Orignal page 118

in order to attract more local Indianapolis residents. In

Orignal page 119

of Indianapolis. He named his new headquarters the "Wings

Orignal page 120

lifestyle of Christ's apostles and quoted such passages

synagogues. This defies all probable odds and leaves one to

Orignal page 121

Christian Saints. Jones liked the eternal flame that was

first time Washington had to deal with it and individual

Orignal page 122

following year, Marceline was eight, months pregnant and

Biographers would later claim that Jones sabotaged the car

Orignal page 123

orphan and Tim Tupper, a blue-eyed, blond who completed what

Orignal page 124

Temple volunteers gleaned over-ripened, stale and discarded

dollars worth of bananas that had spoiled. The Temple

Orignal page 125

involved in the Peoples Temple for the next eighteen years

It is easy to view Jones as a showman, a trickster and a

Orignal page 126

federal agency recognized Jones' power over Blacks and

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