Dr. Preston Jones: Bob Price. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. Just to get us started, could you summarize the key points of your military career?
Bob Price: Sure. I joined the Army in 1967, and then went directly after basic training and advanced training. I went to Vietnam on my first tour. Adjusted artillery over there. I was assigned to an infantry division, an infantry unit. I came back, spent about two years stateside, went to flight school and went back to Vietnam. Flew Medevac in 1972. Back to the States, Fort Benning, Georgia for several years.
Over then to Jonestown. 1978 timeframe. Then over to Germany, 1980 to 1983. And I retired in 1987 out of the Army.
Jones: As a warrant officer?
Price: As a CW-4, yes. Last 20 years, I’ve been running the flight training program up at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Now I’m fully retired.
Jones:So you were doing that as a civilian working with the military as a civilian contractor?
Price: Yes. Civilian contractor.
Jones: And then before we started recording, you said that nowadays you’re doing volunteer work. Could you tell us just a little bit about that?
Price: I work with Team Rubicon. They’re an international organization. We do disaster relief all over the world. We work for free. We help veterans and disabled people without insurance. We’re in the Bahamas right now. While we’re in several places right now. Our biggest event is going on in the Bahamas this week.
Jones: Is that because of the recent hurricane or the storm?
Price: Yeah. Correct. We’re over there cleaning up.
Jones: So you’re a Vietnam vet and I talk to Vietnam vets a lot. And today our focus isn’t Vietnam. Although I’d love to talk with you. You did two tours in Vietnam. I do have two Vietnam-related questions real quick and then we’ll move on to Jonestown. You said you joined the Army in 1967, so you volunteered; you weren’t drafted?
Price: Well, there were indications that I was about to be, so I thought I’d be smart and join and try to get what I wanted. That really didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but that’s okay. So yes, I did join.
Jones: You sort of tried to get ahead of Uncle Sam a little bit there?
Price: I tried to beat that system a little bit. They told me they had stock control and accounting, and my idea of stock control and accounting as a job was different than the Army’s. It was a supply clerk in the Army.
Jones: That’s what you were going for?
Price: Well, I didn’t know that, but yes, that’s where I ended up going. And then when I got over to Vietnam, I was with an artillery unit.
Our forward observer element didn’t make it through the night, so I ended up volunteering to go out there.
Jones: As a forward observer?
Price: Yes. Working with the infantry.
Jones: That’s tough work at a tough time in the war. And then you decided you wanted to fly. Tell us about that transition from infantry to being a helicopter pilot.
Price: Well, it wasn’t that difficult because the pilots took us out into the swamps and dropped us off. We’d stay up for about 30 days at a time. And then they’d come back and pick us up and they had some humor with the way we smelled when they picked us up. So, as I can imagine, I decided it was better going back home every night than staying out in the woods.
So when I got back to the States, I got the opportunity to go to flight school. I decided that it’d be better since I knew I was going to be going back. It’d be better to go as a pilot than it was to work with the infantry.
Jones: So then you—last Vietnam-related question, and then we will move on.
You go back in 1972? I’m just wondering what your major impressions were—how was the war different? 1968 is kind of that turning point year. Obviously, the Tet Offensive takes place at the end of January 1968. It’s a turning point. In 1972, things are pretty obviously winding down.
What were your impressions? How was the war different between 1968 and 1972 from your perspective, if at all?
Price: Well, I got there during Tet, so it was quite eventful. There were a lot of challenges going on for us, a lot of fighting, but I think overall we were still in control. I went back in 1972 and I volunteered to fly medevac. I went through the training primarily because of all the guys we lost in 1968.
But the difference was we didn’t own the territory or the air as well as we did in 1968. In the latter part of 1972, I was up in the DMZ area and the folks were coming across the border and they also had surface-to-air missiles and they were using them. That was probably the biggest difference.
Jones: So in that 1972 period, you’re up in the Đông Hà Quảng Trị area up there and along the DMZ?
Price: Yes. The medevac unit was in the Marble Mountain area. We were flying along the DMZ quite a bit.
Jones: Well, let me jump ahead. So we’ll kind of get into Jonestown a little bit and then we’ll back up. So you see combat in 1968. One of the most intense moments, if not sort of the most intense moment, throughout South Vietnam. In 1968, you arrived for Tet, and then in 1972 you’re flying medevacs. So you see a lot of tough stuff in two tours in Vietnam. Let’s fast forward to your arrival in Jonestown and the first things you saw in Jonestown.
How would you compare those experiences? If there is any way to compare them just in terms of the impact they had or really go at it any way. How would you compare the experiences of going into these things?
Price: That’s tough because in my first tour, we were going out and we lost a lot of people in Vietnam, as you’re fully aware. But it was more of a combat situation. The Jonestown event wasn’t a combat situation. It was somebody taking full advantage of people that I don’t think fully understood the predicament that they were in down there. I mean, they were—well, some of them voluntarily went, but for the most part they were just murdered.
Jones: That’s interesting. You hear that a lot. I refuse to use the word “mass suicide.” It was more of a mass homicide.
Price: Yeah. I mean, some of them went by choice. But when you start out with the kids and you take the older folks down there. They pretty much forced them to take the Kool-Aid.
And then you have people standing around so that nobody can get out of there. You’re either going to take it or you’re going to die. I mean, they even killed the dogs; they killed everybody.
Jones: I think there was even a pet monkey that they killed.
Price: He was a gorilla and they killed him too.1
Jones: Did you happen to see that?
Price: Saw a cage. The gorilla was gone when I got there. But I did see the cage that he was in, and that was a big fella.
Jones: So this is, this is awful stuff. And for that reason, I’m all the more grateful that you’re willing to talk about it. This particular story of the military’s response—stuff has been produced, but I’m not aware of many recorded conversations with folks who are actually there, so I appreciate it. But we’ll back up.
I do want to back up and then just kind of walk through things, but when you think about your first impressions, when you first arrived there, what’s the first stuff—what are the first images that you see?
Price: Two. One’s not an image so much as the colors. The different colors. We first went in with, I think, four aircraft, and of course, traveling over there, we don’t—we didn’t have the GPS like they have today, so everything is pretty much time, distance, and heading. And if you get winds, it takes you off course.
And it was quite a ways over there. So we went across a place called Matthews Ridge, which is a few miles west of Jonestown.2 Did a low pass there and didn’t see a whole lot and figured that was not it. So we took the road down. We knew the road would lead to Jonestown, so we flew along the ridge line along that road, and then we passed over the site and you could see all the different colors on the ground.
Didn’t know what it was at first. But it just—there was a bunch of color, and then the smell. When we got over the top, we were about 500 feet up, and there was absolutely no doubt what it was.
Jones: So was it the smell first and then you realized what the colors were?
Price: Yes. And of course then we were on short file and you could see the bodies.
Now, we were briefed that this might be a hostile environment. So, we were a little bit cautious about going in. However, while we turned on final, we couldn’t see a whole lot of movement; we couldn’t see much of any movement. All we can see are just some bodies stacked up.
Jones: Did you have—since you’re going in, you don’t know whether this might turn into a sort of a mini combat situation. Did you have door gunners on the Hueys ready to go just in case?
Price: No, we’re medevac. We used self-defense, but we are not prepared to start shooting at people. Now, I will tell you that when we got on final approach, I could see some people in the wood line and they were in jungle fatigues.
And as I got closer, I actually recognized a couple of the guys. They were rangers that I had worked with before. At that point I made a call and said that area was secure, because when my rangers are on the ground, there’s no doubt it’s secure.
Jones: When you’re flying into Jonestown and you don’t know because, obviously, you know that Congressman Ryan has been shot—a number of other people have been shot and killed on the airstrip. So, you know, obviously people down there had guns. You’re flying in. You don’t know if you’re heading into a gunfight.
This may seem like a dumb question, but did you feel yourself in some way kind of going back into Vietnam mode just for at least a couple of minutes in that time of uncertainty?
Price: I don’t know what you think. When I was in Vietnam, I was, pretty much, bulletproof in my own perception. That didn’t work out so well. But in Jonestown, I think we’re just concentrating on our mission, and that’s to help anybody. We find it’s initially more search and rescue than anything else, with the possibility of there being some contact because we knew, obviously, that shots had been fired. But again, when I saw the Rangers there, I had no problem at all going in that place.
Jones: So you land the helicopter and how many did you have on the helicopter?
Price: How many personnel? We had two pilots. A pilot in command and a co-pilot. And we had a crew chief and a medic on each aircraft.
Jones: So you land the helicopter and what’s the first thing you do? What’s the first thing the crew does?
Price: My ranger buddies were over there in the wood line and they came walking out and we got out and talked to them to see what the status of the area was.
Jones: What did they say?
Price: Secured. They had been in there. I think they got in the day before we did, maybe sooner but they pretty much had Jonestown, LZ secure. As to the surrounding area, we still didn’t know what was going on.
Jones: Did they tell you—you mentioned all the colors, which of course are the bodies—I’m guessing one of the things you’re told right off the bat is basically no survivors?
Price: No. We still, at that time, thought people had escaped into the woods. There was talk in the camp. Of course, we shut down, and we went and got talking to some folks. There was talk in the camp that there were escape routes that people were going to utilize.
So there was some obvious unrest in the area. And we ended up, as a matter of fact, one day somebody got me a bullhorn and we flew over some routes that we thought from the air looked like people would use and just talked on it, saying, you know, we were from the US Army and come on back, everything’s secure and it’s all over. But we never found anybody.
Jones: How did you keep that up for a day or two? Or did you give that up pretty soon?
Price: That was gone pretty quickly when we realized that the people were not just lying on the ground; they were stacked on the ground; they were three and four people deep.
And pretty much as if you followed it, I think the paper said, and obviously I was there; I was not home. The numbers of estimated deaths were increasing daily, and it was because they were realizing your first visual is from the air. You’re looking at a couple hundred people.
When you start walking through them, you start seeing three and four deep. Big difference; numbers go up.
Jones: So you mentioned a few minutes ago that you know you’re in—you’ve got a mission and you do the mission—and I hear that from vets all the time. Mostly, we’re talking about combat situations. But I don’t ask anymore because the answer is pretty much always nothing.
It’s just the training. Yeah, the training goes in, the training kicks in, and you’re just grateful for the training after the fact, though. You just respond. Was there a point at Jonestown when it did sort of morph from a mission into a human event?
Like, when did the magnitude of this, of what you were experiencing, sort of strike you?
Price: It does. The first time you got out of the aircraft and we walked down, they had a little boardwalk. Everywhere throughout the place, because they had it, the rainy season was bad and you couldn’t walk around without getting mud all over the place.
So they had little boardwalks. Yeah. And the first time I walked down, heading down towards the temple area itself, when you start seeing the numbers of bodies that are stacked, the numbers of bodies, even if they weren’t stacked. That grabs you real quick.
Jones: The kids especially?
Price: Yes, the kids and the families. You’d see moms with their arms around the babies lying face down, so yeah, that’ll tighten you up real quick.
Jones: As you’re talking, I’ve got these images in my mind. You see the photos.
Price: And you try to make sense of it at that point too. And there is no making sense of it. You know, how do you evaluate this situation? I flew medevac in the States for most of my military career. Our job was a real-time event, and in that, it was the same thing as I did in combat. We picked up roadside, we picked up paratroopers that were injured at Fort Benning, and we picked up a lot of premature babies, so it was always a mission, and you were in there to help out on this one. It was just that we got there, and we were ready to go evacuate people. But there’s just nothing there. There’s no one to evacuate. It didn’t make sense.
Jones: So you’re there about—the event itself is November 18th. You’re there about on the 22nd, something like that? November 22nd?
Price: That would be about right. They alerted us. Actually, a side note: I was in Atlanta with my wife and my five-month-old son. He was about seven months old at that time. He had cancer and we were at Emory University getting chemo and driving back when I got the call that said: come on in. They couldn’t tell me what it was about, but they could tell me to come on in and we went in, got briefed and geared up.
We had some helicopter dismantling challenges because they weren’t sure of the aircraft, but they finally got that squared away.
Jones: You mean having to basically take the helicopter apart and take the rotors off to fit them on the plane to get them down there?
Price: Correct. We had our go bags. We were sitting in a hangar all night then I think it was the following day, so yeah, it was a couple of days. And then we, of course, got to Jonestown and had to put everything back together and had to test fly. And then we took off.
Jones: Now so the bodies still weren’t being moved by the time you got there? They were still where they were when they died?
Price: They were still there. Just as they had been. The heat was—heat and humidity do amazing things to the human body. And it was bad.
Jones: In terms of just the bloating and things that you hear about?
Price: Didn’t know if you wanted to go over that on the tape. But yes, that was it.
Jones: You said that—was it your son you said was in the hospital with cancer at that time?
Price: He had a neuroblastoma. They peeled it all out. That was it; we found it. My wife found it. Actually, I had a cold and took him in at five months old and he’s now 40. And he’s retired from the army. So that all went well.
Jones: So one thing I’m wondering is, you’re at the hospital with your five-month-old son who has cancer. All of it—I can’t imagine any of this stuff, you know, what it’s like to be in combat in Vietnam, what it’s like to be in Jonestown, what it’s like to be in that situation—but here you are in this situation, obviously very concerned and worried about your son. I’m wondering if—I don’t know how to phrase this, but I’ve got two images that I have in my mind and I’m just wondering if you have a response. So one image is you’re in the hospital concerned about your son, wanting him to live, and then you’re in Jonestown and you see moms with their arms around their five-month-olds, dead.
I don’t know if there even is a response to that, but I’m just wondering what comes to your mind?
Price: That’s what makes you go. The opportunity to be able to help them down there is what it’s all about. At the time we left, we thought there were people down there alive, so our job was to get them out. I got the best wife in the world and the best hospital, Emory University. They’re going to take care of things at home. That’s where a lot of spouses, I don’t think, get credit in the military. They’ve got huge challenges, but they take care of that. And I guess we go out and try to save the world and sometimes we just can’t do it.
Jones: Had you ever heard of Jonestown before November, 1978?
Price: Never.
Jones: Now I’m sure you were pretty preoccupied with your son. Had you even heard the news?
Price: No. I had not heard it at all. I got a phone call from a friend of mine telling me I needed to get back because we were a reactionary force. We were a strip alert type unit to move out. So just a call saying, get back, we’re going. I did not know until I got back from Atlanta where we were going.
Jones: And you hadn’t even, by that point, heard of Jonestown. The news hadn’t got to you?
Price: No.
Jones: You’re preoccupied with your son? Boy, that’s something.
So you fly from, you fly from the base, Georgia, straight to Georgetown?
Price: Timehri International. I think it’s in Georgetown.
Jones: And then you reassemble the helicopters and then from there to Jonestown?
Price: Correct.
Jones: And how long are you in Jonestown altogether?
Price: I don’t remember. Three days, four days, something like that? But I spent all day there. We flew in in the morning, and at last light we flew back. We had to be back by just at dusk because flight rules changed in Guyanese airspace due to no radar, no nothing. So you had to be on an instrument flight plan. It wasn’t going to work where we were working.
Jones: Then in Georgetown, where did you stay?
Price: We had tents on the airfield.
Jones: So you set up tents there?
Price: Yeah. GP medium, GP large. We were co-located. There were several units there. Some Air Force and some other Army units. We were located with them.
Jones: So three days in Jonestown. By the end of that third day, had they started moving the bodies or were the bodies still?
Price: We were putting them in body bags.
Jones: So you were part of that—putting them in body bags?
Price: When we found out the first day, we flew and tried to find people. And then, we were taking bodies back. We rigged the aircraft to haul three litters and we had to put one body bag per litter and at that rate, we wouldn’t have finished up in quite a while.
In Vietnam—it’s a different way to look at it—but we’d go in and pick up people. I picked up as many as 15 people. You just put them on and get out of the combat area. Not a pretty site, but you’re getting them back to medical care. And hopefully getting them fixed up. Whereas in Jonestown, the urgency wasn’t there. But, you couldn’t just stack people in like that. It didn’t work. So they transferred the pickup over to the Jolly Greens, which could hold more personnel.
So what we did was start filling body bags and then we’d haul them up. I don’t know if you’ve seen the picture of the landing zone we used there, but we started hauling them up there and just putting them in a line, and then they’d come in and we’d put them on the aircraft.
Jones: Was that the same landing zone where the congressman was shot?
Price: No, no, no. He was down at the airfield. We were right in Jonestown.
Jones: Did you— I’m guessing as a warrant officer—were you actually hands-on? Were you actually participating in the body removal, or are you primarily in a supervisory role?
Price: No, I was putting them in there. It was not a good situation. If you have your crew doing it, you’re going to do it too. You’re going to help them.
Jones: Did you have any of your enlisted guys who, after a while, just said, “I—you know, enough, I can’t do this anymore.”? Or did everybody hang in there for the mission?
Price: They were on a mission. I mean, did we feel bad? Did we want to stop? Yeah. We did, but okay. You can’t, you can’t walk away. You’re there; you’re invested in it. You’re going to help as best you can to get those people back for their family.
Jones: The evenings back in Georgetown—again, I’m relating this to often combat vets, I’ll say, well after the combat, you know, after a firefighter or something like that, what kind of stuff do you talk about? And, and often what I get is sometimes we’ll swap stories of the firefight, but a lot of times we’re just not talking about that. We’re talking about other stuff. When you’re back in Georgetown in the evening, obviously it’s a long time ago, it’s more than 40 years ago, but do you have any recollection of the kind of stuff that you talked about or that the enlisted guys talked about? Were you trying to process this or were you just kind of saying, look, that’s our day job. It’s evening now; let’s talk about other stuff.
Price: Well, number one, there probably wasn’t a partition. Officer or enlisted, we worked together, so we talked together, and back in the States, we worked together, and we played together.
Down there, when we landed, it was—get the aircraft ready for the next day, and we helped out. We all helped. Cleaning it up was challenging because of hauling bodies and stuff. So, there was a lot of work to be done. When we got into the tent area, it was pretty much eat dinner and try to find a place to get a shower and that’s it.
I don’t recall any discussion about the day. We did debrief on that to figure out what we had accomplished for the day and what we were going to do the next day. Of course it was a command briefing to give the target area for the next day. But I, myself, and I want to say pretty much all the crews, returned to Jonestown every morning, and we left every evening.
Jones: I imagine with the heat and the humidity and the heavy work, everybody’s probably pretty wiped out by the end of the day.
Price: Correct. Both mentally and physically, Working around that stuff is debilitating. It’s rough.
Jones: In your own case, how long, you know, we—let’s come back stateside—how long did it take you before you kind of got back into your stride again after experiencing what you experienced in Jonestown, was it immediate? Was there something like, what’s the next mission or?
Price: I’m glad you added that last part because I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten over it. I don’t know if anybody ever could. But as to the next day, the next mission, yeah. You’re on the roster, you’re going to go fly a medevac. But are you going to, is that going to go away from you? No. No, that’s something that’ll never go away. Add that to the body, the smell. Add that to the masks that we had to wear. Walking around in there. You’ll never get me in one of those masks with wintergreen on it. Now we wear those masks in my Team Rubicon work, but they don’t have that. I think it was Wintergreen, but whatever that smell was, if I ever get near it, I’m gone.
I cannot say. You’ll never forget that.
Jones: When you’ve done this relief work and you’ve seen situations, post-disaster situations. Have you ever talked with the guys about your Jonestown experience?
Price: No. I’ve talked to my brother. He knows; that’s about it. He was in the military also. As a matter of fact, he was the commander of Fort Davis in Panama during this time. But it’s not a subject that I would bring up. A couple of people know that I was there. And once in a while it’ll come up in a conversation. But no, it’s not something I talk about. Actually, this is the first time.
Jones: And for that reason, I appreciate it all the more. Since that event, have you had any interest in it? Have you watched any documentaries? Have you read any biographies of Jim Jones? Because again, I’m relating it to the Combat Vets a lot. I’ve heard a number of combat vets who say, I really had no idea what I was part of until I started reading books 40 years later, and then I realized what this operation was about or something. Have you had a post-Jonestown interest in the topic?
Price: Yes, I’ve read probably everything I could, and I’ve probably seen all the movies. Because that’s actually correct, we had no idea of the gravity of that situation, not even knowing the senator was there.3 I’m in Fort Benning, Georgia. I don’t know, senators from California, things of that nature.
It just wasn’t on my radar at all. But yeah, since that time, I’ve seen it. I’m not real good with the movies of it, but I’ve read a lot of literature and my wife kept several magazines from that timeframe and newspaper articles, and I’ve obviously looked at those.
Jones: It must be. I don’t know what the right word is. For lack of a better word, it’s amazing to read this stuff, to see the documentaries and to, you know, realize that you were one of the small number of people who were actually there.
Price: And to know the end before the beginning. I mean, you can see how charismatic that guy was. If it proves anything, trust but verify; know what you’re getting into because we know what the end result is now when you’re reading it. Obviously hindsight’s very good. But it’s an unusual position.
Jones: And as I said to another veteran, Clarence Cooper, who you know. To have participated in the Tet Offensive and Jonestown, that’s a 10 year period. It just proves what I’ve heard before and what I mentioned to Mr. Cooper. If you’re in the military, you have a pretty good chance of participating in history, not just watching it on the news.
Just a few more questions, and then we’ll wrap it up. There are images that we get from Jonestown. The pavilion. You must have seen the pavilion, right? Where the meetings took place.
Price: Yes. They had a band stand up there too, with the drummer.
Jones:. Is that where the sign was? “Those who don’t know the past,” you saw that?
Price: Yep. Matter of fact, I got a picture of that somewhere here, But yes, we saw that. The vat was not far from that area. The vat, all the syringes, and everything were there.
Jones: And now there’s the famous cover on Time Magazine that shows the vat and the walkway.
I think the perspective is going out of the pavilion. I’m not sure what the perspective is, but anyway, you’ve got the walkway that connects to the pavilion. You’ve got the vat there, and then behind that you can see the syringes and so on. You saw the vat as well?
Price: Oh yeah. Standing right beside it, there were several families within just a few feet of it lying face down.
And that’s what I was talking about. I think she had on a pinkish dress. And that’s just one that sticks out in my mind because she was the one that had the child on one side, maybe on both sides, but underneath them there were more people. So yeah, it was right there.
Jones: Just one vat?
Price: One vat is all I saw.4
Jones: That, to me, I mean, that’s the one thing I really focus on. You know, you’ve got 900 people. Take out the kids. You’ve got several hundred people. And it only takes one leg to kick that thing over, to slow everything down. That’s the thing. Maybe this whole disaster—that’s the thing that’s most incomprehensible to me.
Price: Well, Jones was—I hate to say charismatic, but people listened. He talked, and people listened, and they believed you. You have to understand. I walked through that place and they had no television, so there was really no connection to the outside world. He controlled all of that. How did he control it and what did he do? They had VCR players, if you remember those. But the tapes they had were of police shows and detective shows—chips was a big one that I saw down there. What are they? Well, today we laugh at chips when we look at it, but they show the police shooting and beating people, and that’s what he ingrained in those people.
I believe that to this day, that’s all they got to see every day: how bad the United States was, how bad the government was, how badly they treat people on a daily basis. And he just had them brainwashed, I believe. Now there were some that didn’t like the idea, but they didn’t get too far either. Like I said, the elder people, I think they brought them in first. If they’re wheelchair-bound or something like that. But they pretty much killed them. But anybody that was going to go out was going to either be shot. There were also bows and arrows there.
Jones: You saw bows and arrows there too?
Price: Yes.
Jones: Do you see the loudspeakers?
Price: Yes, the loudspeakers were there. The whole stand was there.
Jones: Kind of like North Korea, where the messages are just being continuous.
Price: He could talk throughout the area and everybody would hear him. He had—the only outside communication they had was ham radio and that too, but that loudspeaker system was located, the actual system was located in the same building and he could talk to everybody in the camp, and he did every night.
Jones: Say, compared to a football field, how big would you say the whole Jonestown thing was? Like maybe the equivalent of three football fields or something like that.
Price: No, it’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than that because they had a lumber mill there. They had a brick-making plant there. Because they were totally self-sufficient. It’s amazing what he did. And then the gardens, you’re talking about five acres that was cleared.
Now the houses were kind of close in. And that’s another story in itself. I would say about five acres.
Jones: So it’s this weird almost contradiction of people who are clearly very industrious, right? They’ve created something livable in the middle of this, you know, jungle, the heat, and the humidity, the rains, rainy season, etc. So you’ve got a very industrious people, right? And yet their leader is this drugged guy who’s clearly lost it and who leads them all into disaster. It’s just impossible to understand, really.
Price: And he believes a hundred percent of what he’s saying. He believes it. I guess when you get it impressed upon you every day and every night, you’re going to believe it too.
His inner circle believed it, and if you didn’t believe it, I think you would’ve had a problem. So I know. I saw some letters.
Jones: You saw some letters?
Price: I know people, both incoming and outgoing, that didn’t make it out. There were some disgruntled people there that just wanted out, which I think provoked or evoked the response from Ryan.
Jones: So you saw, like—there are two letters I know of that folks wrote right at the very end. One of them is actually from a young woman who’s in Jones’ Inner Circle. You saw what may have been those letters?
Price: I didn’t. I don’t think I saw that one, but I probably saw 10 or 20 of them.
Jones: But they were just lying around, like on a table or something like that?
Price: Yes.
Jones: And from what you could tell, had they been left there? Purposely, like, I want somebody to come find this?
Price: No. I don’t think so. The whole place was kind of torn up. I went into most all of the—for a better term—hooches that they had. And there was stuff strewn about. But there were letters and I actually have a couple of them that were rough reading.5 You could tell, and again, this is hindsight; you could tell people, we’re starting to see through this. And I think his world was coming apart, not only from Ryan, but I think it was coming apart from within.
Now, why didn’t they push over the vet? I have no clue. But I know he was sitting right beside it, up on his little throne there in front of the bandstand
Jones: And you saw his throne?
Price: Yeah, I saw that. Saw him.
Jones: You saw Jones?
Price: Oh, yeah. Actually, some people had asked me right after I got back, they said, there’s a rumor he is not dead. I can tell you he is.
A buddy of mine hauled him out.
Jones: Aside from that, aside from the buddy hauling them out, is there, I mean? We know that Jones is dead. But in that moment when someone said, well, there’s a rumor he’s not dead, and you said, no, I know he is. What was behind that? Your response?
Price: Because I think every day we see things where people are telling rumors instead of telling facts. People try to tell the truth all the time, but sometimes—maybe it’s to get a story, I don’t know what it is. But as a fact, I knew Jones was gone. I’ll just say that I knew he was gone.
Jones: Yes. I don’t want to press this too much. I think the word is, you know, obviously pretty much everybody goes out with the Flavor Aid or whatever it was in that, in that concoction. But Jones himself was shot?
Price: Right in the temple.
Jones: And you saw that?
Price: Yes.
Jones: Potentially dumb question. Did he still have his dark sunglasses on?
Price: No. I think they were there. But I can’t say. He did not have them on, though. His eyes were wide open. And he didn’t take the Kool-Aid that everybody else took.
Jones: I’m not speechless often, but I’m almost there now.
Price: Oh, there’s, think about Jonestown itself. Ask people if they ever found a cemetery.
Jones: A cemetery at Jonestown for those who died?
Price: Because people die, they had a brick factory, but I never saw a cemetery.6
Jones: It’s an interesting question, because I believe—I may be wrong about this, but I believe that Jim Jones’ own mother died there before the event, but I don’t know.7
Price: Well, I didn’t see a cemetery, so I’d find it hard to figure out how many people actually went through that place. I will also say they had that furnace, but their ability to construct—the people there were amazing. What they did clearing and building was amazing; they were really skilled. They were dedicated to what they were doing, all to end up like that.
Jones: Which makes the end all the more pathetic?
Price: Yes.
Jones: To see that industry and that intelligence and the community-mindedness going out that way. Last question. I do want to let you go; I’m trampling on your time. I really appreciate that you’re taking this time.
A little while ago you mentioned the housing and you said that the housing was sort of a whole story by itself. What comes to mind when you think of the housing? It’s sort of these bungalows. You used the word hooches, but it’s kind of these little bungalows lined up.
Price: Correct.
Jones: What comes to mind when you think about that?
Price: Numbers—the beds, they were stacked, individual beds, and they had numbers on them. I don’t think they recognized people as individuals. I think it was a way to keep track of people, especially the children, because they weren’t staying with their parents. They were staying in those bungalows.
Jones: Communist ideal of, you know—
Price: he had those books in his building, the Communist Manifesto, all of that stuff was on his little bookshelf in his room.
Jones: You saw that?
Price: Yeah.
Jones: You saw his library in his bungalow?
Price: I don’t know if I’d call a library, but I was in there and I saw his books and stuff.8
Jones: Communist manifesto?
Price: Yeah. He had several of them, all slanting in that direction?
Jones: No Bible, I’m guessing?
Price: Not that I saw. It could have been there, but I surely didn’t see it.
Jones: Well, a survivor tells me that they would take Bibles away from people.
Price: I would believe that. The Bible, in my belief, wouldn’t have stood out as much as the Communist Manifesto and all those because I assume everybody has a Bible. That would seem ordinary. There was nothing ordinary about this guy.
But anyhow, on the bungalows, yeah. I think it was to divide families because the family unit, I think, would be more willing to shed themselves of that arena. So if you divide that family up, you divide people up, and then they don’t easily have the ability to formulate some kind of plan to get out.
Jones: Which may help to explain how the end was possible. Marx writes about that in the Communist manifesto. One of the goals being effectively the elimination of the family.
Price: Yes.
Jones: Well, this is the last question that comes to my mind. It’s a real general question: just put yourself in front of a group. Let’s say, here where I teach. I teach on Jonestown fairly regularly. Every other year at least, we spend a few class sessions on it, depending on what the topic is. Let’s just say I have you in front of my students and the simple question is: what do you think young people should know about Jonestown or about some theme related to it? What do you think?
Price: When you hear something, make sure you fully understand what you’re involving yourself in. The best answer is not always the one that seems to give you everything. These people were promised a lot, and that’s easy to follow. Try working hard and maintaining situational awareness, because everybody’s not there to give you everything.
Sometimes you just have to get up on your own and go. In hindsight, we can see what Jones was doing. But if you’re sitting there and you’re listening to somebody standing in front of you, promising you the world, you better look out. It’s a very dark world that they’re going to give you. This is all just my opinion.
Jones: I hear you. I mean, you know there must have been some dark people. Well, obviously there were dark people in that movement, but I think most of the people who went to Jonestown really thought they were working to create something beautiful.
Price: They absolutely did. They were promised something beautiful. They were working towards it and they worked hard. And they had—obviously if it wasn’t for the bodies—it was really a neat place. It was well laid out, it was well constructed, and then it all went to hell. Those people absolutely believed that.
There was going to be, and he spoke a lot about it, a nuclear war. And they were going to be safe down there and they had everything, until they didn’t.
Jones: Well, Mr. Price, I’m sorry—
Price: Like I said, you the people, I mean, you can read the letters. They are God, so sincere, just good people. And to have it end like that, that’s just wrong in so many ways.
Jones: Well, Mr. Price, I really appreciate you and your willingness to share. We’ve heard a lot from survivors. We’ve heard a lot from other folks associated with Peoples Temple. That’s important, and I hope we continue to hear from them.
To my knowledge, we haven’t heard a lot from the military veterans who participated, who proved Jones wrong, but unfortunately too late. Jones is telling these people the American government is the enemy. Actually, it’s the American government that came in that wanted to save these people. But you weren’t able to get there in time.
Price: And bring them out with dignity, which we could do.
Jones: You could bring out their bodies with dignity, as you were saying. We’re going to stack them or bring them into the helicopter—whatever the right word is—with as much dignity as possible.
Price: With respect.
Jones: So I really appreciate you taking the time and I hope this conversation will encourage others who participated either there on the ground in Jonestown or at Dover where the bodies go. The bodies end up going to Dover Air Force Base. Or to other folks directly or indirectly, I hope that it encourages them to share their memories as well.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Price: You bet. Thank you.
Contextual Notes
- Mr. Muggs was a chimpanzee. ↩︎
- Matthews Ridge was a small village located in the Northwest District of Guyana and approximately 28 miles away from Jonestown. ↩︎
- Leo J. Ryan was a congressman, not a senator. ↩︎
- The exact number of vats used during the deaths is unknown. There was possibly up to 4 vats used for the cyanide poisoning. ↩︎
- Hundreds of the letters written by Jonestown residents were found and taken by the FBI during their investigation of the deaths in Guyana (RYMUR). Transcriptions of many of these letters may be read here. ↩︎
- There was a small cemetery in Jonestown. Eight residents who had died in Jonestown prior to November 18, 1978, were buried there. ↩︎
- Lynetta Jones—the mother of Rev. Jim Jones—died in Jonestown in December of 1977. ↩︎
- An inventory of the books in Jonestown was created by the Guyanese Government in March of 1979. ↩︎