Dr. Preston Jones: Ivo Spalatin, thank you very much for joining us. You were part of a Staff Investigative Group with the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the US Congress. That’s how your name comes attached to the Jonestown story and the aftermath of it, and we’ll work through some things. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. Your perspective is, in my experience thus far, a unique one. I’m grateful for that.
When did Jonestown or Peoples Temple first enter your consciousness? Was it something that you were aware of before the big event of Jonestown?
Ivo Spalatin: No.
Jones: Or when did it first enter your consciousness?
Spalatin: It was almost simultaneous with the event, within 24 hours afterwards, because the congressman who had been assassinated, Leo Ryan, was a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives. And I knew him personally, not very well, but I was asked by the Chairman—not asked but directed by the Chairman of the then House Foreign Affairs Committee, Clement Zablocki of Wisconsin—to be part of the three-man group that would investigate this assassination of the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee; it then became known as Jonestown, Guyana.
Jones: So your investigation—the central point at the outset was to investigate the assassination of the congressman.
Spalatin: That’s correct.
Jones: But from what I’ve read in the report that came out, you sort of inevitably got drawn into the broader story.
Spalatin: Oh yes. We did a considerable examination of many docents and interviewed scores of people on the origins of Jim Jones and what he did in Indiana.1 His tenure there, him fleeing Indiana and going to then California, Ukiah in California, and San Francisco, and ending up in Guyana and creating this unique or unusual thing. I don’t know what to call it, the middle of nowhere in the jungles of Guyana, known as Jonestown.
Jones: We’ll work through some of that. Now, you said that you knew Congressman Ryan; you didn’t necessarily know him well, but you knew him. Of course, the tributes that are made in the immediate aftermath of Jonestown are all positive. Not that there’s any requirement for there to be anything but positive statements about someone. But, there has been some question on his part about whether there was less cautiousness on his part, perhaps a little bravado. As you studied that at the time, or as you look back on it now, do you think that Congressman Ryan—obviously the people culpable for his assassination are the people who committed the assassination, but as you look back, as you studied that situation, did it seem that maybe he was insufficiently cautious?
Spalatin: No, I don’t. I don’t subscribe to that position. There’s plausible. Some other people might subscribe to that. I think he was a very conscientious member of Congress. He was doing what members of Congress basically have two functions: one, to represent their constituents and two, to serve them. And he was responding to constituent complaints about other family members being either held against their will or outright being under abuse rather persistently over a period of time. And he said, “I’ve got to go there to find out what’s going on. And determine what the facts are and so on.”
I don’t recall any evidence that it ever crossed his mind that—I mean, he might be in danger in the sense of being unable to complete his mission or that he would be ridiculed, but I don’t think there was any sense by anyone that I know of at this point of any permanent damage or violence to that degree.
But in retrospect, there’s no doubt that everybody was wrong on that point. I think our report demonstrated a lot of evidence that there, in other words, the worst-case scenario happened, but no one thought that the worst-case scenario was going to happen.
Jones: I mean, that’s even an interesting part of the story as well, which your report touches on. I’m kind of decidingwhere to go next. But what you just said about the embassy—if I understand correctly—the US Embassy in Guyana didn’t really seem to focus on the issue of Jonestown until, I think, June of 1978 when a memo was sent to the State Department in the US basically asking for permission. The embassy was asking for permission from the State Department to, if I remember correctly, effectively ask the government of Guyana to take some control over what was happening in Jonestown, because one of the really interesting lines in the report is that it was almost as if Jonestown were an independent nation within a nation.
Spalatin: Well, they were to a significant degree. I personally am of the belief that there was bribery between Jim Jones and Guyana, but we could not find evidence of that. We’d heard that that had been the case. We were told that was the case, that there were a couple middle-level, maybe even senior-level people, and the guys in the government that were on the take. But we never could substantiate that. We could not find that. It was sheer speculation then and still now, to the best of my knowledge. No one has been able to find that information out.
Jones: I’m sorry; if what you’re saying is correct, then that would make sense of something I heard from an officer from Guyana who was one of the first to arrive after November 18th, 1978. He basically described a hands-off situation where he had command of that northern part of Guyana, and he heard reports. He heard rumors and stories that stuff was going on, and I said, “well, did you keep an eye on it? Did you launch an investigation?” And basically he said, “no.”
Spalatin: No. I don’t think there was any investigation. The Guyana government had no interest in doing an investigation. The US government had—going back to the preliminary information, because there were some people complaining. Well, first of all, complaining to the congressman.
The Congressman complaining to the State Department that these are some of the charges that are being made. Can you substantiate them? And they were unable to substantiate that the area of Guyana where Jonestown became located was consciously where it was by Jones because he didn’t want to be investigated by anybody. But in retrospect, we now know, at least I believe, I know there was a totally consistent pattern with Jim Jones. Jim Jones would do his thing and control his people in retrospect, control throughout his career. But every time the authorities started getting maybe a bit suspicious or a bit wondering, he said, “I’ll move from Indiana where I’m not welcomed anymore and go to Ukiah.” And then in Ukiah, he found out that it wasn’t welcoming. And he ends up in a very liberal, tolerant, easygoing San Francisco Bay area. But even there, he had figured it out—by that time he had 900 plus people under his control and he had access to all their social security checks.
He had a pretty solid situation. But he started feeling heat from the local authorities. There were some local authorities that were endorsing him because they thought he was a great example of socialism and all.
Jones: You mean in San Francisco?
Spalatin: Yeah. I mean, there was a split, but he was canny; he was wily. He exploited all that attitude. But even in good old, open-minded, liberal-minded San Francisco, the reality was now we know about the charges of abuse and being held against your will, which just didn’t seem to be plausibly true but became ultimately very true. He was always just a bit ahead of the authorities.
Why he chose Guyana, we never found that out. We don’t know. I’m curious if you’re ever going to find out why he went to Guyana as opposed to Chile or Panama. I mean, pick any country.
Jones: Just thinking off the top of my head, it might be—one thing I’ve heard from a number of people is they’d never heard of the country until Jonestown.
Spalatin: I think part of it was that Guyana was an easygoing—I mean a fairly remote country, fairly small, and relatively insignificant in international affairs. It’s kind of a spot where people are going to leave him alone. He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to have control and master their situation.
So I personally believe that guy—UN officials had no idea who he was and didn’t care who he was. And the fact is I think that he was able to slip them $50,000. I’m just making the number up, you know, $20,000 in cash or something, to give to the right person so that they make sure that they don’t look too much at him carefully.
And frankly, except for these few complaints, he didn’t bother the Guyanese people and didn’t bother the Guyanese Government. I think the authorities probably viewed them giving them X amount of dollars as kind of like a rent payment. We never found that out. I’m just speculating now.
Jones: I hear you.
Spalatin: And don’t forget, this place, I forget how many miles it is from Georgetown, the capital—but there are no roads to get there to speak of. You theoretically could go in a big Land Rover-style thing, but you go in potholes. The isolation was just tremendous.
When I was in Jonestown, one of the things that struck me was that there were still clothing and shoes that had been accumulated for the 900 plus dead people. It reminded me of a room, of what I’d seen in the Holocaust Museum in the United States.
Jones: I want to come back and talk about that. Let me make a note to come back when you actually do go to Jonestown, and I want to stay in Guyana. Just one thought I have is—your report does mention that you have this relationship with the Jonestown member, Paula Adams, and the Guyanese Ambassador to the States.2 That was probably mixed into this—why did Jonestown pick Guyana? Maybe one other, in addition to the isolation? At that time I think the government was socialist, right?
Spalatin: It was kind of sympathetic toward socialists. It wasn’t like Argentina. The right-wing elements that don’t exist in Guyana in the way they express themselves in Argentina, Colombia, and Brazil—those are huge economies, and those are big countries. I swear to God, if you walk down the street here, where you live or where I live and if you ask people about Guyana, I would say 9 out of 10 people don’t even know it’s a country. That’s the whole idea.
Jones: And if they have heard of it, they think it’s in Africa, right?
Spalatin: Exactly.
Jones: Here’s a quote. I’m interested in you reflecting on this just in terms of—I’m trying to think of a more sophisticated word, but I’m just interested in the vibe that you picked up when you were in Guyana trying to talk to these officials? I’ve got this quote here from the report. That for example, “the Government of Guyana refused to permit the Staff Investigative Group to interview Guyanese government officials. That fact has resulted in a conspicuous void in our report.”
I’m trying to think of a more sophisticated word, but “vibe” is the only one that comes to my mind. When you’re down there with these officials, I mean, you are representing the US Government, you’re representing the US Congress, and this investigation—one of our congressmen has been murdered in that country.
What is the vibe like as you are trying to work with these Guyanese officials?
Spalatin: Frustrating. But it’s the negative manifestation of being a sovereign country. We, the United States Government, have no right. Or individual governments, under the notion of sovereignty, have the right to control their own countries and this goes into the larger issue, which is a dominant issue of the 20th century and the post-World War II era. The issue of human rights, you know? Do we have to tell modern-day China how they should treat their people on democracy or access to any other human rights issues and so on?
Well, we claim everybody to the degree that Guyana is a member of the United Nations; we took that angle, but it didn’t go very far. And the bottom line is, God bless them, but Kissinger’s perspective still prevails on sovereignty in international affairs. And that’s the trump card.
We don’t allow people to investigate our country. They don’t allow us to, unless we decide it’s in our interest to do it.
Jones: How long were you on the ground altogether there In Guyana?
Spalatin: It’s got to be three nights. I mean, maybe four, or, I don’t have it in my head.
We spent 24 or 48 hours in Georgetown. We got there, stayed there for a night or two and tried to meet people, and didn’t get very far. Interviewed the variety of officials in the Embassy and arranged for us to be taken to—they did not have, they weren’t required to allow us to go to Jonestown.
But we were reasonably confident that we could work that out. And it didn’t work out. We got the journal. They were cooperative in that sense. But it was what I would call very minimalistic.
Jones: But they got you to Jonestown?
Spalatin: Well, we needed their cooperation. The United States Government wasn’t going to go in there unless the Guyanese Government agreed. And frankly, I’m trying to remember if there was any—do we even have a foreign aid program with Guyana, which I don’t think we do?
Jones: Well, this is what I was going to ask you because of one of the congressmen that I read—and I don’t have it right in front of me now. But it was kind of an indirect statement. But one of the congressmen in the hearing, when you showed up to testify, there was kind of an implication that we were giving Guyana funds and the implications seem to be that maybe future funding should be contingent on them helping us find out what happened.
Spalatin: If there was a funding program, it would’ve been a very modest one. A couple, I’m guessing 5 to 10 million bucks in economic development. We did not have a military exchange program with Guyana, I don’t believe. So with no military training program, which is a very common way to get into a relationship with other countries because of their proclivity to be more open to Moscow than we would want them to be at that time.
Don’t forget that there is still a Cold War going on. If there was a modest $5 or $10 million program, that would not be unless we as staffers had come back and reported to the committee that we had evidence that there was bribery and that we had evidence that there was collusion with the Guyanese Government, and that would’ve easily resulted in the aid being cut off. But that never got to that point.
Then the other issue is—because you’re looking at this from the military and national security standpoint—there was some speculation that there was a relationship, that there was some intelligence interest in Guyana. There really wasn’t. There really wasn’t that much that we could find, and we’re pretty confident of that finding.
I mean, on the US side, there may or may not have been. But you know—I have to be very blunt. These Guyanese officials are not very sophisticated. I can’t speak for them today, but that’s the time. This is a small US Intelligence Committee and it had no need to have any interest there because there was nothing to be interested in, to be blunt about it.
Jones: I hear you. This question I’m just asking, just for your own opinion, given your experience working in foreign affairs. Perhaps there has been an investigation over the past 40
years. But this seems like a huge question: what was the relationship between this foreign government and this entity within that country where over 900 Americans died?
I can’t say that I’ve done deep digging in this, but I don’t know of any—other than your investigation. I don’t know of any big investigation that took place 15, 20 years later where they said, “look, we really do need to figure this out.” Are you aware of any such investigation at all?
Spalatin: All I know is that the Congressional Quarterly is in the process of putting together a podcast as of November 18th, 2019, for which I participated in about a 5-hour interview.3 It is in the process of being broadcasted every Monday or every two weeks, in which they get into this issue quite a bit and they spent a lot of time with me, interviewing me, trying for me to say what my suspicions are about the role of the US Intelligence Agency.
I think there was none about the role of the Guyanese Government, which I shared with them, which I thought it was suspicious, but we couldn’t substantiate it. And by the way, the point is that everybody that was involved in this, the Guyanese Government officials and Jim Jones, was happy because Jim Jones could be left alone by people and do his trick and maintain his control.
He didn’t really ask much from the Guyanese Government. It wasn’t like he asked them to be in a nice neighborhood in Georgetown or something or to be an integral part of their governmental decision-making process. He had his little power enclave and for whatever reason, didn’t need to add to it.
What was happening was it was falling apart. What prompted—I believe that some, if it wouldn’t have been for Leo Ryan going down there, ultimately, the only way that it would’ve been maybe at one point 20 years later or 10 years later—5 people would’ve walked out into the jungle back to Georgetown, which now that I recall, I think is about 30 miles away at least, and survived. There’d be a big hullabaloo about how this woman and the two little kids get out. Matter of fact, I think a woman and the child did get out. That was the downfall of Jim Jones. He could never let that happen.
My only point is that Jim Jones was very happy with the status quo. But it started to slowly fall apart. And the Ryan visit just precipitated it. And it seemed the charges seemed so outlandish and so strong. And don’t forget, Jim Jones was wily, and he had other people offsetting those charges, saying, no, the people here are really happy. And there were people that had been snookered there.
Jones: Your report says that there were some people who were genuinely pleased about it.
Spalatin: Well, they clearly were brainwashed from our perspective when you say genuinely that they bought into it. But I think they had lost their individuality. And they had bought into the collective system. And it was a tragedy, especially for their young children, who had no say in anything. I just don’t forget that, now that it’s all coming back to me.
The tragedy of Jim Jones so emphatically screaming on the PA system. “Make sure you get the kids first.” “Get the Kool-Aid down. Get it over with.” That’s why it was Kool-Aid because it was sweet.
Jones: It’s mystifying to me. You’re not really able to relieve the mystery. You did your work, and you wrote the report, or you co-wrote the report. But it’s just mystifying to me because as I read books about the stories, I talk to people about it. A lot of things have just been gone over again and again. But you know, this question about what was the Government of Guyana doing? That just seems like this huge hole in the story. What the heck was going on? You guys go down there and you seem to hit a brick wall. It’s just amazing to me because I’m trying to think in terms of civilian body count. Only 9/11 is bigger than this.
It’s just mystifying to me—well okay, so I’m just Joe Blow, a history teacher—but this congressman suggests, “look, I mean, maybe we should make our aid contingent on finding out what happened.” But apparently that didn’t happen.
Spalatin: Well, it did not happen. We’re a very legalistic society. This constant balancing among the rights of individuals is then compoundedby the rights of the American citizen living in another country and that country’s sovereignty and so on. From Jones’s perspective, it was a brilliant move.
I understand you and your frustration about the mystery and my only way out of that predicament, and that’s a similar attitude that the Congressional Quarterly people had in their questioning of me too. I guess there’s this notion that—we don’t have all the information. I don’t think we ever will have all the information, and the only consolation I can think of from my perspective is that another Jim Jones has not percolated another Guyana-type thing. It is not on the horizon that I’m aware of anywhere. We don’t want that to happen again.
By the way, after 9/11, we created Homeland Security. We put 200,000 in it. We’re spending $50 billion a year on Homeland Security. I don’t know if we’re getting our dollar’s worth, but we didn’t do this after Peoples Temple. And maybe we should have done more. I don’t know. But cultism is—and that’s the way I would define what happening here—an integral part of human behavior. But it’s not unique to American behavior. And it doesn’t seem to be a growing threat to our own. I mean, cultism is cultism, but is it any stronger in American society than it was 600 years ago or 6,000 years ago? Doesn’t seem to be.
I guess what I’m saying is it looks like it may be a one-time-only aberration. But you want that to be the case, right? But at the same time, as a former government official, when I was at the Arms Control agency afterwards in the Executive Branch of the State Department or as a Senior Congressional person, I want to do everything I can to make sure this did not happen again.
Have we done everything we can? I don’t know. I was very keen on the White House group that was looking into Cultism. And you could argue that we could have convinced them; maybe the Social Security fraud issue could have been better examined by the Congress. But we couldn’t convince the Ways and Means Committee to do it. They viewed it as an aberration. It may be worth thinking about. What degree of fraud is there inside the Social Security Administration? I mean, 5 million Americans live overseas today. What percentage of those people are in Social Security? I don’t know. All I’m saying is those are the types of issues that government officials look at.
Jones: Just one last question related to US-Guyana relations, and then I’m interested in just your reflections on Jonestown itself, and then we’ll,wrap up.
You know that Guyana certainly was not equipped to deal with these 900 plus bodies in Jonestown. The very first US forces are on the ground within 24 hours. In that case, do you know how that worked? Did the Governor of Guyana invite the US to come down, or did the US in this case just say “we’re coming down”?
Spalatin: I’m sure that we said we wanted to come down. Because we had all the necessary assets. This is me speculating because I don’t remember the fine detail. But I’m sure we wouldn’t have gone down if they would’ve said, “you can’t go there.” So we kind of convinced them, “well, we’re going to go there and we’re going to take the bodies out, and we’re going to clean the place up.” We’re going to do basically everything for you because you’re not going to be able to do it effectively. And we want to do it now. I don’t have any recollection if there was any agreement beyond that.
The question you could be asking is, why didn’t we use that particular asset to get more cooperation from the Guyanse Government? That’s a worthwhile, interesting inquiry. But that all transpired so quickly and so fast.
Jones: That’s what I’m thinking. Just then, the sense of shock about the death of the congressman. There were the horrific images on the cover of Time Magazine in the news.
Spalatin: You want to clean it up. You want to kind of close the chapter down. Frankly, let’s be very honest about this. If it hadn’t involved the death of a member of Congress, it would not have been a Special House investigation.
Jones: I hear what you’re saying. I mean, awful as it is to say it aloud, the reality is they are what they are. It’s far away. It’s in a country I’ve never heard of. The general impression is that this is kind of a madhouse down there anyway. So if you take the congressman out, then the story is probably very different, right?
Spalatin: It just doesn’t have the same degree. What happens is that the State Department was worried about its degree of culpability and so on.
Jones: Right. One of the key things that you say in your report is that, if I remember correctly, the Embassy in Guyana, in June 1978, had a significant defector who had said, “look, they’re doing suicide drills and things like that.”4 And so the Embassy in June 1978 asked for permission from the State Department to approach the Governor of Guyana to say, “can you try to get your hands around this?” But then the report back from the State Department was that might look like you’re stepping on their sovereignty.
Spalatin: Exactly. Maybe a body had to show up at the Embassy for the next step. I don’t know. But that didn’t ever happen. I can’t remember now if a few people did get out. There were survivors, but I’m sure there were some who got out. I’m talking about survivors three or four months earlier. We tried to track that down and that didn’t go very far either. I think the reality was that a majority of the residents there had gotten hoodwinked and bought into the system.
I’m afraid that’s a statement of fact.
Jones: You mean that in Guyana?
Spalatin: In Jonestown. The so-called community, the residents.
Jones: It is such a fascinating story.
Spalatin: Where was he going to go after Jonestown?
Jones: They were talking about going to Russia.
Spalatin: I can assure you we had checked that out. The Russians were not prepared to do anything close to that.
Jones: This was delusional stuff. So you’re in Guyana. You make your way to Jonestown then, so just walk us through this. This is the last thing I can think of to ask you about. But just walk us through. I imagine you do fly into the airstrip at Port Kaituma and then you take the truck into Jonestown. Just walk us through that.
Spalatin: Correct. It was eerie. I can’t remember if there was even a stray cat or dog running around. There was no one living there. The barracks were stripped there. There wasn’t much to strip to begin with, but I do recall that very vivid scene of that. One or two barracks or cabins full of shoes and clothing, which reminded me of Auschwitz when I was there years earlier. Months later, there’s nothing. No one did anything. Don’t forget, it was amazingly humid and hot.
I don’t want to go as far as saying I could smell the deaths, because you couldn’t. But it just was an ugly environment and in a very jungly and swampy place.
Jones: So this is a couple months after early 79. Was that sign in the pavilion still hanging? “Those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it.” Do do you remember seeing that at all?
Spalatin: I remember that, but I don’t remember if the sign was there or not. I mean, it could have been there. I just don’t remember. Shoes and clothing is what I remember, which I thought was kind of uncanny. I would have disposed of it or burned it or something.
Jones: How long were you there in Jonestown proper?
Spalatin: It wasn’t overnight. There’s no Motel 8. We basically got the flight in and got the truck in. We were there for a couple hours—5, 6, or 7 hours, if that much. We were escorted by Guyanese authorities and US authorities.
Jones: As you were there—I mean, you’re seeing what there is to see and doing that kind of research. Were you also trying to, on the ground there, trying to get more information from the—
Spalatin: Our so-called handlers knew nothing. And that was very conscious on their part or on the part. They were just facilitators, and they enabled us to get there. They agreed for us to go there. But they didn’t know anything. They were not knowledgeable people that escorted us. And it was a mixture of US officials from the Embassy and from the Guyanese Government. Aside from just getting our feel for the place, which was important, and getting the notion of the remoteness and the starkness, that part was worth the effort. We didn’t have any illusions that we were going to find somebody’s famous diary or some insider information. We had done much more interviewing and researching in Ukiah and California than we did in Guyana just to try to understand his character.
Jones: When your plane is flying out of Georgetown, what are your recollections of just whatever thoughts or feelings in your gut you had when that plane took off from Jonestown, or whatever hopes you had? When your plane lands in Georgetown or when your plane is leaving Georgetown, what is your basic sense of things?
Spalatin: This had been a truly ugly human tragedy. You wouldn’t want to wish this uponyour best friend or your worst enemy. It was great to get the hell out of there. But it was frustrating. I mean, going there was not frustrating. It did enlighten us in that sense. I mean, going to the actual site. But it was frustrating.
We got back to Georgetown and we demanded to see a few more officials who could look back to our effort to try to find out what the relationship was. Could we substantiate an illegal or illicit relationship between Jim Jones and the Guyanese government? And we just could not. We’re still suspicious. I’m still suspicious of that. One of my colleagues has passed away since then. And Tom Sweeten is still alive, by the way. We got back and it took us whatever timeframe, another month or two, to put it all together and the best report we could find.
Jones: When you actually left the country itself, the feeling was primarily frustration of having basically run into a brick wall?
Spalatin: Well, we did learn a few extra things and clarified certain things, but going, so I don’t want to view it as a total bust. But doubts and uncertainty in the matter persisted.
But it became a little more; the starkness was just more obvious or more evident than ever before about the environment. I mean, that part was helpful because it truly does. It confirms our deepest suspicion that this guy was just running away, and he got to the spot where he got in the corner. And that was it.
I will send you that podcast site. Congressional Quarterly interviewed me for about six hours. They’ve interviewed Ryan’s family members. They interviewed Jackie Speier, who was Ryan’s Legislative Aide at that time and who is now a congresswoman in the house and on the House Intelligence Committee.
Jones: Please do.
Spalatin: I’ll send you that site. Feel free to get back to me if there are any follow-ups you might have.
Jones: I really appreciate you taking the time. I talked to different people that have different perspectives and are different parts of the story. For me, it’s to be able to talk to somebody who, in the aftermath, is at a governmental level and who’s trying to figure out what happened.
Huge questions remain, and they’ll probably never get answered.
Spalatin: It will be great if you could answer some of them. I’m all for it. I don’t want to suggest that everything there ever is to know is in our report. But I think there are lots of things in our report that are useful and helpful to understand it. They don’t answer all the questions. There’s no doubt about that.
Jones: I really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you very much.
Spalatin: I wish you all the best and stay in touch if you need anything else. Thank you.
Contextual Notes
- The unclassified report released by the Staff Investigative Group may be read here. ↩︎
- Laurence “Bonnie” Mann served as the Guyanese ambassador to the United States. His association with Peoples Temple arose through his relationship with Paula Adams, a prominent member of the Temple’s inner circle. Following the events of November 18, 1978, Mann and Adams married and had one child together. The couple later separated, and in a subsequent incident, Mann located Adams and fatally shot her and their child before taking his own life. ↩︎
- Congressional Quarterly Roll Call’s Oversight Jonestown. ↩︎
- Dr. Jones is referring to the affidavit of Peoples Temple defector Deborah Layton Blakey, who swore under oath warning of the possibility of Temple members committing mass suicide. ↩︎