Jim Jones

No - not the equipment manager from high school.

I'd always known some vague facts about what happened surrounding Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana - cult attaches themselves to charismatic leader, creates a community in South America, commits suicide through the use of poisoned Kool Aid. Those facts are basically right, though the final days are far more interesting.

We watched a long documentary on the People's Temple and the last days at Jonestown last night on the History Channel (one of the cable stations we get without paying for). Generally classic cult stuff. People attach a level of divinity to a charismatic leader who appears to be knowingly screwing people. This group went so far as to abandon their lives (most of the people were from California) and move to Guyana, on the northern coast of South America. Once there, the thousand people (including almost 300 children) set about creating a perfect socialist society, though it seems like Jim was in it as much for himself as anything.

After being there a couple of years relatives of those living in the community stirred up enough concern that the representative Leo Ryan of California brought a group of them along as part of a congressional delegation to see what things were like. Over the course of a couple of tense days a group of followers defected and intended to leave the group to fly back with the congressman. This started a chain of events that seemed to take a generally unstable Jim Jones and push him over the edge.

Eventually he sent a group of armed men to the airstrip to kill all of those that were trying to leave, including the congressman, an NBC news crew, another journalist and the rest of the defectors and family. His stated intention was that killing the congressman essentially made it impossible for the People' Temple to continue and so they all must die.

They brewed up a concoction of fruit punch, cyanide and all manner of other drugs. Those willing drank from cups, while the children had the liquid squirted into their mouths with a syringe. A few seemed to resist and had the liquid injected directly into their blood stream. A smaller few had hidden themselves and lived to tell the tale, including one of the reporters leaving on the plane.

All told some 908 people died as a result of this incident, including Jim Jones who was shot in the head by one of his followers.

Perhaps the most remarkable piece of this that I didn't know was the congressional delegation. That congressman puts his life in extreme danger to save a few people, essentially using his authority to intimidate the followers, although ultimately Jim Jones had him murdered. I'm not sure there are many in congress that would act as heroically in the same circumstances. Certainly with all the news of bribery and all expense trips to Scotland for golf, etc, I would be skeptical of most.

Useful links:
Wikipedia for Jonestown.
The History Channel show link.

It appears that between the survivors and the footage from the NBC crew, along with tapes of Jones' final speeches that all of this is pretty accurate.