# 40th anniversary of Jonestown tragedy **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 17, 2018, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701 "2018-11-17T20:30:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/21 "2018-11-19T04:28:15Z")
I DVR’d the show that Sundance was running this week. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/22 "2018-11-19T05:47:36Z")
As an aside question; how well was Jones known to the general public _before_ Jonestown? The whole sad affair happened before my time, but reading about it, it seems like he was known and respected enough in liberal circles in San Francisco to the extent that people like Feinstein and Mondale and Jerry Brown and George Moscone and Rosalynn Carter associated with him. Would someone outside San Francisco have known his name if they saw it in the paper, or would he have been little more than an Alex Jones type? ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/23 "2018-11-19T06:58:22Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > I can’t believe that was 40 years ago. ☹ > > I saw a documentary about Jim Jones some years after it happened. I don’t remember it clearly, but one thing really stuck out to me. Early in his public life, he was very attractive, and you could see it in the films. I don’t mean good-looking exactly, but he had a lot of appeal and charisma. His face was radiant and friendly. At some point, I just remember seeing a change–his eyes had become dead and his facial expression flat. And then he started wearing the dark glasses all the time. > > That change from a radiant, open face to the flat, dead face-- I swear it made you believe in people selling their souls to the devil. > > I haven’t looked for that film. but I have looked through many pictures of him on google, searching for that change in his face. He also became addicted to drugs, mostly amphetamines, and his sexual preferences seemed to switch over time from women to men. Some people have wondered if his paranoia and other behavioral changes towards the end of his life may have been due to AIDS, which hadn’t been identified yet but do remember that he was engaging in promiscuous sex with other men in the San Francisco area. (I vaguely recall starting a thread about this a while back.) Of course, there’s no way to know that now. This very interesting book goes into considerable detail about Jones’ life, from start to finish. > **[The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple: Guinn, Jeff: 9781476763828:...](https://www.amazon.com/Road-Jonestown-Jones-Peoples-Temple/dp/1476763828)** > > The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple \[Guinn, Jeff\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple I was in 10th grade when it happened, and it didn’t make as big an impression on me as it might have if it had when I was a few years older. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/24 "2018-11-19T07:01:50Z")
Found that thread. [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=827079](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=827079) ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/25 "2018-11-19T07:04:54Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > A childhood friend of mine and his family went to Jonestown and all died there. The story my father tells is that our families were friends and spent time together in the early-mid 70s in southern CA. The parents became increasingly distant and spent a lot of weekends going to San Francisco, and not really telling us what was going on. Eventually, they sold everything they owned and moved to San Francisco, giving everything to the People’s Temple. I cannot imagine what the conversation was like between my friend and his parents that day. My parents were very angry with them when the news of the horror became known, knowing that the kids were gone. > > The website above (the sdsu link) has a wealth of information and portrays victims as real people with regular lives before getting pulled into the cult and being part of the tragedy. IIRC, that book told stories about people who did leave the cult before they went to Guyana, or even when they were still in Indiana. It wasn’t as hard to leave as, say Scientology, but when you’re living in an isolated group facility with no money or transportation, where and how do you start over? ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/26 "2018-11-19T15:01:50Z")
Powers Boothe in the made for TV movie [Guayna Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana_Tragedy:_The_Story_of_Jim_Jones) is positively frightening , and deservedly won an Emmy. And let’s not forget the innocent victims, [Leo Ryan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Ryan#Jungle_ambush_and_assassination) who died, and the others who were shot. That is the real tragedy. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2018, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/27 "2018-11-19T17:03:58Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Powers Boothe in the made for TV movie [Guayna Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana_Tragedy:_The_Story_of_Jim_Jones) is positively frightening , and deservedly won an Emmy. Can’t have a scary-monsters-out-to-get-you movie without Veronica Cartwright! ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/28 "2018-11-20T00:32:28Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > As an aside question; how well was Jones known to the general public _before_ Jonestown? > > The whole sad affair happened before my time, but reading about it, it seems like he was known and respected enough in liberal circles in San Francisco to the extent that people like Feinstein and Mondale and Jerry Brown and George Moscone and Rosalynn Carter associated with him. Would someone outside San Francisco have known his name if they saw it in the paper, or would he have been little more than an Alex Jones type? I can only speak for myself, and I was only a college student on the other side of the country from CA…but I’d never heard of him. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/29 "2018-11-20T06:48:00Z")
Sheesh, I remember it. Senior in high school in northern California. A Congressman got killed in the whole shebang. The People’s Temple was a venue for hardcore punk concerts in the very early 1980’s (IIRC it was near Japan town, and near the Filmore West (aka the Elite Club) in the old Filmore District of San Francisco ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/30 "2018-11-20T06:56:20Z")
Yeah, it was big news where I grew up, too. We used to get about 5 channels on TV. One of them was KTVU (Oakland, I think). My mom was a big fan of that channel back then. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/31 "2018-11-20T10:25:00Z")
The Sundance Channel recently had a documentary (it could have been old, I’m not sure) but Jim Jones looked like the typical kooky preacher from across town that “regular” people would not want to belong to his church but those “religious fanatics” did. At some point, and I couldn’t tell when, he became absolutely insane. What got me is that at Jonestown, Leo Ryan could have been his saving grace. They had nearly a thousand people and the ability to only properly feed near five hundred. This got the populace upset and starting to (very silently) grumble, which caused Jones to impose harsher labor and punishments to quell the uprising. Ryan gave him the perfect out. Allow everyone who wanted to leave, just go ahead and leave, then have more food and be less brutal; all the while talking smack on those who left and continuing to be worshiped as a god. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/32 "2018-11-20T11:00:49Z")
some people still say between him and manson they killed off a lot of the positives of the 60s……… ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/33 "2018-11-20T12:44:36Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > some people still say between him and manson they killed off a lot of the positives of the 60s……… Manson yes, but I don’t associate Jonestown with anything having to do with the 60s. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/34 "2018-11-20T12:48:34Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Manson yes, but I don’t associate Jonestown with anything having to do with the 60s. 😕 I see his/her point. Jim Jones’ putting into practice interracial cooperation, starting just as the sixties were ending, and eventually founding a rural utopian community…Heck, the pre-tragedy Jonestown photos look like Sly and the Family Stone album covers. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/35 "2018-11-20T15:50:38Z")
I was a teenager at the time. I remember the headlines, but never really paid that much attention to it. Now that I’m seeing clips and stories from back then, I realize that I really didn’t know anything about it other than the whole kool-aid thing. I need to learn more about it. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/36 "2018-11-20T18:11:31Z")
Where did Jones get all the poison? Having enough cyanide on hand to kill all 900+ on the spur of the moment seems unlikely. So he must have planned for such a situation at least early enough to acquire sufficient quantities of cyanide. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2018, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/37 "2018-11-20T18:44:12Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Where did Jones get all the poison? Having enough cyanide on hand to kill all 900+ on the spur of the moment seems unlikely. So he must have planned for such a situation at least early enough to acquire sufficient quantities of cyanide. Soon after the Jonestown “pioneers” started to build the vlllage, someone acquired a license to purchase cyanide, supposedly to purify mined gold. They then purchased a little at a time over a couple of years. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2018, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/38 "2018-11-27T13:14:00Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Soon after the Jonestown “pioneers” started to build the vlllage, someone acquired a license to purchase cyanide, supposedly to purify mined gold. They then purchased a little at a time over a couple of years. That does make me wonder how long he may have had the mass suicide option in his mind. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2018, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701/39 "2018-11-27T15:42:35Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > That does make me wonder how long he may have had the mass suicide option in his mind. It was probably something he wanted to have in his back pocket just in case. What an evil man. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/40th-anniversary-of-jonestown-tragedy/824701.md?page=1)