Page 2 - Defecting Temple News Today

Committed to this cause, period. and you cant be part way. you cant do it part way. >> it was told over and over again that we were going to be -- everybody was going to be killed. >> suicide drills and beatings became as much a part of the temples internal life as social service was to its public face. devotion to jones had to be total. >> one of the very powerful things in the church was that you werent really allowed to express how you really felt. it was like, i would be there and i would lo...

Temples innermost circle, had escaped from guyana and she was going public. >> it took me six weeks to plan it. i told nobody, not even the embassy, until the day i knew i was to leave. you cant trust anybody at that point. >> he said shes going to spread lies. the next thing you know, the fbi, cia, all of them will be here on us. and my god, they will treat us worse than they did the jews in the concentration camps. >> jim had a pathological obsession with anybody being taken away from his fold...

In many cases the temple provided food and housing, especially for seniors. >> we were taking the widows and orphans in. we were taking folk that needed a place to stay. he felt that was the responsibility of us as a community to take care of our young people as well as have places for our seniors that they wouldnt be just thrown away to die in a rest home. we should have our own rest homes where we can have people in there 24 hours a day making sure they get quality care and love. >> i visited ...

>> with the secret revelations he gathered in the summer of 1977, reporter marshall kilduth had the makings of a full blown expose. >> here i am with a new look at the church. ex-members had rough things to say about how the church treated its finances, how they recruited members. i went back and said i got a whole new story here. heres the deal. guy said, nope, im not interested. jones is doing good work. he doesnt need this kind of attacking. >> the truth of the matter is that the leadership o...

25-year-old member of the temples innermost circle, had escaped from guyana and she was going public. >> it took me six weeks to plan it. i told nobody, not even the embassy, until the day i knew i was to leave. you cant trust anybody at that point. >> he said shes going to spread lies. the next thing you know, the fbi, cia, all of them will be here on us. and my god, they will treat us worse than they did the jews in the concentration camps. >> jim had a pathological obsession with anybody bein...

We felt like we were in heaven. in a way. in the states you didnt get that kind of food, necessarily. unbeknownst to me, they had to buy all that fruit. and i found out later there would be pictures of jim with his hand up holding, supposedly, like these are bananas. he was literally holding those bananas up there. they werent growing on that tree. >> if jonestown was not yet a tropical paradise, jones was determined to one day make it the socialist utopia he dreamed and preached about. but for ...

Not only becoming members, but also becoming examples in their community, and it spread. >> as the numbers of faithful grew, jones and the temple became a potent and untouchable force in california politics. >> everybody was afraid to come out against him because they felt he had more power and more clout, and he did. hanical hummi] [ male announcer ] we began with the rx. ♪ then we turned the page, creating the rx hybrid. ♪ now weve turned the page again with the all-new rx f sport. ♪ thi...

Well live a socialist environment where everybody is equal. >> my older sister carolyn joined because s which would effect radical change in the country. my younger sister annie wrote to me and said that peoples temple was the only place that she saw true apostolic christianity being practiced. so she saw it as a christian organization. >> i heard jones talk, and its like, wow, hes saying a lot of what i believe in. spiritually, politically, in every way. this is something i could do where i fel...

Temple. i didnt know anything about jones. i didnt know anything about the politics. i just knew that those people reflected me. they were my brothers and sisters. it was the most alive place that i had ever been in. >> i had $20 to my name, and i was hitchhiking up between ukiah and redwood valley, where the temple was, and somebody picked me up who was a member of the temple and said if youre looking for a place to stay, a place to sleep, get some food, ive got the place for you. i belong to t...

Light into the temples darkest shadows, and jones knew it. the walls would soon come tumbling down, and he wasnt about to wait around for the crash. >> it came out. jim basically called people saying, "pack up your stuff, youre leaving today." people went out with one days notice they were leaving the country forever. >> we knew we werent coming back to the u.s. ever. ♪ >> by summers end, hundreds of members had descended on jonestown, the jungle was now home to peoples temple. >> to jim the m...