Jonestown in 1956, a Church Thesis

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Though it was certain that at this point Jones had many powerful political connections, it is suspected by many that there were secret ties that provided the real impetus for his move to Guyana, either as a means of escaping the hidden power structure that was after him, or perhaps of aiding the CIA in covert operations they were conducting in Guyana (Moore, 2002).

In 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan traveled to Jonestown to investigate the various claims regarding his group. When he left with four defecting members, Jones (or someone else) ordered his assassination, then led his group of 913 followers in a mass suicide by drinking Kool-Aid heavily laced with cyanide -- unless the bodies were a cover up of something still yet to be brought to light (Kurtz-Nichol, 1993; Moore, 2002).

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The explanation for the suicide is both to fulfill the religious promise of equality upon which the People's Temple was ostensibly founded and as a way of escaping the fallout from the assassination of Congressman Ryan (Chidester, 2003, Moore, 2002). There are many other theories, however, including that the entire group was massacred by the CIA to end worries about Jones and his increasingly extreme leftist politics; others claim that most of the bodies were actually U.S. casualties from a covert military operation taking place there (Moore, 2002). Whatever happened at Jonestown, it is certain that Jim Jones selfishly cost the lives of many of his followers, and perhaps it is the shock that comes from such betrayal that keeps the Jonestown incident so present in the public mind even thrity.....

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