Augustana College - Rockety I Yearbook (Rock Island, IL)

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8 Introduction Peoples Temple His mother. it is said. dreamt she would give birth to a messiah. But cult leader Reverend Jim Jones led over nine hundred members of his Peoples Temple, not to salvation. but to mass suicide in the steamy jungles of South American Guyana, Among the dead was United States Congressman Leo Ryan. whose fact-finding visit to Jonestown, the cult's colony, precipitated the gisley disaster. The son of a friend of Ryan's had been killed. perhaps murdered, the day after he told his father of his intentions to leave the Peoples Temple. Ryan's subsequent investigation yielded accusations by friends and relatives of cult members that the inhabitants of Jonestown were being held prisoner and subjected to physical and psychological torture. YQt the beginnings of the Peoples Temple in Indianapo- lis. Indiana, twenty years earlier. had boded well. Jones. the pastor of a Methodist church, was persecuted for his liberal bent, for his championship of intergration. Disen- chanted. Jones left the Methodists to form his own church based upon equality and love. The Peoples Tem- ple provided needed charitable services; a soup kitchen, aid in finding employment. a nursing home. It was not long, however. before disturbing signs showed that the fruits o! Jone's vision were beginning to sour. Like many cult leaders, Jones began to make profit- able tax-exempt investments. Following the example of the famous black cult leader Father Divine, Jones began to demand great personal ioyalty of his followers: he even set up a committee to interrogate those he suspected of dissent. Jones held his flock together through terror, preying on the cultists' fears of nebulous forces of evil e the Ku Klux Klan, the CIA. He forced members, both male and female. into intimate sexual relationships with him. The horrors oi the Peoples Temple went largely over- looked until 1975, when Jones demonstrated in the San Francisco mayoral election that he could wield consider- able political clout. The press began to take interest in this conspicuously powerful figure. When the New West magazine began a probe potentiat- Iy fatal to the Temple, Jones made tracks for the newly built colony of JOI'IEStOWn. He was followed by about 800 devoted cultists. At Jonestowm the cultists found themselves in a virtual prison camp, with Jones exercising a malignant dictator- ship. The cult's leader strictly regulated all aspects of life in the commune; the disobedient, including naughty chil- dren, were punished by harsh physical and psychological torment. A seventeen year old boy who attempted to escape was beaten unconcious. The inhabitants were se- verely undernourished, and they were not allowed to communicate with their families. Most disturbing of all, Jones began to hold White Nights w drills for mass suicide. The visit of Ryan and his party of nineteen newsmen and relatives of cultists threatened to undermine the ab- solute authority that was so necessary to Jones. The cult leader tried and failed to prevent the visit. Then he had no choice but to mask the horrible reality of Jonestown behind an attractive fiction. Ryan and his party found the communards going about their daily routine, children swinging. women baking bread. Jim Jones' flock appeared to be content. But as the reporters began to explore the commune and ask probing questions, the facade began to crack. Jones be- came increasingly hostile when Ryan and the reporters told him of communards who were begging the party to help them escape. Jones felt cornered, with the world he had ruled beginning to crumble. As Ryan and his party. which now included the six members of the detecting Parks family, were boarding their planes at the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip, cultists opened fire with machine guns, killing Ryan. 56. Mrs. Parks, and three of the newsmen: photographer Greg Robinson of the San Francisco Examiner. and investiga- tive reporter Don Harris and cameraman Robert Brown of NBC's Today show. Meanwhile the inhabitants of Jonestown were carrying out the plan they had practiced in Jones' White Nights. drinking from vats of lemonade laced with drugs and cyanide The leader had such a hold over his flock that many cultists drank the potion willingly; those who did not had it forced down their throats. The Reverend Jim Jones took his own life with a bullet in the head. The troops that arrived the next morning found a camp strewn with corpses already rotting in the tropical heat. The grisly event has led to serious questioning in the United States about other flourishing cults.

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Iran: Country in Turmoil A head-on collision in Iran of Eastern and Western cul- tures resulted in an upheaval which toppled the Shah and did serious damage to American interests in the Middle East. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was attempting to transform his backward country into a 20th centuryr Westernized state. In 1978, President Carter urged the Shah to moderate some of the dictatorial controls he had placed on the people. This allowed the Orthodox Shiite Moslems to speak out against the Westernization of Iran. Their leader. Ayatollah Rubellah Khomeini sent tapes into Iran, cailing the people to revolt and set up an Islamic republic. Beginning with protests and demonstrations, the disturbances soon escalated into riots. On October 31, a strike by the refinery workers virtually shut down the petroleum industry. On November 5, the Shah set up a military government to try to restore order to Iran. A shoot-to-kili order after the 9pm curfew got the mobs off the streets. Xenophobia was at a new high as crowds chanted Yankee, Go Home. The 45,000 Americans in Iran kept a low profile, many of them fleeing the country. On December 28. the Shah gave Shahpour Bakhtiar a mandate to form a new civilian government. By early January, alt the schools and universities were closed to prevent the students from congregating. Oil production which was usuatty at 6 million barrels a day, was not even enough to cover the daily need of 750,000 barrels in Iran. Tehran was a city under siege. The electricity was out a part of each day and there were troops with gas masks and tanks in the streets. On January 16. the Shah ieft Iran for a vacationw in the United States. After a 16 year exile, Khomeini returned to Iran and set up a provisional Islamic regime with Mehdi Bazargan as his prime minister. Khomeini supporters set up a govern- ment parallei to that of Bazargan called the Komitehs. ignoring the wisdom of Bazargan, they ordered the ex- ecutions of the policemen ot the SAVAK tsecret police under the Shaht and the top men in the army. In May, they began killing people for moral offenses. The Komi- tehs justified the executions by saying that the revolution must be purified. American foreign policy in the Middle East depended quite heavily on a strong and politically pro-American Iran. The Central Treaty Organization tCENTOt, formed during the 1950's as a buffer against Soviet expansion, was rendered worthless as Iran pursued an anti-Arnerican policy. Since 1968. the Shah had guaranteed freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. Tankers carry- ing much of the oil from the Middle East had to pass through this strait on their way to Europe and the United States. Without adequate protection, the tanker route was vulnerable to attack by Palestinian terrorists. The summer of 1979 saw the revolution in Iran change what was once one of the most powerful and stable states in the Persian Gulf region into a country struggling to find itself. Eastern and Western cultures stili clashed. The economy was in near ruin. Factions from both ends of the political spectrum were engaged in a power struggle. The effects of the turmoil were felt outside iran as well. Much of the United States experienced a gas shortage partially as a result of the loss of Iranian oil. American foreign policy suffered the loss of one of our important bases on which our entire foreign policy depends, and the end of the tumult was not in sight, Intruduction 7

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A Promise for Peace On September 5, 1978. lsraeli Prime Minister Menae chem Begin, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and United States President Jimmy Carter gathered in the moun- tains of Maryland for the Camp David Summit Confer- ence. The goal of the thirteen day meeting was to develop a framework for further negotiations towards a compre hensive peace in the Middle East. Sadat wanted Begin to accept a United Nations resolu- tion as a basis for peace. The resolution stated. essentiai- 1y. that there should be an Israeli withdrawal from the terretories occupied since the War of 1967, Begin was willing to pull out of the Sinai, but said that lsraeii nationat security depended on the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Sadat felt that the Palestinians had the right to self-determination and their own state if they so chose. Begin stated that there would never be a Pales- tinian state. There was a news blackout during the summit confer- ence. Carter announced to a joint session of Congress on September 17 that two agreements had been signed that day: A West Bank agreement and a Sinai agreement. Talks to work out the details of the Camp David agree- ments began on October 12. Carter persuaded Israeli and Egyptian officials to hold the talks in Washington because he wanted to be close at hand to help with any difficulties which might arise. Carter began a round of shuttle diplomacy on March 7. traveling between Cairo and Jerusalem, By March 13, the deadlock was broken. Both Sadat and Begin agreed to an American proposal. The terms of the treaty stated that Israel was to with; draw from the Sinai and that full diplomatic and economic relations were to be established. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank were expected to gain self-rule after the election of an administrative council. Plans called for the United States to guarantee Israeli oil supplies for fifteen years. The United States was also to be responsi- ble for maintaining the momentum of the negotiations concerning the future of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. March 26 was the date of the signing of this treaty. A memorandum agreement was signed by Israel and the United States which guaranteed US. backing of Isra- el. Egypt and Israel were to receive about $5 billion in economic and military aid. The news media reported that President Carter felt there was much to gain through the signing of this treaty. It was believed that if the attempt to sign a treaty were not successful. Egypt would return to the radical Arab point of view. This could have resulted in a fifth Arab- lsraeli war. Failure could also have meant a shift of the strategic balance of power toward the Soviet Union. Suc- cess, it was hoped. would give the United States a chance to build a new security system in the Middle East. introduction 9