Editing Jonestown (section)

=== Jonestown before mass migration ===
[[File:Jonestown Houses.jpg|thumb|Houses in Jonestown]]
As five hundred members began the construction of Jonestown, the Temple encouraged more to relocate to the settlement.<ref name="walliss">Walliss, John, ''Apocalyptic Trajectories : Millenarianism and Violence in the Contemporary World'', Oxford, New York, 2004, {{ISBN|0820472174}}{{page?|date=April 2025}}</ref> Jones saw Jonestown as both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from media scrutiny.<ref name="hall293"/> Jones reached an agreement to guarantee that Guyana would permit Temple members' mass migration. To do so, he stated that they were "skilled and progressive," showed off an envelope he claimed contained $500,000 and stated that he would invest most of the group's assets in Guyana.<ref name="raven337"/> The relatively large number of immigrants to Guyana overwhelmed the government's small but stringent immigration infrastructure in a country where immigrants had outweighed locals.<ref name="raven337">{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=337}}.</ref> Guyanese immigration procedures were compromised to inhibit the departure of Temple defectors and curtail the [[travel visa|visa]]s of Temple opponents.<ref name="housereport">United States Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Staff Investigative Group (1979) "The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana, Tragedy. Report of a Staff Investigative Group to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives", U.S. Government Printing Office.</ref>

Jonestown was held up as a benevolent [[communism|communist]] community, with Jones stating: "I believe we're the purest communists there are."<ref name="q050">Jones, Jim. [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27298 "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 50."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170425072201/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27298|date=25 April 2017}} ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.</ref> Jones' wife, Marceline, described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally."<ref name="q050"/> Jones wanted to construct a model community and claimed that Burnham "couldn't rave enough about us, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism."<ref>Jones, Jim. [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27599 "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 833."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205013356/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27599|date=February 5, 2015}} ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.</ref> He did not permit members to leave Jonestown without his express prior permission.<ref>{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=451}}</ref>

The Temple established offices in Georgetown and conducted numerous meetings with Burnham and other Guyanese officials.<ref>{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|pp=274–275, 281}}</ref> In 1976, Temple member Michael Prokes requested that Burnham receive Jones as a foreign dignitary along with other "high ranking U.S. officials."<ref name="raven285">{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=285}}</ref> Jones traveled to Guyana with Dymally to meet with Burnham and Guyanese Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Willis.<ref name="raven285"/> In that meeting, Dymally agreed to pass on the message to the [[United States Department of State|U.S. State Department]] that Guyana wanted to keep an open door to cooperation with the U.S.<ref name="raven285"/> He followed up that meeting with a letter to Burnham stating that Jones was "one of the finest human beings" and that Dymally was "tremendously impressed" by his visit to Jonestown.<ref name="raven285"/>

Temple members took pains to stress their loyalty to Burnham's [[People's National Congress Reform|People's National Congress Party]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Hall|1987|p=195}}</ref> One Temple member, Paula Adams, became romantically involved with Laurence "Bonny" Mann, Guyana's ambassador to the U.S. Jones bragged about other female Temple members he referred to as "public relations women" giving all for the cause in Jonestown.<ref>{{Harvnb|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|pp=274–275, 418}}</ref><ref name=group>After the tragedy at Jonestown, Adams married Mann. On 24 October 1983, Mann fatally shot both Adams and the couple's child, and then fatally shot himself. (Weingarten, Gene. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801434_5.html "The Peekaboo Paradox."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501131330/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801434_5.html|date=1 May 2011}} ''The Washington Post''. January 22, 2006.)</ref> Burnham's wife [[Viola Burnham|Viola]] was also a strong advocate of the Temple.<ref name="paranoia"/>

Later, Burnham stated that Guyana allowed the Temple to operate in the manner it did on the references of Moscone, Mondale and Rosalynn Carter.<ref name="moore173">{{Harvnb|Moore|1985|pp=173–174}}</ref> He also said that, when Deputy Minister [[Ptolemy Reid]] traveled to [[Washington, D.C.]] in September 1977 to sign the [[Torrijos-Carter Treaties|Panama Canal Treaties]], Mondale, by this point the [[Vice President of the United States|U.S. Vice President]], asked him, "How's Jim?", which indicated to Reid that Mondale had a personal interest in Jones' well-being.<ref name="moore173"/>