Editing Jonestown (section)

===White Night and the Six Day Siege===
Jones' [[paranoia]] and [[drug abuse]] increased in Jonestown as he became fearful of a government raid on the commune, citing concerns that the community would not be able to resist an attack.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=390}} He made frequent addresses to Temple members regarding Jonestown's safety, including statements that U.S. intelligence agencies were conspiring with "capitalist pigs" to destroy the settlement and harm its inhabitants.<ref name="q322"/><ref>Jim Jones, [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27387 Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 234] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516171446/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27387|date=May 16, 2017}}. ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.</ref><ref>Jim Jones, [http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27299 Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 051] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516161638/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27299|date=May 16, 2017}}. ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.</ref>

Jones was known to regularly study Adolf Hitler and [[Father Divine]] to learn how to manipulate members of the cult. Divine told Jones personally to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient to him.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/LvJtjSD0J2g Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20200217035547/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvJtjSD0J2g&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvJtjSD0J2g|title=Jonestown Survivor Laura Johnston Kohl – AllOutAttack Podcast w/ Harry Robinson – #2|last=Robinson|first=Harry|date=14 February 2019|website=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

After work, when purported emergencies arose, the Temple sometimes conducted what Jones referred to as "White Nights."<ref>{{Harvnb|Layton|1998|p=178}}</ref> During such events, Jones would call, "Alert, Alert, Alert" over Jonestown's tower speakers to call the community together in the pavilion, which was then surrounded by guards armed with guns and [[crossbow]]s.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=390}} On several occasions, Jones then gave his followers four options: attempt to flee to the Soviet Union, commit "revolutionary suicide", stay in Jonestown and fight the purported attackers or flee into the jungle.<ref>Jones, Jim. The White Nights were originally called 'Omegas', denoting their finality, but when Jones decided that the events more properly marked a new beginning and an evolution to a higher form of socialist consciousness, they were briefly renamed 'Alphas'. This second title was only briefly used, and 'White Night' was adopted soon thereafter. Jones refers to an 'Omega' on one tape recorded at Jonestown, the only known time when this title was used. Confusingly, this mention came after the switch to 'White Night' had been made.
[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27514 "Transcript of Recovered FBI tape Q 642."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205011646/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=27514|date=5 February 2015}} ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University.</ref>

On at least two occasions during White Nights, after a "revolutionary suicide" vote was reached, a simulated [[mass suicide]] was rehearsed. Temple defector Deborah Layton described the event in an [[affidavit]]:

<blockquote>Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands.<ref name="laytonaff"/></blockquote>

One drill lasted for six days. Known as the "Six Day Siege," this ordeal was used thereafter by Jones as a symbol of the community's indomitable spirit. For days on end, frightened settlers ringed the commune, armed with [[machete]]s and whatever crude tools would serve as weapons. Surrounding them, Jones claimed, were mercenaries bent on murder, as well as the abduction of Jones' son John Victor Stoen and others. Marceline and others outside of the commune engaged in interminable shortwave radio conversations with Jones, seeking to dissuade him from ordering a mass suicide. The panic reached such a point that an ''[[ad hoc]]'' evacuation was ordered by Jones, with dozens of settlers hastily loaded onto boats on the George River for a purported exodus to Cuba. Several people fell into the river, suffering injuries. At last, Jones bowed to pressure, and the drill ended. Veterans of the "Siege" were held in high regard in Jonestown, and in numerous addresses Jones tearfully recalled their stoic courage on the "front line."{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=390}}

The Temple had received monthly half-pound shipments of [[cyanide]] since 1976 after Jones obtained a jeweler's license to buy the chemical, purportedly to clean gold.<ref>[http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/12/jonestown.cyanide/index.html "Jones plotted cyanide deaths years before Jonestown"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081204082147/http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/12/jonestown.cyanide/index.html|date=4 December 2008}} CNN, 12 November 2008</ref> In May 1978, a Temple doctor wrote a memo to Jones asking permission to test cyanide on Jonestown's pigs, as their [[metabolism]] was close to that of human beings.<ref>[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=31349 Thirty Years Later] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150205014036/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=31349|date=5 February 2015}}. Carter, Tim. Retrieved 1 August 2013.</ref>