Fire From The Sky |
FIRE FROM THE SKY by "One Who Knows" PART 19: THE BATTLE OF THANKSGIVING DAY 1978 Close aides of the late Congressman Leo Ryan have reported publicly that his ill-fated decision to go to Guyana was triggered by a State Department report to him that he found totally unsatisfactory. This reaction of Ryan's had been correctly predicted and, in fact, deliberately encouraged. With elections coming up, Congressman Ryan decided to schedule the trip after the election during the Congressional recess. This was a quite natural decision, and had also been anticipated by the planners behind the scenes. No politician would miss the opportunity to campaign right up to election day. As the time approached for his trip, the false issue of the Cuban MIG-23 crisis erupted. The Carter Administration had learned nearly a year prior that the Russians were going to send the MIG-23s to Cuba and decided that it would be a perfect pretext for a fake crisis. The MIG-23 can carry certain types of nuclear weapons as claimed; but even this role it is a tactical weapon best suited for support of ground or naval forces. The MIG-23 in and of itself did not threaten America in the same way that the 1962 Cuban missiles did, and so when the United States began playing up the MIG-23s, it was very obvious to the Kremlin that this was a deliberate effort to stir up public tension over Cuba. The questions were: Exactly what was the United States up to? Would the Carter Administration be so crazy as to invade Cuba? Such a thing sounded irrational, but America's Unseen Rulers were behaving more and more irrationally. This, too, was partially deliberate and was intended to keep the chess players in the Kremlin off balance, but it was also partly a result of the increasing degree of control over America by those Satanic schizophrenics, the Bolsheviks. Cuba was, after all, very important to Russia, for Russia was looking ahead to world domination after Nuclear War I; and for that, Cuba is Russia's main beach-head in the Western Hemisphere. Even more urgently, Cuba was the unadmitted home of Russia's Caribbean Submarine Fleet, and that fleet had repeatedly moved into attack positions in the Gulf of Mexico over the prior two years and more during periods of tension. As if that were not enough, there were concentrations of nuclear weapons in at least four land locations in Cuba. One was near the north coast roughly 10 miles inland southeast of Cardenas. This location is 150 miles due south of Cape Sable, Florida. A second site was about 150 miles to the east-southeast of that and about 10 miles inland from the north coast. One hundred twenty five miles farther to the southeast was a third concentration 15 miles northeast of Marti, well inland. A fourth nuclear site was near the eastern tip of Cuba, 18 miles north-northwest of the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. With all this at stake, American publicity over the MIG-23s caused worry in the Kremlin. And in early November the tension increased when the United States began sending SR-71 reconnaissance flights over Cuba - shades of 1962 and the U-2. In response, massive formations from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Caribbean Submarine Fleets of the Russian Navy began fanning out along America's east, west, and gulf coasts on November 6. They did not deploy into attack formations but their sheer numbers signaled a clear warning to Washington. At that moment they were still on station, many with neutron weaponry. Then during the week immediately preceding the tragedies in Guyana the MIG-23 pseudo crisis built to a climax. Beginning on Tuesday, November 14, a huge combined American and British naval Task Force began heading toward Cuba. By midweek, Cuban defense forces were on full alert, and on Thursday, November 16, a group of twelve United States Senators in Moscow - supposedly to discuss the SALT talks - met with Russia's Kosygin. There they pressed the alleged issue of the Cuban MIG-23 argument, calling it a "false issue." As a former test pilot and America's first astronaut in orbit, Senator John Glenn knew what he was talking about, but Kosygin's anger over the other comments about the MIGs provided the United States intelligence community with valuable proof that the decoy action toward Cuba was working. The next day, November 17, Russia publicly admitted sending MIG-23s to Cuba, calling them strictly defensive weapons. The same day an editorial in the *Washington Post* typified the crescendo of media attention to the Cuban MIG-23s. It was titled: "A New Cuban Missile Crisis?" The very next day, Saturday, November 18, Congressman Leo Ryan, three newsmen and a woman seeking to escape from Jonestown were slaughtered at the Port Kaituma Airport. At least a dozen other people were also wounded, but there was no effort to destroy the airplane filled with terrified escapees from Jonestown. Instead, many witnesses were left alive, and a smaller plane managed to take off right after the airport massacre and report the attack in the capital, Georgetown. Immediately world attention was focused on Guyana, and meanwhile the mass murder at Jonestown - wrongly called a mass suicide - was underway. At this point, the elaborate decoy action toward Cuba was no longer needed, so the Pentagon announced that a routine naval exercise was in progress which would approach no closer to Cuba than 50 miles. Cuban defense forces relaxed, but the real action was only beginning in Guyana. The methodical executions of Congressman Ryan and three prominent newsmen had guaranteed that Jonestown would shortly be in the glare of publicity. Having guaranteed this publicity, Jim Jones then ordered the mass executions at the Jonestown kibbutz. DETAILS OF MASSACRE The complete details of the Jonestown disaster may never be known publicly. It is certain, however, that very few if any of those who died there willingly took their own lives. Some were tricked, not realizing that the death rites were real. Many more resisted, but they were weak, helpless, and confronted with armed execution squads. So by various means, several hundred people were poisoned with potassium cyanide, many by being forcibly injected. Many more fled into the jungle, where U.S. Army Green Berets and British SAS special forces troops tracked them down and killed them with a shot to the temple. Finally, when the mass murder was completed, the executioners performed their final task of stage-managing the horrible death scene. In order to achieve the surprise needed in attacking the Russian missile base, it was critically important that the first reports from Jonestown described the scene as a mass suicide. Only in this way could its actual military significance be hidden long enough to fool the Russians. Therefore, all the bodies free of gunshot wounds were carefully arranged in neat rows and other groupings, suggesting at first sight that everyone died willingly and deliberately. This was the scene that greeted Guyanese troops late the following day, Sunday, November 19. It was more than 24 hours after the kibbutz victims died and the executioners, including the real Jim Jones, were long gone. Jim Jones did not die at Jonestown. COUNTERS AFRAID OF DISEASE The Guyanese troops were afraid of possible disease but counted the bodies as accurately as possible without close handling or moving the bodies. The total they reported was 409 on that Sunday night. The initial impression of a mass suicide was seized upon by the controlled major media of the United States. Without waiting for an investigation, the media drummed away at the suicide image of Jonestown as if it were a proven fact. After a few days a few people did begin to raise questions, but by then the initial image of suicide had served its purpose of opening Guyana's doors to the United States. For example, on Tuesday, November 21, Jim Jones' surviving son, Steven, said in a Georgetown press conference, "There's no way it could have been mass suicide." And that same day, according to the *Washington Star,* a Guyanese source pointed out a serious medical discrepancy in the Jonestown kibbutz death scene. He said, "If you die of cyanide, which seems to have been the poison, your body goes into spasm and contortion death, but at Jonestown everyone looked totally relaxed." The reason for this discrepancy was that by the time the Guyanese troops arrived, all the bodies had been rearranged. They were also placed face down for the most part. This was so that the widely publicized news photos would not ruin the desired impression of calm by letting you see the victims' final expression of agony. THE NIGHTMARE CONTINUED To continue the nightmare charade to fool the Russians, the United States at first publicly urged Guyana to collect and bury the hundreds of bodies. As arranged, Guyana replied in effect that it was America's problem and that America should take the bodies back to the United States - just as planned. To facilitate this huge and hideous task, Guyana obligingly agreed to waive the usual Guyanese law that requires any body to be autopsied before removal from the country. With this arrangement, the United States achieved the carte blanche military access to Guyana that was needed. Russian intelligence realized what was afoot by early Monday, November 20, but it was already too late to stop it. Russia could hardly announce to the world that, "We have a secret nuclear missile base in Guyana and the United States is getting ready to destroy it." That would have rallied world opinion behind America; and, although Russian Cosmoshperes quickly converged over Guyana, they, too, were useless in the covert conditions of battle there. Their Charged Particle Beam Weapons could have made short work of the commando-style forces, but in the process they would have wiped out the Russian base itself. The Guyana missiles had become only a minor factor in Russia's military power since the Battle of the Harvest Moon the year prior. They were not valuable enough to Russia to declare open war on their account. And so under these conditions, Russia was powerless to act once the Jonestown tragedy had been staged. As Thanksgiving Day approached, huge American transports, helicopters, troops, and medical teams swarmed into Guyana. In a remote corner of the huge Temehri Airfield a command post was established for the twin operations of Jonestown and the Russian missile base. As some of the troops began the nauseating task of cleaning up the Jonestown kibbutz, other joint attack forces were taking up positions around the missile base in preparations for the surprise raid. Meanwhile, day after day the death count reported at Jonestown remained unchanged at 409. Then on Thanksgiving Day itself, the Battle of Guyana took place. Crack military forces experienced in jungle and surprise warfare moved in on the Russian complex, striking all the dispersed sites simultaneously. Like the Entebbe raid, the battle itself did not last long. It had to be over quickly to be successful. First the small crews on site near each missile were overwhelmed, and then killed. The missiles themselves were quickly disabled. Next the military forces converged on the Missile Command and Control Center, where a bloody pitched battle took place. When the smoke cleared, every single person manning the missile base had been killed, including the Russian commanders. When the battle was over, American helicopters from Temehri Airfield began landing within the ruined missile complex and flying out the wounded. Then the remaining attackers were left with two more jobs before they could retire from the area. First, they were under strict orders to leave no bodies in the attacking forces on Guyanese soil, and so the entire area was scoured until every single member of the attacking force had been accounted for. Their bodies, like those of the victims at Jonestown, were sealed in Vietnam-type body bags and collected in clearings where helicopters could land to pick them up. Finally, the combined forces were under orders to remove the nuclear warheads from the missiles and take them back to Georgetown for airlift to the United States. Specially trained members of the attacking force had set to work on this task immediately after the initial attacks on the missile crews. By early Friday, November 24, all the warheads had been removed. They, too, were placed in body bags, one per bag, with some jungle foliage stuffed in to give the bag a reasonable appearance. Of course none of this war was apparent to the reporters at Temehri Airfield, whose access to the American Command Post there was carefully controlled. When wounded members of the attacking force were flown back to the Airfield, after the Battle of Guyana on Thanksgiving afternoon, they were kept out of sight of the reporters. Otherwise, when reporters occasionally saw body bags being moved from place to place they just naturally assumed that all contained victims from Jonestown. They had no way of knowing that some contained slain Commandoes and that others contained Russian nuclear warheads. The continual cargo of death from the Jonestown kibbutz made the perfect cover for the aftermath of the Battle of Guyana. WHERE COULD THEY TAKE ALL THOSE BODIES? Many reporters were totally puzzled at the choice of Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the Guyana airlift. Most of the Jonestown victims were from California, and there is a mortuary facility, similar to the Dover facility, at Oakland Air Force Base in California. Dover was chosen to facilitate transfer of the Russian nuclear warheads to the nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground and Arsenal. This was done by means of shallow flights from Dover to Phillips Air Force Base. Originally the Guyanese count of 409 had been accepted as firm by United States officials in Guyana. That had raised questions as to where the rest of the one thousand or so residents reported to be in Jonestown had gone. Finally, on Thanksgiving Day, with the body clean-up operation well under way, a military spokesman told reporters, "The evaluation that we have made is simply that there were not many more people in Jonestown at the time of the suicide." But even as he spoke, the Battle of Guyana was raging at the Russian missile base. By midday on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, 485 body bags had already arrived at the Temehri Airfield. The "bodies" of warheads from the Russian missile base were destined to raise the total far beyond the total of 409 bodies originally counted by the Guyanese at the kibbutz. It was a bad mistake, the kind of thing that happens in the heat of battle. Something had to be done, and quickly. So, on that Friday after Thanksgiving, a breathless and nervous Pentagon spokesman at the Temehri Airfield made a stunning announcement over CBS television [some of us call it CIABS Television, don't we, Dan Rather?]: "The original count of persons found dead at the Jonestown site has been found to be seriously in error. It now appears there may be as many as 780 bodies, total, found at the site. They were found simply buried under other bodies. There were larger adults that were grouped together, and under their bodies were found bodies, and under their bodies were found the bodies of smaller adults and children." Rather a curious mass suicide, I would say. Badgered by incredulous reporters, the Government embellished the cover story later on. The *Washington Star* quoted the same spokesman as saying Friday night: "Near the center of the pile of bodies, near the assembly hall, they were three deep in some areas. They were in layers with blankets between them." Wasn't it just nice of all those people to fall over in well orchestrated and neat rows? The story was so unbelievable that within two days the United States Government dismissed its own story about the blankets as a "rumor." Still the basic idea of bodies on top of bodies had to be maintained, so on Saturday, November 25, another Air Force spokesman tried to make it all sound plausible in the following words: "From what I observed, the people, when they committed suicide, would line up in nice neat little circles, children in front of them, and as they died they folded into the interior of the circle." Even though the story kept getting curiouser and curiouser, nearly everybody accepted it hook, line, sinker and fish! The Guyana cover-up was world-wide in its dimensions - it had to be. In Guyana, Deputy Prime Minister Reid made the first public announcement to the Guyanese people about Jonestown on Friday afternoon, November 24, in parliament. Then he refused to answer questions, and rushed out to cries of "Shame, Shame" and "Cover-up" from parliament members. And in the United States on Thanksgiving Day, FBI Director William Webster said that the: "FBI disaster squad had positively identified the body of James Warren Jones through fingerprint identification records." This was a lie, and at that moment Jim Jones was making good his preplanned escape from Guyana. HOW DID JIM JONES GET OUT? The plans for removal of Jones were laid well in advance. An ocean-going boat, well stocked with supplies and money, was waiting for him near the river town of Bartica, 35 miles southwest of Georgetown. In order to make his way to Bartica from Jonestown, Jones had a Safe Conduct Pass. In the early morning of Thanksgiving Day, as the Battle of Guyana was beginning, Jones headed downstream toward Georgetown. Shortly after noon Guyana time his boat left the mouth of the Essequibo River into the Atlantic Ocean. From there Jones followed a complicated itinerary which was designed to prevent his being followed; but in spite of that, he was followed. From Guyana Jones headed due east for about 330 miles and then turned south, landing near La Mere, French Guyana, at about 5:30 A.M. local time, November 27. From there he traveled by land to the capital of Cayenne, and took an airplane across the Atlantic Ocean to Freetown, Sierra Bissau Airport, arriving there approximately 7:00 P.M. local time, November 28. There, less than two hours later, he boarded a DC-3 and took off. His route took him eastward to Tambacounda, (Senegal); from there onward into Mali with stops at Segou, Mopti, and Gao; then onward to Agadez (Niger), and Largeau (Chad). From there his plane continued to Atbaqra (Sudan), and then a short final hop to Port Sudan where he arrived shortly after 4:00 A.M., November 30, local time. When he arrived at Port Sudan, Jones found a Turboprop Executive Transport waiting for him which was owned and operated by Israeli Intelligence. Within 20 minutes the plane took off with Jones and headed up the middle of the Red Sea toward the Gulf of Aqaba. At 6:30 A.M. local time on November 30, Jones' plane landed briefly at Elath, the back door to Israel; then on to a private airport outside of Jerusalem, arriving at 7:20 A.M. local time. From there he headed to a nearby location for an intelligence briefing. I have information that Jones was in Israel for about 7 or 8 years then was killed by his "keepers" as being too dangerous to have around. However, I have other information that conflicts with this, so I do not know his current status. I have heard preachers giving sermons making a point by telling about Jim Jones and Jonestown. They are really just snorting in the wind; they have no notion of truth and are merely reinforcing the brainwashing that has been laid upon them. |
