November 20, 1978, New York Times, page A17, Ryan Was a Friend of Disadvantaged; Congressman's Investigations of Trouble Spots Were Marked by Personal Involvement, by Joseph Treaster,
November 21, 1978, New York Times, Leading Americans Backed Jones Sect; Guyana Cites Letters by Mondale, Mrs. Carter and Califano Vouching for the Group, by Robert D. McFadden,
November 21, 1978, New York Times, page A-16, Wounded Aide to Ryan Worried And Wrote Her Will Before Trip, by Steven V. Roberts,
November 21, 1978, New York Times, Editorial, Thin Line in the Jungle,
November 21, 1978, New York Times, page A16, Anguished Mother Tells How Fear Controlled Cult; She Lives a 'Waking Nightmare', by Les Ledbetter,
November 22, 1978, New York Times, page A11, Explaining the Mass Suicides: Fanaticism and Fear; Strong Group Pressure Simplistic Ways Is Aim, by Boyce Rensberger,
November 22, 1978, New York Times, page A18, Washington Thanks For What?, by James Reston,
November 23, 1978, New York Times, Cult Massacre Books Rushed; Book By Washington Post,
November 23, 1978, New York Times, State Dept. Encourages Inquiries by Relatives,
November 23, 1978, New York Times, page A16, 'Doing Everything,' U.S. Says,
November 24, 1978, New York Times, page A17, Deaths Distract Guyana From Its Economic Woes; Most of Interior Is Undeveloped, by Thomas Johnson,
January 23, 1979, New York Times, page A17, U.S. Sues Temple for Costs of Returning the Dead; Church Spokesman Protests, by Anthony Marro,
January 24, 1979, New York Times - Reuters, Judge Sets in Motion Distribution of Assets From People's Temple,
January 25, 1979, New York Times, page A-16, Bar Panel Ponders Dispute Over Cults; The Rights of Parents and Children Discussed by State Group; Deprogrammmers Called Thugs, by Walter Waggoner,
October 30, 1994, New York Times, An Old C.I.A. Plot Casts a Long Shadow,
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November 20, 1978, New York Times, page A17, Ryan Was a Friend of Disadvantaged; Congressman's Investigations of Trouble Spots Were Marked by Personal Involvement, by Joseph Treaster,
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November 21, 1978, New York Times, page A-16, Wounded Aide to Ryan Worried And Wrote Her Will Before Trip, by Steven V. Roberts,
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November 21, 1978, New York Times, page A-16, Little Attention Paid to Warnings by Sect's Leader; Speaking for Those in Jonestown Stoens Badly Treated, by Wallace Turner,
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November 21, 1978, New York Times, Leading Americans Backed Jones Sect; Guyana Cites Letters by Mondale, Mrs. Carter and Califano Vouching for the Group, by Robert D. McFadden,
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November 21, 1978, New York Times, Editorial, Thin Line in the Jungle,
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November 21, 1978, New York Times, page A16, Anguished Mother Tells How Fear Controlled Cult; She Lives a 'Waking Nightmare', by Les Ledbetter,
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November 22, 1978, New York Times, page A11, Explaining the Mass Suicides: Fanaticism and Fear; Strong Group Pressure Simplistic Ways Is Aim, by Boyce Rensberger,
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November 22, 1978, New York Times, page A18, Washington Thanks For What?, by James Reston,
cults get into trouble in other countries, as the United States has discovered in the conflict and deaths of its citizens in Guyana. Meanwhile, there are reasons for thanksgiving at home. Former Vice President Henry Wallace was
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November 23, 1978, New York Times, Cult Massacre Books Rushed; Book By Washington Post,
Bantam Books and Berkley Books are rushing original paperbacks into print on the People's Temple Cult and the massacre in Guyana. Both New York publishers expect their books to hit the racks on Dec. 3.Cult Massacre Books Rushed
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November 23, 1978, New York Times, State Dept. Encourages Inquiries by Relatives,
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (UPI)-- The State Department announced today that it was increasing the size of in Jonestown, Guyana. ts task force here to handle the large volume of phone calls from relatives and friends of victims of the events
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November 24, 1978, New York Times, page A17, Deaths Distract Guyana From Its Economic Woes; Most of Interior Is Undeveloped,
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November 23, 1978, New York Times, page A16, 'Doing Everything,' U.S. Says,
The Carter Administration is "doing everything" it can to help search for missing Americans in the jungle around the Guyana commune, official spokesmen said today, despite a note of skepticism about estimates that hundreds of
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January 23, 1979, New York Times, page A17, U.S. Sues Temple for Costs of Returning the Dead; Church Spokesman Protests, by Anthony Marro,
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January 24, 1979, New York Times - Reuters, Judge Sets in Motion Distribution of Assets From People's Temple,
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January 25, 1979, New York Times, page A-16, Bar Panel Ponders Dispute Over Cults; The Rights of Parents and Children Discussed by State Group; Deprogrammmers Called Thugs, by Walter Waggoner,
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October 30, 1994, New York Times, An Old C.I.A. Plot Casts a Long Shadow,
In a small clandestine operation three decades ago, President Kennedy ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to depose the leader of the South American colony of British Guiana. The leader fell, and the C.I.A.'s men quietly left town. The cold war ended, and with its end the deposed leader, Cheddi Jagan, was elected President of an independent and democratic Guyana.
Though United States law says it is time to unseal the secret documents that detail Kennedy's plot against him, the State Department and C.I.A. officials refuse to release them, saying it is not worth the embarrassment. But keeping secrets can cause embarrassment too. This year, the Clinton Administration prepared to send a new Ambassador to the little country -- apparently unaware that the prospective nominee had helped to undermine the restored leader.
Article, page 10.
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March 18, 2001, New York Times, Editorial Observer; How the C.I.A.'s Judgments Were Distorted by Cold War Catechisms, by Philip Taubman,
When I was based in Moscow for this newspaper during the early years of Mikhail Gorbachev's run as Soviet leader, I sometimes wondered what the Central Intelligence Agency was telling President Ronald Reagan about the rapidly changing state of the Soviet Union. Now I know.
The answer was delivered the other day by Federal Express. It came in the form of two red CD-ROM's adorned with a hammer and sickle. They contain nearly 20,000 pages of what were once some of Washington's most secret documents, the C.I.A.'s assessments of the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1991. The reports were recently declassified by the C.I.A. and were the subject of a conference earlier this month at Princeton University attended by many former agency analysts. Here, at my fingertips, was the best intelligence that hundreds of billions of dollars in spy hardware and manpower had bought for the United States.
After hours of reading about the Gorbachev era, I am sorry to report that the government didn't get its money's worth. In paper after paper, the C.I.A. seemed reluctant to let go of the cold war, even long after Mr. Gorbachev made it abundantly clear that he wanted to reduce international tensions and discard Moscow's ideological outlook on the world. The agency was more open-minded about Mr. Gorbachev's domestic reforms and eventually produced some insightful examinations of social, political and economic change. But even on these matters, the C.I.A. was slow to appreciate the alterations that Mr. Gorbachev was making, and many of its best papers were dated by the time they reached policy makers.
I offer these judgments with a healthy dose of humility. During the initial months of Mr. Gorbachev's rule in 1985 and 1986, his intentions were unclear and his foreign and domestic programs were not fully formed. Later, as the social and political forces he unleashed at home and in Eastern Europe raced beyond his control, no one could predict with certainty where they would lead. The American journalists stationed in Moscow during this period struggled with these questions as well.
The C.I.A. record is also not yet complete. The two disks cover the entire course of the cold war, yet they contain only a sampling of the assessments produced over more than four decades, ending with Mr. Gorbachev's last year in office. A limited batch of other assessments dealing mostly with military matters was declassified earlier.
As more documents enter the public domain in coming years, scholars will continue to debate the agency's overall performance, including the core issue of whether the C.I.A. accurately gauged Moscow's military and economic strength. Liberal critics argue that the agency exaggerated Soviet power, leading the United States to spend more on its military forces than needed. Conservatives contend that the agency underestimated the Soviet threat.
My partial review of reports from the new disks suggests that the agency acquitted itself reasonably well on economic matters in the 1970's and early part of the 1980's, accurately forecasting and tracking the economic stagnation that gripped the Soviet Union during many of those years. The newly declassified materials do not resolve the debate about Soviet military power.
On the narrower issue of the Gorbachev reforms, I found many of the papers to be maddening. The discussions of Mr. Gorbachev's diplomatic moves betray an inflexible cold-war mindset. That is understandable in the months after he assumed power and presented a series of arms reduction proposals that seemed aimed more at influencing world opinion than at actually making agreements with the United States.
But as Mr. Gorbachev persisted in his arms control efforts, and in late 1988 announced reductions in Soviet military forces and the withdrawal of six tank divisions from Eastern Europe, the agency remained unimpressed. While acknowledging that Mr. Gorbachev was making bold changes in foreign policy, the agency's dreary February 1989 analysis of these steps said Moscow's broad strategy remained steeped in the Leninist tradition of trying to exploit contradictions between capitalist powers. Just nine months before the Kremlin stood aside as the Berlin Wall fell, the C.I.A. was confidently asserting that Moscow's long-range objectives included preserving Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and driving a wedge between Western Europe and the United States.
Americans should be grateful that Mr. Reagan and his secretary of state, George Shultz, paid little heed to the agency's moldy views and instead pursued a variety of diplomatic initiatives with Mr. Gorbachev, based on their personal interactions with the Soviet leader. Mr. Reagan, of course, also pumped up Pentagon spending, which added to the economic pressures on Moscow.
On the domestic side, I found plenty of thoughtful reports about important issues, including growing opposition within the Soviet Union to the war in Afghanistan and the corrosive effect of the Chernobyl nuclear accident on the Kremlin's authority and credibility. One especially notable economic analysis in July 1987 concluded that Mr. Gorbachev's campaign to relax censorship and to promote limited forms of democracy could eventually undermine his power and provoke party conservatives to remove him. That report was prescient, but too many studies trailed developments rather than anticipating them or covered trends well after they had become apparent.
One lesson of this record is that intelligence agencies must be wary of conventional thinking and assumption-driven analysis. The C.I.A. was a creature of the cold war, so much so that it could not imagine that Soviet behavior might change in fundamental ways that would allow the Berlin Wall to fall and democratic ideas to gain ground in Russia.
Another message is that while sophisticated spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping techniques can monitor military forces, keep track of crop yields and intercept communications, the social and political fabric of a society can be understood only by people living in it. Many of the top agency officials who supervised the preparation of these reports never set foot in the Soviet Union during the cold war. Secrecy restrictions barred them from going.
If these documents are a chronicle of the limits of intelligence, they are also powerful evidence of the importance of opening sealed archives so citizens can review the performance of their government. Robert Gates began the systematic effort to declassify intelligence assessments when he served as director of central intelligence in the early 1990's. He is quick to defend the agency's record in assessing the Soviet Union. Thanks to his enlightened leadership in opening the files, Americans can now form their own judgments.
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