$3 million for hit list,
says ex-Jones aide
San Francisco Sunday Chronicle &
Examiner - 12/10/78, front page
Defectors: Temple leader
bragged of Mafia contacts
Examiner Staff Writer
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Peoples Temple leader
the Rev. Jim Jones planned that the $3 million cash found at
the Guyana jungle mission would be used to pay for death contracts
on his enemies, according to a top aide Terri Buford.
In an interview, she also claimed there
was a plan for followers at the San Francisco temple "to
stay alive at all costs and carry out the assassinations in the
event of Jones' death.
"I was told the money found in the
jungle was to be used for putting out contracts on people."
In Berkeley, temple defectors Wanda Johnson
and Al Mills confirmed that Jones used to brag about his Mafia
connections.
"He used to say that if anybody
gave him trouble, he had that wonderful Mafia contact. We didn't
know if Jones was serious or not," said Mills, a temple
follower for six years who later helped to found the Human Freedom
Center, a halfway house for former members.
"There are still people alive who
could be members of a hit squad," Buford said. She added,
however, she is not aware of the existence of a "hit list."
"Years ago . . . there was a physical
hit list," she said. "I don't know if one was maintained
over the years. But Jones would say of his enemies, 'These are
people to be remembered.' And I took this to mean they were to
be killed."
Buford, who left the Guyana commune last
Sept. 16 and later claimed she had defected, was probably Jones'
closest aide, according to other members.
Among other things, she is believed to
have had over-all responsibility for temple finances. It was
the first time she had talked to the press since the Guyana murders
and mass suicides three weeks ago.
She and temple attorney Mark Lane held
a secret meeting in San Jose Wednesday with U.S. Attorney William
Hunter, San Francisco FBI chief Roy McKinnon and other federal
officials.
Lane said yesterday he had asked for
immunity from prosecution for Buford. But the attorney said Hunter
indicated it would not be necessary.
Buford put the total cash assets of the
temple at $11 million, most of it in numbered bank accounts in
Panama and Zurich, Switzerland. Estimates by other former temple
higher-ups had placed the total at around $10 million.
Before she left Guyana, Buford said she
signed over all but $2 million to an elderly white woman who
died in the Jonestown suicides. (Interviews with other temple
leaders indicate Buford was one of three women whose names were
on foreign accounts. Anyone to whom she "signed over"
accounts, probably replaced her as one of three with withdrawal
rights.)
Before fleeing the San Francisco temple
Nov. 27, she said she also signed documents transferring the
remaining $2 million.
She said she was able to leave Jonestown
because she convinced Jones she could be of more use at the San
Francisco temple, helping to prepare defenses against pending
lawsuits.
But other temple defectors were scornful
of her story.
"I think she's trying to cover herself,"
Berkeley former member Johnson said yesterday. "This is
just phase one of her plan to carry out Jones' orders."
Mills said, "Terri's very inventive.
But she's just as hateful of traitors as Jim Jones was."
And Tim Stoen, a former Jones aide and
former assistant district attorney in Mendocino County and San
Francisco said of her:
"She's Jones' top avenger. No person
in the church had a greater loyalty to him personally. That loyalty
would have been enhanced, not destroyed, by his death."
In Georgetown, Paula Adams, a Temple
member whose job it was to keep in touch with Guyanese officials,
said Buford "was a right-arm woman to Jim. No one knew his
thinking better than Terri."
Adams said she didn't believe Buford's
claims about putting contracts out on people. "If so, why
would the money be found there (in Jonestown)? It sounds like
an after-the-fact explanation," said Adams.
"I think she's got plenty to hide
-- if anybody."
Buford is said to be the person most
familiar with the complex web of temple bank accounts in Switzerland,
Panama and perhaps other countries, with the exception of Carolyn
Layton, who died at Jonestown.
Former associates of Buford, 26, have
described trips led by her to deposit funds in various banks
in Europe and South America under a plan set up by Stoen before
his defection from the temple.
Buford claimed some of the money stashed
by the temple in foreign bank accounts had been carried out of
the Untied States by Stoen himself.
She said she had witnessed, about two
or three years ago, Stoen concealing more than $500,000 to be
deposited in a Panama bank by taping a large part of the money
to his body.
She said she had given the name of the
Panama bank to the authorities in the San Jose meeting.
Stoen yesterday ridiculed Buford's tale
of the money.
"I set up the first two accounts
in Panama, then turned them over to Terri because Jones didn't
trust my emotional state.
"But I never smuggled any money
out. That's absurd. There was nothing to gain by taking that
risk. The money was transferred by bank transfer. It's perfectly
legal to set up a church corporation in Panama."
Buford also accused Stoen, whom Jones
later accused of being a traitor in a bitter paternity dispute,
of plotting with Jones to kill former Examiner religion writer
Lester Kinsolving.
Kinsolving wrote the first critical press
stories about Jones' activities as an alleged faith healer in
Mendocino County.
Buford said the reporter's stories "drove
Jones and Stoen wild," and she claimed the pair researched
poisons which could be used to kill Kinsolving.
She said documentation of the plot against
Kinsolving is contained in an affidavit given by San Francisco
temple member Sandy Bradshaw to attorney Charles Garry. Buford
said she saw the affidavit at the Geary Boulevard Temple between
Sept. 18 and Oct. 26.
Stoen denied Buford's allegation about
a murder plot. "Jones was angry about Kinsolving, but he
never threatened to kill him as far as I know. It's absurd for
her to suggest I knew anything about it."
Attorney Garry was not available for
comment.
Berkeley defectors Mills
and Johnson agreed, however, with Buford's story of a possible
hit squad.
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