Was DeAngelo a member of Synanon?

[gskonstracker]

Attorney Paul Morantz was attacked by synanon and he wrote all about it on his website. attorney Paul Morantz.com. I put the dates together with the EAR attacks at the same time and it looks like they are connected.

Read this CORRESPONDING EVENTS ON A TIMELINE EAR ATTACKS AND attorney Paul Morantz’s Attack
____________________________________
FROM: Paul Morantz.com
"A SUMMER EVENING. VISALIA. SEPTEMBER 5, 1977

The Old Man took his seat main table center at the Home place Lodge one of two ranch-style sites owned in Badger high in the Sierra foothills near King’s Canyon Park located approximately 20 miles from Visalia in Tulare County, California. Big Shots were to his left, Big Shots to his right, Dope fiends and Squares alike filling their trays at the cafeteria line and taking seats below. A microphone dropped from the ceiling hung over the Old Man’s plate, as it did at every meal. It was 6 a.m., and by Synanon time it was Morning Court, also called Think Table and formerly the Round Table, where as The Monarch he enjoyed gracious dining while he spoke on all notions he wanted to sell to the community. This was his role as Chairman of the Board – to design a better life for all. He, The Founder, believed he knew what they wanted before they did and so he had led them to ideas far ahead of their time concerning drug/alcohol avoidance, dieting, non-smoking and exercise; then concepts more revolutionary– mandatory vasectomies, abortions and switching love partners. Every person at every facility listened as the wire broadcasted his voice, deep and resonating – the voice of authority – to all rooms, all hallways, all bathrooms, at all facilities at all locations: Visalia, Marin County, San Francisco, Santa Monica. Every sentence was captured on tape in the wire room to be preserved and replayed. Scribes wrote down summaries to be sent to all department heads. The population took notes on 3×5 cards.

This day he continued pontificating on what had now become a common theme, one his followers had long become accustomed to. One that for some time had been put into action and would continue for another 13 months. People had to be prepared to go to jail as he once had for them. His voice was deep like a bullfrog’s, yet calm and deliberate, as if talking of minor building repairs or needed gardening, broken only occasionally by his own self-appreciating laughter and affirmative responses by members of the Circle that dined at his table.

He spoke of the ungodly, Synanon enemies and how Synanon would react to all aggression. He spoke of lawyers–the greatest threat–because they have thinking tools. Synanon would not play by their silly rules. Attorneys would play instead by Synanon’s. He said it would be like a fighter “stepping into the ring expecting to follow the Marquis de Queensberry rules and then winds up with a bottle in his face or a chair leg shoved down his throat.”

He said this direction would once again “decimate our population.” People not willing to trust and go along would be squeezed out by the notion. But this was good. Only the best and truly loyal people would remain. He said there were people in Synanon who would be excited by the “sound of cracking bones” and who would want to bring him an “ear in a glass of alcohol.” Synanon would grow stronger. There were those inside and those who would come wanting a new militant religious posture.

“I propose,” he said, his eye twitching from long ago partial facial paralysis, “that we be in the vanguard of that, because we’ve already tested it out in various small, tiny, minuscule ways by beating up the Dinuba punks, by beating up the San Francisco punks, by chasing the dingbats around with our Hey Rubes and so on.

“We’re beginning now most ineptly to throw people downstairs in Santa Monica. We won’t be as inept at this in another–another six months.

“We started quite a while ago with the Imperial Marine deal and–and so on. We’re doing that; we’re taking our best people, putting them into this kind of situation; and it is our intention to do just exactly that…


“And– and I— I– I think that we–we could, without too much effort, get a reputation that will be all over the United States within one year’s time– Don’t * with Synanon. In any way…



“Don’t go near the nuts on the beach because they’ll beat the * out of you…

“I think that is our– is– is—- is the new religious posture… We’ll see. Maybe I’m right. I think–I think we–I think we will bring that about.

“We are not going to mess with the — — with the old time –turn the other cheek religious posture.– –We’re going to — — our — — our religious posture is – ‘Don’t mess with us. You can get killed dead. Physically dead.’

“We either–we either have a good thing here or we don’t. If we have a good thing here, then we are not going to permit people, like–greedy lawyers, to destroy it.

“I’m quite willing to break some lawyer’s legs and then tell him the next time I break your wife’s legs; then I’m going to cut your kid’s arm off; and try me, because this is only a sample…you son of a *. Like that. And that’s the end of your lawyer. That’s the end. And all of his friends. You see…

“It’s a — it’s a very satisfactory, humane way of transmitting information. It’s worked.”

The archivist categorized it with similar speeches and typed excerpts of all were delivered throughout the Foundation for guidance and attractively displayed prominently on bulletin boards. It was to be taught in the school and rehashed in the games. And it was to be used in the training of the Imperial Marines.

It was the time of the Holy War."

_____

"Descriptions of EAR by Victims per "Sudden Terror"

Feb 28, 2014 at 11:25pm 
Attack #37 - Saturday, October 7, 1978 in Concord (94518) at 2:30 am

Belamn Court
Victims: "Maureen McCandles" -age 26
"Bruce McCandles" -age 29
Baby in the home, undisturbed
Physical Description:
None given in ST

Clothing & Implements Description:
Flashlight in left hand, revolver in right

Mask
Shoelaces

*When the McCandles arrived home earlier that evening (Oct 6th), the door to the family den was closed though they always kept it open; the deadbolt on the front door was unlocked, but neither of them had touched it.

*The attacker told them "I just want food and money, that's all. I'll kill you if you don't do as I say." He threatened three times while in their hom: "If you look at me, I'll have to kill you." He placed dishes on both the adults before leaving the room. He threatened multiple times to kill everyone in the house if his orders were not followed exactly and threatened to cut off the baby's ear if the victim failed to adequately satisfy him.

*The attacker called Maureen by name and told her he'd been watching her for a long time. Then he went to a corner of the room and cried.

*He took with him $4000 worth of jewelry, dishes, utensils, appliances, camera equipment and 'miscellaneous items.'

*The couple were still bound when Officer Wells arrived around 4:45 am and the attacker had been gone roughly 20 minutes.

*On October 8, a neighbor of the McCandles found a security officer's badge in front of his house. It was a 7-point star, B-617 model, containing the California state seal and was manufactured by Hookfast Specialist Company in Rhode Island. Wear on the badge indicated it had been carried for some time in a wallet holder.

LE Note: Victim #38 on the official list


__________________________
{Blue’s Clues:
hookfast.com/products
picclick.com/Clothing-Shoes-Accessories/Specialty/Vintage/Vintage-Accessories/Belt-Buckles/?q=synanon}

______
"EARLY MORNING. VISALIA, CALIF. OCTOBER 9, 1978

Per routine Namoi McFarlin, a middle aged 8-year resident, began her work week Monday morning at 6 a.m. in the transportation room in the upstairs mezzanine of the Shed by answering the phones, handling the paperwork and supervising the car pool. The Shed was a small office complex at the Strip–Synanon’s airfield–six miles from the Home Place headquarters in the Badger mountains of Tulare County. McFarlin gazed out the window surveying the parking lot that was home to about 20 Synanon vehicles–sedans, pick-ups and jitneys–when she became startled by the realization that car No. 859, a green Plymouth Executive, license No. 427 HVG, was missing. The keys to it were gone from the board as was the corresponding check-out card from the cardholder hung at the end of a cabinet. Synanon was meticulous in record keeping and the cards were used by drivers to log use and mileage. Part of McFarlin’s duties were to send the records at the end of each month to the Transportation Office in Tamales Bay.

Asking around, she was told Joe Musico, on Sunday, the day McFarlin didn’t work, had taken the Plymouth to the Home Place (Marin). Everyone knew Joe, the 28 year old ex-Vietnam vet, hooked on heroin during the war, who was always telling Nam horror stories in games and was now a respected Imperial Marine. She filled out a fresh card for the car listing Musico as the driver and wrote a “?” for destination and placed it in the cardholder.

A little later she heard Joe Musico’s distinct New York accent outside at the foot of the stairs. She went out and found him talking to Debbie Delgado, wife of the Strip foreman Lou Delgado who was currently at the Synanon Lake Havesu property. McFarlin started to scold Musico for circumventing rules but was stopped short by Ms. Delgado who stated, “He has authority.” Musico grinned and McFarlin asked when Musico would return the Plymouth. “Tomorrow,” he said. She didn’t ask where he was going or why he needed it. Musico usually rode a motorcycle.

Musico also didn’t’t tell her that he would be picking up a fellow Imperial Marine, 20 year-old Lance Kenton, and a third, silent but deadly passenger for a three-hour destination.

Driver Lance Kenton (and Vietnam veteran Joseph Musico."

"A WARM AFTERNOON. PACIFIC PALISADES. OCTOBER 9, 1978
When California Highway Patrolman Donald Growe left his Malibu station and drove down Pacific Coast Highway past Pacific Palisades to a Santa Monica car wash, being from a different agency–Malibu, in contrast to Los Angeles, was unincorporated–he had no knowledge of my request stated at LAPD’s roll calls or Ybarro’s current call out on the Plymouth. So when Growe first spotted the green Plymouth in front of him at 3:15 p.m. it meant nothing. Then he saw the tape on the plates, the occupants short military haircuts and thought, “Undercover officers?” Maybe, but why alter the plates? When the Plymouth turned onto the California Incline, a road that climbed up from the beach into Santa Monica, Growe followed and called in the altered number. Nothing. Growe activated his red lights and pulled the vehicle over.

Hand on pistol, he ordered the driver, a slender blond young man out. The passenger, shorter, more muscular, with same short-clipped haircut, started to exit but Growe, not wanting to have to watch both, commanded him to stay put. Growe radioed in the real plate no. “427 HVC.” He could see on closer examination that the tape had been painted the color blue of the license plate.

The driver, Lance Kenton, identified himself with his license, and explained Synanon members were jokesters. “Some people,” he explained, “must have done this so we would be stopped.” Growe remained suspicious, especially when dispatch said the license belonged to a Chevrolet. But then he saw his own mistake, it was a “G” under the tape not a “C.” Kenton meanwhile turned to his passenger. “Someone messed with the plates,” he said. “It must have been some of our friends at Synanon.” The passenger nodded.

Growe examined the car registration and it matched dispatch’s return: “Synanon, Marshall, California.” Kenton started stripping the rear tape, scattering it in the wind and passing cars. The passenger got out and did the same up front. Growe had no crime to connect them with, they were not acting suspiciously, so he let them go. He never checked the passenger’s identification or asked where they were going or what they were doing. He didn’t check warrants or wants or if the car was stolen. The registration had expired but he didn’t cite Kenton. Altering license plates is a crime but he let that go, too. He wrote nothing in his notebook, something the Plymouth occupants may have noticed. But after the Plymouth drove off, he wrote down the time and “427 HVG.”

Growe decided the event wasn’t worth mentioning at his debriefing session later that day. He filed no report and quickly forgot the incident. Later he would attribute his actions to “human failure.”


MID AFTERNOON. PACIFIC PALISADES. OCTOBER 10, 1978
Eleven year old Ben Mohagen, fresh home from school around 2 p.m., had a quick snack before going outside to ride his bicycle. While riding, he wondered why the green Plymouth was driving down his street, Bollinger, slower than his bicycle and even slower as it passed my house before speeding up. As he played, he saw the car come around again and then again, five or six times, each time lingering by my house. He knew my house and my dogs as I paid his brother sometimes to walk them. Ben saw the driver had a moustache. Alarmed, he ran inside to his mother. “Oh,” his Mom said, “That’s probably just the police checking Paul’s house. He’s been worried since winning some big court case.” Reassured, Ben returned to play and did not see the car again.

Edie Ditmars was in her bedroom when her dogs barked. She moved to the kitchen and saw the green Plymouth parked in her neighbor’s driveway. A young slender blond man, well-dressed in sports coat and tie, approached my porch with a swift, purposeful and confident stride. Edie remembered my concerns, my asking her to report anything unusual. She ran to her living room window for a better look, but still lost sight of the man when he reached my porch. She heard a plunking sound, like a mailbox lid closing. My mailbox was a chute in the wall with a metal lid on the outside by the front door and a metal grid opening in the inside. Edie saw the man return to the car. Meredith Bass who lived on the other side of Edie, and who had celebrated her ninth birthday six days earlier, from her view on the sidewalk had seen the man put something in my mailbox.

Edie remembered my requests to get license numbers. At first she had thought I was paranoid, but then the Los Angeles Times ran a story by Narda Zacchino about harassments and threats from Synanon. She sneaked out her kitchen door, stealthily creeping alongside her house to a huge bush where she hid, feeling like she was in some B-spy movie. She saw two occupants as the car pulled away. She saw three numbers on the rear plate followed by an “IV” but the car was out of sight before she got the last letter. Later she would recall the first number was a “4.”

Nothing had happened. The young man appeared clean cut and people frequently left things for me when I was out. It didn’t seem urgent. So Edie returned to her chores, intending to tell me when I got home. She didn’t believe in disturbing people at work.

If she had called me, her report would have been received in our Beverly Hills office library where I was then meeting with two Los Angeles Police Department Intelligence Division Officers, Lynne Cottle and Dale Hollis, and Charlie Wynne of the State’s Attorney General Organized Crime and Criminal Investigation Branch (OCCIB). There I was listing prior attacks by Synanon members and providing information I had received that I was likely to be next. I wanted help, protection, and I felt Wynne was believing me. His office had recently received information on Synanon violence from a group of 50 Splittees who on this same date up north were handing in a 13-page report detailing 15 incidents from California to New York, eight of which they connected directly to management. Before this law enforcement had been skeptical. Dave Mitchell, editor of a small weekly newspaper, The Point Reyes Light in Tomales Bay, after an attack with clubs on Splittee Phil Ritter in Berkeley on September 19, had gone to the Marin County District Attorney predicting an attack on me. He wasn’t believed. An arrested Splittee in Tulare tried to make a deal by revealing a “chain of command” on Synanon hits, but the officers responded in disbelief saying Synanon does only good things. The LAPDID officers at my office already believed as they had intelligence on cults and brainwashing. They had sought me out previously for help when Werner Erhard offered LAPD free est training. I often wondered if Edie had called what our reaction in that room would have been. Maybe a SWAT team speeding to my house."

_____________


"EAR Attack #38 - Friday, October 13, 1978 in Concord (94518) at 4:30 am

Ryan Court (2 blocks from the McCandles' home)

Victims: "Louise Simon" -age 29

"Paul West" -age 30; boyfriend, the attack occurred in his home

"Linda Simon" -age 8, Louise Simon's daughter

Physical Description:

None given in ST

Clothing and Implements Description:

Flashlight

Mask

Gloves

Knife

Gun

Torn pieces of the victims' towels

White shoelaces brought with the attacker, others (brown) removed from the victims' shoes

*The attacker stated "I don't want to hurt you. I just want food and money for my girlfriend and me." He threatened to kill them at various times: if they moved, if Louise screamed again, if the bindings weren't tight enough, if Linda didn't stop screaming, if Louise didn't satisfy him adequately.

*Little Linda ran into the room, saw the masked man and began screaming. First the attacker ordered Louise to quiet her daughter, then he took the little girl to the bathroom and told her to be quiet. He turned the light out and moved a heavy dresser in front of the door.

*Just prior to leaving, the attacker was in the garage doing something with what sounded like a plastic bag and said, "Here, put this in the car." There was no reply and there were no additional footsteps.

*The television had been unplugged and the cable was missing.

LE Note: Victim #39 in the official list. Three bottles of beer missing from the refrigerator.

This is one of the rapes for which there is still DNA evidence."

[sammyt]

All respect to you, but I don't think 50+ victim serial rapists go on the hunt for any reasons other than their own.

I don't think any of this stuff has any merit. I think JJD was a lunatic, driven by his own weird compulsions.

Such captured offenders (so far) are always secretive loners with pathological hatred of women. They are like drug addicts in that they act when it suits them.

They don't act on the behest of others.

[gskonstracker]

Sept 25, 2022 21:56:07 GMT sammyt said:

All respect to you, but I don't think 50+ victim serial rapists go on the hunt for any reasons other than their own.

I don't think any of this stuff has any merit. I think JJD was a lunatic, driven by his own weird compulsions.

Such captured offenders (so far) are always secretive loners with pathological hatred of women. They are like drug addicts in that they act when it suits them.

They don't act on the behest of others.

Couldn't GSK be both a lunatic and some one involved in a criminal enterprise? I have not suggested that Synanon was responsible for the ONS attacks, but I am suggesting that they were involved in the VR events and EAR attacks. There is one way we could find out. We could ask the Holdfast company if they sold the exact badge that EAR dropped at the crime scene mentioned above, to Synanon. It looks like Synanon did buy badges. Look in this picture of Charles Dederich, he's wearing a badge. Also, Synanon manufactured brass belt buckles for Gulf and other oil companies.

[gskonstracker]

By Robert Lindsey Special to The New York Times

Dec. 10, 1978


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LOS ANGELES, Dec. 9 — Synanon, the acclaimed drug rehabilitation program that evolved into a highly profitable organization, is now under state investigation on charges of violence and a wide range of illegal activities. And, with its founder hospitalized and under arrest, there are signs that several people are jockeying for control of the wealthy, controversial organization.



The California Attorney General's Office is investigating Synanon for alleged complicity in at least 18 assaults, including a recent rattlesnake attack on a Los Angeles lawyer. The state is also investigating allegations of terrorism, child abuse, attempts to bribe a California state official and violations of California charitable trust laws and gun laws.

Founded in 1958 by Charles Dederich, a onetime salesman who called himself a reformed alcoholic, Synanon claimed credit for rehabilitating thousands of drug addicts.

It got international attention; there were books and television documentaries about it, and the organization received millions of dollars in donations from American business. With the income, it built huge communal‐style villages and other facilities in seven California counties and established branches in West Germany, Malaysia and the Philippines.

But, according to former members, law enforcement officials and others familiar with its operations, Synanon was gradually transformed into an organizational hybrid, both a profit‐making business and an authoritarian cult that enforced discipline and suppressed dissent with its own police force, called the “Imperial Marines,” and had a stockpile of $300,000 worth of arms.

The Los Angeles District Attorney's office alleges that Mr. Dederich ordered a rattlesnake placed in the mailbox of Paul Morantz, a 33‐year‐old attorney here who had been involved in several lawsuits against Synanon. Two members of the “Imperial Marines,” Lance Kenton, 20, the son of band leader Stan Kenton, and Joseph Musico, 28, have also been charged in connection with the rattlesnake attack.


Investigators in the District Attorney's office yesterday played for newsmen a tape recording made on Synanon's statewide, leased telephone‐line communications system, in which a voice they identified as Mr. Dederich's allegedly said, “Our new religious posture is this: Don't mess with us. You can get killed dead. Physically dead.”

The investigators are attempting to prove the tape is evidence of a plan to attack Mr. Morantz and other lawyers who challenged Synanon. Elsewhere on the tape, a .voice alleged to be that of Mr. Dederich says that it wants “an ear in a glass of alcohol on my desk,” and, after a reference to the Imperial Marines, says: “I'm quite willing to break some lawyer's legs and then tell him next time, I'm going to break your wife's legs, and then we are going to cut your kid's ear off. Try me.’ “

Phone calls to Mr. Dederich for comment were not returned.

In the early 1970s, membership in Synanon exceeded 10,000. But since then, the membership has dropped to about 1,000, partly, former members say, because of policies introduced by Mr. Dederich that included forced vasectomies for male members, mandatory abortions for women and orders from Mr. Dederich for more than 230 married couples to divorce and switch to other partners within the group — a process Mr. Dederich labeled “changing partners.”

While membership has declined, the organization's assets have continued to climb, and, according to estimates of some law enforcement officials, the assets have grown to $30 million to $50 million, much of it banked, they believe, in Switzerland, Germany and Canada.


Questions on Tax Exemptions
Synanon owns a mortgage company in Los Angeles, a major producer of commercial advertising sales promotion specialties, and several other businesses. It owns 10 airplanes, 22 boats and more than 500 motor vehicles, as well as vast real estate holdings, mostly in California.

The business operations have been exempt from Federal and state taxes, although last summer California moved to begin imposing state income taxes, saying the organization was a profit‐making business. Former members have charged that Synanon was using its legal status as a nonprofit trust to run a business that earned revenues of more than $13 million a year and that it paid substantial salaries to its top officials as well as a $500,000 “preretirement bonus” to Mr. Dederich last year.

In recent weeks, there have been indications that Synanon was in the throes of a turbulent transfer of power, as well as indications that some members were planning for an overseas exodus. According to an official in Sacramento, more than 125 Synanon members recently applied for passports, refusing to state their intended destination.

The leadership transfer is related to the condition of the 65‐year‐old founder of the organization.

At a hearing this week in Kingman, Ariz., following Mr. Dederich's arrest for allegedly conspiring to kill Mr. Morantz,, a justice of the peace ruled that he was! not competent to participate in legal pro.’ ceedings, and subsequently his family sought to assume custody of him on these grounds.

Police officials said that when they arrested him before the court hearing at his home in Lake Havasu City, Ariz., Mr. Dederich was intoxicated.

Law enforcement officials who are investigating Synanon say they have reason to fear that Mr. Dederich might be murdered as a way of stilling the recent interest of police and news organizations in the profitable organization.

With Mr. Dederich apparently incapacitated, two persons have emerged as possible successors — his daughter, Judy Dederich Akey, 27, and Dan L. Garrett Jr., a World War II bomber pilot and attorney who joined Synanon in the 1960's and has been one of Mr. Dederich's closest aides for almost a decade.

Mrs. Akey assumed the chairmanship of the organization last February, apparently about the time it became known that Mr. Dederich, who earnestly opposed any drug use or drinking in the organization, was using alcohol again.

Investigators say that, while Mr. Garrett and Mrs. Akey appear to have the strongest roles in the organization now, one of Mr. Garrett's daughters and Mr. Dederich's wife also play key roles. Leadership in the organization has been further depleted over the past year by the departure of two key executives, John Hurst, a former president of Synanon, and Howard Garfield, a principal legal adviser to Mr. Dederich.

At a court hearing this week in connection with the rattlesnake attack in Visalia, Calif. — at which Synanon challenged the legality of the seizure of tape recordings at its Badger commune in the High Sierra Mountains —

Marvin Engquist, Los Angeles police officer, testified that Mr. Garrett's son, Michael, claimed that his father was “murderous.”

The officer quoted the son as saying that under his father's guidance Synanon members are “very dangerous.” The officer also quoted the son as saying, “I have no doubt that my father would have me killed for my defection from Synanon.”


Mr. Garrett and Mrs. Akey did not reply to The New York Times's requests for comment about this and other matters regarding Synanon. Michael Kiser, the organization's public relations director, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Law enforcement officials and others who have investigated the organization I say they have been struck by the number of similarities between Synanon and the People's Temple, the organization led by the late Jim Jones. Although they stressed that there was a major difference — Synanon does not embrace a philosophy embracing mass suicide as did the People's Temple — they noted the following similarities:

In both organizations, drug addicts were many of the first members; both organizations promised members a utopian community and employed communal living techniques, de‐emphasizing materialism and playing on its members’ guilts; both used stern authoritarian leadership, hard labor, long meetings and frequently frank and bitter criticism and ridicule of members to keep adherents loyal; both split families and stockpiled arms; both grew rapidly behind the enthusiastic support of political liberals; in both organizations, rigid pursuit of nonviolence was replaced by increasing paranoia over outside criticism and defection; and both sought to intimidate the press.

“There are all kinds of comparisons,” asserted Mr. Morantz, the alleged victim in the rattlesnake attack, who won a $300,000 default judgement against the organization for a couple who claimed to have been kidnapped, falsely imprisoned and “brainwashed” by Synanon.

“They both had charismatic leaders —one called ‘the father,’ the other, ‘the founder'; both tried to operate in a sealed world away from everyone else — one in Guyana, the other in Marin County [in northern California, where Synanon's largest facilities are located]; both believed the outside world was conspiring against them; both had specially trained security forces; both favored the use of corporal punishment; both have overseas bank accounts; and both have their own private communications system.”

A ‘Beautiful’ Synanon Seen

“The Synanon I joined was so beautiful,” said David Gerstel, a 33‐year‐old graduate of Brandeis University, who went into Synanon in 1969 as an alternative to military duty because he was conscientious objector and who left it in 1974 after rising to become one of Mr. Dederich's senior aides.

“They had these beautiful properties in Marin County,” he said. “They had lots of good‐looking girls, and I was looking for place to land. It was very exciting; we were going to create a new American institution, and we'd be the leaders. There was a vision that we could create a new world.

“I was a utopian,” Mr. Gerstel added. “I wanted to try a commune. People were cheerful and happy and extremely loving. Everything was in perfect repair. was like a Shaker community might have been. Against the background of what we were seeing on television — the mass slaughters in Vietnam and the assassination— it looked pretty good.”

,Mr. Dederich, he continued, “was fabulous person; he was a brilliant conversationalist; he was one of the funniest people I've ever heard in my life. People adored him; that was the only word for it.”

By the early 1970's, Mr. Gerstel, who has written a book, “Paradise Incorporated,” about his experiences in the group, said Synanon's function, which originally had been to serve as a rehabilitation haven for drug addicts, was changing. Most members were, like himself, dropouts from conventional society who were looking for a better world. They were called “lifestylers” and “squares.”

The heart of the Synanon experience is participation in what the group calls “The Game,” a structured verbal combat. “We'd spend anywhere from 20 to 100 hours a month gathered in a circle, dozen to 15 people, and talk to each other,” one former member said. “The keynote of The Game was savage, angry verbal attacks on each other — ridicule, destructive attacks with no holds barred.”

He remembered one woman who had learned that she was dying of cancer and was savagely belittled at one session. When it was over, anther member of the group turned to her and said, “You don't even deserve to have cancer.”

Under Mr. Dederich's direction, Synanon supporters say, these encounter sessions helped many heroin users get rid of their addiction, and the organization provided enough satisfaction to non‐addicts to make them a principal factor in the explosive growth of Synanon in the early 1970's.

Although many of the new members appeared to like playing The Game, former members said they realized after while that they were losing their self‐confidence, becoming increasingly dependent upon the Synanon community for support and less likely to want to return to the outside world.

“The Game is an incredible instrument for manipulating human behavior,” said Mr. Gerstel, who said he left because Mr. Dederich was becoming more authoritarian. Mr. Gerstel said he still has good memories from his early years with the group and “felt miserable” for more than a year after he left it.

In 1973, a former Synanon member said, a strict rule on non‐violence in its games was broken by Mr. Dederich himself when, disgusted at one member's ridicule of him, he poured a can of root beer over her head. Once the non‐violence code was broken, similar incidents followed, the former member said.

Mr. Dederich, they asserted, was becoming more dictatorial and assuming the trappings of a monarch among his people. He began requiring all Synanon members to participate in jogging exercises, for example; then he began a harsh program requiring overweight members to lose weight, and then he made all female members shave their heads. Afterward came the forced visectomies and abortions and the “change partners” rule.

Meanwhile, fueled by contributions from affluent members, huge gifts of materials from businesses sympathetic to rehabilitating addicts, and by money from Synanon's own businesses, the organization began to grow. It began to build a larger and larger security force, and the organizational leadership decided to explore legal avenues to establish Synanon as a religion, to take advantage of the “freedom of religion” protection in the United States Constitution.

Reports began to circulate increasingly among members of Synanon that when defectors left the organizations they were called “splitees” — they were roughed up, terrorized.

Officials in Marin County and Tulare County, in central California, where the organization's sprawling mountaintop facility is located, began to investigate reports of beatings, but in most cases they were met by silence from the former members, apparently fearful of further attacks. In some cases, they said, efforts were made to block investigations through the intimidation of county representatives.



“They clearly had decided that they wanted to be a total and separate and independent state within the county,” said a Marin County supervisor who did not want his name published because he feared possible reprisals. “They had guns, goon squads, and just laughed at the county.”

Strategy to Suppress Criticism

When, earlier this year, the Marin County grand jury called for an investigation of Synanon and its properties within the county, the largest of which six square miles, and of reports that weapons were being stockpiled, children being beat^n and other abuses being perpetrated, Synanon sued the county for more than $55 million.

The suit was representative of the strategy that, according to a former aide, Mr. Dederich had developed as a ploy to attempt to suppress official criticism and press investigation.

This source said that the inner circle of leadership in the organization includes at least 15 lawyers who have implemented the legal counterattack.


In 1972, the counterattack had its first result. The. San Francisco Examiner printed a critical article about the organization. Synanon sued for libel. Eventually, the Hearst Corporation, the parent company of the Examiner, agreed to outof‐court settlements totaling $2.6 million, believed to be one of the largest libel payments ever in this country.

The organization's problems with the press, however, were not over. After Mr. Dederich issued his order on forced vasectomies and “changed partners” he attracted more attention, and in 1977 he was interviewed by a reporter from Time magazine. Later, he told an aide that he thought that the magazine was considering him for a cover story, possibly its “Man of the Year.”

Instead, the magazine published a critical article and claimed that, despite Synanon's earlier virtues, it had become a “kooky cult.”

The article enraged Mr. Dederich, his former aide said, and Synanon responded with a lawsuit against Time Incorporat‘ ed, seeking more than $76 million in damages. Hedley Donovan, the magazine's editor‐in‐chief, and Andrew Heiskell, the corporation's chairman, reported being threatened by individuals that investigators concluded were linked to Synanon.

The American Broadcasting Company was sued for more than $42 million after reporting on Synanon, and one member of the group appeared at this year's meeting of ABC sh??ders and warned the company's chairman, Leonard Goldenson, “there is great danger for you, your wives and your families.” Fred Silverman, the president of NBC, has also been threatened by persons investigators believe are linked to Synanon.

This year, at least a half‐dozen reporters who have worked on stories about Synanon, including a correspondent for The New York Times, have reported threats by persons apparently linked to the organization. For the most part, until recently, the press has been far more active than public officials in investigating Synanon.

But the near fatal beatinob of one former member of Synanon on Sept. 21, followed by the rattlesnake attack on Mr. Morantz, prompted the Attorney General's investigation, as well as a separate investigation of the organization by police departments in Los Angeles and Berkeley.


In the September attack, Philip Ritter, who had left Synanon after refusing to submit to a vasectomy and who was trying to gain legal custody of his child from his wife, who had remained a member, was attacked by two men in Berkley with clubs. He suffered a fractured skull.

Synanon spokesmen have said the group had no connection with any of the assaults or threats.

In recent weeks, the Attorney General's office has identified at least 18 beatings that are believed to be linked to the organization. In most cases, it is alleged, former members were beaten because they had defected.

State investigators have sought cooperation from Federal investigators, including the Internal Revenue Service, but have gotten no response.

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If one is interested in finding some Synanon ex-patriots, these guys might be able to point the way. (BTW- These articles contain Amazing Pottery!)

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174162029149


galeriaatotonilco.com/about-us/


ceramicartsnetwork.org/ceramics-monthly/ceramics-monthly-article/Clay-Culture-Intersections-257733#

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www.shindig-magazine.com/?p=5078

To this day, there is disagreement over whether Dederich ordered the violence perpetrated by Synanon members or merely stoked their rage. Former Synanon attorney Phillip Burdette insists it was the latter. But three declarations, written in ’83 by three Synanon officials in exchange for immunity from prosecution, stated that Imperial Marines prepared a “hit list” of Synanon “enemies” that was approved by Dederich’s assistant, Walter Lewbel. The hit list included former Synanon president Jack Hurst (whose guard dog was found hanged), Phil Ritter, and Paul Morantz. They alleged that security chief Art Warfield had directed Imperial Marine Joe Musico, a Vietnam vet, to find a hit man to kill Morantz; when Musico reported the job would cost $10,000, Synanon executives deemed the price too high and ordered the Marines to “take care of Morantz” themselves.



In a subsequent deposition, Dederich claimed to have a “very dim memory of 1977” due to a series of strokes, but he said, “Most of what Synanon did in ’77, at least what I knew about, I approved of because as I pointed out before over and over again, I’m one hell of a good executive and not too much ever went on in the organisation that I ran that I didn’t approve of. I don’t know everything that went on, of course.”



According to the three declarations, Lewbel was the one who directed Musico and Alan Hubbard to attack Phil Ritter; and Lewbel who ordered Musico and Lance Kenton (the son of jazz musician Stan Kenton) to travel to Los Angeles and plant the rattlesnake in Morantz’s mailbox. The day after the attack, police arrested Musico and Kenton. A month later, LA prosecutor John Watson and 30 law enforcement officials descended on Synanon’s new $1 million compound in Lake Havasu to arrest Dederich on the charge of conspiracy to commit murder. They found him, according to Watson, “in a stupor, staring straight ahead, an empty bottle of Chivas Regal in front of him”. He was so drunk that he had to be carried to jail in a stretcher.



In ’80 Dederich pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit murder. He was fined $10,000, sentenced to five years of probation (Morantz agreed to let Dederich avoid prison time, owing to his poor health), and barred from having any affiliation with Synanon. Absent its charismatic leader, the group floundered. The IRS revoked its tax-exempt status and ordered Synanon to pay $17 million. In the lengthy court battle that ensued, Morantz provided hundreds of documents he’d unearthed that implicated Dederich and other Synanon officials in criminal acts (those documents became the foundation of Morantz’s book on Synanon, From Miracle To Madness). The court finally ruled against Synanon in ’84, finding that it had a “policy of terror and violence” and a practice of diverting “corporate resources for the enrichment of individuals”. Synanon declared bankruptcy and, in ’91, formally dissolved, though a branch carries on in Germany.

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NEW CRAZY CONSPIRACY POLL

Do you think that Charles Dederich, Supreme Leader of Synanon:

1. Orchestrated the VR and EAR Attacks?


2. Was involved in the CIA's MK ULTRA EXPERIMENTS?


3. Was the Zodiac Killer!!!!?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2wGJqNROL8
Check out the writing on the all at 13:21


4. ALL OF THE ABOVE?  ...........................................................................1 Vote


5. NONE OF THE ABOVE?

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Here are documents I found with Charles Dederich handwriting on it. Also, look at this map that came with the assessment book that Dederich completed himself. It looks similar to the gsk map in this location. 

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Dederich is a dead ringer for the Zodiac Killer.

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Interesting Draft card I found

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This is an article that everyone should read:

The Death of a Story, the Death of a Cult:

Pat Lynch and the Jonestown Tragedy

by Pat Lynch

On November 18, 1978, a Saturday, I was sitting in my Manhattan apartment a half-mile from the NBC studios wondering why the men I worked for hadn’t asked me to be in the newsroom when Congressman Leo Ryan entered Jonestown. News president Les Crystal and “Nightly News” executive producer Joe Angotti had hired my source, Gordon Lindsay, a freelance journalist whom I had met the previous May through my California cameraman. Lindsay was assigned to brief reporter Don Harris, the California reporter who’d replaced me on my own story. Anger overcame me again when I remembered being told that October day that a California crew was going to Jonestown with the Ryan party.

Tears came out of nowhere. I brushed them away, ashamed that I was so helpless and could do nothing about what they had done to me. Rape: I felt violated. The most important investigative story of my life, and here I was sitting in my living room watching traffic go by from my window, because the men I worked for decided they wanted a man – a team player they were comfortable with – instead of a woman on the story that I found, investigated, and shot on Peoples Temple in Guyana. I was ashamed that I still felt like a victim. Powerless. But I was.

Self-doubts crept in again. Didn’t they think I was tough enough to go to Jonestown? I had just aired a powerful series in June on “Nightly News,” then anchored by John Chancellor, on the Synanon cult. Pulling it together had been a grueling ordeal that almost cost me and my crew our lives.

Cameraman Mark Allan, soundman Don Miller, and I had heard the sound first – the rhythmic beat of distant drums. It was 8 a.m. on a warm day in early May. I was planning a series on the Synanon organization, and this was our first day in the field. The Marshall-Petaluma road, an hour and a half north of San Francisco in Marin Country, was deserted. Rustling fields of rye hid whatever was coming toward us.

Mark, my favorite West Coast freelance cameraman, first told me about the Synanon cult led by Chuck Dederich in March of ’78. I had a tough time getting the story okayed by NBC News executives because Synanon was now a non-profit organization trying to get approved by the I.R.S. as a “new religion.” Joe Angotti was nervous about going after so-called “new religions” for First Amendment reasons. And the organization was litigious, in the midst of lawsuits with ABC and Time Magazine, which called it a “kookie cult.”

But more important, Angotti didn’t want to make waves because NBC was in transition. A new controversial corporate president had just been named. Fred Silverman, the creator of the popular Charlie’s Angels show – “The man with the golden gut,” as he was known – was an entertainer. He couldn’t care less about news, especially news that might bring trouble. Silverman was known for kicking elevators, temper tantrums, and firing people on a whim. His big broom was poised to sweep out the old NBC crowd – the “newsies” – and replace them with his own gang of hip young people from CBS and ABC, where he also had been corporate president. Silverman was on a roll, and Angotti didn’t want to get in Fred’s line of fire.

Even before Silverman’s arrival, Angotti anticipated lawsuits with Synanon, Scientology, the Moonies, the Children of God and Peoples Temple. The Temple’s tactics of intimidation and threats of litigation worked locally in California and virtually shut down media investigations on the West Coast. The Reverend Jim Jones, leader of Peoples Temple, was becoming a powerful man in San Francisco politics and could bring in votes for politicians. First Lady Rosalynn Carter allowed herself to pose and socialize with Jones at a political event that received national coverage and wrote him a short note on White House stationery regarding his views on Cuba. She suggested he speak with the evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton, President Carter’s sister.

Now Synanon, which had a media strategy relationship with Peoples Temple, was on the warpath with Time magazine and an ABC affiliate in San Francisco. The group had been emboldened by a victory against the Hearst Corporation, which settled a lawsuit with them for $2.6 million. My timing for a high-profile investigative news series about destructive cults couldn’t have been worse.

Angotti, who later became a news consultant, and his close friend, Les M. Crystal, who was NBC’s new young news president and is now at the helm of Lehrer Productions at Public Television, wanted to keep their heads down. (Insiders said Crystal’s middle initial stood for “marshmallow.”) Also quaking with fear about losing his job was Cory Dunham, the head of the legal department. So here I was in California doing a very dangerous story with a nervous, unsupportive news management and a frightened legal department. I tried to block out the corporate politics and concentrate on my investigation of Synanon and Peoples Temple, and was idealistic enough to believe we were still in the business of public service, providing viewers with information they needed to know.

Ironically, Synanon started out doing the same type of good work as had Peoples Temple. Synanon founder Chuck Dederich made the cover of Life magazine for rehabilitating “dope fiends” and “drunks,” as he called them. He had been an alcoholic for many years and bragged that he started Synanon with his first $35 unemployment check. (Many of his so-called “tough love” therapy techniques are still being used in drug treatment programs.) But then, very gradually, the organization evolved into the cult of Chuck Dederich, the man, just as Peoples Temple became synonymous with the Rev. Jim Jones.

Synanon became controversial, secretive, and dangerous. Farmers and ranchers in Point Reyes, California, where Synanon was buying up property, lived in fear of what they perceived was a growing menace. Farm animals and pets began turning up dead, butchered and mutilated in what appeared to be satanic rituals. The talk was that Dederich had paid off the local sheriff to look the other way. Two Synanon members were deputized into the department.

Mark brought the van to a stop as the sound of the drums became louder. He looked over at me expectantly. Don, the soundman, a chain smoker, lit another cigarette nervously as he put a wireless mike under my jacket and tested his shotgun microphone that would catch ambient sound. We all left the van and waited on the empty road.

I didn’t see anything, but the drumbeat was getting closer. We heard barking dogs and stared at the fields of rye waiting for Synanon to make its appearance. Then we saw them – about 75 men, women and children with shaved heads and wearing overalls. Four German shepherd dogs strained at their leashes. Some people were beating long, narrow, small-headed drums with their hands. From a distance they looked like an army of ants on the move. They were carrying signs: “Entertainers go home.”

One young child had a dead chicken on a stick – his vision of the symbolic NBC peacock. A young man with dead eyes who moved like a robot carried a sign that said “APRL.” Later I learned that APRL stood for Alliance for the Protection of Religious Liberty, an organization of the most powerful cults, including Scientology, that was effectively silencing the media from coast to coast.

Mark never stopped staring into his viewfinder as he selectively taped the fields of rye, the empty road, and the approach of the menacing crowd. Don pointed his shotgun mike in the direction of the sounds. I flicked on my wireless. Suddenly, a person wearing a gorilla suit appeared out of nowhere and soundlessly jumped up and down. I saw that some of the skinheads were carrying rifles over their shoulders. Others had what appeared to be pistols in holsters at their waists. No one said a word. Mark captured the scene.

Finally, two men with shaved heads of medium height approached me and asked what I was doing. “None of your business,” I answered. They accused me of trespassing. I responded that we were on public property. I then asked if NBC News could have an interview with someone in charge, preferably with Chuck Dederich, if possible. They snickered, turned their backs on us, and left.

The rest of the group stood in silence waiting for instructions on what to do. We thought that was it for the day and started packing up our gear. Then Mark pointed to the new arrivals of big trucks. “Trouble,” he said, “we’re not done yet. He started rolling tape on the trucks. Four of them converged on the van and surrounded us. Synanon members parked the trucks to block our exit and raised the trucks’ hoods.

“There must be a Bermuda Triangle here,” mocked a Synanon member, “because our engines gave out.”

Again, the group of skinheads, ranging from children to adults in their forties, circled us without speaking. I tried to interview some of them, but word was passed from one Synanon member to another: “Don’t talk to them.”

After a half-hour of this silent encounter, we escaped by driving through a muddy pasture. Meanwhile, a rancher Alvin Gambonini, who had seen the blockade building up from his farmhouse and been severely beaten by Synanon a few months earlier, called the sheriff’s office. A local paper, The Point Reyes Light, sent its news editor, Keith Ervin, who arrived just behind the deputies to meet with us on the road at the end of the field. He photographed me and the crew filing a police report to take to his editors, Dave and Cathy Mitchell. Mark taped the event for our series and – to be sure – for NBC lawyers in case we were accused of provocation.

While this was going on, more people with shaved heads kept appearing out of the fields of rye. Synanon brought out over a hundred reinforcements to chant protests about news media coverage. The noisy protest was still under way when we arrived at The Light’s office. I interviewed Dave and Cathy Mitchell, then called Joe Angotti in New York and told him what happened. I asked for permission to hire a chopper for the next day to photograph the sprawling Synanon properties from the air. There was a long pause followed by a barely audible, “I’ll get back to you.”

I thought the show’s budget was on his mind with the new executives in place. “I’ll have a story for you tomorrow about what happened after we get the aerials, Joe.”

He said something like, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” and abruptly hung up.

What I didn’t know until later was that Angotti immediately called the legal department and briefed them about what had happened. Ordinarily, we’d only call in lawyers if there were legal questions in a script that we were unsure about. What I did realize as I hung up the phone was that Angotti never asked if we were okay.

The crew and I walked outside. To our surprise, the street was deserted. We drove down the road to where it all began. Don stopped the van and he and Mark got out. They began rolling again but all we could see was empty rye grass moving gracefully in the wind.

Dave Mitchell, who had been trying to get law enforcement and the public to take Synanon seriously, tipped off the San Francisco papers and the wire services about NBC being detained by Synanon. I had messages from the local San Francisco newspapers and the Associated Press and United Press International when I returned to my hotel. The newspapers ran articles the next day. The wire services ran a bulletin that night. But NBC “Nightly News” didn’t even mention the encounter.

Back at the bureau that evening, Angotti left a message that we could hire a chopper. The next morning, Mark, Don, and I drove to the airport and hopped aboard. Mark shot footage out the window as we made the half-hour helicopter trip to Point Reyes and the Walker Creek Ranch. As we headed north and approached the Synanon compound, people started running out and pointing up at us. Mark told the pilot to descend so we could get some faces on camera with our long lens.

We heard it before we saw it. Rifles. Pistol shots. The pilot ascended quickly and we continued photographing the scene. I didn’t expect that they would actually shoot at us. The crew and I were shaken, but no one showed it. Afterwards, Mark, Don, and I stared at each other. Synanon physically detained a network television crew. And shot at them. What next?

I was on an adrenaline high by the time I reached the San Francisco bureau. I called Angotti, who was as laconic as he had been the day before. “Give me 1:30. It’s a heavy news day. If we don’t use it tonight, you can use the footage in the series.”

“Use it in my series?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. A camera crew detained by a bizarre cult brandishing guns and the next day shooting at us from the ground. The incident might not even make the show, although it was national news on the wire services.

What I later learned from a disgruntled news lawyer who left the network was that Synanon’s legal department had already called NBC News’ legal department. Fearing legal reprisal from them, and more important, the wrath of Fred Silverman, the ten thousand-pound gorilla now running a once-great network, the home of Huntley and Brinkley, NBC caved in to cult pressure.

No story ran that night on “Nightly News.” The footage later would appear in my series on Synanon that aired June 12, 13 and 14, with a fourth part later that month. That series unleashed a chain of events that ultimately led to the spiking in October of my series about the Unification Church, Scientology, Children of God, and Peoples Temple. The Peoples Temple series was ready to air six weeks before the Jonestown massacre that claimed 918 lives, including about 300 children, three newsmen, and congressman Leo Ryan.

But by this time NBC executives were frightened. There had been death threats as well as legal threats to NBC. A lawyer in California investigating Synanon was almost killed by a rattlesnake bite. The snake was put in his mailbox by Synanon members. In New York, Synanon got into Fred Silverman’s building in New York. He feared for his family. I was followed home from work and picketed. My desk at NBC was broken into and a notebook of addresses was stolen. The RCA building was picketed by about 50 cultists, chanting and carrying signs. I thought it went with the territory. The lawyers watching these incidents in the lobby at 30 Rockefeller Center didn’t appear to share my view of “territory.”

I made it clear to management that my series on the destructive cults, which management reluctantly approved after the Synanon series aired, would have Peoples Temple as the centerpiece. In October, when the work was done, I stressed that we air the series quickly. It would show the need for government protection of the Ryan party – that for everyone’s safety we had a responsibility to run this story before they left California for Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of Peoples Temple, had been practicing suicide drills and was a known drug addict. He had nothing to lose if he was exposed so violence, and mass suicide was a strong possibility. Angotti had watered down my Synanon series before it aired, and now he looked at me as if I was just another hysterical woman going through her period.

No one else going with Congressman Ryan thought that Jonestown was anything but another tough story. Jones might be a madman, but kill a congressman? Ironically, the journalists thought they’d be safe because Leo Ryan was leading the group. Congressman Ryan thought he was safe because he had the journalists and a NBC network television crew with him, with a seasoned reporter who had covered Vietnam and looked and acted as tough as Clint Eastwood.

What I learned much later from my former boss, Bill Wheatley, then senior producer of “Nightly News,” was that “Clint” was full of himself and didn’t take criticism or editorial changes without a fight. Wheatley questioned his news judgment and considered him a loose cannon. Nevertheless, Harris was a man. And in 1978, there were no female investigative reporters at the networks, much less women who expected to cover dangerous stories with men in the jungle. Women did fluffy, soft features or consumer stories. They weren’t in network newsrooms except as secretaries.

I had no allies there. I didn’t fit in with them, and the women shut me out. To them I was an overeducated outsider whom their bosses tolerated. A token. Who did she think she was? It didn’t matter that I had already won an Emmy for a series on cocaine as well as other awards, had two years of print experience with a Gannett newspaper, a Master’s Degree in English, and two books to my credit while working at CBS answering audience mail letters. Audience mail. Writing form letters to viewers. That’s what I had to do to get in the door at CBS.

It was Wheatley, seven years my junior and without the middle-age man’s prejudice against women in the newsroom, who gave me my chance to work on “Nightly News.” I came up with original investigative stories that he noticed, but received no praise from the establishment men who ran the program. I was a non-person. A woman. Invisible. These men weren’t comfortable with working women, a new breed, and ignored me.

It was so bad then that when two of my main sources on the Synanon cult series passed through New York – their print work had been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for local reporting on Synanon – I was not invited to their meeting with management and anchorman John Chancellor. It wasn’t until later that I learned that Dave Mitchell and cult psychologist Richard Ofshe were even there. They told me they had asked where I was and was told I was out of town. I had been a phone call away.

I had grown accustomed to not being invited to story meetings, even meetings about my own stories. Wheatley was given the embarrassing job of reporting back on a need-to-know basis. I felt humiliated and left out, but back then I accepted it as “normal.” It was. I was reminded of it every day.

In mid-October, Angotti and Crystal spiked my story on the destructive cults without explanation. Shooting stopped. My California replacements were given the assignment. Except for Don Harris reading my copy of the Gordon Lindsay report for research purposes, I was ignored.

Harris didn’t return my phone calls about that report, which was the story proposal that sold the story back in June. And he never asked to see the footage I already shot or my rough cut. The Peoples Temple series was put on the back burner, I was told by a sympathetic news lawyer.

I was speechless. I was so shocked that I didn’t get angry – as a man would, I guess – and demand an explanation. I had been conditioned to be well behaved, know my place, and be grateful that I was working on “NBC Nightly News.” Nevertheless, I took the bold step of tipping off a friend at The New York Post. It published an item that led NBC to issue a press release that said NBC News was “not caving in to pressure from the cults” and that the decision to take me off the Jonestown story was strictly “an editorial decision.” I was off the most important story I had ever worked on before or since.

Access to all information was cut off. Corporate president Fred Silverman made that very clear to the legal and news department heads. I found that out by accident at a local NBC news hangout called Hurley’s. Soon after I was taken off the story, I was having a drink at the old oak bar. Silverman’s second in command, Paul Klein, who had come over with him from CBS, sat down next to me.

Not knowing who I was, only that I was young and attractive, he laughingly told me the story about some “crazy woman” in the news division who was driving his boss Fred crazy. He shared how Synanon was menacing Fred and his family in New York and even got inside his apartment building and spoke to him on the intercom. The harassment and legal intimidation that Synanon was famous for at Time Magazine and at ABC – and now happening at NBC – was reported in the national press.

I remember slamming my drink glass down on Hurley’s bar and introducing myself to Paul Klein as “that crazy lady.” He shrugged his shoulders and went back to his martini.

* * * * *

Photo courtesy Sylvia Marciniak

I believe the tragic event at Jonestown could have been avoided if NBC News had not caved in to cult and corporate legal pressure and death threats, done its job as a news organization, and informed the public about what was happening to American citizens in Guyana, most of whom were being held there against their will in the jungle by a drug-crazed madman.

What I also knew was known by the American Embassy in Guyana, the State Department in Washington, the Justice Department in Washington, the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco and Firearms, the CIA, and California law enforcement agencies. It also was known by Peoples Temple defectors, concerned relatives of Temple members, and my main sources, freelance journalist Gordon Lindsay and Steven Katsaris, unofficial leader of the Concerned Relatives group and a former Greek Orthodox priest, who was in close contact with the State Department and the other state and Federal organizations.

Despite what everyone knew, a lone congressman was allowed to embark on a “fact-finding mission” to what so many people knew was a dangerous steamy jungle prison run by a man obsessed by betrayal, paranoia, control, and death.

Why Congressman Leo Ryan was allowed to go to Jonestown without protection remains as much of a question now as it did then. For thirty years the government has kept its secrets well-classified, to be processed for possible release beginning in 2010. NBC News archivists told me it has only 18 minutes of the almost three hours of that unforgettable tape I screened in November 1978. Where has all that tape gone? Documentary filmmakers who worked on 30th anniversary programs last year called me to find out if there was more footage. I was dumbfounded, astonished at the news. Irreplaceable historical footage, gone? Missing? A man died getting that tape. I saw it all and edited stories for “Nightly News.”

And what the tape revealed was an irresponsible, poorly informed reporter breaking news rules, and ordering his cameraman to tape people who didn’t want to be taped. The reporter, Don Harris – despite being warned – conducted a 25 minute “take no prisoners” interview with a drug-addled madman. Only one question remains of that interview now. Soon after that interview all but two of the NBC crew were dead. Cameraman Bob Brown, reporter Harris, and Congressman Ryan died first on the crude runway at Port Kaituma seven miles from Jonestown. Later that night, over 900 others would die. Some died by their own hand, but this was no mass suicide. Babies and reluctant adults were injected with deadly poison. Two people – including Jones – were found shot to death.

Because decomposition of the bodies had set in quickly as they lay in the hot sun for four days, because only a handful of autopsies were performed, and because the bodies that were autopsied had already been embalmed, it was virtually impossible to say how most people died.

Almost a thousand Americans died in the jungle more than thirty years ago, and we know little more now than we did then. Why? Did they die in vain, their assassins here in this country very much alive and never punished? No public hearing was held where questions could be asked, answers demanded and culpability assigned by government officials. More than thirty years later the most important documents remain classified by the Justice Department, and the videotapes turned over to the agency remain unaccounted for. Why?

Have we become so cynical that the deaths of almost 1000 Americans who followed their leader to what they believed was a new world where everyone would be equal doesn’t matter, and what the perpetrators did wasn’t so bad after all? After all, everyone lies. Watergate. Iraq. Who cares about Jonestown now, the number-one story of 1978? Today, it’s ancient history. And most of the victims were poor blacks and whites.

It’s been ancient history for a long time. In March 1981, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson got on to information about my suppressed investigation and interviewed people I had worked with, but too much time had elapsed. And nothing came of it. And last year, when two cable networks did their obligatory 30th anniversary coverage of the tragedy, their producers made their obligatory contact with me. They bled me dry for information about what was on the hours of tape I screened, more of which are now mostly missing. As for my personal experience with cult intimidation of the media and its effect on news decisions regarding my series on the cults and particularly information the interviews on Jonestown, they weren’t interested in that. Neither were they interested in anything I had to say about the actual disappearance of the tapes, network irresponsibility, or government classification of thousands of documents. That wasn’t the story these producers wanted to tell. And many of the news executives who made those bad decisions because of intimidation are still around. The Jonestown tragedy continues.

But NBC News was the first to lose its way. It could have made a difference by exposing what was happening in Jonestown in time for it not to happen. The story was “in the can” and ready to go.

Finally, where are those historical tapes that a NBC cameraman died to get to inform the public of a news event he could have avoided taping by hiding, as many did on the airstrip that day? They survived. Bob Brown didn’t let cynicism blur his passion to record the truth and expose what he saw.

The afternoon dragged through that Saturday in November 1978. My phone was silent. I wanted to call Wheatley to find out what was going on. Gordon Lindsay had called me the night before from Georgetown, Guyana and said the Ryan party finally had permission to enter Jonestown. They were going in. (Ironically, Lindsay survived because Jim Jones detested him for his investigation and wouldn’t let him in.) A good man, Lindsay. A Brit, he had a different attitude toward women in journalism. And he knew I had put my life on the line doing the Synanon series. It was he who kept me informed about what was happening because I took his work seriously, went with it and advanced it.

The phone rang. I ran to my desk to answer it. It was my cameraman Mark Allan, who had introduced me to Gordon and worked with me on the Synanon series when staff crews refused the job. “Thank God you’re alive,” he said. “Turn on your radio. There’s a bulletin that congressman Ryan, some journalists, defectors, and concerned relatives were murdered by Jim Jones’ people on the airstrip near Jonestown.”

I got off the phone, grabbed a cab and went to 30 Rock. The newsroom was in turmoil. Wire service machines were spitting out stories and updates. Phones were ringing. Chaos. Angotti came over to me and said with hatred, “Those people weren’t worth it, Pat.”

I was speechless. I wanted to say, “Is that because most of them are black and poor?” But I was in shock and didn’t have the presence of mind to say it. I ran into Crystal’s office in the newsroom, out of control. “Les, if we did what we were supposed to do, none of this would have happened.”

He stood up. “Never say that again,” he said. “Never.” Then he turned his back on me.

I was shouting now. “Do you realize that everyone in the Peoples Temple is probably dying right now?” He didn’t answer.

What Jim Jones called the “White Night” was happening as I stood there looking at Les Crystal’s back. Babies were being injected with poison. Older people were being killed. Some were taking the poison voluntarily, blindly following their demented leader to the end. As a result, 918 people died that day. This wasn’t mass suicide and certainly not “revolutionary suicide,” Jim Jones’s grandiose name for it. It was murder. It was a massacre.

“That could have been me,” I thought, feeling my armpits sweating and my face flushing. I had this vision of myself wounded on the muddy Port Kaituma airstrip, watching a man with a gun coming toward me in slow motion. The gun was held execution style.

I knew I could have made a difference, had my series aired when it should have a month before the massacre. The government would have had to take action. Congressman Ryan, NBC’s Don Harris, his cameraman Bob Brown, who died still taping the carnage at the airport, photographer Gregory Robinson of The San Francisco Examiner, defector Patricia Parks. Dead. So many wounded. A bloodbath that didn’t have to happen if the State Department and intelligence agencies had done their jobs, and had provided them government protection. That series would have pressured them into affording them that much. Months before the Ryan party went down, so many in our government knew what it would be facing. They were no better than the armed assassins on the flatbed truck. But why?

Dave Mitchell of The Point Reyes Light – who, along with his wife Cathy, won a Pulitzer Prize for their local reporting on Synanon – believes the federal government has kept the Jonestown material classified because it “greased the skids” to bring the controversial cult to Guyana and convinced officials there that there was no security risk. Was Leo Ryan’s elderly mother, Autumn Ryan, right? “The State Department and the CIA let my son go down there to die, and we’ll never get to the bottom of it,” she said. It was her son who tried to restrict illegal activities of the Central Intelligence Agency in foreign countries by co-authoring a controversial piece of legislation, the Hughes-Ryan Act.

This is a story that still needs to be told for several reasons. One is the matter of accountability for 918 needless deaths and the dereliction of duty by the U.S. government and intelligence agencies. Another is specifically journalistic accountability – decisions were made for reasons other than the public interest and ethics, and those decisions cost many people their lives. Additionally, at a time when the media is being criticized for missing the truth about weapons of mass destruction and the war in Iraq, telling this story is not only a way to come clean but a cautionary tale for all news organizations.

(A previous article by Pat Lynch appears here.)

Originally posted on July 25th, 2013.