XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
SFGate is doing a special piece looking back to 30 years ago, the Jonestown suicides and the assassinations of SF Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, who was at the time one of the nation's few openly gay politicians. If you're not familiar with what happened back then, you should read the entirety of the three article's I'm linking to, it just seems unreal that it all happened in such a short period of time. Choice bits of each I'm quoting below.
And no tldr bs please.
Thirty years ago, two unimaginable tragedies jolted San Francisco in less than a fortnight.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier recalls the Jonestown incident and Congressman Leo Ryan's assasination
Former SF Chronicle reporter recalls the Moscone/Milk shootings
And no tldr bs please.
Thirty years ago, two unimaginable tragedies jolted San Francisco in less than a fortnight.
On Nov. 18, 1978, more than 900 men, women and children - many of them poor African Americans from San Francisco - died after drinking a cyanide-laced potion in Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones' compound in the jungles of Guyana.
Then, while San Francisco struggled to grasp the enormity of that tragedy, on Nov. 27 a fiercely conservative ex-supervisor named Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the nation's few openly gay politicians.
White was a former police officer and firefighter who had campaigned against the city's "social deviates." With the bullets he fired, White wrought changes he could never have imagined.
By killing Milk, he energized the gay movement worldwide. By killing the progressive Moscone and making Supervisor Dianne Feinstein mayor, he sent the city down a path of political moderation for years. Feinstein, now a U.S. senator, was a centrist mayor, friendly to business. Under her watch, dozens of skyscrapers were built and the city's skyline was transformed. The mass suicides in Jonestown also had a fallout - the disturbing lessons learned about how Jones rose to power and the stark pain that the deaths caused people whose relatives or friends perished there.
For some, the assassinations and the Jonestown deaths underscored a perception that the city - long an enclave of protest - was a metropolis on the brink, beset with violence and disorder.
"These two events built on a reputation of San Francisco as a bastion of far left politics combined with a certain amount of kookiness," said Chester Hartman, an expert on San Francisco urban renewal. "It was a trauma then, and I think it still is."
Moscone-Jonestown timeline
Nov. 14, 1978: Rep. Leo Ryan, D-San Mateo, travels to Guyana on a fact-finding mission to determine what is occurring at Jonestown after he hears from families worried about their loved ones at the settlement in the former British colony in South America. Ryan is accompanied by several reporters and photographers.
Nov. 17, 1978: Ryan and his group make their first visit to Jonestown, meet with Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones and talk to some of his followers.
Nov. 18, 1978: During Ryan's second visit to Jonestown he is attacked by a knife-wielding Temple follower, who is subdued before he can stab Ryan. As Ryan, his group and some Temple defectors gather on the airstrip at Port Kaituma prior to departure, gun-toting Temple guards arrive, kill Ryan and four others, and wound 10 people. Word of Ryan's death reaches Jonestown as Jones is speaking to his followers, telling them to commit "revolutionary suicide." They do so by consuming a grape-flavored drink mixed with cyanide.
Nov. 19, 1978: The Guyanese government orders troops to fly to Jonestown after learning of Ryan's death. At the isolated settlement, the troops find hundreds of bodies. It takes days to count all the dead. About one-third of the 909 dead at the site are under 18.
Nov. 27, 1978: Former Supervisor Dan White takes his gun and climbs through a basement window at San Francisco City Hall. He goes to Mayor George Moscone's office and kills him; then he finds Supervisor Harvey Milk and kills him. White turns himself in and later is convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
Congresswoman Jackie Speier recalls the Jonestown incident and Congressman Leo Ryan's assasination
I was curled up behind the wheel of an airplane on a jungle airstrip in Guyana, South America. This isn't what I expected when I signed on to work for a United States congressman. Our fact-finding trip to investigate the Peoples Temple in Jonestown had gone horribly wrong. I lay as still as I could, pretending to be dead, as an unknown gunman pumped five bullets into me at close range. Pop-pop. Pop. Pop-pop.
When the shooting stopped, I looked around and saw bodies, including that of my boss and mentor, Congressman Leo Ryan. Was he, too, pretending to be dead? I called his name, but he didn't respond. Looking down, I saw what appeared to be a bone. It was my own, and it was sticking out of my shattered right arm.
The thought raced through my mind: "I'm 28 years old, and I am about to die. This isn't how it's supposed to happen. I will never turn 80, never marry, never have children."
...
Upon arriving in Georgetown, Guyana's capital, we were told that Jones would not allow us to visit. For three days, our delegation, including relatives of Temple followers and a press contingent, waited while Congressman Ryan, myself, U.S. Embassy official Richard Dwyer and Jim Schollart from the House Foreign Affairs Committee negotiated with Jones' representatives. Eventually, we were given permission to land at Port Kaituma, with no guarantee that we would be permitted to go any further.
On Nov. 17, we landed at Port Kaituma's airstrip. After a brief negotiation in which Congressman Ryan made it clear that he wasn't going to be deterred, our party was loaded onto a dump truck for the 7-mile trip through the jungle to Jonestown.
That evening, we were entertained by members of the compound and spoke to the Temple members whose families had contacted our office. To a person, they swore they were happy and had no desire to leave. Larry Layton, one of Jones' closest assistants, stepped in and said, "We're all very happy here. You see the beauty of this special place."
Don Harris, an NBC news correspondent, walked off to smoke a cigarette. He was approached by two people who slipped him notes saying that we were not seeing the real Peoples Temple. They were being held against their will and wanted to leave. Word spread, and more and more members came to us seeking protection and a way out of their tropical nightmare.
The next afternoon, after a torrential downpour turned the compound to a sticky, muddy swamp, the number of defectors had swelled to more than 40. We called for a third airplane and Congressman Ryan said he'd stay behind while I climbed back into the dump truck with the first group. I was surprised to see Larry Layton among the defectors and insisted that he be searched. Not having any professional security, a journalist patted Layton down, but missed the handgun hidden under his poncho. Before the truck left, Leo Ryan returned, his shirt torn and bloodied. He had been attacked by a man with a knife while waiting with the other defectors. The situation had grown increasingly tense, and it was decided that we would all go to the airstrip together.
At Port Kaituma, we hurriedly loaded passengers onto two waiting planes. I heard screams and the unfamiliar sound of gunshots as, inside one of the aircraft, Layton opened fire. Within seconds, gunmen leaped from a nearby tractor and leveled their weapons at us. I dived to the ground behind an airplane wheel and pretended to be dead. The next thing I knew, I felt a crushing blow, as if someone had backed over me with a truck. It wasn't a truck, but the first of five bullets, tearing through my flesh.
I was afraid to move for quite some time after the silence resumed. Slowly, I looked around. Bodies lay crumpled on the tarmac. The wounded moved slowly, assessing their injuries. Congressman Ryan, three members of the media, and one of the defectors were dead. I dragged myself to an open airplane door and tried to crawl inside, but the plane's engine had been disabled, so it wasn't going to aid my escape. Some men gingerly laid me on the ground, not noticing that they had placed me on an anthill. I borrowed a reporter's tape recorder and began taping a final message to my family.
For 22 hours I lay, wounded on the muddy tarmac, altering between varying levels of consciousness. Some of the survivors found a nearby bar and brought me Guyanese rum to help dull the pain. At some point, word got to us that Jim Jones had ordered the "White Night," although we had no way of knowing how many of his followers had obeyed his madness.
A Guyanese military plane touched down the next day. I felt my prayers were answered, and I would finally receive medical attention. But the medic had only two aspirin. I remember telling him to just give me one, in case I needed the other later. Real aid wasn't administered until we landed at Georgetown, and I was transferred to a waiting U.S. military medevac plane.
...
I was flown to Andrews Air Force Base near Washington. For the next two months, I underwent more than 10 procedures as surgeons tried to save my right leg and arm. At one point, I was told the leg would likely be amputated and I would never use the arm again. Fortunately, the excellent doctors and nurses who cared for me made sure that neither scenario came to pass.
When I returned to the Bay Area, I was not allowed to stay in my home because of death threats. As painful as my injuries were, as much as I cringed looking at my scarred and tattered body, nothing was as debilitating as living in fear. I refused to spend the rest of my life as a victim and was desperate for an opportunity to stand on my own two feet again. I decided to file for the special election to fill Congressman Ryan's now-vacant seat. It was my way of saying that I was done being a victim.
I lost that race, but was elected the next year to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. Six years later, I won a seat in the state Assembly - the same seat Leo Ryan held when I first met him. I felt that life was beginning to return to normal and was able to lock away my Jonestown experience by convincing myself that tragedies happen to everybody. Because my tragedy was especially bad, I would probably be spared another one.
I fell in love with an emergency room surgeon. We married, had a son and tried for another child. After repeated miscarriages and fertility treatments, we were told it was unlikely to happen. But I'd learned that in life, you never take anything for granted. I got pregnant, naturally, at the age of 43. Then, three months into what was deemed a "high-risk" pregnancy, my husband was killed in a car accident on his way to work.
The loss of my husband was more traumatic than anything that had ever happened to me. I didn't want to get out of bed. But I had no choice. I was now the single mother of two children, one yet unborn. Because my late husband had no life insurance, I was financially devastated, too. I had to sell everything, including my home.
I only tell this story because I don't know how I would have coped with this had it not been for my experience, 16 years earlier, on that dreadful airstrip in Guyana.
In April 2008, I was elected to Congressman Ryan's old seat in the House of Representatives. Jonestown is no longer the first thing on my mind, but I would be lying if I said I don't think of it often. A car backfiring or the sound of fireworks or a violent scene in a movie hits me much like the truck I thought ran over me while lying on that tarmac. The past few months, while news organizations have prepared their coverage for the 30th anniversary of Jonestown, I have been asked numerous times to recall the ordeal. It's never easy, but talking about it has helped me put it in perspective. And as bad as some of the memories are, they are always eclipsed by one fond one: that of Congressman Leo J. Ryan.
Recently, the term "maverick" has been overused, but to me, Leo Ryan was the real deal. He carried around with him a righteous indignation and passion for the powerless of society and didn't shy away from questioning the status quo.
Leo Ryan is often the forgotten element of the Jonestown story. Not only is he the only member of Congress ever to be assassinated in the line of duty, more important, he was the only congressperson that thousands of Americans, from his district or not, knew they could trust when no one else would listen. He didn't win all his battles, but to Leo, the fight was as important as the outcome. There is a quote from Winston Churchill that reminds me of Leo Ryan: "Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."
If there's anything I want others to take from my ordeal it is this: When life leaves us alone on that tarmac - whether it be the devastating loss of a loved one, shattering of a lifelong dream, loss of a job, or painful personal injury - we can always learn to walk again.
In my life, anyway, losing is just the first step toward future success.
Former SF Chronicle reporter recalls the Moscone/Milk shootings
10:50 a.m.
Clem pulls up to the Polk Street entrance, parks diagonally against the curb. Black-and-white units converge from every direction, sirens wailing, tires squealing. My first thought is that this looks like a scene from "Dirty Harry." I wonder if this is really just a movie shoot and we heard the police radio wrong.
We bolt up the front steps to the gilded entry doors, flash our press credentials at officers guarding the entry and vault the inside stairs two at a time up to Room 200. A chaotic scene unfolds. Plainclothes detectives, officers in uniform and city officials scurry in and out of the mayor's main office door and through two side doors to the inner offices.
Off to my right, the elevator door opens, and out rushes KGO-TV reporter Peter Cleaveland. He almost collides with two fast-moving cops, one with his service revolver drawn, another holding a shotgun aloft. "GET DOWN!" one of them barks. Instantly, I drop into a crouch against the wall, glancing around for a shooter. Cleaveland tries to enter the mayor's outer office.
"Not this time!" snaps the officer barring the door.
Two plainclothes officers emerge from a side door of the mayor's offices. "El alcalde esta muerto," one of them says in a hushed tone, Spanish for "the mayor is dead."
"Is Moscone dead?" I ask another officer. "Who shot him? Is Mel Wax here?" I am hoping that Wax, Moscone's press secretary, will confirm something, anything.
"Wait'll the chief gets here," comes the terse reply.
This is so unreal, so confusing, I think. Why won't they tell us anything? I wonder if this is connected to the mass suicides of the Peoples Temple cult at Jonestown, Guyana, only nine days before.
Just then, a side door to the mayor's office opens and two coroner's aides wheel out a gurney with a shrouded corpse strapped to it, heading toward the elevator. Surprisingly, Channel 7 cameraman Al Bullock squeezes into the elevator with them, dutifully filming the transfer down to the medical examiner's van parked outside.
I dash across the building to the supervisors' suite of offices on the Van Ness Avenue side, where about two dozen reporters and photographers are gathered outside the main door, also guarded by uniformed officers.
Zane and two other Chronicle reporters, George Draper and Ralph Craib, are there with Kang. So are Barbara Taylor and Jim Hamblin from KCBS, KYA radio reporter Larry Brownell and news director Greg Jarrett, KPIX-TV newsman Ed Arnow, Dick Leonard from KGO radio, Bob McCormick from KFRC, Cleaveland and a dozen others.
We collect in small knots, compare notes, what's known for sure. Two men are dead, police have now confirmed, but no names are disclosed. Fretful minutes pass while detectives scuttle by grim-faced and silent. Wild rumors spread that a Peoples Temple hit squad has taken out Moscone and Milk, that gunmen might still be lurking in the building. We're buzzing with nervous speculation, fear, disbelief.
I duck back into The Chronicle bureau office just across the hall from the supervisors' offices. I call the city desk to check in.
"I think Moscone and Milk are dead," I blurt, gulping air, heart pounding in my chest. "Not confirmed ... no suspect yet ... they might still be here ... can't get into the mayor's or supes' offices ... cops everywhere ... it's total chaos up here. We're still waiting for some official word."
Just as I hang up, Zane pokes his head in the door and shouts:
"Announcement in the hall in five minutes!"
11:05 a.m.
I elbow my way into the crush of newspeople and others stampeding up the ornate marble stairs beneath the City Hall rotunda. The enormity of it all is finally starting to sink in. A double assassination?
At that moment, Dianne Feinstein emerges from the Board of Supervisors' offices, closely flanked by Police Chief Charles Gain on one side and by her aide, Peter Nardoza, on the other, almost as if they are holding her up. She is smartly dressed in a royal blue jacket and skirt and a white blouse with a blue-and-white paisley scarf knotted around her neck.
Feinstein stops at the top of the stairwell. She is ashen-faced, staring straight ahead. I can't remember ever seeing a more horrified expression. Looking over the anxious group of reporters in front of her, Feinstein fixes her gaze on me, her eyes drilling into mine as if we're having a private interview.
Years later, in an interview with The Chronicle, Feinstein recalled that moment. "I remember going out and making an announcement," she said. "I'll never forget Duffy Jennings, for some reason. I saw Duffy, and I don't know why, but I will never forget his eyes, the eyes of that group, the press and others. It was like the world stopped."
She is clearly steeling herself for what she is about to say. We all fall quiet. In the hush, the only sound is that of shutters click-click-clicking. Lights atop TV cameras are ablaze, bleaching the entire scene. I try to scribble notes, but my hands are shaking.
"As president of the Board of Supervisors," she begins, her voice weak and trembling, "... it's my duty to make this announcement." She pauses, inhales deeply, exhales. "Both Mayor Moscone ... and Supervisor Harvey Milk ... have been shot ... and killed."
"JESUS CHRIST!" Zane yells. "OH MY GOD!" shouts McCormick. A collective gasp goes up, an outburst of audible shock and horror I've never heard from veteran newspeople, inured as they are to executions, war, riots, plane crashes. All around us, city workers shudder in disbelief, some sobbing.
Feinstein continues.
"The suspect ... is Supervisor Dan White."
Without another word, she and the chief turn and walk back inside her office.
11:10 a.m.
I call Hemp with the confirmation. "All right," he says. "Draper's writing the lead. Sandy will do White. You do City Hall, the reaction, the mood, what it's like there. Call back when you're ready."
The city was in shock. So was The Chronicle.
Carl Nolte, the assistant city editor that day and still on The Chronicle staff, put it this way when we talked recently: "We didn't know what the hell was going on. We just had one of our own guys shot down in a South American jungle, now this. No one really knew much about Dan White. We knew our politicos could be weird, but they didn't just shoot each other. It knocked a hole in what we thought San Francisco was about. It shook the city to its roots. It was a crazy-ass day."
White surrendered soon after the killings. Six months later, I covered his murder trial, sitting with the late Jim Wood of the Examiner inside the bullet-proof glass separating the trial participants from the courtroom gallery.
On May 21, 1979, when the astonishing verdict of voluntary manslaughter came in, I rushed back to the office, pounded out the story, then went back out to join the other Chronicle staffers covering the ensuing "White Night" riot at the Civic Center.
I was more distraught than I admitted publicly, even to myself, over Moscone's death and White's lenient verdict. As The Chronicle's City Hall reporter during Moscone's first two years in office, I knew the mayor well from our frequent briefings in the same back parlor where White gunned him down.
From time to time, his Kennedyesque charisma and my close relationships with some of his top staff tested my journalistic objectivity, and that was one reason I returned to general assignment reporting.
I didn't realize it immediately, but a decade of one terrible event after another was taking its toll. I was barely out of my 20s, and I had already covered what many young reporters would consider a career's worth of big stories.
The Zodiac case, the Patricia Hearst kidnapping, the Zebra killings, the Golden Dragon restaurant massacre - I had shared in the newspaper's reporting on these sensational crimes and other major stories. In between, I worked graveyard shifts on the police beat, went on call 24/7 with homicide detectives, fought fires with Engine Co. 21 and wrote about more death, disaster and destruction than I care to remember.
By 1980, I was burned out. I left the paper to be the Giants' publicity director and later went into a public relations career.
Now the 30th anniversary of that historic November is upon us. What stays with me today, more than my eye-to-eye exchange with now-Sen. Feinstein that burnished the moment into memory for both of us, is an understanding of how Moscone changed the city forever. Sadly, his legacy has been overshadowed by the memory not of how he lived, but of the way he died.
Moscone had his critics, some with good reason, but he loved San Francisco, a passion I share as a fellow native. An entire generation of San Franciscans today knows little about him other than the convention center bears his name.
He fought against racism and for civil rights, against downtown power brokers and for neighborhoods. He opened the doors of City Hall and the seats of power to people from all walks of life, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation. As deservedly iconic and significant as Harvey Milk has become to the gay community, it was Moscone who broke down the barriers.
His was a remarkable story in its own right. Perhaps on one of these anniversaries, Hollywood will give us a movie titled "Moscone."
