(ed. note: Much of what Michael Bellefountaine wrote about his research into Jonestown – and the findings from his research – has been published on this website and in forthcoming works. One item we discovered on his computer a week after his death was the transcript of an interview (or perhaps Michael’s extended answers to written questions) regarding his interest in the Harvey Milk/George Moscone assassinations and his introduction to the Jonestown story. The notes are undated, and the identity of the interviewer is unknown. Because they provide insights into what drove one of the Temple’s most indefatigable researchers, we offer them here.)
What do you remember most vividly about the 27 November 1978 death of Mayor Moscone? Where were you was and how did you learn about the facts?
I was a teenager who lived in New England at the time of the murders, so I do not draw from personal memory or experience. I have, however, spent years studying the murders and the Jonestown events. I have also interviewed a number of Milk’s friends and political aides in trying to figure out what happened and why. The good side to this is that my research isn’t tainted with incorrect memories and personal emotions. I can still be detached.
I think the thing to remember the most is that the city of San Francisco was reeling from the assassination of Leo Ryan and the Jonestown deaths. Ryan was a popular politician from San Mateo, and there were few people in the city who did not know generally about the Temple, if not someone who was actually in the Temple. When the murder of Ryan and his party was announced from Guyana, the press reported that only a couple hundred or so Temple people were dead. There were actually eyewitness reports which stated that hundreds of people were seen fleeing into the jungle around the community. This had a unique effect on San Francisco. Initially there was sadness and mourning around the assassination, but there was hope that hundreds, if not a thousand, people survived the suicides. This is ignored or forgotten today, but initially this hope lasted for days. Slowly every day or so, the death toll began to rise.
Then it was the holiday of Thanksgiving, and people retreated to family and prayers.
It was not until November 25 that the San Francisco Examiner printed the final death toll at around 910. People were just realizing the full effect of Jonestown when the Milk/Moscone murders happened. So, contrary to popular belief that the city had a week to digest the suicides and murders, this was not the case. The events (the Moscone - Milk murders and the realization of the extent of the Jonestown death toll) happened virtually at the same time. The hope that people of survivors was not only dashed, that hope was eradicated and mocked by the murders of Milk and Moscone. By the time that Milk and Moscone were murdered the city was in collective shock and grief. Regardless of what you felt about the Temple, the Temple members or Jim Jones, the photos coming out of Guyana were emotionally disturbing and touched almost everyone in the city.
Had the murders of Milk and Moscone not followed the Jonestown massacre so closely they may have unfolded quite differently. But the two events happened almost simultaneously and therefore it is almost impossible to talk about one without talking about the other.
What happened in the following days?
There were two important things that were brought out by the Milk/Moscone murders. The first was the replacement of Moscone with Dianne Feinstein as Mayor of San Francisco. Feinstein was the president of the board of supervisors and next in line for mayor. She had been term limited out, which means she could not run for another term at the board. So she was finished politically. The death of Moscone catapulted her to the mayor’s office and eventually on a political career to her present position as a US Senator. Though both were Democrats, Moscone and Feinstein were very different politicians. Feinstein was tied to downtown big business in a big way. They got more mileage out of her than they would have from Moscone. This had a long term effect on the development of San Francisco, physically and politically.
The second important thing was a mystique in the gay community that gay leaders would be shot and killed, and that gays were the targets of American society. This was not as true. Harvey Milk was not killed because he was gay as is the common thought. Indeed Dan White had hoped to also kill Willie Brown and Carol Ruth Silver, neither of whom are gay. If he had killed four people – three of whom are not gay – he is not a gay basher per se. Additionally, he killed Harvey and wanted to kill the others, I believe, because they were the ones who had forced him out of his seat. The board had been divided equally between progressives and business people, and Dan White’s departure and replacement by a progressive gave the progressives the votes they needed to push through their agenda. I think that Moscone would have been willing to give White his seat back, but he was pressured not to do so by the others who were open about wanting a progressive majority on the board.
Soon after Harvey’s death, the gay community became adept at turning it into a gay murder. Not a murder of a politician who happened to be gay, but the murder of a gay man. In part this was due to the fact that Milk had left a tape saying he was going to be assassinated, and assumed it would be because he was gay. As the tape was played and replayed, the myth developed that White was a gay basher. I just don’t think that this was the case. Additionally the mystique was created that Milk was the first elected gay person and if gay people rise to public office, as gay people, they would be gunned down. Neither of these statements is true. Milk wasn’t the first elected gay person – a lesbian had been elected in Massachusetts, as was a gay man in Madison, Wisconsin – and neither of them had been targeted. |
