Sect Lawyer Expl S Role in Custody Fight Over
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snortwave maw in Jonestown and were ready to commit suicide if authorities came to get the boy. • "I talked to Jones on a radio patch and 'he Said Ihepeople have made that deci- sion-here,' Mr. Garry, said. He said, "OYer (*child he was going to destroy a THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1978 ,whinetnnvelithnt." ' Mr, Garry said; "I had Huey Newton and Angela Davis and some' others call him that I !they/wield Impress him, and got him to stall." Sect Lawyer Expl s Role With the help of Mrs. Marceline Jones, wife of the pastor, Guyanese officials were reached and they recalled the writ. In Custody Fight Over Boy • The Boy Is Dead Within a week or so, Mr. Garry said, the pastor told him in Jonestown, "We By WALLACE TURNER are so solid that if something happens to Special to The New York Times one of us, it is happening to all of us.This, child cannot go back because it would be '5•SAN FRANCISCO, -Nov. 26 --' For printed an article attacking Mr. -Jones ruined." . • Charles Garry, the mystery of his late and his church. The pastor left town, re- Sitting in his office, Mr. Garry snorted; client, the Rev. Jim Jones, is no mystery signing as chairman of the Sanfrancisco "Where's the kid now?"-: His ,body • Was at all. He sees_ the People's Temple HouSing Authority, a post Mayor George, found next to Mr. Jones's in the tangled ! founder as a clever dictator whose mind . Moscone had given him, and went to pile of corpses at Jonestown. ,• • , , gave way to paranoia when he felt he was.. Pressed to explain how the nature Of- on the verge of exposure. • ;.;-: ", Jonestown had escaped him, Mr. Garry Mr. Garry lamented the loss of the People's TemPle Becomes a Client said that until his visit thereon Noy. 17 agrarian socialist village, . Jonestown, A few weeks later 'e group came to Mr.: and 18 at the time of the tragediesihe had Guyana, and not the death of its founder: Garry's office with a check for $10,000.: seen only two aspects of Melones' that The lawyer is a fixture in one branch of and a request that he .take over the were inconsistent with his public image.* the liberal left in San Francisco and is group's legal problems. He accepted. "I think I knew some of this kook*r widely respected. He desCribeS his politi- One of the first strange stories told t0"- stuff about his sex life," Mr. Garry said.: cal beliefs as "socialist but I insist on the him was about John Vidor Stoen because "He told me when I was there in Octoliei Bill of Rights and individual guarantees ;so mtich of the Temple's trouble seemed a year ago about how he had it with 14 and I can't stand dictators." to involve custody of this small boy, women and two men in one day. This tied "Why did he do it when he had a winner The boy's mother, grace, had been a them closer to him„ he said. He told it in all the way?" he asked in an interview in menther of the Tertmle but hat qftif. Her front of a bunch of people at JonestOvin., , his office, which would overlook Civic ;11,1461,81nd,;TitneUtY,' .141617)14±. ditatICM114 "The other thing I knew about him that Center Plaza had not the Federal Bureau f trirneY: here„- for *a me. bee* r',74 was screwy was that his faith healing was : of Investigation suggested that he keep Jones's main legal adviser and the eec.:"! phony," Mr. Garry said. "But that didn't the drapes drawn for the next few weeks. Mt twat itnnettent figUM. in thelemple. bother me because I think all that faith Perhaps because of his t•s as a trial'. Stoen took John Victor, healing stuff is phony." o lawyer, Mr. Garry's judgment is that tot Jonestown in August 1976, stayed for, a; Another Lawyer A Jim Jones fell apart over his determine- while, then returned to San Francisco,..Hy ppears Lion to keep custody of a handsome six.; the time Mr.. Garry was hired, Timothy Mr. Garry still rhapsodizes about' the year-old boy, John Victor Stoen. .: Stoat had dropped out of the Temple. The beauties of the settlement. He said the so- , cialist in him was thrilled at people work- The Storyof tbe Boy Steens separated but worked together to.4 . , try to get back the child. Mr. Jones fought together and sharing. There was the "I'm convinced this guy was stark ray- • engle. Crops. Quiet sights.Hoppineseilt, ing mad," said the lawyer, whose clients i looked that way to NM. A 4'L-* have included the Black Panther leaders, 1 Many months ago, Mr. Garry an- He was determined, he said to reveal Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Eldridge; nothiced here that Mr. Jones was the these positive aspects to thepublic. Mr. Cleaver. "I think it started with this lad„:1 boy's father. The People's Temple Jones finally agreed in >August that* Edward gave up the throne for a woman. producede notarized statement in which writer could come to Jonestown. He *, This guy gave up a successful operation Timothy Stoen said Mr. Jones had fa- picked Donald Freed of Los Angeles from and the lives of eight or nine hundred peo- there4 the child at:his request, and that t a list provided by Mr:Garry. ple for one kid.' Mrs. Stoat had agreed. -The reason: ac- Mr. Freed has said that Mr. Jones "Then destroys the kid," said Mr. cording to the statement, was that Mr. learned of Mr. Freed's association with Garry, his voice rising. "Kills the kid," Stoen wanted to rear a child fathered by Mark Lane's Citizens' Committee of In- and his chin sinks on his chest as he leans quiry and offered to help pay part of the back in a swivel chair. The Stoens replied that the document Mr. Garry and Mr. Jones met about was false. They said it was one of a series five years ago and their relationship of false, damaging statements that Mr. grew in a pattern familiar to those who Jones required his intimate associates to have studied Mr.-Jones's methods. At the make so he could blackmail them if they time, Mr. Garry was one of the defense • lawyers at the San Quentin Six murder tried to leave. trial. The defendants were convicts In the autumn of 1977, a Guyanese charged with murdering guards the day court honored an American court's cus- George Jackson, the black revolutionary, tody order favoring Mrs. Stoen and tried to escape and was himself killed. issued a writ ordering Mr. Jones to The People's Temple of Jim Jones in- produce the child. ' vited Mr. Garry to speak about defense "He freaked out," Mr. Garry said of problems in the trial. "YOu know, the guy Mr. Jones. The lawyer said he was in De- had all the attributes of being .a good troit when he was called and told that 300 guy," Mr. Garry said. remembering a or so people were around the ; warm reception. In July 1977, , New West magazine - -- costs of the Jetties Bitd Ray. appeal if Mr..• Lane would try -to'. snip. What the cult leader calledthe United :States Govern- ment's, harassnient. of Jonestown. Mr. Lane has said he Was:retained to press •a Freedian ...I.nfifitination•rAcOttit for records .aboUt the ;People's Temple and went to.JonestownieSeptember..'.: When Mr. Garry fetind Out "shin Mr.` Lane's connection with the People's Tem- ple, .hestatted to extricate,hinwelf.from the Temple's affainelfoiveVer; he Says. be had just begun when; onNOv, 15, he re- ceived. a message from Guyana that Mr. Jona wanted him to come help deal with the, visit of Representative Leo .1; Ryan_ and' nketned relatiVes and reporters: The of the Attack He flew to Dulles Airport outside Wash- ington and ."as I went through the elec- tronic gate it Dulles to board the flight to GeorgetoWn, -there 'was:' Mark Lane. neatly tunied'around and went home" They flevi in the Same plane but stayed.., apart and were polite but cool throughout: the visit until the afternoon.'of- Nett: 18' when bin: Ryan and the others left Jones: tcsintfot the Port Kaittuna airstrip where they were attacked and somakilled, • Unawate of that attack, the two Strolled through joitestovni; assess= ingthe effect of the Ryan viait and agree::: ing that it wittbeneficiaJ. xihen JIM:Japes Joined them as a meet- 1,0flit all residents was CtinVen04. !-•He saicr tit :;"Larty4-ayttai,, Jeiry, 'Parka and Joe. .Wilton ate gone and I'm satisfied they've taken all the guns witk them,' " Mi•Xatty related. "I Said, I didn't knoVict,14? any guns.' vet,..guns 'there eta; Fonecirtwo; theylinVe taken them all with them and I 'in sate they're using them fcie,, a ParPase"'..:* GarrP,Sald there was an exchange amongbinned, Mr. Lane and Mr: Jones out of which he came to believe that Mr. United Press International Jones's plan was for Larry Layton to pose At Port Wing*, Guyagieltddidieliat an ceflin'tnade by their uncle for a as a defectorand murder the plane's pilot relative had jellied the People's Temple and died at Jonestown. in flight. ButMr. Layton got on the wrong - - plane and: began to shoot a true defector, Wc.1 triggered the attadt on the party at the airstrip, he said.