Reagan Says Jones
Favored Democrats
San Francisco Chronicle - Nov. 30, 1978Bonn, West Germany
Former California governor Ronald Reagan said yesterday that Peoples Temple cult leader Rev. Jim Jones appeared to attract more members of the Democratic party then Republicans.
"I'll try not to be happy in saying this," Reagan said. "He (Jones) supported a number of political figures but seemed to be more involved with the Democratic party having been helped by him or seeking his help."
Reagan, who lost the 1976 race for the Republican presidential nomination to Gerald Ford, is currently on a tour of European capitals and was interviewed in his hotel suite here overlooking the Rhine river.
Reagan described the mass suicide of more than 900 Peoples Temple members in Guyana as "a horrible thing almost without precedent."
He said Jones was a man who began "apparently very legitimately" and then alienated supporters when "he began to see himself as the object of worship rather than the God he preached about."
Reagan said Jones, whose headquarters was in San Francisco, did not represent a "national wave. He wasn't like some charismatic leader who could dominate an entire country."Associated Press
Home