Latest / Conspiracy! The Show / Welcome to Jonestown Pt. 3 - The Layton Family

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Welcome to Jonestown Pt. 3 - The Layton Family · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Win Insurance Truth. I'm a check out.
0:31
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy the Show. I'm your host,
0:36
Speaker 2: Adam Todd Brown. I'm going it alone this week for
0:39
Speaker 2: the official third installment of our deep dive into the
0:44
Speaker 2: theory that Jonestown was secretly a CIA medical experiment. Sure,
0:50
Speaker 2: we're taking the long way around here. So far, we've
0:53
Speaker 2: done an overview of the official version of events on
0:57
Speaker 2: the first episode. The second episode was about Operation paper Clip,
1:01
Speaker 2: which is an American intelligence project that brought Nazi researchers
1:06
Speaker 2: and scientists and their families to the United States after
1:09
Speaker 2: World War Two. In between those episodes and this one,
1:13
Speaker 2: we've also done some bonus episodes. One was about Unit
1:16
Speaker 2: seven three to one, which is another set of shady
1:20
Speaker 2: scientists and researchers we absorbed into the American government after
1:24
Speaker 2: World War Two, except that group was from Japan. And
1:27
Speaker 2: then last week we updated one of our early episodes
1:31
Speaker 2: about mk Ultra, a project that was born out of
1:35
Speaker 2: those collaborations with Nazi scientists, and those updates were all
1:39
Speaker 2: about the kind of weird circumstances behind the publishing of
1:44
Speaker 2: the book was Jonestown, a CIA medical experiment and the
1:48
Speaker 2: author of the book who is very hard to track down.
1:51
Speaker 2: If you can even do it at all, good luck.
1:54
Speaker 2: The point of all those episodes was to drive home
1:57
Speaker 2: the fact that in the years or or more like
2:00
Speaker 2: decades after World War Two, the American government was very
2:05
Speaker 2: interested in weird medical experiments and what they could teach
2:09
Speaker 2: us about mind control and chemical warfare and things of
2:13
Speaker 2: the like. All of those episodes, for the most part,
2:17
Speaker 2: were called from sources other than the book that prompted
2:22
Speaker 2: this series. The information in today's episode, though, comes almost
2:26
Speaker 2: entirely from chapter two of that book. Of course, I'm
2:30
Speaker 2: not going to read the book verbatim or only talk
2:34
Speaker 2: about what's in the book. Trust me, I have some
2:37
Speaker 2: opinions on it. Don't you worry about that. Also, this
2:41
Speaker 2: particular chapter of the book especially, is way way way
2:45
Speaker 2: too long for me to cover it all in the
2:48
Speaker 2: space of one podcast episode. If you want to read more,
2:51
Speaker 2: I did find a place where you can do that.
2:53
Speaker 2: I mentioned on an earlier episode that in addition to
2:56
Speaker 2: this book, San Diego State University has a huge trove
3:01
Speaker 2: of documents and research related to Jonestown, including the possibility
3:07
Speaker 2: of CIA involvement, and there's a PDF copy of this
3:10
Speaker 2: book on that site. Just go to Jonestown dot SDSU
3:15
Speaker 2: dot edu and search for it. That's also the url
3:19
Speaker 2: where you'll find all of their other stuff about Jonestown.
3:22
Speaker 2: Enjoy that rabbit hole. As for today, I'm going to
3:26
Speaker 2: talk about chapter two of that book, which attempts to
3:29
Speaker 2: draw a direct line from Nazi Germany to the people
3:34
Speaker 2: who founded and oversaw the Jonestown project. And interestingly enough,
3:39
Speaker 2: it all centers around one single family. And no, it's
3:44
Speaker 2: not the Jim Jones family. That would be way too
3:46
Speaker 2: easy of an answer. It starts with a guy named
3:49
Speaker 2: Hugo Phillip, who was a wealthy German banker and stockbroker.
3:53
Speaker 2: He represented lots of really upstanding German companies like ig Farbin,
3:59
Speaker 2: the makers of Ziklon B, the gas the Nazis used
4:02
Speaker 2: to murder Jews right out of the gate. That's an
4:05
Speaker 2: important detail. I mean, it's obviously an important detail just
4:09
Speaker 2: in the big scheme of things. But we'll get to
4:11
Speaker 2: why it's important to this in just a few minutes. Anyway,
4:14
Speaker 2: Hugo Philip married a woman named Anita Lee Helbert, the
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Speaker 2: daughter of a wealthy stockbroker, in nineteen fourteen. The couple's
4:23
Speaker 2: first child, Lisa, was born a year later. A second child, Eva,
4:27
Speaker 2: was born a year after that. If you know your history,
4:30
Speaker 2: you know that after World War One, the Treaty of
4:34
Speaker 2: Versailles just wrecked the German economy. That's a big part
4:38
Speaker 2: of why World War II happened. We really left Germany
4:42
Speaker 2: feeling hurt after World War One. But despite all that,
4:45
Speaker 2: Lisa and Ava Philip lived in relative luxury. They had
4:50
Speaker 2: private school, fancy vacations, the whole bit. Hugo had a massive,
4:56
Speaker 2: ultra modern house built for the family in Hamburg, lots
4:59
Speaker 2: of living servants, very rich the elites of German society
5:04
Speaker 2: as Hitler was taking power. After graduating high school, Eva
5:08
Speaker 2: moved on to Austria to train as a pediatric nurse
5:11
Speaker 2: in Himmler's Lebensbourne program, which was a state supported program
5:16
Speaker 2: to just crank out as many future Nazi babies as possible.
5:21
Speaker 2: There's not much information about what Lisa Philip did in
5:24
Speaker 2: the years immediately after graduating, but it stands to reason
5:27
Speaker 2: that it was also some Nazi shit. What we do
5:30
Speaker 2: know is that in April nineteen thirty eight, the American
5:33
Speaker 2: Consulate in Germany issued her a visa to the United States.
5:37
Speaker 2: And this is an important point in the story because
5:41
Speaker 2: it's where the official version and the conspiracy theory version
5:45
Speaker 2: start to diverge. If you believe the official government sanctioned
5:49
Speaker 2: version of what happened at Jonestown, the Philip family were
5:53
Speaker 2: Jewish and they started fleeing Germany around this point, which
5:58
Speaker 2: makes the part where one of their trained under the
6:01
Speaker 2: Nazis kind of weird, But not if you believe the
6:04
Speaker 2: Jonestown Cia version, which instead argues that the Philip family
6:09
Speaker 2: were Nazis who pretended to defect to the United States
6:14
Speaker 2: so they could serve the Third Reich under deep cover
6:18
Speaker 2: in America. Does that sound crazy? It shouldn't, we know,
6:21
Speaker 2: Spiser thing. One of the first to leave, even before Lisa,
6:26
Speaker 2: was Hugo Phillips's cousin, doctor James Frank. That's an important name.
6:30
Speaker 2: He is a pioneer in nuclear science who made some
6:34
Speaker 2: huge breakthroughs that earned him a Nobel Prize in nineteen
6:37
Speaker 2: twenty five. Again, what happens next is the subject of
6:41
Speaker 2: some debate. As history tells it, when the Nazis outlawed
6:44
Speaker 2: non arians working in government related organizations, doctor Frank took
6:49
Speaker 2: the bold and brave step of resigning his position and
6:53
Speaker 2: publishing one of the few objections to that new law,
6:57
Speaker 2: and with that he fled Germany and welcomed in the
7:00
Speaker 2: United States, where we gave him top secret clearance so
7:04
Speaker 2: he could keep building that bomb that we wanted so badly.
7:08
Speaker 2: Or the other theory, as presented in this book is
7:12
Speaker 2: that the Nazis wanted that nuclear bomb, but they knew
7:16
Speaker 2: they needed US money and resources to build it, so
7:19
Speaker 2: they created the defector story to get access to those resources.
7:24
Speaker 2: One thing that's worth considering here. By nineteen thirty three,
7:28
Speaker 2: which is when that law went into place, the Nazis
7:32
Speaker 2: were absolutely terrorizing what remained of the free press. So
7:37
Speaker 2: the fact that doctor Frank managed to even get that
7:40
Speaker 2: objection published is almost as impressive as his work building bombs.
7:46
Speaker 2: I mean, unless, again, his defection was a Nazi supported
7:50
Speaker 2: cover story. Either way, it worked. Doctor James Frank came
7:54
Speaker 2: to the US and started working for the good guys,
7:57
Speaker 2: that's us. As for the rest of the family, the
8:00
Speaker 2: claim the book makes is that to get to America,
8:03
Speaker 2: the Philip family, with the help of the Nazi Party,
8:06
Speaker 2: created a fake Jewish backstory to give the impression that
8:10
Speaker 2: they'd be persecuted if they stayed in Germany, but it
8:13
Speaker 2: was an apparently flimsy cover story, seeing as how the
8:17
Speaker 2: family had no history of attending any synagogues or celebrating
8:21
Speaker 2: any Jewish holidays. They did have quite a history of
8:24
Speaker 2: entertaining their area and friends at Christmas, though, But the
8:27
Speaker 2: book also contends that this was part of the plan
8:30
Speaker 2: because there was also fake evidence planted in the backstory
8:34
Speaker 2: that suggested the entire family was homosexual, which I don't
8:39
Speaker 2: think that's how that works, but back then, no one
8:42
Speaker 2: knew how that worked. What we did know is that
8:44
Speaker 2: the only group the Nazis hated more than Jews was homosexuals,
8:48
Speaker 2: and then after homosexuals, everybody who wasn't Nazis. So we
8:53
Speaker 2: decided that the Philip family was pretending to be Jewish
8:57
Speaker 2: to get out of Germany because they were it's too
9:00
Speaker 2: ashamed to admit. They needed to flee because they were gay,
9:03
Speaker 2: and we bought it. The Philip family was granted asylum,
9:07
Speaker 2: and at this point in the theory, Eva falls off the map.
9:10
Speaker 2: She does not return to the story whatsoever, but Lisa
9:15
Speaker 2: very much does, and just a reminder, Eva and Lisa,
9:18
Speaker 2: the daughters of Hugo and Anita Phillip. So Lisa one
9:23
Speaker 2: interesting thing about her. Almost immediately upon setting foot on
9:28
Speaker 2: us soil, she joins the Quakers and from there for
9:32
Speaker 2: about the next thirty years doesn't mention anything at all
9:36
Speaker 2: about being Jewish. So there's that to consider when it
9:39
Speaker 2: comes to the cover story she used to flee Germany.
9:42
Speaker 2: As for Lisa's parents, Hugo and Anita, the book makes
9:45
Speaker 2: the somewhat shocking claim that they stayed behind for a
9:48
Speaker 2: few years and helped other Nazis get to the United States.
9:52
Speaker 2: And now never let it be said that I don't
9:55
Speaker 2: approach this stuff objectively, because here's the thing. I don't
9:59
Speaker 2: think that the timeline really adds up for that part
10:02
Speaker 2: to be correct. Granted that in no way, shape or
10:06
Speaker 2: form means I don't suspect the CIA was involved in Jonestown.
10:10
Speaker 2: But the claim is that Hugo and Anita Phillip helped
10:14
Speaker 2: Nazis escape using something that the book calls rat runs,
10:18
Speaker 2: but history has come to know as rat lines, and
10:21
Speaker 2: these are the routes the Catholic Church helped set up
10:23
Speaker 2: to allow Nazis to escape Europe. At the end of
10:26
Speaker 2: World War Two. That's all real. Google it if you want.
10:29
Speaker 2: The Catholic Church very much helped Nazis flee to safety.
10:33
Speaker 2: But the problem with the timeline in this book is
10:36
Speaker 2: that the Phillips, Hugo and Anita are said to have
10:39
Speaker 2: worked on the rat lines in Italy until nineteen thirty nine,
10:43
Speaker 2: at which point they began their departure to the United States.
10:47
Speaker 2: But as far as I can tell, rat lines didn't
10:50
Speaker 2: become a thing until nineteen forty two at the earliest,
10:53
Speaker 2: and those were in Spain, so that's a little off.
10:56
Speaker 2: But also the implication here is that a house they
11:00
Speaker 2: bought in Italy around this time was used as a
11:04
Speaker 2: stop on the rat lines, So maybe there was a
11:07
Speaker 2: lot of pre planning and buying that house was their
11:10
Speaker 2: only role in it all. Either way, the author does
11:13
Speaker 2: make another interesting point that speaks to the likelihood that
11:17
Speaker 2: the Philip family might have been secret Nazis. After buying
11:20
Speaker 2: that house in Italy, they went back to Germany to
11:24
Speaker 2: get their stuff and have it shipped to Italy. This
11:28
Speaker 2: is at a time when Germany had shut down their borders.
11:31
Speaker 2: The Phillips were rich, and their cover story for sending
11:36
Speaker 2: their kids to Germany was that they were Jewish and
11:39
Speaker 2: would be persecuted if they returned to or had to
11:43
Speaker 2: stay in Germany. So if they really were Jewish, how
11:46
Speaker 2: did they get all their wealthy people possessions out of
11:49
Speaker 2: the country. I get that rich people have means that
11:52
Speaker 2: the rest of us do not, but that still seems
11:54
Speaker 2: like a pretty tall order. There's also the thing where
11:57
Speaker 2: the Italian government ordered all Aliens to leave the country,
12:01
Speaker 2: and since we hadn't dropped a nuke by then, that
12:04
Speaker 2: still just meant people not from Italy. And despite that order,
12:07
Speaker 2: for some reason, Hugo and Anita Phillip were allowed to
12:10
Speaker 2: stay for an extra year. So I don't know if
12:12
Speaker 2: they weren't full on Nazis, they certainly seemed to have
12:15
Speaker 2: Nazi adjacent qualities to them. And by the nineteen forties
12:20
Speaker 2: the whole team was in the United States. And again,
12:23
Speaker 2: the contention here is that they were all sent here
12:26
Speaker 2: with the blessing of the Nazis, as opposed to fleeing
12:29
Speaker 2: Germany to escape the Nazis. Either way, the connections between
12:34
Speaker 2: this family and Jonestown start almost immediately upon arriving in
12:39
Speaker 2: the country around mid nineteen forty, James Frank, Lisa Phillip,
12:44
Speaker 2: and her German boyfriend Franz Werner were all working at
12:48
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania State College. Lisa worked as a physical therapist at
12:52
Speaker 2: the university hospital. Doctor Frank was a physics professor and
12:56
Speaker 2: Franz Werner was one of his students. And at one
12:59
Speaker 2: point doctor Frank and franz Werner befriend a promising young
13:04
Speaker 2: scientist named Lawrence Layton. And if you're familiar with the
13:07
Speaker 2: Jonestown story at all, you know that name really well,
13:11
Speaker 2: because Larry Layton would go on to be the only
13:14
Speaker 2: person prosecuted over what happened at Jonestown. But this is
13:18
Speaker 2: not that Larry Layton. It is Larry Layton's dad, though.
13:21
Speaker 2: But the connections don't stop there. Anyway. To get his
13:24
Speaker 2: doctoral degree, Lawrence Layton had to learn German, and that's
13:29
Speaker 2: when a weird thing happens. Franz Werner not only suggests
13:33
Speaker 2: that Lisa Phillip, his girlfriend, should be Lawrence Layton's German tutor,
13:39
Speaker 2: he also suggests that maybe they should start dating. That's weird.
13:42
Speaker 2: And what's even weirder is that all happened. That's how
13:45
Speaker 2: Lawrence Baird Layton and Lisa Phillip started dating her German
13:51
Speaker 2: possibly Nazi uncle and her German possibly Nazi boyfriend. Both
13:57
Speaker 2: saw some sort of potential in Lawrence and decided he
14:01
Speaker 2: should be dating Lisa Phillip. And what did everyone like
14:05
Speaker 2: so much about Lawrence Baird Layton. Well, he was crazy smart,
14:08
Speaker 2: so there was that if you've come to the country
14:11
Speaker 2: on some secret Nazi shit hoping to build a nuclear bomb,
14:14
Speaker 2: if you spot talent, you're gonna try and recruit it.
14:16
Speaker 2: How smart was he? In nineteen thirty two, he completed
14:20
Speaker 2: a year long course on differential calculus in two weeks.
14:24
Speaker 2: He was also relatively well off. Sure, he was born
14:27
Speaker 2: and raised in West Virginia, but his family was one
14:29
Speaker 2: of the wealthier families in the area, meaning they were
14:32
Speaker 2: the first to have running water and electricity. Not joking
14:35
Speaker 2: about that that was what made them the richest ones
14:37
Speaker 2: in the area. Also, apparently, his mother, Eva Leyton, was
14:41
Speaker 2: obsessed with family heritage and preserving bloodlines, so much so
14:47
Speaker 2: that she married her own cousin. And apparently Lawrence Baird
14:50
Speaker 2: Layton was equally interested in things like that, so that
14:54
Speaker 2: definitely would have endeared him to a pack of former Nazis.
14:57
Speaker 2: But let's get back to how smart this guy was.
15:00
Speaker 2: In the midst of being one of the most brilliant
15:02
Speaker 2: minds at his school, a really weird thing happens. He
15:06
Speaker 2: leaves college in the middle of his sophomore year to
15:09
Speaker 2: go live with his mom and her new husband in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
15:14
Speaker 2: And while he's there, he does exactly one thing, and
15:17
Speaker 2: one thing only. He joins and becomes president of the
15:20
Speaker 2: Young People's Socialist League, which is a group of Jewish
15:24
Speaker 2: immigrants who for some reason elected Lawrence, who was very
15:28
Speaker 2: much not Jewish, as their leader. And he does that
15:31
Speaker 2: for eighteen months or so, and then returns to school
15:34
Speaker 2: as a sophomore with a paid teaching position and a grant.
15:38
Speaker 2: That's a weird side quest, right, No, not if you
15:41
Speaker 2: take any stock at all in what the book suggests
15:44
Speaker 2: that break in his studies might have been about. What
15:47
Speaker 2: if he was spying on that group. We are talking
15:49
Speaker 2: about a guy who goes on to a lifetime of
15:52
Speaker 2: government employment. And he did come back to school with
15:55
Speaker 2: a job and extra money, even though his activities during
15:59
Speaker 2: that break had no relation to his college work. And
16:02
Speaker 2: we know that's a thing the government does routinely. History
16:05
Speaker 2: is littered with stories of the tiniest of environmental groups
16:10
Speaker 2: finding out they'd been infiltrated by the government. Lawrence Layton
16:14
Speaker 2: being tasked with infiltrating a socialist group at this point
16:18
Speaker 2: in history, that's not any huge stretch of the imagination anyway.
16:23
Speaker 2: The courtship between Lisa Philip and Lawrence Layton was a
16:26
Speaker 2: very weird one. She is universally described as being an
16:31
Speaker 2: absolute smoke show. People compare her to Hetty Lamar a
16:35
Speaker 2: bunch google it. Despite all this, Lawrence wasn't all that
16:39
Speaker 2: interested in her. He found her too aggressive and arrogant.
16:42
Speaker 2: He also said this at one point in an interview.
16:45
Speaker 2: We would take walks and I noticed that she would
16:47
Speaker 2: step on the ants. My god, what do you do
16:50
Speaker 2: that for? I asked. She said, it's strange, but in
16:53
Speaker 2: Germany I learned to hate weak things. I can't help myself.
16:57
Speaker 2: Things like this shocked me. Now, remember this is a
17:00
Speaker 2: woman who claimed to have fled Germany because she was
17:03
Speaker 2: Jewish and would be killed by the Nazis. Does that
17:06
Speaker 2: quote match that backstory or does it match the backstory
17:09
Speaker 2: presented in this book, Hey, you decide. But she still
17:13
Speaker 2: pursued him aggressively, like as if she needed to marry
17:17
Speaker 2: the guy for some reason, and she wasn't the only one.
17:21
Speaker 2: Doctor James Frank and her by this point ex boyfriend
17:24
Speaker 2: Franz Werner were also very vocal in their support of
17:28
Speaker 2: the idea that these two should get married. And it worked,
17:32
Speaker 2: but only after she threatened to commit suicide. Because you see,
17:37
Speaker 2: Lawrence Baird Layton had an ex girlfriend who committed suicide
17:42
Speaker 2: and he took that very hard, and he felt like
17:45
Speaker 2: some of the responsibility for that was on him. So
17:49
Speaker 2: having another girlfriend now threatening to commit suicide if you
17:53
Speaker 2: don't marry her, it's an emotional trap, if nothing else.
17:57
Speaker 2: And on October eighteenth, nineteen, the two were married after
18:02
Speaker 2: having known each other for six months. Not long after that,
18:07
Speaker 2: the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, So Lawrence Layton was surely
18:11
Speaker 2: going to be drafted, but Lisa Phillip arranged a deferment
18:14
Speaker 2: for him by having her uncle, doctor Frank, offer lighton
18:18
Speaker 2: a job on the Manhattan Project. That's right, doctor James Frank,
18:24
Speaker 2: who escaped from Nazi Germany, ended up on the Manhattan Project.
18:28
Speaker 2: So if he was here on a secret figure out
18:32
Speaker 2: how to build a bomb, mission for the Nazis. It worked,
18:35
Speaker 2: and it's worth noting the announcement that we were ready
18:38
Speaker 2: to drop a bomb on a motherfucker happened a few
18:41
Speaker 2: short days after the Nazis surrendered, meaning there was no
18:46
Speaker 2: chance that bomb was going to be dropped on them.
18:48
Speaker 2: Convenient So, after his war jobs end, doctor Layton moves
18:53
Speaker 2: on to a job as a chemistry professor at the
18:55
Speaker 2: University of Maryland, and he and Lisa Phillip crank out
18:58
Speaker 2: a couple of kids, Thomas and Annalisa Layton. Anna Lisa
19:02
Speaker 2: is an interesting point also when it comes to this
19:06
Speaker 2: backstory that Lisa Philip was Jewish and had to flee
19:10
Speaker 2: Germany as a result, because Anna Lisa was named after
19:13
Speaker 2: one of Lisa's friends, Ane Lisa Schmidt, who was killed
19:16
Speaker 2: in a British bombing raid in Germany. According to the
19:19
Speaker 2: family's own records, Lisa Philip Layton and an Lisa Schmidt
19:24
Speaker 2: corresponded regularly by mail after Lisa fled Germany. But here's
19:28
Speaker 2: a question how there was no postal service between America
19:32
Speaker 2: and Germany at the time, correspondence was not allowed. That
19:36
Speaker 2: was especially true if you were the wife and niece
19:39
Speaker 2: of two of America's top nuclear scientists, which at this
19:43
Speaker 2: point she was, But somehow she still managed to keep
19:46
Speaker 2: in contact by mail with her friend in Nazi Germany.
19:49
Speaker 2: Crazy huh. In nineteen forty six, Lisa Philip Layton and
19:53
Speaker 2: doctor Lawrence Baird Layton have a third child, Lawrence John Layton,
19:58
Speaker 2: who was named after his father and who will be
20:01
Speaker 2: referring to as Larry from now on. Doctor Layton is
20:04
Speaker 2: the dead Larry's son, and this is the same Larry
20:07
Speaker 2: Layton who would go on to be the lone person
20:11
Speaker 2: charged with a crime as a result of the Jonestown massacre.
20:15
Speaker 2: But even then, the connections between this one family of
20:20
Speaker 2: potential Nazis and Jonestown don't end there. In nineteen fifty one,
20:25
Speaker 2: doctor Lawrence Layton took a job with the US Army
20:28
Speaker 2: as Chief of the Chemical Warfare Division. He worked at
20:32
Speaker 2: the Dukeway Proving Grounds in Utah, overseeing chemical weapons experiments,
20:37
Speaker 2: including a bunch involving the same nerve gas that his
20:41
Speaker 2: father in law, the aforementioned Hugo Phillip, helped develop for
20:45
Speaker 2: the Nazis at ig Farbin. And here's a quote from
20:48
Speaker 2: doctor Layton about the use of chemical weapons from around
20:51
Speaker 2: this time, and I think it's an important quote because
20:54
Speaker 2: it goes a long way toward revealing what this guy's
20:59
Speaker 2: mind set was like, just as a person and as
21:02
Speaker 2: a scientist. Here we go quote. You can blow people
21:06
Speaker 2: to bits with bombs, you can shoot them with shells,
21:09
Speaker 2: you can atomize them with atomic bombs. That's considered moral.
21:12
Speaker 2: But the same people think there's something terrible about poisoning
21:16
Speaker 2: the air and letting people breathe it. Anything having to
21:19
Speaker 2: do with gas warfare. Chemical warfare has this taint of
21:23
Speaker 2: horror on it, even if you only make people vomit.
21:26
Speaker 2: It's all right to kill somebody in war, but it's
21:28
Speaker 2: not all right to make him vomit or make him silly. Actually,
21:32
Speaker 2: it's one of the most humane types of warfare if
21:35
Speaker 2: you want to compare it to other types. I'm not
21:37
Speaker 2: apologizing for chemical warfare. I'm just saying that the prejudice
21:41
Speaker 2: against chemical weapons in favor of conventional and atomic weapons
21:46
Speaker 2: is absurd. MM agree to disagree, doctor Layton. Conventional weapons
21:52
Speaker 2: kill you fast. I'd way rather be shot in the
21:54
Speaker 2: head than have nerve agents spread on my face by
21:57
Speaker 2: the contestants of a North Korean prank viv video show.
22:00
Speaker 2: But anyway, a weird thing happens. After doctor Layton took
22:04
Speaker 2: this job. His mother in law, Anita Phillip, took her
22:08
Speaker 2: own life, and boy did she leave behind an interesting
22:12
Speaker 2: suicide note here goes. My friends know that I free
22:16
Speaker 2: and proper am a good American, but I was a
22:19
Speaker 2: gossip and have been entangled in a network of intrigue.
22:23
Speaker 2: I no longer have the strength to free myself from it.
22:26
Speaker 2: Forget me, not my beloved children and family, and you, Hugo,
22:30
Speaker 2: forgive me. Live well, all of you loved mankind so
22:34
Speaker 2: well worth noting here this death is super duper similar
22:38
Speaker 2: to the death covered in the documentary Wormwood, and the
22:42
Speaker 2: theory put forth in that documentary is that the CIA
22:46
Speaker 2: actually threw the subject of that documentary out of a
22:49
Speaker 2: window because he was going to go public with information
22:53
Speaker 2: about the United States using chemical weapons in the Korean War.
22:57
Speaker 2: And also the mother of one of our top scientists
22:59
Speaker 2: in that field also happened to die in the same way,
23:02
Speaker 2: Probably just a coincidence. So doctor Layton works for the
23:06
Speaker 2: Army for a couple of years and then spends a
23:08
Speaker 2: few years doing chemistry stuff for the Navy and then
23:11
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty seven, he takes a research scientist position
23:15
Speaker 2: with the USDA's Western Regional Research Laboratory and moves to Berkeley, California.
23:21
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty one, his last research project, about breakthroughs
23:25
Speaker 2: in testing human food allergies using monkeys instead of humans,
23:29
Speaker 2: is published, and according to the theory put forth in
23:33
Speaker 2: this book, the reason his work after that wasn't published
23:37
Speaker 2: is because his work after that was heading up a
23:40
Speaker 2: massive experiment in ethnic weaponry that came to be known
23:45
Speaker 2: as Jonestown. So let's talk about this theory that doctor
23:51
Speaker 2: Lawrence Layton was tasked with carrying out the Jonestown program.
23:56
Speaker 2: That's a wild claim, especially when you consider that my
24:00
Speaker 2: history has portrayed doctor Lawrence Layton as someone who simply
24:04
Speaker 2: lost his entire family to the seductions of a madman
24:08
Speaker 2: cult leader. Either way, the connections between doctor Layton, his family,
24:13
Speaker 2: and Jonestown are very real. For starters, we mentioned on
24:18
Speaker 2: the first Jonestown episode that the inspiration for Jones moving
24:22
Speaker 2: the People's Temple to Yukaya, California, was a nineteen sixty
24:26
Speaker 2: two Esquire article about the safest places to hide from
24:29
Speaker 2: a nuclear blast. Doctor Layton also read that article, as
24:33
Speaker 2: evidenced by a letter he wrote to Tom and Ana
24:36
Speaker 2: Lisa while they were students at UC Davis, urging them
24:39
Speaker 2: to also move to that area until the Cuban missile
24:42
Speaker 2: crisis subsided. And by that point three of the four
24:45
Speaker 2: Layton kids had left home, with all of them attending
24:49
Speaker 2: the same college, UC Davis. And around this same time,
24:53
Speaker 2: doctor Layton's wife, Lisa Phillip Layton, decides to take her
24:57
Speaker 2: first job since marrying Lawrence, and that job job was
25:00
Speaker 2: with the CIA. She was assigned to monitor the massive
25:04
Speaker 2: collection of leftist and Third World publications at the Berkeley
25:09
Speaker 2: Library and send anything she found worth knowing onto the agency.
25:14
Speaker 2: Now here's where the claims in the book get especially bold,
25:18
Speaker 2: as it goes sometime between nineteen sixty three and nineteen
25:22
Speaker 2: sixty five, the CIA approached doctor Lawrence Layton about a
25:27
Speaker 2: problem facing America angry black citizens because at this point
25:32
Speaker 2: in history, the Civil Rights era and all the protests
25:35
Speaker 2: and unrest that came with it was well underway, and
25:39
Speaker 2: the CIA allegedly was tasked with exploring any and all
25:44
Speaker 2: solutions to stop all of that. So to that end,
25:48
Speaker 2: doctor Layton was put in charge of developing a large
25:52
Speaker 2: scale field test to evaluate the effects of various drugs
25:56
Speaker 2: to find out which ones were the best at altering
25:59
Speaker 2: the behavior of black people. And because this was to
26:02
Speaker 2: be a highly top secret mission, it was decided that
26:06
Speaker 2: the most obvious choice in terms of a team to
26:10
Speaker 2: help doctor Layton carry this out was his wife, Lisa
26:13
Speaker 2: Phillip Layton, who was already working for the CIA, and
26:16
Speaker 2: their children, who are all studying to be scientists themselves. Again,
26:21
Speaker 2: sounds crazy, but keep in mind we're talking about a
26:25
Speaker 2: guy who built his career on coming up with new
26:28
Speaker 2: and exciting ways to kill lots of people, and also
26:32
Speaker 2: a guy who came from and married into families that
26:35
Speaker 2: seemed to have a lot of gusto for the idea
26:38
Speaker 2: of keeping bloodlines pure. If anyone was going to head
26:42
Speaker 2: up a project like this, it probably would be him
26:45
Speaker 2: and Jim Jones, obviously, because of his talent for inspiring
26:49
Speaker 2: black people with his words, including an alleged incident in
26:53
Speaker 2: Guyana where he incited black people to riot, kicking off
26:57
Speaker 2: violence that eventually toppled the government and put America's preferred leader,
27:01
Speaker 2: Forbes Burnham in charge of Guyana. Because of all that
27:05
Speaker 2: Jim Jones, according to the book, was chosen as the
27:09
Speaker 2: face of this project, and doctor Lawrence Layton was the
27:14
Speaker 2: behind the scenes scientist pulling all the strings. That's the
27:18
Speaker 2: basic theory here that doctor Lawrence Layton, in conjunction with
27:23
Speaker 2: his family and Jim Jones, carried out Jonestown as a
27:28
Speaker 2: medical experiment. History has painted it a different way, which
27:32
Speaker 2: is that doctor Lawrence Layton was a victim of Jim
27:36
Speaker 2: Jones and lost his family to a cult leader. And indeed,
27:42
Speaker 2: lots and lots of doctor Layton's family members not only
27:45
Speaker 2: end up in Jonestown, but end up in Jonestown in
27:49
Speaker 2: high level leadership positions. That definitely happened. That's what this
27:54
Speaker 2: episode is about. The only real question is whether doctor
27:58
Speaker 2: Lawrence baired Life Layton tragically lost his wife and family
28:03
Speaker 2: to the charms of a cult leader, or did he
28:05
Speaker 2: and his family work together in conjunction with that cult
28:09
Speaker 2: leader to see what happens when you lure a bunch
28:12
Speaker 2: of black people to the jungle to act as unwitting
28:15
Speaker 2: medical experiment subjects. That is the most important question and
28:19
Speaker 2: one that will almost certainly never be able to answer,
28:22
Speaker 2: especially since the Biden administration doesn't seem to mind at
28:26
Speaker 2: all that the Supreme Court just put extra limits on
28:29
Speaker 2: the scope of the Freedom of Information Act? Did you
28:31
Speaker 2: know that? But it really is the pivotal question in
28:34
Speaker 2: all of this, because, as we're about to learn, the
28:37
Speaker 2: rest of the Layton family was very involved in Jonestown.
28:42
Speaker 2: Take Larry Layton for example. While in college, he met
28:46
Speaker 2: and eventually married a woman named Carolyn Moore, and as
28:50
Speaker 2: luck would have it, the stars aligned perfectly. Her father,
28:55
Speaker 2: John Moore, was a Methodist minister who also happened to
28:59
Speaker 2: be a very vocal supporter of Jim Jones, both at
29:03
Speaker 2: the time and after the public learned about the Jonestown massacre. He,
29:08
Speaker 2: according to this theory, acted as a buffer between doctor
29:12
Speaker 2: Layton and Jim Jones. Seeing as how doctor Layton was
29:15
Speaker 2: a government employee, he couldn't deal with Jim Jones directly
29:20
Speaker 2: when the two needed to communicate. What happens if some
29:23
Speaker 2: nosy lookie lou sies those two talking in public, people
29:27
Speaker 2: are going to have questions. But no one's going to
29:29
Speaker 2: question Jim Jones meeting with another religious guy. And now
29:33
Speaker 2: let's take a commentary break here. You know what this
29:36
Speaker 2: is starting to remind me of a little bit the
29:38
Speaker 2: critically acclaimed smash hit FX television series The Americans. If
29:42
Speaker 2: you've never seen it, that's about a seemingly normal, mild
29:46
Speaker 2: mannered American couple who were actually Soviet spies whose entire
29:50
Speaker 2: existence was made up to fool the enemy. Except here,
29:54
Speaker 2: instead of Russians, it's Nazis, and the enemy is black Americans.
30:00
Speaker 2: You know, The Americans is based on real events, right.
30:02
Speaker 2: The US busted a ten person Russian spy ring in
30:05
Speaker 2: twenty ten that consisted of nothing but sleeper agents who'd
30:10
Speaker 2: completely integrated into American society because that's exactly what they
30:15
Speaker 2: were raised to do. The only reason that show is
30:19
Speaker 2: based in the eighties, according to the creator of the show,
30:23
Speaker 2: is because by the time it came out in twenty thirteen,
30:25
Speaker 2: no one in America considered our relationship with Russia to
30:29
Speaker 2: be contentious enough for something like that to even happen,
30:32
Speaker 2: So they set it in the eighties, an era when
30:34
Speaker 2: our relationship was very famously strained, to say the least.
30:39
Speaker 2: If you read your history books, you'll know that a
30:41
Speaker 2: whole lot of Nazis escaped to places like Argentina, and
30:45
Speaker 2: a whole lot more were brought to the United States.
30:48
Speaker 2: Do you think they all just decided to stop believing
30:50
Speaker 2: nazishit upon setting foot on American soil again. One of
30:54
Speaker 2: the early arguments presented in this book is that we
30:57
Speaker 2: didn't beat the Nazis, We just agreed to stop fighting
31:01
Speaker 2: so we could team up to fight communism on the
31:04
Speaker 2: sly And what's happening here with the Layton family in
31:07
Speaker 2: Jonestown is really feeling like part of that team up.
31:10
Speaker 2: To me. I still think the timeline of some of
31:13
Speaker 2: the alleged Nazi activity on the part of the parents
31:16
Speaker 2: is sketchy, but also the connections are already kind of alarming.
31:19
Speaker 2: Another pivotal question here before we get too much further
31:23
Speaker 2: away from the point where I should have asked it,
31:25
Speaker 2: did doctor James really defect or did the Nazis' low
31:29
Speaker 2: key send him here, because if they did, that alone
31:32
Speaker 2: knocks down a lot of dominoes. That's a direct line
31:35
Speaker 2: from the Nazis to doctor Frank, who is a direct
31:38
Speaker 2: line to the Phillip family, who eventually merges with the
31:41
Speaker 2: Layton family also under the watchful eye of doctor Frank,
31:45
Speaker 2: and one of them marries into the More family. Whose
31:48
Speaker 2: patriarch is a friend and supporter of Jim Jones. And
31:51
Speaker 2: now we're back to where we were before I started
31:54
Speaker 2: comparing this to what is possibly my favorite television show
31:57
Speaker 2: of all time, which I cannot reckon meant highly enough
32:01
Speaker 2: if you've never watched it. We're back to Larry Layton
32:04
Speaker 2: and Carolyn Moore. Shortly after marrying, they pack up and
32:08
Speaker 2: move to Yukaiah to join the People's Temple. The book
32:11
Speaker 2: says it's suggested by Carolyn, which would kind of shoot
32:14
Speaker 2: a hole in the theory that Jonestown was an experiment
32:17
Speaker 2: carried out by the Layton family. The book literally says
32:21
Speaker 2: the CIA prefers to work with families, and Larry Layton
32:24
Speaker 2: was in college at the same time as his other siblings,
32:27
Speaker 2: so it would stand to reason that he'd be in
32:30
Speaker 2: on the plan with the rest of the family band,
32:32
Speaker 2: So I don't know why Carolyn Moore would have had
32:34
Speaker 2: to even suggest this. That said, the book also mentions
32:39
Speaker 2: that Larry Layton was kind of the disappointment of the family.
32:41
Speaker 2: He didn't perform as well in school as his siblings,
32:44
Speaker 2: had a bunch of mental illness issues starting way back
32:48
Speaker 2: when he was a kid, so if we are talking
32:52
Speaker 2: about for real Nazis, one thing we know is that
32:55
Speaker 2: there isn't a lot of room for mediocrity and instability
32:59
Speaker 2: in their vision of the master race. That's why the
33:01
Speaker 2: son of that guy had to die in that show,
33:04
Speaker 2: you know, the one that was a real thing. Before
33:06
Speaker 2: the Nazis started gassing Jews, they practiced on the physically
33:10
Speaker 2: and mentally ill citizens in general, Jewish or otherwise. They
33:15
Speaker 2: were considered a drain on society and a threat to
33:18
Speaker 2: the purity of the Aryan bloodline. So if you're wondering
33:22
Speaker 2: if a dad would arrange for the lesser of his
33:24
Speaker 2: children to be the canary in the coal mine that
33:27
Speaker 2: was the Jonestown experiment and the sole scapegoat when it
33:30
Speaker 2: was all over, the answer is yeah, if he's a Nazi,
33:34
Speaker 2: he totally would. There's also a curious story that Larry
33:38
Speaker 2: has talked about himself, where because the Vietnam War was
33:41
Speaker 2: in full swing, Larry Layton was at risk of being drafted.
33:45
Speaker 2: His request to be considered a conscientious objector due to
33:49
Speaker 2: his association with the nonviolent Quakers was repeatedly rejected. But
33:54
Speaker 2: the thing that finally turned the tide in his favor,
33:57
Speaker 2: Jim Jones offered to dictate a lets letter that would
34:01
Speaker 2: guarantee him conscientious objector status, and he did and as
34:06
Speaker 2: if by magic, that letter worked. But you know, probably
34:10
Speaker 2: just because Jim Jones was a really persuasive speaker or whatever,
34:15
Speaker 2: that certainly wasn't part of any plan, I'm sure. From
34:18
Speaker 2: that point on, most of Larry Layton's time inside the
34:22
Speaker 2: People's Temple in Jonestown plays right into the idea that
34:26
Speaker 2: he was the sacrificial lamb of the experiment. For starters,
34:30
Speaker 2: Jim Jones took his wife Carolyn Moore, got her pregnant,
34:34
Speaker 2: and forced the two to divorce, and it's mentioned in
34:37
Speaker 2: the book that this happened after Jones had sex with
34:40
Speaker 2: one of them. In other sources, it's been suggested that
34:44
Speaker 2: he forced Larry to have sex with a man, possibly
34:48
Speaker 2: Jim Jones, while Carolyn watched. That said, he does let
34:52
Speaker 2: Larry pick a new wife from the People's Temple, though,
34:55
Speaker 2: so that's nice of him, And then Jim Jones does
34:58
Speaker 2: the exact damn thing. Because that other source I just mentioned,
35:01
Speaker 2: The New York Times, here's a quote. Friends of Larry
35:05
Speaker 2: Layton recalled that mister Jones took both Carolyn and Karen,
35:09
Speaker 2: his second wife, from him after having the women watch
35:12
Speaker 2: him force Larry to submit to a homosexual act. And
35:17
Speaker 2: despite all that, not only did Larry Layton stay in
35:20
Speaker 2: the People's Temple when things finally went off the rails,
35:23
Speaker 2: he was one of the people who started shooting to
35:25
Speaker 2: protect Jim Jones. Even his eventual prosecution includes some really
35:31
Speaker 2: lucky breaks that kind of imply he had at least
35:34
Speaker 2: some level of protection from the government, like how he
35:38
Speaker 2: was only tried for shooting the two Jonestown defectors he
35:41
Speaker 2: shot in Guyana, where he was found not guilty. Despite
35:45
Speaker 2: presenting no defense of any sort to counter the eyewitness
35:50
Speaker 2: testimony of the people he shot, still got off on
35:54
Speaker 2: that charge. It took another three years for him to
35:57
Speaker 2: be charged in connection to the shooting of Leo Ryan,
36:00
Speaker 2: and once again despite lots of eyewitness testimony that said
36:05
Speaker 2: he was part of the team sent to assassinate Leo Ryan,
36:08
Speaker 2: his first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury
36:11
Speaker 2: deadlocked at eleven to one in favor of acquittal. Interesting
36:15
Speaker 2: quote from the local press around that time that is
36:18
Speaker 2: also quoted in the Jonestown book Survivors of the Carnage
36:22
Speaker 2: insist the real story has yet to be told. They
36:25
Speaker 2: maintain there must be an epilogue, one that would include
36:29
Speaker 2: an investigation of the government's involvement at Jonestown. And for
36:33
Speaker 2: the record, that was also Larry Layton's defense at his
36:36
Speaker 2: trial that he was the scapegoat for a CIA experiment
36:40
Speaker 2: gone awrye. In other words, immediately and for years after
36:44
Speaker 2: it happened, a lot of people were suggesting that the
36:47
Speaker 2: CIA was involved in Jonestown. Here's another quote from Jim Cobb,
36:51
Speaker 2: a Jonestown survivor who testified at the trial. There is
36:55
Speaker 2: a cover up involved in people's temple in Jonestown that
36:59
Speaker 2: will make water Gets look innocent. We've got to get
37:02
Speaker 2: to the bottom of this and let the truth be told.
37:05
Speaker 2: Commentary Brake, I fully accept that this theory is very
37:10
Speaker 2: much towing, if not completely crossing the line into victim blaming,
37:15
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to doctor Layton. If you're having
37:17
Speaker 2: that same sinking feeling, let me tell you why this
37:21
Speaker 2: isn't the same as, say Sandy Hook, which is another
37:25
Speaker 2: theory that gets way way way into victim blaming. The
37:28
Speaker 2: difference here is everything I just said about Larry Layton,
37:32
Speaker 2: and his eventual criminal defense. He was there and he
37:36
Speaker 2: says the CIA was involved. An aid to le O'Ryan,
37:40
Speaker 2: who was present when Leo Ryan was killed, said the
37:43
Speaker 2: CIA was involved, which we'll talk about a lot later.
37:46
Speaker 2: There were Jonestown survivors quoted shortly after the massacre saying
37:51
Speaker 2: the CIA was involved. You don't have any of that
37:54
Speaker 2: with Sandy Hook. There are no rogue parents or teachers
37:58
Speaker 2: coming out of the woodworks to say there's more about
38:01
Speaker 2: Sandy Hook than we know. But in this case, it
38:04
Speaker 2: seems like more than a few victims agree with the
38:07
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory too, and stuff like that matters. Another good
38:10
Speaker 2: example is James R. Lay He was arrested and charged
38:13
Speaker 2: with killing Martin Luther King Junior spent the rest of
38:16
Speaker 2: his life in prison for it, even though he always
38:19
Speaker 2: maintained he was innocent. You know who else agreed that
38:21
Speaker 2: he was innocent. Mlk's family. And speaking of families, let's
38:26
Speaker 2: get back to the Layton family. Larry Layton was the
38:28
Speaker 2: first member of the family to join the People's Temple,
38:31
Speaker 2: but he wasn't the only one. In fact, every member
38:35
Speaker 2: of that family had some sort of high level involvement
38:38
Speaker 2: in Jonestown. So let's run through a few more, which
38:41
Speaker 2: I'll try to do as quickly as possible, and then
38:44
Speaker 2: we'll end things by talking about the most important Layton
38:47
Speaker 2: family Jonestown connection of all. First, Ana Lisa Layton, Larry's sister.
38:52
Speaker 2: Her involvement in the People's Temple was brief about six months,
38:57
Speaker 2: but during that time she was one of Jim Jones
38:59
Speaker 2: twn aides. She left conveniently enough, right before the People's
39:04
Speaker 2: Temple packed up and moved to Guyana, and according to
39:08
Speaker 2: the Meyers book, she doesn't surface again in the story
39:11
Speaker 2: until about six months before the massacre, when she sends
39:15
Speaker 2: a plane ticket to her sister, Deborah, who was living
39:17
Speaker 2: at Jonestown. And let's talk about Deborah. She is the
39:21
Speaker 2: baby of the family, kind of a problem child from
39:24
Speaker 2: a behavioral standpoint. She finally straightened out after her parents
39:28
Speaker 2: sent her to a Quaker boarding school in England. And
39:32
Speaker 2: while she was there she met and fell in love
39:34
Speaker 2: with a guy named George Phil Blakey. What a nickname?
39:38
Speaker 2: How does a nickname like Phil even happen? Is it
39:41
Speaker 2: maybe fill? And they're just assuming it's spelled Phil? What
39:46
Speaker 2: did he phil to get that nickname anyway, during a
39:49
Speaker 2: summer break, she returns to California to stay with her family,
39:53
Speaker 2: and that's when she meets Jim Jones and the two
39:56
Speaker 2: of them keep in touch when she returns to England,
39:59
Speaker 2: and eventually she talks to Phil about Jim Jones, who
40:02
Speaker 2: weirdly enough, already knew a bunch about him. So after graduation,
40:06
Speaker 2: Deborah and Phil returned to the US and they joined
40:09
Speaker 2: the People's Temple. In nineteen seventy three, they're both appointed
40:13
Speaker 2: to the People's Temple's Planning Commission. These were the elites
40:18
Speaker 2: at Jonestown, the guards, the aids, the medical technicians, Jonestown
40:23
Speaker 2: middle management, if you will. They were easy to differentiate
40:27
Speaker 2: from the lower level Jonestown residents who were forced into
40:31
Speaker 2: slave labor, basically because those people were mostly black and
40:36
Speaker 2: all of the elites were white. Go figure. Now, in
40:39
Speaker 2: the name of not wearing you out with all the details,
40:42
Speaker 2: let's just say Deborah Layton eventually becomes the CFO of Jonestown.
40:47
Speaker 2: She was in charge of the money, and there was
40:49
Speaker 2: lots of it. Deborah Layton is actually one of the
40:52
Speaker 2: most notorious and famous figures from Jonestown because she was
40:58
Speaker 2: involved right up until the very end, and then manages
41:02
Speaker 2: to escape and gets treated like a victim, even though,
41:06
Speaker 2: as we're learning right now, she was one of those
41:09
Speaker 2: top level people. She wasn't being subjugated at the People's
41:13
Speaker 2: Temple or at Jonestown. She was helping to subjugate people,
41:17
Speaker 2: even if she was talked into that by Jim Jones. Still, so,
41:22
Speaker 2: like I said, she was in charge of the money,
41:23
Speaker 2: and there was a lot of money. We'll get into
41:25
Speaker 2: it more later, but among other sources, the People's Temple
41:29
Speaker 2: was flush with cash on account of how a lot
41:32
Speaker 2: of the members receive Social Security money from the state,
41:35
Speaker 2: which they promptly handed over to the temple. That's one
41:38
Speaker 2: of the saddest details I've come across in all the
41:41
Speaker 2: reading I've done about this, and one that also points
41:43
Speaker 2: to possible government involvement of some sort if you ask me.
41:47
Speaker 2: At one point, a bunch of People's Temple members somehow
41:50
Speaker 2: managed to get jobs at California welfare offices. And those
41:54
Speaker 2: are the people who did the majority of the recruiting.
41:57
Speaker 2: So whoever did it, this was a really in citi
42:00
Speaker 2: scheme that centered mostly around victimizing the most vulnerable people
42:04
Speaker 2: they could find oh and there were also somewhere around
42:06
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty kids who were taken in by
42:08
Speaker 2: Jonestown who were previously considered wards of the state of California.
42:13
Speaker 2: The state placed them with Jim Jones and the People's Temple.
42:17
Speaker 2: Pretty suspicious, pretty tragic. And Debora Layton handled all that money.
42:22
Speaker 2: That was her role, and she survived, by the way,
42:24
Speaker 2: you can still see her giving talks on YouTube and whatnot.
42:27
Speaker 2: As for Phil Blakey, she married him in nineteen seventy two.
42:31
Speaker 2: The book claims it was just so he could stay
42:33
Speaker 2: in the country and keep working on the Jonestown project
42:37
Speaker 2: with Jim Jones and doctor Layton, and he does. He
42:41
Speaker 2: eventually goes on to be the guy who literally builds Jonestown,
42:45
Speaker 2: like goes to Guyana, clears the jungle, oversees the construction.
42:50
Speaker 2: Except when he was doing that, it was also part
42:53
Speaker 2: of a CIA operation called Project Shalom that trained black
42:57
Speaker 2: Vietnam vets to be mercenaries. That's not me up, it's
43:00
Speaker 2: a real thing. We're probably gonna do an entire bonus
43:03
Speaker 2: episode about Project Shalom, but for now, let's stay focused
43:07
Speaker 2: on the Layton family. Deborah Layton was the money person.
43:10
Speaker 2: Her husband Phil was the builder. As for that rumor
43:13
Speaker 2: that they only married so he could stay in the country,
43:16
Speaker 2: shortly after the Jonestown massacre, their marriage was annulled on
43:19
Speaker 2: the grounds that it was never consummated. Decide for yourself.
43:22
Speaker 2: So now we've got three Layton family members, if he
43:26
Speaker 2: count Deborah's husband already involved in Jonestown. One of them
43:30
Speaker 2: is the person who did the shooting at the end,
43:34
Speaker 2: one of them is again for all intents and purposes,
43:37
Speaker 2: the chief financial officer of Jonestown. And one of them,
43:41
Speaker 2: Deborah's husband, is the guy who built Jonestown. And again
43:45
Speaker 2: we're talking about a family with some very uncomfortable ties
43:50
Speaker 2: to the Nazis, and we are not done with their
43:53
Speaker 2: involvement in Jonestown. There's also Thomas Layton. He was the
43:58
Speaker 2: oldest child writer of the family. He was tasked with
44:01
Speaker 2: compiling an ethnography of the people's temple. That, of course,
44:06
Speaker 2: say it with me everybody is a study of the
44:09
Speaker 2: characteristics of various peoples and the differences in relationships between them.
44:13
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. One thing I love about our audience.
44:15
Speaker 2: I have no doubt that someone did say that with
44:18
Speaker 2: me It's not clear if that ethnography was ever finished,
44:22
Speaker 2: but if it was, the CIA probably took it and
44:24
Speaker 2: classified it right away after the massacre, though, Thomas Layton
44:28
Speaker 2: did write a book about Jonestown that, according to Michael Myers,
44:32
Speaker 2: was mostly accurate, but also went to really weird links
44:36
Speaker 2: to paint the entire family as being homosexual, just like
44:40
Speaker 2: their cover story for coming to the country was going
44:44
Speaker 2: to say if it ever came to light that they
44:46
Speaker 2: weren't actually Jewish neat And now let's talk about arguably
44:50
Speaker 2: the most important Layton family member with connections to Jonestown.
44:54
Speaker 2: Lisa Philip Layton, the mom, you know, the one who
44:57
Speaker 2: worked for the CIA a while back in the day.
45:00
Speaker 2: She was first introduced to Jim Jones through her son
45:03
Speaker 2: Larry in the nineteen sixties, but she didn't join the
45:06
Speaker 2: People's Temple until nineteen seventy three. And again, there are
45:11
Speaker 2: two ways that history has viewed Lisa Phillip Layton's involvement
45:16
Speaker 2: in Jonestown. One, she was the final member of the
45:20
Speaker 2: Layton family to be seduced by Jim Jones, leaving doctor
45:25
Speaker 2: Layton penniless and familyless, a victim of Jim Jones. Or
45:31
Speaker 2: some people view her as the Layton family member who
45:34
Speaker 2: swoops in at the last moment to provide cover for
45:38
Speaker 2: everyone else. Here's what happens. She joins the People's Temple
45:42
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy three. Shortly after she did, she divorced
45:46
Speaker 2: doctor Layton and gave all the cash and property she
45:50
Speaker 2: got in that divorce to Jim Jones. Doctor Layton would
45:54
Speaker 2: later claim that she also had offshore accounts full of
45:57
Speaker 2: money that her rich father had been sending her, and
46:00
Speaker 2: that those were also drained to finance Jonestown, which is
46:03
Speaker 2: weird since, according to the official cover story, the family
46:07
Speaker 2: fortune was lost during World War Two. Anyway, at Jonestown,
46:10
Speaker 2: Lisa lived in the guesthouse outside the complex that was
46:14
Speaker 2: used for visiting dignitaries and things of the like. So
46:18
Speaker 2: again very upper echelon member of the People's Temple. Further
46:22
Speaker 2: proof of that is that she sent a bunch of
46:25
Speaker 2: letters to people back home during her eleven months in Jonestown.
46:30
Speaker 2: She didn't go to Jonestown itself until eleven months before
46:34
Speaker 2: the massacre happened. She was in the People's Temple since
46:37
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three, and then at the last minute she
46:40
Speaker 2: shows up at Jonestown, and what she's accused of in
46:44
Speaker 2: this book is pretty wild. Basically, the claim is that
46:47
Speaker 2: she faked her death, and I think it kind of
46:49
Speaker 2: makes some sense because keep in mind, we're talking about
46:52
Speaker 2: someone who's getting to live in the house that is
46:55
Speaker 2: reserved for dignitaries. She's an important person at Jonestown. Does
47:00
Speaker 2: it seem like she's the kind of person who if
47:01
Speaker 2: she died, they would just forget where they buried her,
47:04
Speaker 2: Because that's the story. So here's what happened. After Deborah
47:07
Speaker 2: Layton very publicly defected from Jonestown, which the book claims
47:11
Speaker 2: was actually a stunt designed to entice le O'Ryan into
47:15
Speaker 2: coming to Jonestown. More on that later, but anyway, after
47:18
Speaker 2: that happened, Lisa Philip Layton radioed a formal statement to
47:23
Speaker 2: the press in which she called Deborah a drug addict
47:27
Speaker 2: who stole from the temple to support her drug habit
47:30
Speaker 2: and called her ex husband an anti semi Do you
47:33
Speaker 2: see what she did there? With that one radio statement,
47:37
Speaker 2: Lisa Philip Layton officially distanced her ex husband, doctor Lawrence Layton,
47:44
Speaker 2: and her daughter Deborah from any involvement in what happened
47:48
Speaker 2: at Jonestown with that one address to the press, her
47:52
Speaker 2: daughter at the very least, who was seriously involved in Jonestown,
47:57
Speaker 2: like handling the money involved With that one radio address,
48:03
Speaker 2: Lisa Philip Layton almost entirely clears Deborah Layton of any involvement,
48:08
Speaker 2: at least in the eyes of the press, and very
48:10
Speaker 2: much shields doctor Lawrence Layton from any scrutiny that might
48:15
Speaker 2: have come from the fact that he used to be
48:19
Speaker 2: one of the nation's top chemical warfare researchers with lots
48:24
Speaker 2: of ties to the intelligence community, and now his entire
48:28
Speaker 2: family is participating in an operation that lots of people
48:32
Speaker 2: think the CIA is involved in, and his family is
48:35
Speaker 2: participating at the very highest levels, meaning they're not going
48:39
Speaker 2: to suffer that much from their participation. It's pretty convenient,
48:43
Speaker 2: and this is the point where the world starts hearing
48:46
Speaker 2: about the Layton family and the tragedy that had befallen them.
48:50
Speaker 2: So before the massacre even happened, the people who helped
48:54
Speaker 2: bring Jonestown to life started distancing themselves from it very publicly.
48:59
Speaker 2: As for Lisa herself, the official story is that she
49:02
Speaker 2: died of cancer and was buried somewhere inside Jonestown, but
49:06
Speaker 2: no one ever said where or bothered looking for. When
49:09
Speaker 2: Deborah defected, she presented a letter to Leo Ryan that,
49:13
Speaker 2: among other things, asked that he passed along a message
49:16
Speaker 2: to her mom Lisa, which implies that the family thought
49:20
Speaker 2: she was still there and alive, unless Debrah did that
49:25
Speaker 2: to provide cover for her mom Lisa. Because Leo Ryan
49:29
Speaker 2: does take that letter, and when he gets to Jonestown,
49:32
Speaker 2: he starts looking for Lisa Phillip Layton, and that is
49:36
Speaker 2: when he and allegedly the family find out that whoops,
49:41
Speaker 2: she died. She died on October thirtieth, eighteen, short days
49:45
Speaker 2: before the Jonestown massacre, and they just buried her out
49:48
Speaker 2: in the yard somewhere, and no one knows where. Really,
49:51
Speaker 2: the woman who was staying by herself in the dignitary
49:55
Speaker 2: house died of cancer and you just buried her in
49:58
Speaker 2: the yard, who'd been in constant contact with her family
50:02
Speaker 2: this whole time. Not once does she fire off a
50:05
Speaker 2: letter and say, hey, I think it's coming. I think
50:07
Speaker 2: I'm gonna die. That seems strange, right, And I think
50:10
Speaker 2: you can see where the theory is going from here.
50:13
Speaker 2: It's that Lisa Phillip Layton didn't die, She just escaped
50:17
Speaker 2: after providing cover for doctor Layton in Deborah to separate
50:22
Speaker 2: themselves from Jonestown. And if that was the plan, it worked,
50:25
Speaker 2: because again, the only Layton who faced any sort of
50:28
Speaker 2: repercussions for any of this was Larry Layton. And if
50:32
Speaker 2: you're wondering, he's since been released from prison way back
50:34
Speaker 2: in two thousand and two. He wasn't just the only
50:37
Speaker 2: Layton to face charges, he was the only person to
50:41
Speaker 2: face charges at all. And please remember, his main defense
50:44
Speaker 2: eventually became that he was the scapegoat for a CIA
50:48
Speaker 2: project gone awry. And what's interesting about his trial is
50:52
Speaker 2: that he was charged with conspiracy, but also he was
50:55
Speaker 2: the only person tried. Conspiracy obviously implies the involvement of
50:59
Speaker 2: several people, some of them were his siblings, especially Deborah,
51:03
Speaker 2: who was alive and well and hit in the lecture
51:06
Speaker 2: circuit by this point, but because of that radio address
51:09
Speaker 2: from her mother, everyone viewed her as a victim as
51:12
Speaker 2: opposed to a participant, so she was never charged with anything.
51:17
Speaker 2: Neither were the other gunmen who participated in the Leo
51:20
Speaker 2: Ryan ambush, even though we knew who they were and
51:24
Speaker 2: knew that they survived, why would they not arrest those people. Well,
51:28
Speaker 2: one obvious explanation is that they didn't want anything those
51:31
Speaker 2: people might have revealed, or that their lawyers might uncover
51:35
Speaker 2: about government involvement getting entered into the record. The way
51:39
Speaker 2: you do that is by having one loyal participant take
51:42
Speaker 2: the fall, Like when one of jay Z's friends stabbed
51:45
Speaker 2: a guy in a club and jay Z went to
51:47
Speaker 2: prison for it, but in reverse, everyone else in the
51:50
Speaker 2: Layton family not only escaped, but they escaped with the
51:54
Speaker 2: sympathy of the American public. Or think of it this way.
51:57
Speaker 2: When Jonestown was finally over, all of the peace people
52:00
Speaker 2: who planned it and made it happen escaped, while most
52:03
Speaker 2: of the people they lorded over during their time there died.
52:06
Speaker 2: I know what you're gonna say, though not Jim Jones
52:08
Speaker 2: except also Jim Jones is known to have used body doubles.
52:11
Speaker 2: There's a weird incident from his history where during his
52:15
Speaker 2: time in Brazil, a trip he was only able to
52:18
Speaker 2: take after obtaining a passport. Obviously, he was issued another
52:21
Speaker 2: passport in the United States while he was in Brazil.
52:25
Speaker 2: Who was that who picked that up? He didn't fly
52:27
Speaker 2: back from Brazil just to apply for another passport so
52:31
Speaker 2: he could fly back to Brazil. That would be mighty silly.
52:34
Speaker 2: So who was that other passport for and what really
52:37
Speaker 2: happened to Jim Jones after the Jonestown massacre. That is
52:42
Speaker 2: all stuff we're going to get into on a future episode.
52:45
Speaker 2: As for now, I think I've talked enough. We've run
52:48
Speaker 2: through a lot of history about the Layton family. Again,
52:52
Speaker 2: I gave you the link. You can go read the
52:54
Speaker 2: book for yourself. There's a lot more information about this.
52:56
Speaker 2: This is possibly the longest chapter in the book. Go
52:59
Speaker 2: read it for your and a thing I rarely say,
53:03
Speaker 2: decide for yourself. Personally, I'm still on the side of
53:07
Speaker 2: the Layton family having involvement in this that didn't involve
53:11
Speaker 2: them being seduced into it. But hey, we'll talk about
53:15
Speaker 2: all of that a little more a little later. Until then.
53:18
Speaker 2: I don't, I don't. I don't think I have anything
53:21
Speaker 2: to plug. It's always weird plug and stuff on solo episodes.
53:24
Speaker 2: I never know how to end solo episodes. What like,
53:28
Speaker 2: I'm not going to give a conclusion, like I came
53:30
Speaker 2: to a conclusion, you know what this was about. So
53:32
Speaker 2: I usually just ramble aimlessly for a couple seconds until
53:38
Speaker 2: I finally say thanks everybody, goodbye, we love you.
54:01
Speaker 1: Distort