Don Harris (September 8, 1936 – November 18, 1978) was an
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
correspondent who was killed after departing
Jonestown
The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, a U.S.–based cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationall ...
, an agricultural commune owned by the
Peoples Temple
The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, originally Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church and commonly shortened to Peoples Temple, was an American new religious organization which existed between 1954 and 1978. Founded in Indianapolis, Ind ...
in
Guyana
Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
. Harris and four others were killed by gunfire by Temple members at a nearby
airstrip
An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...
in
Port Kaituma
Port Kaituma is a small village within the Barima-Waini administrative region of Guyana. It became known internationally as a gateway village to the Peoples Temple settlement in nearby Jonestown. It has long been a hub for mining in the area.
...
,
Guyana
Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
. Their murders preceded the death of 909 Temple members in Jonestown and four Temple members in
Georgetown,
Guyana
Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
.
Early life and career
Harris, whose real name was Roy Darwin Humphrey, was born near
Vidalia, Georgia
Vidalia ( ''vye-DAYL-yə'' , ) is a city located primarily in Toombs County, Georgia, United States. The city also extends very slightly into Montgomery County. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,473.
Vidalia is the principal ...
.
In 1957, Harris worked first for WVOP, a radio station located near the place of his birth.
He then began delivering television weather reports at a station in North Carolina.
From 1964 to 1968, Harris worked at WTVT in Tampa, Florida as a staff announcer and morning show producer.
From 1968 to 1969 he worked at WTOP in Washington, DC. In December 1969, he began working as a reporter and news anchor at WFAA-TV in Dallas, TX.
From 1970 to 1972 Harris concurrently co-hosted a live morning TV newsmagazine called "News 8 etc..."
Harris quit WFAA in 1973 following a dispute with management.
In 1973, he began work for NBC-owned KNBC-TV in Los Angeles.
In 1975, NBC promoted Harris to the network news staff, where he covered the fall of Saigon and reported from the trenches in Vietnam.
American soldiers referred to Harris as "Mr. Lucky" because Harris managed to dodge bullets and avoid land mines.
Harris won four
Emmys
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
and the a DuPont/Columbia Award.
In the spring of 1978, before traveling to Jonestown, Harris broadcast an investigative piece on international terrorism that ran on ''NBC Nightly News''.
Death
On November 14, 1978, Harris accompanied California Congressman
Leo Ryan
Leo Joseph Ryan Jr. (May 5, 1925 – November 18, 1978) was an American teacher and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. representative from California's 11th congressional district from 1973 until his assassina ...
, NBC cameraman Bob Brown, NBC producer Bob Flick, NBC sound engineer Steve Sung and several other journalists to
Georgetown,
Guyana
Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
.
The group was investigating rumors of torture, kidnapping and other offenses by the
Peoples Temple
The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, originally Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church and commonly shortened to Peoples Temple, was an American new religious organization which existed between 1954 and 1978. Founded in Indianapolis, Ind ...
in an
agricultural commune An agricultural commune is a commune based on agricultural labor. It is usually differentiated from other forms of collective agriculture by near-complete collective ownership of capital assets and collective consumption of the products of agricul ...
located 150 miles from Georgetown that the Temple called
Jonestown
The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, a U.S.–based cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationall ...
.
Harris' son, Jeffrey Humphrey, said that Harris' family was not particularly worried about Harris' safety at the time because of the danger surrounding the war stories Harris had previously covered.
[KXLY News]
''Slain reporter's legacy kept alive by son''
November 18, 1978 Some of Harris' colleagues at NBC, however, had tried to talk him out of travelling to Guyana.
On November 17, Ryan, Harris and the other journalists flew to Jonestown.
The Peoples Temple's lawyers,
Mark Lane and
Charles Garry
Charles R. Garry (March 17, 1909 – August 16, 1991) was an Armenian-American civil rights attorney who represented a number of high-profile clients in political cases during the 1960s and 1970s, including Huey P. Newton during his 1968 capital ...
, initially refused to allow Ryan's party access to Jonestown.
After Temple leader
Jim Jones
James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American preacher, political activist and mass murderer. He led the Peoples Temple, a new religious movement, between 1955 and 1978. In what he called "revolutionary suicide ...
allowed the party to enter Jonestown, that night, Harris and the Ryan delegation attended a reception in a pavilion in the settlement.
At that reception, unbeknownst to Jones, Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note to Don Harris (mistaking him for Ryan), which read "Dear Congressman, Vernon Gosney and Monica Bagby
nother Temple member Please help us get out of Jonestown."
Harris then passed the note to Ryan.
After the reception, Harris and other media members were informed that the Temple could not provide lodging for them in Jonestown, so that they had to travel to
Port Kaituma
Port Kaituma is a small village within the Barima-Waini administrative region of Guyana. It became known internationally as a gateway village to the Peoples Temple settlement in nearby Jonestown. It has long been a hub for mining in the area.
...
for the night.
On November 18, when Harris and other journalists arrived back in Jonestown, Jim Jones' wife Marceline gave them a tour of the settlement. That afternoon, two families requested to leave with the Ryan delegation.
Harris and other reporters were permitted to interview Jones.
Jones told Harris and other reporters that, like others who left the Temple, the defectors would "lie" and destroy Jonestown.
That afternoon, Harris and the rest of the delegation traveled by Temple dump truck to the nearby Port Kaituma airstrip to depart for Georgetown.
While attempting to board a twin-engine Otter airplane, a group of Temple members drove a red tractor pulling a trailer toward the airplane on which Harris was departing.
"There might be violence," Harris half-jokingly said, and asked Bob Brown to take pictures.
Bob Brown began filming the armed Peoples Temple members as they approached, and continued filming them as they then opened fire on his unarmed party. As Brown filmed the shooters, they murdered him.
Harris died in the attack, along with Ryan, Brown, ''San Francisco Examiner'' photographer Greg Robinson and defecting Temple member Patricia Parks.
The murder of Congressman Ryan was the first and only
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
of a
member of Congress
A Member of Congress (MOC) is a person who has been appointed or elected and inducted into an official body called a congress, typically to represent a particular constituency in a legislature. The term member of parliament (MP) is an equivalen ...
in the line of duty in the history of the United States.
Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around a pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the
September 11, 2001, attacks.
Harris was survived by a wife, Shirley; two daughters, Claire and Lauren; and a son, Jeffrey who, following in his father's footsteps, is now a reporter in Spokane, WA for
KXLY-TV
KXLY-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Morgan Murphy Media. Its studios are located on West Boone Avenue in Spokane, and its transmitter is located on Mount Spokane. ...
.
The family lived in Woodland Hills, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.
[Mike Shanno]
''Profile: News 8 etc.''
Mike Shannon's Tribute to DFW Radio and TV["Escape from Jonestown." CNN. Broadcast: November 13, 2008]
Notes
References
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External links
President Carter's statement on Harris's murderDon Harris at Findagrave
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Don
1936 births
1978 deaths
American people murdered abroad
American television reporters and correspondents
American war correspondents
American war correspondents of the Vietnam War
Assassinated American journalists
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Journalists from Georgia (U.S. state)
NBC News people
People murdered in Guyana
Peoples Temple
People from Vidalia, Georgia
Filmed assassinations
20th-century American journalists
American male journalists