Leo Ryan
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Leo Joseph Ryan, Jr. (5 May 1925–18 November 1978) was an American politician of the Democratic Party. He served as a U.S. Representative from the 11th Congressional District of California from 1973 until he was killed in Guyana by members of the People's Temple shortly before the Jonestown Massacre.
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Early career and political highlights
Leo Ryan was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Throughout his early life his family moved frequently, through Illinois, Florida, New York, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. He served with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946 as a submariner. He graduated from Nebraska's Creighton University with an A.B. in 1949 and an M.S. from the same in 1951. He served as a teacher, school administrator and San Francisco councilman from 1956 to 1962, at which time he was elected mayor of South San Francisco, serving less than a year before taking a seat in the California State Assembly, which he held through 1972, when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives.
During his life, Ryan was known for his colorful personality and for the aplomb with which he tackled social inequality. After the Watts Riots of 1965, then-Assemblyman Ryan went to the area and took a job as a substitute school teacher to investigate and document conditions in the area. In 1970, Ryan had himself arrested, detained and strip searched (under a pseudonym and assumed identity) to investigate conditions in the California prison system. While a Congressman, he was famous for vocal criticism of the judicial excess of the CIA, authoring the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, which would have required extensive CIA notification of Congress about planned covert operations. Shortly after his death, the Amendment was quietly dropped, leading to the development of a conspiracy theory relating to his death (although the links proffered about the CIA-Jones-Guyana connection are admittedly extensive). Ryan was also an early critic of L. Ron Hubbard and his Scientology movement.
The People's Temple
In 1978, reports regarding the People's Temple, led by cult leader Jim Jones, began to filter out of their Guyana enclaves about widespread abuse and human rights violations. After reading an article in the San Francisco Examiner, Ryan declared his intention to go to Jonestown, the People's Temple's main enclave. His influence was dual: both that of an organization of citizens (primarily Californians, as were most Temple members) called Concerned Relatives of People's Temple Members combined with his own characteristic distaste for social injustice. In late October and early November of 1978, Ryan declared his intention to travel to Jonestown as part of a government investigation and received permission, and government funds, to do so. While the party was initially planned to have only a few members of the Congressman's staff and press as part of the codel, once the media learned of the trip the entourage ballooned to include, among others, Concerned Relatives members. When the legal counsel for Jones attempted to set a number of restrictive conditions on the visit, Ryan informed Jones' counsel that he would be traveling to Jonestown whether Jones permitted it or not.
Jungle ambuscade
Main article: Jonestown
On 14 November Ryan and his codel left Washington and arrived in Georgetown, Guyana. That night they stayed at a local hotel, where (despite confirmed reservations) most of the rooms had been cancelled and reassigned, leaving the Concerned Relatives members sleeping in the lobby. For the next three days Ryan continued negotiation with Jones' legal counsel and held perfunctory meetings with embassy personnel and Guyanese officials. Finally, on November 17, Ryan, aide Jackie Speier, the United States embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Richard Dwyer, a Guyanese Ministry of Information officer, nine reporters and four Concerned Relatives representatives boarded a small plane for the flight to an airfield a few miles outside of Jonestown.
At first, only the Temple legal counsel was allowed off the plane, but eventually the entire entourage (save Gordon Lindsay, reporting for NBC) was allowed in. Initially, the welcome at Jonestown was warm, but after only a few hours Ryan and his entourage began receiving notes and whispered requests for evacuation from the facility. That night, the media and Concerned Relatives were returned to the airfield for accommodations following Jones' refusal to allow them to stay the night; the rest of the group remained.
The next morning, Ryan, Speier and Dwyer all continued their interviews, and in the morning met a woman who secretly expressed her wish to take her and her family from Jonestown. Around 11 AM, the media and Concerned Relatives returned and themselves took part in interviewing People's Temple members. At around 1500 (3:00) local time, the first group wishing to leave boarded a truck and were taken to the airstrip, Ryan wishing to stay another night. Shortly thereafter, a failed knife attack on Congressman Ryan occurred while he was arbiting a dispute amongst a family split on leaving, and against his protests Deputy Chief of Mission Dwyer ordered Ryan to leave, promising to return later to address the dispute.
The entire group had departed Jonestown and arrived at the airstrip by 1645 (4:45 pm) local time. Their exit transport did not arrive for another twenty minutes. The smaller six-seat Cessna was just taxiing to the end of the runway when one of its occupants opened fire on those inside, wounding several. This was, apparently, the cue for several other People's Temples members who had escorted the group out to open fire on the larger craft, killing Congressman Ryan and four others, wounding another nine. The passengers on the smaller plane managed to subdue their shooter and took off under fire, the larger plane having been disabled and its passengers taking refuge in the jungle.
Following its takeoff the Cessna radioed in a report of the attack, and the US Ambassador, John R. Burke, went to the residence of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. It was another day before the Guyanese army, ordered to arrest Jones and disarm Jonestown, could cut through the jungle and reach the settlement to discover all of its inhabitants dead.
Leo Ryan's body was returned to the United States and is now interred in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Francisco. He was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for his efforts. He is, to date, the only member of Congress ever to have been killed in the line of duty.
External links
- Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee report on Ryan's assassination, 15 May 1979 (http://www.rickross.com/reference/jonestown/jonestown2.html#back)
- Press release from Rep. Tom Lantos, California 12th Congressional District, on the 25th anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre and Ryan's assassination (http://www.house.gov/lantos/releases/PR_031117_leoryan.html)
- Site containing the text of the act issuing the Congressional Gold Medal and an FBI report summary as well as an article on both Jones and his involvement and the investigation (http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/LeoJRyan.htm)
- Congressional biography (http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=R000558)
- A photograph of Ryan's grave (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pis&GRid=3580&PIgrid=3580&PIcrid=7990&PIpi=81897&pt=Leo+Ryan&)
- "Leo J. Ryan Foundation", has information about his anti-scientology speeches and letters (http://www.lermanet.com/house/destructive.htm)