Leo Ryan - People's Temple - Travels To Jonestown

Travels To Jonestown

On November 1, 1978, Ryan announced that he would visit Jonestown. He did so as part of a government investigation and received permission and government funds to do so. He made the journey in his role as chairman of a congressional subcommittee with jurisdiction over U.S. citizens living in foreign countries. He asked the other members of his Bay Area congressional delegation to join him on the investigation to Jonestown, but they all declined his invitation. Ryan had also asked his friend Indiana Congressman Dan Quayle to accompany him – Quayle had served with Ryan on the Government Operations Committee – but Quayle was unable to go on the trip.

While the party was initially planned to consist of only a few members of the Congressman's staff and press as part of the congressional delegation, once the media learned of the trip the entourage ballooned to include, among others, Concerned Relatives members. Congressman Ryan traveled to Jonestown with 17 Bay Area relatives of Peoples Temple members, several newspaper reporters and an NBC TV team. When the legal counsel for Jones attempted to impose several restrictive conditions on the visit, Ryan responded that he would be traveling to Jonestown whether Jones permitted it or not. Ryan's stated position was that a "settlement deep in the bush might be reasonably run on authoritarian lines". However, residents of the settlement must be allowed to come and go as they pleased. He further asserted that if the situation had become "a gulag", he would do everything he could to "free the captives".