Back ليو رايان Arabic ليو رايان ARZ لئو رایان AZB Leo J. Ryan German Leo Ryan Spanish لئو رایان Persian Leo Ryan Finnish Leo Ryan French Leo Ryan Frisian ליאו ראיין HE
Leo Ryan | |
|---|---|
 Ryan in 1977 | |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 11th district | |
| In office January 3, 1973 – November 18, 1978 | |
| Preceded by | Pete McCloskey |
| Succeeded by | William Royer |
| Member of the California State Assembly from the 27th district | |
| In office January 7, 1963 – January 3, 1973 | |
| Preceded by | Glenn E. Coolidge |
| Succeeded by | Lou Papan |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Leo Joseph Ryan Jr. May 5, 1925 Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S. |
| Died | November 18, 1978 (aged 53) Port Kaituma, Guyana |
| Manner of death | Assassination (gunshot wounds) |
| Resting place | Golden Gate National Cemetery |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouses | Margaret Ryan
(m. 1948; div. 1971) Florence Mehaffy
(m. 1976; div. 1977) |
| Children | 5 |
| Education | Creighton University (BA, MS) |
| Awards | Congressional Gold Medal (posthumous) |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch/service |  United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1943–1946 |
| Battles/wars | |
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 assassination during the Jonestown massacre in 1978. Before that, he served in the California State Assembly, representing the state's 27th district.
After the 1965 Watts riots, Ryan took a job as a substitute school teacher to investigate and document conditions in the Los Angeles area. In 1970, he launched an investigation into California prisons. While presiding as chairman of the Assembly committee that oversaw prison reform, he used a pseudonym to enter Folsom State Prison as an inmate. During his time in Congress, Ryan traveled to Newfoundland to investigate the practice of seal hunting. He was also known for his vocal criticism of the lack of congressional oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and co-authored the Hughes–Ryan Amendment, passed in 1974, which requires the president of the United States to report covert CIA activity to Congress.
In 1978, Ryan traveled to Guyana to investigate claims that people were being held against their will at the Peoples Temple Jonestown settlement. He was shot and killed at an airstrip on November 18, as he and his party were attempting to leave. Shortly after the airstrip shootings, 909 members of the Jonestown settlement died in a mass murder–suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor Aid. Ryan was the second sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives to be assassinated in office, after James M. Hinds in 1868.[1][2]
Ryan was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1983.[3]
- ^ Other members of the House of Representatives have been killed while in office, although not as assassination attempts; others have been the target of deliberate assassination attempts, albeit without success to date. See List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office for details.
- ^ Peters, Justin (November 18, 2013). "The Forgotten, Non-Kool-Aid-Drinking Victims of the Jonestown Massacre". Slate.com. Retrieved October 1, 2014. "Thirty-five years later, Ryan remains the only U.S. representative to be killed in the line of duty."
- ^ "Congressional Gold Medal Recipients | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives". history.house.gov.
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