Leo Ryan was representing us

Leo Ryan’s tragic death at Jonestown in Guyana forever linked him to the story of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. That 1978 event became an epic heard of around the world. We may have forgotten that Ryan represented a constituency here in northern San Mateo County.

Leo J. Ryan, Jr. was born in Lincoln, Neb. in 1925. He attended Catholic schools. He interrupted his education with his service in the Navy during World War II. After receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Creighton University, he settled in South San Francisco. He taught history at Capuchino High School in San Bruno. Capuchino was noted in this area for its outstanding marching band. He helped chaperon the band in 1961 when it went to Washington, D. C. to participate in John F. Kennedy’s inaugural parade. The story goes that he was inspired by President Kennedy’s address calling for people to give back to the country and decided to seek public office.

Actually, he had already served on the recreation commission of South San Francisco and then had been elected to the City Council in 1956. He had run for the state Assembly in 1958 and had barely lost to incumbent Louis Francis of San Mateo.

In 1962, he was elected mayor of South San Francisco. He didn’t serve in this office long, however, because reapportionment created a new north county Assembly seat later in that year. He ran and easily won the seat. He became a leader in the Assembly as he had a very strong and colorful personality. He was a supporter of education and the environment and a foe of social inequality.

After the Watts riots of 1965, he went into that area and worked as a substitute teacher to investigate and document conditions there. In 1970, he arranged to have himself arrested under a pseudonym to investigate conditions in the California prison system. In his investigations he always wanted to experience things first hand.

Ryan left the California Assembly in 1972 when he was elected to Congress. Again, this was due to reapportionment creating a new North County seat in the House of Representatives. As always, he was very vocal about the causes he fought for or against. He was against the Vietnam War. He fought the inhumane killing of seals in Newfoundland after he visited there himself, of course. He was critical of judicial excess of the CIA and called for more congressional oversight. To this end, he authored the Hughes-Ryan Amendment, which would have reined in the CIA’s covert operations. That amendment was quietly dropped after his death.

He was critical of L. Ron Hubbard’s Church of Scientology and Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. He was concerned about the hazards of what he considered to be destructive cults.

It was no surprise, then, when he opted to visit Guyana to see for himself what was going on at Jonestown in 1978. When Jim Jones attempted to limit access to the colony, Ryan said he was going with or without the approval of the leader. It was November and he had just been re-elected for his fourth term as the congressman from north San Mateo County. We all know the story of that trip. Leo J. Ryan was the first and only member of Congress to be killed in the line of duty. In 1983 he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal. For more information on this or related topics, visit the San Mateo County History Museum, 2200 Broadway, Redwood City.