What was congressman Leo Ryan thinking?

[whitehall]

Pop history has it that congressman Ryan went to Jonestown Guyana to investigate allegations that the Rev. Jim Jones was holding people against their will but Ryan brought no security or even alerted local authorities. Wouldn't it have been more prudent to alert the FBI rather than traveling to Jonestwn? The Rev. Jones was an unapologetic communist and the darling of the left coast political elite. He was photographed on numerous occasions with then 1st Lady Roslyn Carter and was presented with the MLK award for interracial harmony and was instrumental in the election of a democrat as mayor of San Francisco for which he was given a lucrative city job. Jones was aware of Ryan's pending visit so there must have been some communication between them. Is it more likely that Ryan traveled to Jonestown along with an entourage of news people to quell the rumors rather than investigate them? He was probably unaware that Jones had slipped into a paranoid psychosis until he was stabbed by a church member and by that time it was too late.

 

[Moonglow]

Ryan was investigating at the behest of relatives worried about the relatives being abused and held captive.

 

[whitehall]

If it was alleged that Jonesown inmates were being abused or held captive you would think the FBI would be alerted. It's not the job of a congressman to put himself in harms way. A good guess is that Jim Jones was a friend of the democrat party and they thought he was harmless and they didn't want to tarnish his legacy by bringing the FBI into the case. It turned out to be a tragic mistake.