Talk:Leo Ryan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Leo Ryan article. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale. [FAQ] See comments
	This article is supported by the Politics and government work group.

Leo Ryan is part of WikiProject U.S. Congress, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to the United States Congress. You can help by editing this article. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject U.S. Congress articles.

	This article is part of WikiProject California, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to California on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page to join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.

This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view its sub-page to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.

	To-do list for Leo Ryan:	edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
Here are some tasks you can do: Requests: Free image photos of trip to Jonestown. Free image photo of grave (gravestone reads "Congressional Gold Medal", will look nice). Copyedit: Could always use more copy editing, but in this case moreso improvement of overall diction of article. Expand: Expand upon political activities in California pre-Election to Congress. Add subsection with link to main article: Leo J. Ryan Federal Building Expand upon political activities as Congressman: Committees served on, role, legislation, voting record...

Archives June 2006 – February 2007

[edit] Update on Larry Layton

Dear Friends,

I researched a documentary film on Jonestown a few years ago, and during that job I spoke to some relatives of Larry Layton, to one victim of his violence, and also to one of the lawyers who represented him.

Larry was a prisoner of 18 years whose worst offence in prison was to return a library book late. A key reason why he was realeased is that a parole hearing took place very shortly after 9/11. Jackie Speier, who was badly wounded at the airstrip, is now a major figure in the government of California. She had always argued against Layton's release, but this time, she had other pressing duties because of 9/11.

At the hearing, a key witness was Vernon Gosney, who was shot by Layton at the Port Kaituma scene. Gosney argued that he could not bear that one man should suffer for all the crimes of Jim Jones. Vernon Gosney is now a police officer, living with AIDS, in the state of Hawaii.

Layton has worked at lousy retail jobs since his release, and he absolutely never talks about Jonestown, in spite of the enormous Media attention of recent years. I have spoken to a few of his relatives, and they all say that Larry will just shake his head and decline to comment, even to them. The only exceptions I know of are to his sister (Debbie Layton) and to his lawyers, and then only in refernce to his legal affairs.

Sincerely yours, Robert P. Helms —The preceding unsigned comment was added by BobHelms (talk • contribs) 00:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Notes regarding Leo Ryan

Hello Friends,

I researched a film about Jonestown a few years ago, and in the process I spoke with two of Leo Ryan's daughters, as well as other paople close to the congressman. I am writing to note that Leo was a positively charismatic person, and that his daughters told me that his little speech on the evening before his death was perhaps not as relaxed as people who did not know the man would assume. They felt that he showed signs of pressure that one would not notice unless they knew him personally.

I think that it is also important to know that Ryan was married more than twice, and that at least one of his several children was or is a member of a cult. This has played into the after-story of Jonestown a great deal.

Sincerely, Robert P. Helms

• Robert, thank you for your information. If you want this to get into the article, please let us know on the talk page here locations of some sourced secondary reputable citations, and I and/or others will add the material. But you have already given some tidbits and I will hunt for more sources. Thank you for the info. Yours, Smee 03:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC).