In light of the weekend’s shooting, I thought the under-50 set might be interested in learning about the only Congressmember ever “killed in the line of duty” — Leo Ryan, who was for a little while one of the most fascinating politicians, and activists, in America.

Ryan was killed in Guyana in 1978 as his plane was prepping to depart for its return to the US. He’d gone over there to figure out what the hell was happening at Jonestown — Jim Jones had been an important religious and political figure in greater San Francisco, where Ryan was based. Many members of the cult were his former (New-Age, SF style) constituents and he wanted to make sure that they weren’t coerced into staying. While he was there, several members slipped him notes pleading for help escaping. As Ryan left with a handful of former cultists, Jones ordered one of his loyalists to pose as a defector and knock off the others. The cult drank their Kool-Aid a few hours later.

Ryan was the rare true activist who made it to the top echelons of US politics — posing as a prisoner at Folsom to investigate prisoner conditions, teaching in Watts after the riots while he was also a member of the California Assembly — and was one of the most forceful CIA critics that the Congress has ever seen (think left-wing Ron Paul) so there’s no dearth of theories about why he might have died.

Here’s an NBC news special from that day — the portions on Leo Ryan are in the latter half.