November 19, 1978, AP / Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal, U.S. Rep., Newsmen Shot, Feared Dead,

November 19, 1978, AP /  Daytona Beach Sunday News-Journal, U.S. Rep., Newsmen Shot, Feared Dead,

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department said late Saturday it has been told Rep. Leo J. Ryan, D-Calif., and a number of reporters have been shot and killed after an attack on the congressman's fact finding mission at the airport in Port Kaituma, Guyana.

Ryan was leading a 13 person delegation investigating a controversial American religious settlement at Jonestown in the South American country.

State Department Spokesman Tom Reston said the report reached Washington by a flash message from the U.S. embassy in Guyana, formerly a British colony. Reston said the shooting and Ryan's death have not been confirmed,

Reston said the report was relayed by a pilot who was flying Ryan, a group of reporters and a Ryan sraff worker, to the People's Temple, a settlement of about 1,200 Americans established in Guyana a year ago by Jim Jones, a former San Francisco city official.

The pilot escaped escaped by flying away from the attackers in one of two planes on the landing strip near the settlement.

Before leaving San Francisco five days ago Ryan said: "I am going to investigate the conditions of Americans (in the Jones settlement) who, I have been told, are working from dawn to nightfall, with terrible mental and physical punishments if they don't work hard enough."

The State Department said it is unclear when the shootings occurred.

Jeff Dieterich, of the department's Latin America desk, said the pilot, who has not been identified by name or nationality, reported it appeared an entire NBC-TV crew headed by Corresponndent Don Harris, waas shot along with Ryan. It was unclear about the crew's condition, Dieterich said. Also left behind after the shooting was Mark Lane, the lawyer representing James Earl Ray, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin. Lane was along as counsel for Jones.

Dieterich, said reports from the U.S. mission showed that two planes had flown to Jonestown and were preparing to leave when the shooting broke out.

He said some nine members of the controversial settlement were leaving with Ryan and had boarded one of the planes when one of the nine pulled a gun and began shooting.

The pilot and crew members from the plane that was to carry the departing sect members jumped from the plane Dieterich said, ran to a second plane and flew from the remote Port Kaituma strip.

The pilot reported general panic with Ryan and the NBC crew lying as if dead, others still moving but wounded and still others running for cover.

Dieterich said the Port Kaituma strip is not lighted and is blocked by the damaged plane. He said Guyana officials were flying soldiers and police to a nearby, lighted airport. He said confirmation of the shootings probably would not be available before first light this morning.

Those on the flight were: Miss Jackie Speier, legislative counsel to Ryan; Lane; Charles Gary, a lawyer; Richard Dwyer, U.S. deputy chief of mission at Georgetown, Guyana; Harris; Bob Flick, NBC-TV; Ron Javers, the San Francisco Chronicle; Tim Rieterman, the San Francisco Examiner; Charles Krause, The Washington Post; Gregory Robinson, the San Francisco Examiner; S. Song, NBC; and Robert Brown, NBC.

The controversial People's Temple first was founded by Jones in Northern California 15 years ago and claims a

(See SHOOTING on page 6A)