Joseph Blatchford another reason to be discouraged." In 1977 Blatchford founded his private law practice, Summit Communications, in the field of international trade. Blatchford has represented "flower growers in Costa Rica, cement and toy balloon producers in Mexico, leather handbag exporters in Colombia, school ring binder makers in Singapore, and petrochemicals firms in Argentina." Blatchford is also the co-founder of Caribbean/Latin American Action, a business advocacy group. In 1978 Blatchford represented 13 defectors from Reverend Jim Jones' cult who were with Congressman Leo Ryan when he was killed at the airstrip near Jonestown in Guyana. In 1989 Blatchford was the principal lawyer
Leo Ryan presided over hearings involving his later successor as Congressman, Tom Lantos. Ryan pushed through important educational policies in California and authored what came to be known as the "Ryan Act", which established an independent regulatory commission to monitor educational credentialing in the state. During his time in Congress, Ryan went to Newfoundland with James Jeffords to investigate the inhumane killing of seals, and he was famous for vocal criticism of the lack of Congressional oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), authoring the Hughes–Ryan Amendment, which would have required extensive CIA notification of Congress about planned covert operations. Congressman Ryan