WI: No Jim Jones

Today is the anniversary of the mass suicide in Jonestown.

Thinking about this man all day has made me wonder, what if, Jim Jones was never born or never created the People's Temple? This means that Leo Ryan is not murdered and around 918 people do not die and live into the 80's.

What would happen if there was no Jim Jones?
 
I'm not sure it'd have much an effect. Certainly the biggest would be those people who Jim Jones killed would go on living. What any of them would have done will never be known.
 
Two years after Ryan was murdered, Tom Lantos was elected in that district. Lantos wasn't a career politician, and if it Ryan was still in the seat, it's quite possible that he wouldn't have entered electoral politics at all. Lantos was of course the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a major proponent of human rights.
 
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