Did federal agents use the best advice available in dealing with Koresh and the Branch Davidians?
Experts on cults are questioning the government’s role in the Branch Davidian tragedy, from the February 28 raid on the 77-acre compound in Waco, Texas, to the April 19 assault that ended in the deaths of David Koresh and 85 of his followers.
Despite a 51-day standoff, cult experts and church historians say federal officials failed to understand the unique nature of this aberrant religious community. Ruth Tucker, religion professor at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, says the FBI seemed ill-prepared to handle the eventual outcome in which members apparently set fire to the compound after it was battered by tanks.
“In the minds of his followers, David Koresh was the Messiah,” says Tucker. “To come out with your hands up is not what a messiah is supposed to do.” Tucker says government officials didn’t understand that the idea of surrendering, lengthy trial proceedings, and possible prison terms were unthinkable for Koresh and his followers.
“Koresh was paranoid and delusional,” says sociologist Ron Enroth, professor at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. “In a trapped, cornered, surrounded situation, a horrible outcome is possible.”
FBI spokesman Bob Ricks, who by the end viewed Koresh as a habitual liar, said the leader had promised there would be no mass suicides. Ricks said the FBI thought tear gas and the sight of bashed walls would spur mothers to flee with children in their arms. Yet Tucker notes there had been no attempt during the siege to negotiate directly with the mothers.
Jonestown revisited?
“No one consulted those of us who are real cult experts,” says Margaret Singer, University of California-Berkeley, a professor of psychology who has studied cults for 24 years. She says instead of negotiating in apocalyptic and religious terms, agents used terrorist hostage-taking methods to try to wear down the Branch Davidians. Tucker says the FBI’s psychological warfare added to a “psychotic madman’s dysfunctional behavior.”
Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, agrees.
He says the FBI’s mind-control tactics, such as repeatedly playing Tibetan monk chants over loudspeakers, seemed to be as cultish as Koresh.
FBI director William Sessions said the agency consulted with “scholars and biblical people,” but nobody thought suicide would be an outcome. Tucker, however, says that such a final scenario should have been considered likely since only a week earlier Koresh had warned his enemies about being “devoured by fire.”
Singer says Koresh’s rhetoric and egomaniacal behavior should have clued agents in to the possibility of the standoff ending as Jonestown did in 1978, when more than 900 followers of Jim Jones in Guyana died in a suicide pact.
The government’s action, from the initial raid by more than 100 Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents to the later tank batterings, spurs religious-liberty concerns, George says. “Federal officers at the forefront of the attack acted precipitously. To barge into a compound unprovoked raises real serious questions about intrusive federal authority.”
But Mark Noll, professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College in Illinois, says agents were justified in the early raid to investigate weapons violations. “Government has the job of ensuring the peace. Koresh and his people were the problem.”
Christian radio’s role
In the initial days of the seige, Christian radio broadcasters played an important role in the negotiations between Koresh and federal agents. On March 2, Phoenix-based “America Talks” host Craig Smith received a phone call from an FBI negotiator, who said that Koresh had requested time on Smith’s program to play a 58-minute taped message in exchange for his promise to surrender. Smith agreed when an FBI agent pointed out there were lots of “innocent children” in the compound. Among those who died in the compound were 25 children.
Smith received permission from the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), which broadcasts his show nationally. “My main reservation,” says Shirley Thornton, general manager of CBN Radio Network in Virginia Beach, “was that we didn’t want people to tune in to the middle of Koresh’s message and think that we were aligning ourselves with him.”
Koresh’s recorded message was a rambling treatise on his views concerning the second coming of Christ. Waco Christian station KBBW originated the broadcast and ran the tape uninterrupted. After the message, Smith spoke in complimentary terms. “David, you’ve really given us some things to think about,” he told Koresh on the air. By nightfall, Koresh had reneged on his promise to give up, and Smith felt betrayed. But the station said it had no regrets in the decision.
Ashton Hardy, a New Orleans attorney specializing in communications law, says airing such material was “entirely appropriate” as long as it did not violate FCC rules on disrupting public order or promoting terrorism.
However, the Austin American-Statesman said KBBW had “taken an openly sympathetic stance toward Koresh and his embattled followers.” Smith has been called irresponsible by other media outlets. Smith says, “I guarantee you they would have done the same thing.”
David Clark, chairman of the National Religious Broadcasters, says granting air time to Koresh gave a degree of credibility to his message. Clark says, “I would have aired the tape only if someone could have cross-examined Koresh immediately afterwards on the air. This would have given us some ability to hold him accountable.” However, Clark concedes most program directors would have accommodated the FBI’s request.
In Austin, Christian radio station KIXL, which ran disclaimers every five minutes during the broadcast, afterwards had Prof. Terry Muck of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary point out inconsistencies of Koresh’s theology with orthodox biblical interpretations.
Marvin Olasky, a University of Texas journalism professor, says airing the tape was a bad decision that provided Koresh a propaganda tool. “Journalists cannot let themselves be controlled by terrorists or blackmailers.”
Marks of a cult
Although Koresh made frequent use of biblical texts to defend his reasoning, orthodox Christians have found virtually no beliefs in common with the Branch Davidians. Koresh called himself the Messiah, a second incarnation of Jesus. Koresh said he alone could interpret the Bible.
Married males in the cult had to give their wives to Koresh. Men faithful to this command, upon receiving their glorified bodies, could expect another perfect mate to emerge from their sides. Those who do not give up their wives would be punished, with a male emerging from their sides; then they would be forced to commit public homosexual acts.
The Holy Spirit is feminine, according to Koresh’s theology. God is not a triune being, but is a foursome (father, mother, son, and daughter). The mother of the godhead is the Holy Spirit. The daughter is the “Holy Ghost,” who will one day be incarnated from out of Koresh’s side as his eternal perfect mate.
Exposure of Koresh’s ideas does not necessarily mean fewer people will be attracted to aberrant groups in the future.
“More cults than ever sprang up after Jonestown,” Singer says. “Venal people caught on to how easy it is to gain a psychological stronghold by seduction and charm.”
“Cultism is alive and well,” says Enroth. “But Christians treat it like cancer. We don’t become concerned because we don’t think it’s going to impact us. But it does.”
By John W. Kennedy, with reports from lack Chambers in Austin, Texas, and Richard Abanes, in Irvine, California.
