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Going by the book: Aresponse to Stuart WrightEugene V. Gallagher aa Rosemary Park Professor of Religious Studies,Connecticut College,Version of record first published: 21 Dec 2007.

To cite this article: Eugene V. Gallagher (1999): Going by the book: A responseto Stuart Wright, Terrorism and Political Violence, 11:2, 69-73

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Going by the Book:A Response to Stuart Wright

EUGENE V. GALLAGHER

Stuart Wright indicts the FBI for failing to conduct the entire mission at theBranch Davidians' Mount Carmel Center, including the negotiations, 'bythe book'. However, despite James Fyfe's claims in his Congressionaltestimony, the application of guidelines from a manual such as McMainsand Mullins' Crisis Negotiations to the standoff at Mount Carmel is not asimple matter. There were two very important peculiarities in the situationat Mount Carmel. First, David Koresh did not see himself as a hostage-taker, and those who had come to study under him did not see themselvesas hostages. Although arguments could be made to the contrary on bothcounts, the self-perception of the actors must be taken into account duringnegotiations. The actions of the BATF and FBI imposed an identity onKoresh and the Branch Davidians that they simply did not accept. Second,the people at Mount Carmel constituted an intentional community, and notan ad hoc group that had been created by the recent actions of an unrelatedindividual. Many of those at Mount Carmel had made significant sacrificesin order to learn about the Bible from David Koresh. Some had willinglyabandoned or curtailed careers or educational opportunities; others hadseparated from their families. For all, relocation to Mount Carmel meantaccepting rigorous communal living and, after Koresh proclaimed his 'NewLight' teaching, tacit approval of or even participation in highlyunconventional sexual arrangements. Understanding the distinctivereligious characteristics of the Branch Davidians is fundamental todiagnosing what went wrong at Mount Carmel.

Although he underplays the distinctiveness of the situation, Wright doesshow how tactical considerations consistently trumped the concerns of thenegotiators, progressively complicated their task of resolving the standoffwithout loss of life, and eventually made the situation impossible to resolve.In fact, as more information becomes available, including the transcripts ofthe negotiations with the Branch Davidians, testimony in the 1995Congressional hearings, comments of now retired participants, and theresults of continuing investigative reporting, it is becoming increasinglymisleading to claim that a single entity, 'the FBI', did anything at Mount

Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.11, No.2 (Summer 1999), pp.69-73PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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70 TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Carmel. The fragile, shifting, tense and often contentious relationshipsamong the agents have much to show about the processes that led up to thefinal assault on Mount Carmel. Wright's contention, however, that 'allevidence suggests that the existing hostage and barricade protocols wouldhave produced the desired effect'1 is necessarily speculative. There iscountervailing evidence in the negotiation transcripts which indicates thenegotiators and Branch Davidians had both settled into principled andintransigent positions they were unwilling to abandon.

My reading of the negotiation transcripts indicates that the negotiatorstried in good faith to conduct their conversations with the Branch Davidians'by the book', with as much patience, sympathy, respect, and tolerance asthey could muster. They were, of course, not immune to feelings ofexasperation and frustration, particularly after David Koresh's claim on 2March that God had told him to wait rather than surrender. Negotiators alsospent hundreds of hours listening to expositions of complex doctrine, whichfocused on the apocalyptic meaning of the book sealed with seven seals inchapter five of the New Testament book of Revelation. Koresh's claim tohave been chosen by God to be the first person ever to unseal that book wasat the core of his self-understanding, and the reason why those at MountCarmel had gathered to study with him. The doctrine of the seven seals waswhat Koresh and the rest of the Branch Davidians most wanted to discusswith the FBI negotiators, despite the agents' unending efforts to move thenegotiations to other, more practical topics. Just as the Branch Davidiansnever stopped proclaiming the message of the seven seals, the negotiatorsnever wavered from their primary goal of getting all the Branch Davidians toleave the Mount Carmel Center. I am less confident than Wright that simplyfollowing standard negotiating procedures would have broken the impasse.

Wright based his account of the Waco standoff on another source, theofficial report produced by the Justice Department. This report, however, isa highly controversial document and by no means a simple recounting of the'facts' of the 51-day siege. Widely criticized upon its release for itsunwillingness to be critical of the FBI's performance at Mount Carmel,2 itconsistently fails to recognize how the Branch Davidians saw their religiousbeliefs as central to any resolution of the standoff - offering observationslike 'Koresh immediately began preaching and refused to discuss anymatters of substance.'3 In summarizing the negotiations, it often ignoressubtlety and context in the remarks made by Branch Davidians in order toamplify any statements concerning violence. For example, the JusticeDepartment report offers this summary of negotiations on 4 March:

During the mostly one-sided conversations, Koresh threatened theFBI, discussed the events of February 28, preached for hours,

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GOING BY THE BOOK: A RESPONSE TO STUART WRIGHT 71

discussed his eventual punishment and the death penalty, andexplained his 'miraculous meeting' with God in 1985.4

While it can not be denied that Koresh and others were often angered by theactions of the BATF and FBI, that they voiced their frustrations frequentlyduring the negotiations, and that they fired upon the agents on 28 Februaryand on 19 April, many of Koresh's comments that the Justice reportcategorizes as 'threats' were made in the context of his attempts tocommunicate the millennial doctrine of the seven seals. In that context,Koresh saw all human beings, including himself and his students, aspotentially subject to God's wrath. Many of his 'threats' were proclamationsof God's coming wrath and Koresh's mission as a teacher was to forestallGod's negative judgement. He claimed on 4 March, 'I'm supposed to teachthis stuff so it don't happen. Prophecies, prophecies are given so that theycan be avoided and instead a blessing can be given.'5 From the BranchDavidian standpoint, the government consistently overestimated the dangerthat David Koresh and his students posed to the BATF and FBI agents, andwoefully underestimated the danger that God's imminent judgement posedfor everyone. The Justice Department's report consistently omits orobscures the viewpoint of those within Mount Carmel.

Endorsing the stereotype of the extraordinarily powerful 'cult leader',the report also exaggerates the power that Koresh could exercise over theBranch Davidians. The Davidians themselves 'went by the book'; theytested everything that Koresh taught them against scripture. As StevenSchneider told the negotiators on 15 March about his fellow students of theseven seals, 'all that they are and what they want to be revolves around whatthey see him showing from that book'.6 Scripture retained for the believersan authority independent of David Koresh. The defection of once prominentDavidians, like Marc Breault, demonstrates that Koresh's influence was lessthan irresistible and that principled disagreements about the fidelity of histeaching to scripture could lead students to abandon him.7

Wright also claims, relying on the Justice report's summary, that 'thenegotiation log suggests that Koresh and Schneider became more combativetoward the end of the standoff'.8 Yet, as late as 16 April Schneider was stilltrying to engage a negotiator in an exchange of religious perspectives,asking him to 'share your beliefs' and speculating that 'maybe if one of youwould have done that from the beginning, I might have been out of hereright then'.9 Later that night Schneider told the same negotiator: 'Iunderstand. We're, we're, we're stuck because you're in one vein and we'rein another. This is a religious thing. We're here because of the Bible,because we believe in God.'10 The command personnel's perception that theBranch Davidians were a defiant group is thus only partly borne out by the

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transcripts of the negotiations. Admittedly, the Branch Davidians' religiouscommitment was for them non-negotiable. If God told David Koresh to stay,they would not question his decision to stay. If any of the FBI agents foundthe doctrine of the seven seals merely to be 'Bible babble', it was their soulsthat they were putting at risk. Such religious commitment, however, is notaccurately summarized as simple 'defiance'. If anything, Schneider'scomments on 16 April expressed weary resignation tempered by a modesthope that things could have been otherwise.

The intensity of the Branch Davidians' religious commitment directlyled them to an intransigence that did not help to resolve the negotiations.They regularly delivered 'Bible studies' to the negotiators, who sufferedthem in silence punctuated only by brief expressions of assent. Since theBranch Davidians believed their salvation was at stake, they were not eagerto set their doctrines aside in order to dwell on what the negotiatorspresented as more important topics. Their depth of religious commitmentthus effectively limited the topics that could be negotiated. The BranchDavidians did see a major breakthrough in Koresh's 14 April statement thatGod had permitted him to document his teaching in writing." But plans forthe 19 April attack were already well under way, and no one with anyinfluence in the FBI chain of command seems to have taken Koresh'spromise to come out after finishing his manuscript seriously. The consistentand widespread failure to understand the centrality of the Branch Davidians'religious commitment marked every misstep and flawed decision at MountCarmel.

Finally, although Wright has identified multiple factors that promotedthe use of excessive lethal force on 19 April, that does not yet establish thatthe deaths of nearly all the people within the Mount Carmel Center wereexplicitly planned for and enacted. It is unfortunate on that count thatWright has not been able to unearth documentary proof of the specific useat Mount Carmel of the 'Western protocol' which recommends that 'policeofficers should regard negotiations as a means of manipulating people intopositions where a tactical ... resolution could be executed'.12 In contrast,stubborn commitment to the effectiveness of force, nearly totalmisjudgement of the responses of the Branch Davidians, and a misguidedunwillingness to acknowledge the powerful motivating force of religiouscommitment can all be amply documented in the statements and actions ofBATF and FBI agents.

In the end, then, Wright's damning case against the FBI rests onunsteady premises. Given the distinctive nature of the Mount Carmelcommunity, negotiators who simply followed established guidelines fordealing with hostage-barricade situations would have badly misconstruedthose with whom they were dealing. A similar failure to understand how

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GOING BY THE BOOK: A RESPONSE TO STUART WRIGHT 73

Koresh and the Branch Davidians thought of themselves repeatedly marsthe Justice Department's summary of events at Waco. The transcripts,however, show that the negotiators made significant progress inunderstanding, if not believing, the Branch Davidians' doctrine of the sevenseals and David Koresh's place within it. Whether that understanding wouldhave provided the key to a peaceful resolution of the conflict, or simply aclearer view of the unyielding barriers to success will never be known.Nothing can undo the horrible contrast between what might have been andwhat actually happened on 19 April 1993 at the Mount Carmel Center.Evidence for miscalculation, ignorance, and arrogance abounds, but thecase for an intentional government massacre remains unproven.

NOTES

1. Wright, 'Anatomy of a Government Massacre: Abuses of Hostage-Barricode Protocolsduring the Waco Standoff, Terrorism and Political Violence, this issue, pp.39-67, esp. p.58.

2. See, e.g., 'The Waco Whitewash', New York Times, 12 Oct. 1993, p.A22.3. United States Department of Justice Report to the Deputy Attorney General on the Events

Waco, Texas, 28 Feb. to 19 April 1993 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office1993) p.54.

4. Ibid. p.43.5. Tape No.47, p.32, 4 March.6. Tape No.129, p.43, 15 March.7. Breault tells his own story in tabloid fashion in Marc Breault and Martin King, Inside the

Cult: A Member's Chilling Exclusive Account of Madness and Depravity in David Koresh'sCompound (New York: Signet 1993).

8. Wright (note 1) p.48.9. Tape No.233, p.12, 15-16 April.

10. Ibid, pp.44-5.11. Koresh's April 14 letter is reproduced in James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher, Why

Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press 1995) pp.15-16.

12. Wright (note 1) p.61, quoting James Fyfe's Congressional testimony.

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