At the base where many of the contracting companies had offices, several who knew McCune saw it differently. “McCune was a professional. He was very strict, very competent,” one of McCune’s business colleagues said. “Hooper and Cockes were well paid, but they were disconnected because of the way they would rotate in and out of the country. The pilots only flew. They didn’t check the airplanes. They would fly, go home, and not work any more than that.” Another point of contention had to do with handguns that had been issued by Northrop Grumman. Although U.S. military Joint Doctrine recommends against giving contractors arms and uniforms, the air force provides that arms should be issued “only in the most unusual circumstances” and states that carrying firearms is strictly voluntary. “It was basically that we would only be issued the weapons when we went out to fly,” says Hooper. “Our position was that we needed them flying and certainly driving around in Bogotá.” Many were afraid that the hour-long commute from their apartments to the airport could turn deadly, since bandits commonly approached drivers in traffic and robbed them at knifepoint, sometimes kidnapping people from their cars. According to Hooper and others, McCune was not happy that his employees were always armed, especially given the very volatile nature of his relationship with several of them. In early 2002, McCune told his employees that he needed to take away their guns and that they could use them only when they were on an SRS mission. Hooper felt that it was a retaliatory move by the CMS boss. “He just wanted to twist our tails for not agreeing with their inane policies.”
The controversy that erupted because of the safety issues and the handguns stimulated McCune to issue a flurry of write-ups for bad behavior on the part of several of the pilots. In rebuttal, Hooper and Cockes sent a letter to Kent Kresa, chairman and CEO of Northrop Grumman, in December 2002, expounding on the intolerable conditions that those connected with the SRS mission faced. They dubbed the group apartment where the original site manager (McCune’s predecessor), sensor operators, and a technician lived together from 2000 to 2001 as the “Animal House,” and blamed the program director, James Hollaway, for failing to correct a toxic working environment that included drug and alcohol abuse by CMS managers, sloppy security with classified documents, and, in one case, the hiring of a local prostitute as a secretary for the company. (Cockes says that after the crash, he had the letter faxed to the U.S. military at SOUTHCOM. He later heard that the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson, had also been given the letter, but he says he was not contacted by anyone from the military or the embassy.)
Hooper and Cockes also complained that when they objected to an operation that they found dangerous, they were threatened with termination. “In our opinion, the Program Director and Site Manager seem to believe that since we are ‘well compensated,’ we should accept ever-increasing risks as simply a fact of doing business. They continue to hold this view even though neither of them has ever been on a mission deep into hostile territory. We are not paid to accept an ever-increasing amount of risk, but rather to use our professional training and experience to mitigate risk as much as possible.” The pilots proposed a meeting to discuss their concerns at some mutually agreed-upon location in North Carolina, Tennessee, or Alabama. Northrop Grumman executives invited Hooper and Cockes to meet at the company’s headquarters in Maryland but refused to let the Northrop Grumman/CMS flight-operations manager Douglas Tait (who Cockes said agreed completely with his and Hooper’s assessments) attend the meeting. Believing that he would be railroaded into giving a deposition to the corporation’s attorneys, Hooper declined to attend the meeting. And with the meeting set to coincide with a two-month trip out of the country, Cockes, who says he would have loved to give a deposition had he been available to, did not attend either.
Despite internal tensions, the missions were considered extremely successful and returned a high yield of reconnaissance data on drug labs and FARC movements, which, in turn, gave credence to the idea that progress was being made in the war on drugs. Orders for missions were coming in from every direction—the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, the U.S. Army, and the Department of Defense, among others. Unfortunately, there was no clear chain of command, and Northrop Grumman and CMS never truly addressed the pilots’ concerns about flying single-engine planes that exceeded weight and altitude limits. Cockes and Hooper had planned to work for the company another five years—enough to secure a Northrop Grumman pension—but the dangers of their job mounted, and in December 2002, Cockes and Hooper quit before being fired and left a trail of bad blood behind them.
Two months later, their former colleagues Tommy Janis, Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell, and Marc Gonsalves crashed into the Colombian frontier. For all of the hundreds of hours they had flown over this terrain, the rain forest was completely unknown to the Americans. In the initial days after their capture, the guerrillas constantly pushed the Americans to keep moving to evade the Colombian military. They stumbled on the rough, muddy ground, their hands grasping at thorny tree branches covered with biting ants. Their feet throbbed and blistered. As they moved higher up in the mountains, the temperature dropped and the cold became unbearable. Stansell, who was suffering from broken ribs and constant diarrhea, remembered a conversation he’d recently had regarding a survival course that Northrop Grumman demanded he take. “I told this company guy that I wouldn’t do it,” Stansell wrote. “When he asked why, all I said was, ‘With this piece-of-shit aircraft we’ve been asked to fly in, there’s no way I’m going to survive a crash. A dead man doesn’t need to know how to survive.’”
6
Making Deals
On February 14, 2003, the families of Keith Stansell, Tom Howes, and Marc Gonsalves were informed of the crash by a Northrop Grumman representative and told that there was no information on the men’s whereabouts. For three more days, the status of the Americans remained unknown, but it was assumed that they had been taken hostage by the FARC. For Gary Noesner, who was assisting in handling the situation for Northrop Grumman, the case itself wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Noesner had spent over two decades with the FBI, dealing with terrorism cases and hostage negotiations. Only one month earlier, he’d retired from his position as chief of the Crisis Negotiation Unit of the FBI and taken a civilian position with Control Risks, an international security company that had been under contract to provide security services to Northrop Grumman. What Noesner expected would happen next in the case of the three American contractors was something much like what had been played out dozens of times over the past thirteen years under a protocol that Noesner himself had painstakingly developed.
In 1980, after eight years with the FBI, twenty-nine-year-old Noesner began working as a negotiator. At the time, hostage negotiation was still a fairly new discipline in law enforcement and was essentially an auxiliary function to SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics). There were no full-time negotiators, so Noesner’s Washington, D.C.–based job was twofold: He trained agents in the art of negotiation and he investigated terrorism cases overseas, mostly in the Middle East, where in the 1980s, he led the investigations of the hijackings of TWA Flight 847 and the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and many other such incidents. During the same period, Noesner honed his negotiating skills, dealing with prison riots, skyjackings, and militia standoffs in the United States. Then on December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 270 people on board. One hundred and eighty-nine of the passengers were Americans, making the attack against American citizens the deadliest on record. It was a turning point for Noesner, who, after so much time abroad, was burned out on terrorism cases. With his wife and three young children at home in Virginia, Noesner decided to take an offer he had turned down several times and become part of an FBI operational and teaching unit based in Quantico, Virginia. In 1990, the ten-year veteran of terrorism and hostage cases became one of only three full-time hostage negotiators for the FBI.
Gary Noesner on an FBI mission to train Jordanian police at the Dead Sea in 19
95. Photo: Gary Noesner.
That same year, the FBI began to investigate international kidnapping cases involving American citizens under the Comprehensive Crime Control Act passed by Congress in 1984. Any such incident would be considered a federal crime and therefore under the jurisdiction of the FBI. What had been Noesner’s forte domestically was now under his domain globally. The first two overseas hostage cases were handled by Noesner’s colleagues. One involved a coal mine employee in Ecuador; the other, a Peace Corps worker in the Philippines. Both cases ended in successful negotiations and hostage releases. At the end of 1990, Noesner was deployed on the FBI’s third international hostage case. Brent Swan, a U.S. helicopter mechanic with Chevron Corporation, was kidnapped in Cabinda, Angola, by separatist rebels. While the rebels demanded a large ransom for Swan’s release, the Angolan government threatened that if Chevron paid a ransom, the company would be thrown out of the country and cut off from significant investments in oil exploration and extraction infrastructure. For Noesner, the negotiation was a challenge he was eager to take on, and for eight weeks he worked alongside negotiators from Control Risks, the private security company hired by Chevron (and the company that Noesner would later work for). “What was eventually structured,” explains Noesner, “was instead of giving them money or weapons, we gave them blankets, medical supplies, two vehicles, and office equipment.” Swan was released. “The oil company got its employee back, and it was able to continue to operate in Cabinda. The Angolan government did not object to the agreement, because they weren’t going to get hurt by these guys buying guns to fight against them. The U.S. government was happy. Everybody was happy. It was creative problem solving.”
Noesner continued working on both overseas kidnappings and domestic cases, and he felt good about the FBI’s new role in dealing with international crimes against American citizens. Although Noesner was a physically commanding man with a very strong personality, he realized that the role of a good negotiator was not to act as a sole operator in a hostage situation. Credit was something he could do without. The payoff was finding nonviolent ends to the crises, and Noesner had perfected the art of persuasion, even in the most volatile of circumstances. Over the next several years, Noesner and his colleagues worked quietly on international cases; all during this time, the U.S. government claimed that it would not negotiate with terrorists while silently consenting to the FBI’s involvement. Each hostage case was assigned two FBI negotiators until an outcome was achieved. “We were helping companies in South America, Asia, Africa,” says Noesner. “If the company had to pay ransom, the FBI would say, ‘Okay, we don’t condone it. We’re not going to give you the money. We have to officially tell you that paying ransom encourages more kidnapping. But if you’re gonna do it, let us help you do it smart so you don’t get ripped off.’”
The successes were mounting for the FBI’s hostage negotiators, who were also considered “behaviorists” because of their intense training and understanding of criminal minds in hostage situations. However, negotiators were still subordinate to FBI tactical agents from the hostage rescue team (HRT) during hostage crises. It was this power differential that would bring about what Noesner would consider the single worst day in the history of the FBI.
In February 1993, after a year watching a religious sect called the Branch Davidians stockpile weapons at their headquarters in Waco, Texas, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attacked the compound. Inside, cult leader David Koresh sent women and children to take cover and launched a counterassault on the federal agents. Four ATF agents were shot and killed and another sixteen were wounded. Koresh allowed the bodies of five Branch Davidians killed in the gun battle to be removed from the compound, and he held fire as the ATF retreated. He then hunkered down with more than one hundred followers, including women and children, and refused to surrender.
Noesner was immediately deployed to Waco. Jeff Jamar, the head of the FBI’s San Antonio office, was the FBI’s on-scene commander. He was to rely on Noesner, the chief negotiator, and Dick Rogers, the head of the HRT. For the first twenty-five days of the siege, Koresh proved difficult, but Noesner and his team of negotiators were having success almost daily. The day Noesner arrived, he and his team of negotiators convinced Koresh to release four children. A total of twenty-one children and two elderly women were released between February 28 and March 3. Noesner and his team’s continuing strategy was chronicled in a Department of Justice (DOJ) report:
The first theme was to appeal to the parents inside to join their released children by sending photographs and videotapes of the children into the compound, passing messages from the children to their parents and vice versa, and demonstrating that the children needed the parents, missed them and awaited their reunion. The second theme involved continued reassurance to all those inside the compound that they would not be harmed and would be treated fairly if they came out. The next theme was to use twice-daily FBI press conferences to accentuate the positive reasons for the individuals to come out, to demonstrate concern for their safety, to clarify press distortions or inaccurate speculation about persons inside the compound, and to use psychology to get the Davidians to doubt Koresh’s leadership. In this regard, the negotiators also attempted to “drive a wedge” between Koresh and Steve Schneider, his second-in-command. The negotiators constantly urged Schneider to take charge and to bring the people out. Finally, the last theme was to pursue discussions aimed at providing Koresh with an incentive to come out, including discussing and implying weaknesses in a prosecution of Koresh, and pointing out to Koresh the opportunity to expand his following and promote his views through book and movie deals.
According to Noesner, Jamar and Rogers were not happy with what they considered slow progress. “There was an element, in my judgment, within the FBI that was frustrated it was taking so long. They felt it made them look weak and ineffective. They wanted to use force. They were embracing the concept ‘We can make people do what we want them to do.’ It seemed like every time we got hostages out, they would do something stupid on the outside. I was in charge of the negotiations. I’d have to dig us out of the hole again, and we’d get a few more people out.”
The Department of Justice report cited some of what Noesner and other negotiators felt was undercutting the negotiations:
In the case of Waco, the negotiators felt that the negotiating and tactical components of the FBI’s strategy were more often contradictory than complementary. The negotiators’ goal was to establish a rapport with the Branch Davidians in order to win their trust. As part of this effort, negotiators emphasized to Branch Davidians the “dignity” and fair treatment the group would receive upon its exit from the compound. By contrast, the negotiators felt that the efforts of the tactical personnel were directed toward intimidation and harassment. In the negotiators’ judgment, those aggressive tactics undermined their own attempts to gain Koresh’s trust as a prelude to a peaceful surrender.
In particular, some of the negotiators objected to: (1) the loud music, noise, and chants used as “psychological warfare;” (2) the shut-off of electricity to the compound on March 12 shortly after two people exited the compound; and (3) the removal of automobiles from the compound on March 21 after seven people exited the compound. All of these actions were viewed by the negotiators as counter-productive to their efforts. The electricity shut-off and the removal of cars were seen as particularly unwarranted since these actions in effect “punished” Koresh for permitting the departure of compound members.
Of working the crisis with Agents Jamar and Rogers, Noesner says, “Dealing with David Koresh was easier. I’m more proud of anything that I’ve done in the FBI that we got thirty-five people out under incredibly difficult circumstances, internally.”
After five weeks on the job, FBI bosses removed Noesner and replaced him with another negotiation coordinator. “They wanted to bring in another guy, Clint Van Zandt. He was really close friends with one of the more tactical-oriented guys
high up in the Bureau. They never told me it was because I was thwarting their efforts.” The official explanation from headquarters was that they were taking Noesner out of Waco because everybody else had rotated out. “They said, ‘You’ve been there five weeks. It’s time for you to get a rest.’” Noesner was told that when he returned from his scheduled trip to the Middle East, he would be brought back to handle the negotiations at Waco.
Over the next twenty-six days, not a single person came out of the Branch Davidian complex. On April 19, the day that Noesner returned to the United States, a combination of tear gas and ammunition rounds started a fire that destroyed the compound. Seventy-six people died in the fire, including David Koresh, twenty-one children, and two pregnant women. Finger-pointing ensued in the immediate aftermath, and the official blame was put solely on Koresh and the Branch Davidians. But many, including Noesner, who were critical of the handling of the incident demanded and got an investigation, something that angered many in the Bureau. The reports that came out shed light on what had essentially been an FBI debacle of epic proportion. The devastating and very public failure at Waco catapulted the idea of negotiation to the forefront of the FBI’s agenda and brought Noesner’s position as a negotiator to the same level as that of tactical leaders who would be deployed in such cases. “All these commissions said, ‘You’ve got to prop up the negotiation programs,’” says Noesner. For the rest of his career as an FBI agent, Noesner headed up the Crisis Negotiation Unit and never again took a subordinate role in a hostage crisis.
FBI agent Chris Voss, a lead international kidnapping negotiator until November 2007, remembers Noesner’s proclivity to cause a stir within the agency. “He only seemed like a maverick because he knew what the right thing was to do; he wasn’t afraid to push ahead with it at any given point in time. He would often scare the government bureaucrats who would be around us in the different interagencies.” Voss says that Noesner could be incredibly insistent on pushing for what he believed in, but he was extremely skilled and artful when using a method Noesner called the “soft touch.” “So, yes, Gary was a maverick, but he was also a tremendous leader, and he knew his business.”
Hostage Nation Page 7