Stalling for Time

by Gary Noesner

  Toward the end of 1992, a UPS driver noticed the outline of grenade casings in packages he was delivering to the compound. He alerted authorities, and shortly thereafter, an undercover agent working for ATF infiltrated the Davidian community. He observed that the Davidians had modified certain weapons to make them fully automatic, which was not only a violation of federal law but also a clear sign of their belief that they had to prepare for Armageddon.

  Whatever had led ATF to proceed with the aggressive show of force they had launched that morning, their hope for success had been based in part on the expectation of surprise. Informants had told them that the Davidians locked away their guns on Sundays, the first day after their Sabbath, and would be focused on working outside on a large addition to the compound.

  But surprise was simply not in the cards. Early in the morning, television news teams from Waco had been on the road already, heading to the compound, known as Mount Carmel or Ranch Apocalypse. Who tipped them off to impending events? What is known is that one news crew asked directions to Mount Carmel from a rural mailman they encountered at a country crossroads not far away. What they didn’t know was that this mailman was David Jones, the brother-in-law of David Koresh.

  Jones quickly drove back to the compound and relayed this information to Koresh, who at the time was meeting inside the compound with undercover ATF agent Robert Rodriquez, who had rented a home nearby posing as a student and feigning interest in learning about the Davidians’ beliefs. Koresh broke off their religious counseling session and told Rodriquez, “They’re coming to get us, Robert.” Rodriquez hastily departed and immediately reported the comment to his superiors at ATF. Though they had lost the element of surprise, ATF leaders chose to move forward anyway, a fatal error.

  The exact details of what happened as the ATF tactical units approached the entrance to the compound are unclear. But a horrendous firefight broke out at 9:45 a.m. and continued for two and a half hours. By the time the shooting died down, four ATF agents lay dead and sixteen had been wounded. Five Branch Davidians were killed; many others had been wounded, including Koresh himself.

  For Koresh, this action only confirmed his view of federal authorities as reckless oppressors. But perhaps its most ill-conceived aspect was that it played into Koresh’s interpretation of biblical prophecy. The book of Revelation uses the term Babylon to refer to the earthly powers that oppress the righteous and with whom the righteous will have to do battle before the day of judgment. Here at the door of Ranch Apocalypse, in full tactical gear, were the “Babylonian” ATF agents. Rather than intimidating Koresh and his followers, the hostile display served merely to confirm for them that what the prophecies had foretold was at hand.

  Shortly after the shooting started, Lieutenant Larry Lynch of the McLennan County Sheriff’s Department received a call from Koresh, seeking to broker a cease-fire at the Waco Police Department where a rear command post had been set up. The cease-fire secured, the ATF agents were able to move forward and retrieve their casualties. In return, ATF agreed to call off the raid, withdraw, and stay off the Davidians’ property. With live coverage on television, news of the incident quickly spread, and multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Rangers and the Texas Department of Public Safety, rushed to the scene.

  The FBI negotiation team had set up in a long, narrow barracks that looked to be of World War II vintage. Inside was a large open space, no doubt once filled with military bunk beds. In the rear was a small room where officers had positioned themselves for telephone communication with the Davidians. ATF had no trained negotiators at this time.

  My first impression upon entering was that there were far too many men in this small space to carry out effective work. About a dozen ATF agents and others sat around in their blue tactical jumpsuits. With heads in hands and ashen faces, many of them looked like soldiers who had just survived an ambush, but without the consolation of victory. They appeared so tired and downtrodden that I was surprised they had not yet been sent home.

  ATF supervisor Jim Cavanaugh was then functioning as the primary negotiator and was on the phone with Koresh. He introduced me to his ATF colleagues, as well as to some negotiators from the Austin Police Department who had also come up to help out. I also spoke on the phone with FBI Supervisory Special Agent Byron Sage, from the Austin FBI office. He was still at the police department with Lieutenant Lynch; they’d been working all day negotiating on a second phone line in the compound.

  Cavanaugh told me that tactical units had established an inner perimeter around the compound, with a motor home serving as a forward command post. In a slightly larger concentric circle, the sheriff’s department and Texas Department of Public Safety had established an outer perimeter to control access. Beyond that second perimeter, the news media gathered in droves.

  Cavanaugh described conversations to date with Koresh, which, after the cease-fire, had been perfunctory. He explained to me that they were using two phone lines to communicate with the compound, the one being handled at the police department by Lynch and Sage, which connected to Wayne Martin, an attorney and Davidian who conducted business from inside the compound, and the second reaching Koresh himself. I made a mental note to consolidate those lines when the opportunity arose. To gain control of the situation, we needed to control and limit all communication in and out. In time, we would want to install a military-style field telephone of our own, to avoid any problems should standard phone lines be cut.

  The more immediate problem was that neither of these existing phone lines had been secured so that those inside could speak only with the authorities. Consequently, these lines were frequently tied up by news organizations attempting to land a big interview. Earlier in the day, the tabloid television show A Current Affair had convinced an operator to break in to an ongoing negotiation call so that their on-camera personality could speak with Koresh. Koresh had also used his phone line to call his mother and give her his last goodbye, something I would not have wanted to happen.

  On the plus side, I learned that the negotiation process had already borne fruit. At 9:03 p.m., about an hour before I had landed in Waco, the negotiation team had delivered on a promise to have a local radio station recite a verse of scripture. In return, Koresh had allowed two children to leave the compound, and then another two, forty minutes later. Four down and perhaps a hundred left to go.

  Byron Sage and I linked up in the early morning hours to consult with SAC Jamar. He said that a decision was forthcoming on changing lead agency status to the FBI. Rogers was already at the forward command post, and Jamar wanted our team to be ready to take over negotiations as soon as possible. I immediately recommended that we set up a negotiation operations center, or NOC, inside the hangar, in a separate space immediately adjacent to the FBI command post. I requested that technical personnel act quickly to capture the two telephone lines leading into the compound to thwart further media interference and other outside calls. I also requested authorization from Jamar to bring additional FBI field negotiators to Waco. As I saw it, the negotiation process could become quite complex and protracted.

  “I think you’re right about that,” Jamar said. Then he nodded. “Bring in your boys.”

  I then asked about how we would coordinate our negotiation efforts with the tactical command. Jamar said that communication with Rogers’s group should go through him, since Rogers was up forward. I should consult with Jamar, and he would communicate with Rogers. Again, this was a shift that should have alerted me to what was to come, since standard FBI protocol called for a closer exchange between negotiators and the HRT.

  “To tell you the truth, sir, I’d much prefer that we all confer directly, which is the way—”

  “I think we’ll do fine with the procedure I laid out,” Jamar said.

  I looked at him, and his eyes made clear that our discussion was over.

  I went back to the barracks, where Jim Cavanaugh and most of his team had been working since around noon. They ask
ed me to take on primary negotiation responsibilities through the early morning hours so that they could get some rest. Rick Shirley, an experienced negotiator from Austin PD, and a few others, would stay on to assist me.

  It was time for me to get on the phone and introduce myself to Koresh. Tired as they were, the ATF men were slow to leave, so to avoid any misunderstandings, I thought it best to be up front and provide some perspective. “If you guys are going to hang around, you have to understand that Koresh is really pissed at the ATF, and to some extent I have to run with that. I have to play up being FBI, not ATF, so if it sounds like I’m making you out to be the bad guys … well, it’s just what I have to do. So I hope you understand why I’m doing it.” I looked into each of the tired faces staring back at me. Cavanaugh concurred and most of the others nodded in agreement. At 12:20 a.m., just before the ATF team left, the Davidians released two more children (now six in total).

  Cavanaugh stayed behind to introduce me to Koresh. He rang up the compound and, once he had Koresh on the phone, explained the transfer that was taking place. He then handed me the phone.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Hi, David. This is Gary. I just got down here, and I want to make sure that you and your family get out of this situation safe and sound.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Gary, huh. So who’d you say you were with, Gary?”

  “The FBI.”

  “Hmm.”

  Koresh sounded tired as well. Obviously it had been a very long day for him. After introductions, we chatted for a while, and I asked him to tell me about what had happened. As he began to describe the raid from his perspective, I was struck by how willing he was to talk about what had happened, and by his relatively calm demeanor. He was angry, but it was a contained anger, directed at ATF. He seemed to be trying to make his case to me.

  “I just don’t get it,” he said. “Why did those guys have to come in here shooting the place up? It just wasn’t necessary.…”

  And then I heard him groan, which provided an opening.

  “I understand you were hit by a bullet,” I said. “You know, we can get you some medical attention right away, David. You just need to come out of there.”

  “I’m all right,” he said.

  “That’s up to you,” I said. “But if you come out, I assure you that every one of your people will be treated with dignity and respect.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’re not ready to come out.”

  Throughout the night, Koresh and I would speak on the phone every couple of hours. I had two basic objectives in continuing to call him back. First, I wanted to establish some trust between us. Second, I wanted to try to secure the release of additional children.

  “You know, David, the FBI is in charge now. We weren’t involved in the shootout. We’re here for just one reason, and that’s to reach a peaceful resolution. After that, we’ll investigate what exactly happened and determine the truth. But first we have to end this standoff. Which is why we really need you to come on out peacefully.”

  Koresh continued to brush aside my requests for him to surrender, so I continued to press, but not too hard.

  “You and I need to keep working to resolve this peacefully. You know, what would really help is if you let some more of your people come out. Would you be willing to do that?”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said.

  Just before dawn, he told me he would release two more children in the morning. At 8:22, he followed through on his promise.

  The negotiation team had now secured a total of eight youngsters from inside the compound. It was becoming clear to me that we were not going to get any grand surrender right away or all at once, but we might very likely continue to get a few individuals out in periodic clusters.

  Later that afternoon, at a quarter to five, the attorney general officially passed operational control of the incident to the FBI. We moved the negotiation team over to the FBI command post, which was now fully functioning. One of our first actions was to capture both telephone lines into the compound. Now when the Davidians picked up their phone, they got us and nobody else.

  With full responsibility for the negotiation effort, I set up two teams operating in twelve-hour shifts, with me as the overall negotiation coordinator. Team leaders would be Byron Sage and Jim Botting, an experienced negotiator who had flown in from Los Angeles at my request. We also relied on Jim Cavanaugh from ATF, who had already developed some rapport with Koresh. My job would be to guide strategy, not to be the person on the phone. I also asked the Austin Police and McLennan County negotiators to remain on our team to assist.

  As the incident progressed over the coming days and weeks, I would stagger my long, sixteen-plus-hour days over portions of both shifts. My goal was to maintain continuity and a consistent strategy in our approach, and also to act as a bridge between the two teams. Another large part of my job would be to regularly brief the man with overall responsibility, SAC Jamar, as well as the three other SACs who had flown in from New Orleans, El Paso, and Oklahoma City to assist in managing the incident.

  Managing a crisis properly depends on managing information. In the NOC we posted situation boards on the walls that enabled everyone to stay up to date with critical information. An adjacent smaller room was for the exclusive use of the active negotiation team. Each core team consisted of five individuals. A coach sat next to the primary negotiator, monitoring the call and passing notes as required. Another negotiator operated the phone system and made sure the tape recorder was working properly for post-conversation analysis. The fourth team member served as the scribe, maintaining a log of key points in the discussion. These four negotiators and the shift team leader, as well as myself, were the only ones allowed in the room during live negotiations.

  The remaining members of the larger negotiation team, as well as the profilers on hand to develop background information, were able to listen via a speaker setup in the larger adjacent room. Immediately after each negotiation session these two groups would sit together to assess the last call and prepare for the next. I made certain that nothing else was undertaken until these steps were completed. This was a hard-and-fast rule so that we would always be prepared for any unexpected next contact from the Davidians.

  As the crisis continued, each day I would deliver an oral summary of each significant call to SAC Jamar and any other on-duty SACs, then follow up with written reports. We then faxed these summaries and our recommendations to experienced negotiators stationed at FBI headquarters back in Washington, D.C., who would present them and explain their meaning to senior FBI executives. I knew it was essential that our views reach senior management without any filters. Meanwhile, Rogers shuttled between the perimeter and the command post several times a day. I would sometimes see him in Jamar’s office, but he rarely did more than stick his head into the negotiation operations center.

  On March 1, at 4:48 p.m., Koresh released two more children, bringing to ten the total number of those who had come out. At 8:27 that evening, day two of the siege, the number rose to twelve.

  Each time a child was to be released, the HRT liaison at NOC would radio the tactical agents just outside the ranch and advise them to move forward to pick up the released children. I would then dispatch negotiators to the inner perimeter, eight miles from our location, to pick up the children and drive them back to the NOC.

  The children came out with notes pinned on them giving instructions as to where they were to be sent, mostly to relatives who were not Davidians. Our agents brought them into the NOC, and often a kid would sit in the negotiator’s lap while he or she would call the compound to announce the child’s safe arrival. To our surprise, Koresh allowed the parents to come to the phone each time and personally verify that their child was well and being treated with care.

  We realized that these exchanges helped Koresh to retain his image as a caring and benign autocrat among his followers. I didn’t believe he was allowing these children to leave out of genuine concern for
their safety; rather his intent seemed to be to embolden the parents who stayed behind, freeing them from parental concern so that they would fight to the death for him.

  At this stage of the ordeal we were still trying to piece together a complete picture of who was with Koresh inside the compound. By speaking first with the children and then with their parents, we were able to fully identify a large number of the adults. This contact also allowed us to impress upon the parents that we did not want to see any further harm come to anyone inside, to personalize ourselves to them.

  At this point, we had brought out twelve children, already a far better outcome than one might have expected given the gun battle that had raged only a day before. But despite that progress, our agents’ tenderness with the children, and our attention to the parents’ concerns, all was not sweetness and light. The Davidians inside the compound had heavy weapons. Two of the ATF agents who died had been killed by a .50 caliber sniper rifle. The barren countryside around the compound provided nothing more than a few mesquite trees as cover, and thus the HRT teams had brought in armored vehicles from the army base at nearby Fort Hood out of necessity, for adequate protection against the Davidians’ arsenal. While this was a reasonable precaution, the unintended consequence was to exacerbate the mixed message that permeated the entire undertaking. While negotiators tried to show understanding and find common ground, the tactical people couldn’t help but present a warlike image that heightened the tension. An empathetic voice over the phone can only do so much to offset the powerful impression available to the subject’s own eyes.