A marriage made in hell - Branch Davidian trial

National Review, April 4, 1994 by Mary G. Gotschall

Joyce Sparks, a caseworker with the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services, visited the compound several times in 1992 to investigate these charges. Although she felt the tours she was given were staged, she found nothing actually amiss. Jack Zimmerman and another lawyer, Dick DeGeurin, who were allowed into the compound to negotiate with the Davidians during the standoff, thought the children looked healthy and happy. Neighbors over the years suspected nothing. An FBI wiretap of the compound produced no evidence of child sex abuse. And, finally, although the defendants in the San Antonio trial had the book thrown at them, no charge of abuse was included in the indictment. Yet "saving the children" from sexual abuse was one of the main justifications for the use of tear gas given by Attorney General Janet Reno in an October 8, 1993, press conference.

All in all, there were good reasons to investigate these allegations and perhaps even to bring charges; but they fell short of proof. They certainly did not justify an armed raid by an agency, the ATF, that has no jurisdiction in these matters.

Indeed, one might ask why a raid was necessary at all. Koresh made frequent trips to Waco to go to Wal-Mart, Whataburger, and Sonny T's, the local honky-tonk. It would have been easy for the ATF to serve a warrant on him at any of these locales.

Moreover, Henry McMahon, a Waco gun dealer with whom Koresh had a brief business partnership, testified that in July 1992 Koresh offered to show his guns to the ATF. When Agent Aguilera came to the gun dealer's office asking about Koresh's arsenal, McMahon picked up the phone, called Koresh, and told him about it while the ATF agent was standing there. Koresh offered to talk to Aguilera and invited him to Mt. Carmel to inspect his weapons. Aguilera refused. Koresh later faxed Aguilera a complete inventory of all his weapons. Yet ATF Agent Bill Buford, one of the planners of the initial raid on February 28, 1993, insisted at the trial that "there was never an option" to peacefully inspect the guns.

Why?

WHY THE decision to storm the compound that morning with 75 ATF agents wearing full commando gear? why, especially, when the Constitution states that execution of search warrants must be "reasonable"?

The most plausible explanation, defense lawyers argued, is that the ATF wanted to showcase its costly Special Response Team (SRT). Congress was due to review the agency's budget in March 1993. The ATF's higher-ups did not want their bureau merged with the FBI or with the Internal Revenue Service as part of Vice President Al Gore's "Reinventing Government" initiative, which had been floating around since the campaign. They were, on this reading, bureaucrats trying to protect their jobs.

Hence, the ATF invited the media to cover the event. The day before the February 28 raid, ATF public-relations staff members tipped off the local media that "something big" was going to happen near Waco. On the day of the raid, Sharon Wheeler, the ATF's PR director, was positioned near the compound with press releases and fax machines, ready to announce the ATF's glowing triumph to the world.