What at Waco What Really Happened at Waco

[Draggingtree]

 What at Waco What Really Happened at Waco

In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, Congress and the nation are taking another look at the government’s confrontation with David Koresh and his followers. Could the tragedy have been avoided? Who started the fire? an exclusive excerpt from a new book raises doubts about . . . what really happened at Waco.

By Dick Reavis

July 1995

AUTHOR’S NOTE: On April 19, 1993, when Mount Carmel burned to ashes, polls showed that most Americans held David Koresh solely responsible for the deaths there—even President Clinton blamed those who died: “They made the decision to immolate themselves,” he declared.

On April 19, 1993, I was among a dozen people who spoke at a memorial for Mount Carmel’s resident dead, held on the grounds where they had made their lives. As that rainy, gray morning opened, few of us expected that the nation would soon turn its attention back to the events of 1993. But then a bomb exploded in Oklahoma City, and everything changed.

Shortly after the end of the siege at Waco, I had begun to investigate what happened. During the next eighteen months, I pored over more than 30,000 pages of documents, including some that have been kept secret since 1993. I interviewed survivors of Mount Carmel and spent months trying to gain an understanding of their religious beliefs because most of their statements and actions could not be understood without a biblical context. I also tried to speak to veterans of the assaults—ATF raiders and FBI besiegers—only to learn that they are still under gag orders because of pending lawsuits brought by some of the survivors. From extensive Justice and Treasury department reports, congressional hearing records, depositions, trial testimony, and grand jury transcripts—from the materials and people available—I was ultimately able to piece together answers to some of the lingering questions about the Waco affair.   https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/what-really-happened-at-waco/