American History Hit - Waco: A Cult, the FBI and a Fiery Ending

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

76 people died on 19th April 1993 when the compound of a religious sect, the Branch Davidians, went up in flames. It had been under siege by government agencies for 51 days, but no one knows what started the fire.Don is joined by Jeff Guinn, investigative reporter and author of ‘Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Dividians, and a Legacy of Rage’ to find out why the United States’ Government was interested in this religious compound outside Waco, Texas, and how the situation escalated to this point.Produced and edited by Sophie Gee. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds/All3 MediaAmerican History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. Hi, it's Don here. Just jumping in to say that this episode is not suitable for minors, it contains mentions of gun violence, sexual assault, and death. If you're not comfortable

with that, please do take a look at our archive, and we'll see you next time. Orange and blood-red tongues of fire leap upwards as acrid black smoke billows into the atmosphere, obscuring the sun and turning the midday sky, a murky yellow. The wooden frame of a blazing building groans and collapses. The walls and roof barely visible through the inferno and smoke, crumble into wreckage. It is an apocalyptic scene of flame and chemical fumes, the culmination of a long and agonizing standoff between federal agents and an extreme religious sect who lives and operates out here

in the scrub brush of central Texas. What was a messianic community, invented for deliverance and salvation, instead has become a killing ground. The nightmare and nightmare and, for some 80 sect members, including 25 children. April 19, 1993, the Day of Reckoning for the Branch Divideons, here outside Waco, Texas, has finally arrived. Good day, glad to have you here. I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hip.

The most notable events of our times are remembered, usually not because of a few eyewitness reports, but because media imagery has been viewed by millions. Places and people otherwise distant and obscure are instantaneously imprinted upon our collective consciousness, especially now in the digital age. But back in the 1990s, it was cable, broadcasting live from Waco, Texas, as federal agents with tanks and armored personnel carriers moved onto a remote compound of buildings, occupied by a religious sect called the Branch Divideans.

Suddenly, we all knew the name, David Corrid. and all the odd and uncomfortable rumors behind the apocalyptic cult he led. And then we watched, amazed and appalled in real time, as a federal siege became an attack, and men, women, and children died in a fiery blaze. Three decades later, those grainy images are still seared upon our memories. The facts behind the tragedy that occurred that day, April 19, 1993, have now begun to fade, just happens. It's human. Unfair, though, that is, to the people who perished there,

to the agents doing their jobs, some who also perished, and to those who suffered later on as a consequence. We still live with Waco, even those who weren't alive at the time. So to explain those grim events and their origins, we have Jeff Gwyn, the award-winning author of a book released just this year on the subject, entitled Waco, David Koresh, the Branch David Davidians, and a legacy of rage.

Hello, Jeff. Thanks for being on the program. It's a real pleasure. Jeff, the incident is known one of two ways by most people, the siege of Waco or the Waco massacre. And right in those semantics is the dilemma, a problem of perception. Was this a bizarre cult led by an abusive madman who needed to be stopped? Or was it an attack by overzealous federal agents using excessive force? The problem we have understanding Waco today is the same problem we had, standing Waco in 1993. Both sides were wrong. There was, in fact, a cult led by someone who was

committing brazen crimes, and they were a danger to the public as well as themselves. It is also true that government agencies went in without attempting to understand what these people believed, And when the possibility for surprise was entirely lost, tried surprise anyway, both sides settled in, and there was bound to be some kind of horrific ending. It just happened to take seven weeks. So people tend to buy into one side or the other without realizing both sides were guilty here. Often the case with these big scale problems, these confrontations of this sort. However, in this case, it has a tremendous legacy, which is what we're going to really focus on. later on. Let's march through this problem. This cult we refer to as called the

Branch Divideans. Where do they come from and what's their original origins? The Branch Davidians go all the way back to the early 1840s in Northeast America. There was a self-proclaimed prophet named William Miller, who read the Bible, did a few calculations of his own invention, and announced that Genesis was finally going to turn into the end of all things, the end of days, Jesus was coming back, just like promised in the book of Revelation, Judge the Quick and the Dead sometime in 1844. He gave one date when it didn't quite work. He gave a second date. That didn't quite work. But he'd already convinced hundreds of thousands of Americans that the Bible was the literal truth of this last book in the Bible was coming to pass.

His followers, even when the end didn't come as he predicted, still thought he was correct in general. He just misinterpreted the date. And one offshoot of what was called the Millerites was the Seventh-day Adventists, which became one of the fastest growing religious organizations, faith organizations, in America and even part of the world. We know them today mainly as the people who say the Sabbath is Saturday and not Sunday. But it's also true that they preached, Jesus is coming, only the very faithful are going to survive. It's all there in the Bible, read it. One of the offshoots of the Seventh-day Adventists, and this always happens when you have one extreme belief,

then for some it's not extreme enough. You take it another step. And a washing machine salesman in Los Angeles decided that he understood the truth, that God was going to send his son and 144,000 angels to basically cleanse the world, choose the followers who are going to survive, and lead the forces of the Lord against the forces of Babylon, which meant different governments. And this guy bought some property in Waco, Texas, because it was cheap. And with about 100 followers established himself there.

So this is Victor Houtef. He was a Bulgarian immigrant came over in 1930, right? Right. Came to Los Angeles, sold washing machines to make his daily bread, and taught Sunday school for the Seventh-day Adventists. But he decided that the Seventh-day Adventists were not being strict enough. They were not following the Bible specifically. And so he and some hundred or so followers looking for a place where they could go, because they were certain, they were going to be among the chosen. They had to have a place when Jesus came back,

when what they called the death angels started going around, killing everybody who wasn't a real believer, the true believers, the 144,000 of the New Testament, had to have somewhere to gather. And they chose Waco, Texas, not because Waco was the second Garden of Eden, because you couldn't find land any cheaper in the United States and for good reason than outside Waco, Texas. They settled there and they called them the rod of the Lord. They were the rod. They were the shepherd's rod. I like this term Davidic Kingdom, the empire of King David, right out of the Old Testament, as you say in preparation for this imminent apocalypse.

Mount Carmel, I guess, is also a biblical term I'm not familiar with. Right. The faithful were going to gather at the base of Carmel. But since the faithful for Victor Houtif's followers, we're not going to get to go over to Israel. They simply established Mount Carmel in Waco. I mean, clearly that was the Lord's design, or at least what they believed. Now, there are a lot of fundamentalist movements like this. This gets more and more extreme because it breaks off into other divisions, so to speak.

The branch Divideons is what we're going to be talking about. and this was yet another division within this. It becomes much more about politics and family politics even. Victor Haldiv's wife becomes the leader and then her son, George, becomes, and this all takes place over decades. And we finally arrive at David Koresh arriving. How does he come to the Davidian movement from where, and his original name is completely different?

Yeah, Vernon Howell, before he comes to what has, evolved into the branch Divideans at Mount Carmel in Waco is basically incapable of leading a one-man parade. He is the ultimate Texas teenage loser. He's dropped out of school. He likes to hunt. He likes to read comic books and he likes to fix cars. Main thing is he's preoccupied with sex. He manages to impregnate a very young teenage girl, which is in his family tradition. because his mother was in the seventh grade when she got pregnant with him. That's broken up. He's broken hearted. He goes to live with his mom and becomes immersed in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in East Texas and comes to believe that God is speaking to him, not always, but that God has his hand on him.

Just like Victor Houtiff in Los Angeles, generations before, young Vernon decides the Seventh-day Adventists aren't being strict enough. He particularly believes that the Bible is being written about things that are happening today, not just way back in the past. And there must, there must be someplace, some religious group where current modern day prophets lead. Not the old folks in the Bible, but the ones who now are that version, that iteration. He hears. He hears. He Here's about a group in Waco, you know, about 120 miles south, led by a woman prophet named Lois Rodin. And Lois Rodin leads the branch of Vidians, the name they've taken now, because she claims to have

had direct communication with God, that God has set an angel to her. Wow. And given this message that in the eyes of the Lord, men and women are equal. Now, today we'd say, well, that's old news, right? It has to be a fact. But you've got to remember, we're talking this as Texas in the 1980s. And this apparently was a breakthrough. Vernon went down to visit and was enraptured. These were people who really believed that God was right there with them, that the end, as foretold in Revelation, is coming very soon. And this is going to be the group that's involved somehow. Yeah, that's the key. I mean, the imminent arrival of the Messiah is something that these people are living with every moment of their lives, ideally, I spoke. I mean, it is also a community. How many people live at Mount Carmel when he gets there? People come and go. In an odd sense, it's not unlike, and I'm not using this in religious terms, but in term sociologically. As the old Manson family back in California, people drift in, most of them drift back out. But a few remain and become hardcore. And in this case, it had maybe 120, 130 people.

But you touch on the most important thing. The context we need to understand why they do what they do in 1993. And it is simply this. Everything they do, from the food they eat to the time they get up, to the way they discipline their children, is all based on their interpretation of the Bible. what God is telling them to do. They have a term. We are in the message. Anyone who doesn't believe, who is not in the message, is not one of the chosen. That means when Jesus returns,

and he's going to come any time now, if you're not in the message, you're not one of the people who will be saved. That means you're one of the enemy. You belong to Babylon. So that's the mindset. they have and that Vernon falls completely into. May I give you the best example? Sure. I have interviewed Mount Carmel survivors, and to a man and a woman, they still believe in David Koresh, Vernon Howe, they still believe everything's going to happen, and they still believe that the Bible tells them what to do. One of them told me that she lived in Mount Carmel with David Koresh and four children, her four sons. one day one of her sons killed a grasshopper. So she made him eat the grasshopper.

Why? Because in the book of Leviticus, in the Bible, it says you may not kill a living thing except to use it for food. Wow. Her son had killed a living thing. If he hadn't eaten that grasshopper, his soul was forfeit. Wow. Because he would have broken the rule in the Bible. That's how strongly they believed. Man.

One of the aspects of this, of course, is Armageddon. I mean, you're talking about the book of revelations. And Armageddon can be interpreted many different ways, but certainly it's a battle, a confrontation between good and evil. And in preparing for battle down there in Texas, they have stocked a lot of guns. Again, I referred to the fact that there were conflicts within the group and shootings and all sorts of stuff was happening before David Koresh's arrival. But having guns on the premises is a big part of this problem.

How much were they imagining an attack was coming? in the human idea as opposed to God alone? First of all, they didn't think an attack might be coming. Their whole belief was that an attack had to be coming. Yes. And Vernon Wayne Howell becomes David Koresh and takes control. This is directly how the guns become involved. Because he claims that he is taken up to heaven by an angel,

and there some truths are revealed to him. The first is that he is the reincarnation, the new iteration of the Old Testament King Cyrus, who freed the Jews from Babylon, way back when, rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem, and in the New Testament is named as the only Gentile Messiah or anointed leader in the whole Old Testament. Wow. The name Cyrus in Hebrew, which is what the Branch of Edians considered to be the true biblical language is pronounced Koresh. And so that's why Vernon Wayne Hale had to take the name

Koresh, because he was Cyrus, and he took the first name, David, because when Jesus returns, the book of Revelation tells us, he'll sit on the throne of David to judge mankind. That's David Koresh. Gotcha. Further, the new Koresh is told by the angels. He is the lamb in the book of Revelation. And in the book of Revelation, the Lamb takes the book on the lap of God and unlocks each of seven seals. And as he unlocks each seal, we move a step further towards the end of the world. And finally, when the seventh seal is opened, the end comes. The lamb and his followers, caressian of branched of Vidians, as it says in Revelation, must battle the forces of Babylon and die. Wow.

But they'll only be under an altar for a little while. They'll come back with Jesus and lead the armies of the Lord. And this time they'll defeat Babylon and they will help Jesus rule over the new holy thousand-year kingdom of the Lord. To do that, they need weapons. And Koresh teaches that we're in the Bible. It says swords. In the modern day, that means guns.

Yeah. There you go. And it's uncanny the way this whole thing will turn out. the trial by fire for one aspect of this, which is so spoken of in the Bible, you know, becomes a big part of this. Obviously, they die that way. And then the battle itself is in that sense happening as well. So that's the weird line that we walk in understanding and analyzing these events and who was really the cause of what went on. Let me understand David Koresh comes to this sect. He's a young man. I mean, when he dies, he's 34 years old. He's just a

few years older than me at the time. I remember how weird that was. He walks into this sort of divided group. It's a little too labyrinthine to explain it all, but suffice to say that they end up living his part of this group who goes with him, ends up off campus, so to speak, living in a place called Palestine, Texas. And they sort of plot their return, or he plots his return to sort of take the thing over. It turns out that that guy who opposed him, George Rodin, ends up in a mental institution eventually for other reasons. But suffice to say that David Koresh takes control of Mount Carmel in what year? Well, he comes back from Israel in the late 1980s. And George Rodin is currently in place there. To get George out, there eventually is a gun battle. And there's a trial where Vernon Wayne Howell

and six followers, you know, come up for attempted murder. George, of course, had come out with an Uzi to defend himself. Ultimately, the case was thrown out. The jury couldn't convict anybody. George leaves, tries to murder someone, does murder someone, goes to a metal institution, and that's

George. Meanwhile, you've got the new David Koresh in charge, and there are about six years to go before you're going to have this final confrontation. Six years for David Koresh to teach his followers that he is the

lamb, the anointed one. They do believe this because they believe everything in the Bible. They believe that there are prophets among them and that God has sent them, David Koresh. They must do all he says, which includes all the men becoming celibate, all the women becoming his wives, and that includes little prepubescent girls. This is a man who's raping children. Yeah. Yet he's doing it in the name of the Lord. And anyone looking at the Bible can interpret scripture in new ways. And every time David Koresh does this, it simply proves to his followers he is the lamb because who else but the lamb could see this meaning that no one had ever found before.

Nice little tight racket there. One of the elements of his behavior that might have peaved George off, was that he had an affair with his mother, with George's mother, Lois Rodin, who was quite a bit older than him. That's true. And their excuse for that was that they were simply following a biblical injunction. Yeah. That the prophetess should grow heavy with child, even though she was beyond childbearing years. I see. They had the sex. They didn't have the child, but that was okay because David could always point out when things didn't work completely as he had prophesized, that prophecy was just what. would happen if everybody did what they were supposed to. If they didn't, then the prophecy wouldn't come true, and it wasn't his fault. Wouldn't society be so simple if we just did as we were told?

To this day, there are surviving Branch Divideans who would agree with you right there. They might think you were a prophet. I'll be right back after this short break. Meantime, if you'd like this to cover anything specifically, if you have any ideas of subject matter we should be looking at, send us an email at ah-h at history hit.com. We'd love to hear from. you. What cues the government up to start investigating the sect? I mean, is it all that's happening at the compound, all these trials and so forth? What's the decision that really kicks us off into this affair? There were investigations into the Branch Divideans by Child Protective Services of Texas, for instance, whether children were being beaten at a very young age, which turned out to be true. They thought

the Bible told them to do that. But the Branch Divideans, like any other religious group, any group of faith had to make money to pay for its upkeep and all its outreach efforts, they had a garage, a Branch-Dividian garage where they would do car repairs. They had a line of hunting vests that their women would sew, but they also sold guns. And Bill Clinton, in a way, is responsible. We've got the presidential elections going on. Clinton is a first-time Democrat nominee, and he's talking about gun control in America. The NRA immediately begins panic advertising that he's going to try to take away your guns particularly semi-automatic and automatic weapons. Sure. And that if you wanted to have an automatic weapon, you wanted an AR-15 that could spout hundreds of bullets per second,

you better get one now because Clinton's going to be president and they won't sell them anymore. Yeah. Well, they were right. The Branch Divideans, hop right on this. They start buying semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles and converting them at Mount Carmel into fully automatic.

Then they go to gun shows and sell them and it's a roaring business. They had a business called the Mag Bag. I remember that, right? Well, the mag bag was actually the garage. But because they then grew into we're going to sell hunting vests in these guns, they would use the mag bag address,

the garage address, as to where they want all the parts sent. And when the government started investigating, all the gun parts are going to the mag bag, and they assume that means it's the guns. It wasn't. It was the car repair. But again, mythology takes over. Point being that now they're doing this, they're converting these guns, and it's not illegal. It is not illegal as long as for every gun you convert, you registered the fact that you did it and you pay a tax. and the Branch Divideans are not doing this.

They're selling some guns, but they're also storing up a bunch of others for this coming big battle with Babylon and being trained in the use of the guns. The government gets involved when there's a report from a delivery guy that he's delivering all kinds of weird-ass stuff to this garage for someone named David Koresh. Grenades. Yes. So the ATF gets involved. Right. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Explosives, the ATF.

Right. They begin an investigation of Koresse and the Branch Divideon's, I guess, May of 1992, right? That's when this officially kicks off. Correct. And the ATF, in and of itself, is the most unpopular government agency in the United States of America. Sure. They are the punching bag for the NRA, these thugs, these jackbooted stormtroopers who are going to force themselves into your home and take away your guns. That's the way they're shown. And yet, this is one of the most cost-efficient, effective agencies in America. In the three years before what happens in Waco, you're talking about a group, an organization that conducts about 2,700 raids on drug dealers, gun runners,

some of the skankiest people in America, and in all those raids only three times, are shots even fired? This is how efficient they are. And yet, they're unpopular. There's always talk. They're going to be rolled into the FBI or some other agency. And in early 1992, there's talk that they may be in their last year. Clinton is talking about the possibility. This would save money. It'll condense government. They don't want that to happen. So they're trying to think, what can we do that just proves to the public? We're absolutely necessary. Wow. They start looking into the Branch DeVitians at Mount Carmel because of the delivery man's complaint. And they pretty soon track down that what the Branch Devidians apparently are doing

are illegally converting guns to fully automatic without paying the taxes or doing the registration. That's breaking the law. And because of that, legally, they should, should, in fact, be rated by the ATF. The investigation takes months. ATF's trying to really get this nailed down because they make the decision that here's some crazy religious group. They never actually bother to try to find out

what the Davidians believe. Just the religious nuts. They start comparing them to People's Temple, the Jonestown Massacre, to the Manson family, some weird demagogue. And they build it up, So if they do this properly, they go in there and without a shot being fired, get these guns from these religious nut cases. In March 1993, when they have to go before Congress to try to get their budget confirmed again, they'll have this great success.

We save the country from these gun-running religious fanatics. We're indispensable. Sure. Good headline. So on February 28, 1993, an arrest warrant is issued for David Koresh and a warrant to search the premises of the compound comes forward. This is sort of part one of what we're talking about today. This results in the first incident when Koresh takes action against the ATF. They are on his property.

This has always confused me as to how this became a siege that lasted 50 days. There was never supposed to be a siege. The ATF had basically two different ways of, running a raid when they're going to try to take a group by surprise. The first is surround and call out. This would be a siege where the Branch Divideans wake up one morning and there's the ATF all around Mount Carmel saying come out with your hands up, we got you. And we can wait as long as we need to. The other is called dynamic entry when you actually break in to wherever the suspects are. Get between them and their weapons and arrest them. And ATF's good at both of these. They ultimately make the decision for

dynamic entry because the branch Davidians do have this cachet of guns. They have food supplies. They could hold out for months. They've got water tanks. You want to get this over with. So ATF decides for dynamic entry. They're going to take them by surprise. To do this, they have to scout out Mount Carmel. Now, probably the best way to explain, this is you have to picture desolate, ugly country just to the north of Waco. Little narrow roads, sometimes paved, sometimes dirt, ugly brush, no trees, lots of fire ants. And Mount Carmel is there, this big, preposterous looking, you know, 30,000 square foot monstrosity made out of wood by the branch divitians who built it themselves. And across this little narrow road or a couple

rickety little houses where some other people live. And some of these houses are rented to college students. And ATF in late 1992 and early 1993 rents one of the houses across the way. And they're going to fool these dumb religious fanatics and put eight of their male agents in there. And the agents will simply watch how the branch divinians go about everything, figure out how they can do the raid. Problem is these guys are all in their 30s. They have short haircuts. The branched of idiots figure out one day after they move there that these are government agents. They don't know what agency. But see, it's proof. This is Babylon. Yeah, they're coming. Babylon's closing in. And they even let one of these agents infiltrate Mount Carmel. They know exactly.

who he is, but they learn more about ATF or whoever these guys are from the government from letting this guy come in. So he's telling his superiors, well, they don't know who I am. Of course they know. Wow. So the idea is they get information from him what the Branch Davidians Day is like, that every morning, the men who don't have day jobs in town are working digging this huge pit. The Branch Devidians say that it's just a tornado shelter. The government thinks they're making a bunker. You know, they're getting ready to try to hole up in there. So most of the men are out of the main building.

They're told by informants, former Branch Devidians, that all the guns, and there's an arsenal, everybody agrees, are kept in one locked room and only David Koresh can give permission to get in there. That's why dynamic entry seems like a good idea. I see. The men go out work. in the pit, ATF comes charging in. The women and children in the big house are safe. Nobody gets hurt. That's their plan. The problem is, of course, that the element of surprise gets lost, and that's where everything really goes to hell. They have a shootout. That's a two and a half

hour gun battle. Four ATF agents are killed. Some 16 are injured. I mean, this is a bit of a bloodbath, especially for the ATF. But five Davidians are killed as well. This is a terrible result of what is supposed to be a walk in the park as far as they're concerned, right? Well, the thing we have to remember about Mount Carmel in this ugly little section of the world, and trust me, it's ugly. I was there a lot. It's on top of a low sloping hill. There are no trees or anything. There's no cover. For about 100 yards from the main road, and the main road is about this wide, there's a circular driveway. ATFs decided they're going to surprise these rubs. by having their 76 agents make the approach in two cattle trailers.

In this backcountry area of Texas, there's cattle trailers all the time. The Branch Devidians, who clearly can't be too smart if they're following a psycho like David Karras. We'll see two cattle trailers coming up the driveway and think, you know, some dumb guys just took a wrong turn. Yeah. The problem for ATF, of course, is if the Branch Devidians happened to be waiting, for them on the high ground, already armed with fully automatic AR-15 style rifles, there's no cover for their agents. The agents could literally be blown away as they try to get out of the cattle cars. And ATF is so confident that these people are too stupid. They're never

going to guess what's going to happen. We'll take them by surprise. They have no plan B. For if they've lost the element of surprise. And so, on the fateful morning, the two cattle trailers come chugging up, out the agents are going to burst, and as they do, the shooting starts. Now, you have 76 government agents not armed with powerful, fully automatic guns at all, and they are facing without cover. Think about that. About 80 branched Divideans, leaning out of the windows that just dot Mount Carmel all over, firing at them with powerful weapons in the ensuing two hours, the Texas Rangers, after the fact when they investigated,

thought that ATF may have gotten off 1,200 shots in the two and a half hours. They estimated the Branch Divideons fired over 15,000 times. Oh, my goodness. And so you're right. It was a slaughter. It was a bloodbath and ATF agents who fought in it and survived. Told me they were Vietnam veterans and they had been in massacres in Vietnam. And they had never seen a bloodbath like it.

Yikes. It was horrible. So how does this conclude? I mean, do they climb back in the trucks and drive away? Is that the retreat? They can't climb back in the trucks. trucks, the trucks are shot to bits. Yeah, yeah.

There are three different attempts at ceasefire. There's a phone inside Mount Carmel and a county sheriff's office is, you know, they're on the phone with the Davidians during this trying to arrange some kind of ceasefire. But the thing nobody else understands, but the Davidians is this. They believe this is the assault from Revelation as prophesial. as prophesized by David Koresh, this is the big one. They've got to fight to the death because that's the only way they're getting to come back and have all the rewards. ATF never had any idea of that.

Instead, all they know is they're completely outgunned. They got people dead. There is not a way in hell they're going to be able to storm into that building now. and take these people, they need to pull out and somehow redeploy, figure out how to go about it differently. For the Branch Davidians, why the hell would you want to do that? We've got this final fight. It's here.

On their end, this was the problem. They had, at that time, five people killed in this assault. There would be a sixth who would die trying to get into the building a couple hours later. And a couple of them were dying horrible, lingering deaths, screaming to be put out of their misery, and they finally were. The Branch Davidians had thought that somehow, when this time came, it was going to be relatively painless. God was just going to lift their souls up. They were the good guys, yeah. Yes.

And instead, here's screaming in agony. So that threw them off. Plus, Karras had been hit during the firefight. and it looked like he might be dying. And so they were going to want whatever last words the lamb had to say. And finally, after two and a half hours, there was a sullen agreement on both sides to a ceasefire. The Branch Davidians were sure that ATF was just going to come back probably that night.

ATF thought they'd regroup and be sent back maybe in the morning. Neither one was right. It was just the beginning where both sides had thought maybe it was the end. What a disaster for the ATF. So basically everybody moves in at that point. The feds gather their forces for a siege that will last 51 days. I mean, there were precedents for this in those days. I mean, we have a growing militia movement in this country at that time, even then.

And so what they do is they regroup, as you say, and a palpable military presence is brought up. Show of tremendous force is the decision. Eventually, this force is consisted of 12 tanks, four combat engineers, vehicles, 668 agents, customs officers, Texas National Guard, Texas Rangers, Texas Department of Public Safety. I'm just reading this list because it's extraordinary how they have gathered this amount of people. 899 people in total comprise this force, this federal and state force.

That enormous force, Jeff, I understand, has been gathered in these months, these weeks leading up to the final day. idea being that they could just say that they were just frightened the guys? Is that the idea or were they really planning to remount this attack? The FBI was called in the same night that ATF was driven away. And for the FBI, there was a certain amount of resentment. They were being called in to clean up somebody else's mess. Now, there had been a similar sort of thing in Idaho called Ruby Ridge in October,

1992, when ATF and the FBI had surrounded a militant, a white militant in his family in their cabin, and there was a shootout, and the man's wife was killed, and it got really messy, bad publicity. Well, to the FBI's mind, ATF had screwed this thing from one end to the other, and now they were getting called in, and if it didn't end well, they were going to be blamed. and among this great multitude of agents, you had two separate groups. You had the negotiators. Let's just take whatever time we need. We're going to talk back and forth.

We're going to get this worked out. And you have the tactical teams. Look, we got everybody, we've got tanks. We can go in there in 10 minutes. You know, we can control the whole thing. And during the siege, there was great tension between these two groups. It particularly grew just a few days into the siege when Koresh suddenly announced if he were allowed to make a tape that would be broadcast on national radio

about the seven seals and what the Davidians believed that once that was played he and all his followers would come out and surrender. The FBI let him do that. And the tape he sent out was just a garbled mess and clearly anybody objective who was listening would have said, who is this guy? He's nuts. Forget about the whole thing. But the FBI didn't care. They didn't care what he believed. They called it Bible Babel. What they did was they simply prepared, okay, we did our half, now the guy's going to come out.

They didn't know two things. The first thing they didn't know, and I confirmed this with Branch Devidian survivors, The Branch Davidians were going to come out concealing AR-15s and grenades in their clothing, men, women, and children. And when they got out, they were going to have one last glorious blast-off for God. Wow. So that was what they were planning to do. And to Correction as followers, they weren't lying. The Bible taught them that sometimes you have to be a serpent. to do the work of God.

So, yeah, they were going to fool these people, but that was, you know, they were God's chosen. That was what they're going to do. But Koresh at the last minute, and he would say later, God had spoken to him and said, don't come out yet. Maybe he thought God said that to him. Maybe he just didn't want to get shot up some more and die. But he reneged at the last minute. And to the tactical team among the FBI that proved he was just going to lie the whole time. that negotiated was a waste of time. And so it dragged on. And the world media came to wake up. What do they

have to write about every day? Well, the branch of Indians are in there. They're not going to be able to come out and talk. So they have to write about, why can't the United States government with all these agents and all these tanks do something? Yeah. And so finally, the FBI petitioned the Department of Justice, let us go in, let us get this over with, and there's some gas we can use that is non-lethal. It'll just get everybody out there. We're going to get this done. It's interesting how this intersects with the rise of cable news and the 24-hour news cycle and all that stuff that was happening in the early 90s. We're not yet into the Internet like we are today, but it becomes a very present part of our lives because it's hot news and it's in real time

and they're constantly covering it. And that's an added pressure onto the situation for the government, for sure. And it's publicity for the Divinians. My goodness, they've become massively famous in this process in these months. It's really a score for them. April 19, 1993 is the day the feds initiate the raid. I remember the pictures, as we all do. Suddenly, the weirdest things, there are tanks moving into this compound, whatever that means,

and what are they going to do? And it becomes basically an effort to tear. tear gas the place, right? And then behind those vehicles are going to be the agents protected this time having cover. And that's going to take, you know, no time flat. And that's what's going to happen. Where does the fire start? That's what everybody wondered. The fire started because people were foolish on both sides. Mount Carmel itself was a fire trap. You've got this huge structure made out of junk wood. It's still cold. The branch of Edians have put hay bale. around the walls to try to serve as insulation.

The government's cut off electricity. So the Branch Divideans have Coleman lanterns that they're using for light and for heat. And they've got all kinds of combustible gas stuff all around the building. They've also got their guns. The FBI promises the government, new Attorney General Janet Reno specifically,

that we're going to fire non-combustive, canisters of CS gas in there. The gas just burns and irritates. It doesn't fatally strike anybody. The people will have to come out and we'll start putting it in at six in the morning. Shouldn't take that long. The branched Divideans surrounded seeing tanks come in. Once again, okay, so this is the big one. This is what we were expecting. As the canisters are fired in, the first ones. The problem is there's some parts of the compound, particularly part that's being built into that big pit, where the canisters are bouncing off. One of the tankers radios in, and this is caught on tapes, not for the public yet, but internal, that he wants to try different canisters,

which are in fact combustible. This is about 6.10 a.m. and fires no more than 10.000. And fires no more than two or three. This is lost in everything else that's happening. Meanwhile, they're mostly firing the Coke can-sized canisters that when they pop inside and they do, that spreads the CS gas. And people are trying to tie, you know, bandanas over their faces. Little children are screaming in agony and the Branch DeVidians even had some gas mask, but they wouldn't fit children. Most of the guns and some of the food stuffs and almost all the ammunition, millions of rounds that the branched dividians had stockpiled, was in a little concrete room inside the main building. This isn't little wood slats like the outer rim. This is concrete. And that's where the mothers

take the children in hopes that at least the canisters won't get in there. But the canisters are being lobbed in by tanks, and the tanks with a long gun arm out in front are smashing into the sides of Mount Carmel, knocking in parts of the wall, so there are holes you can lob the canisters through. And some of these canisters, because the concrete roof over the heads of those women and children who are trying to hide has been cracked open, are dropping in there. Now the Branch Davidians are scurrying around inside. It's like a maze with all the little hallways, trying to escape the gas, trying not to get hit by the arms of the tanks as they come crashing through the wall.

And then, a few minutes before noon, this has been going on for six hours. Suddenly, someone sees flames. And afterwards, there are three possibilities. The first is that the FBI deliberately lobbed in something to set fire to the building. They couldn't get the branched of Idiens out any other way, and here's the government in a cruel, senseless gesture, burning alive Christian men, women, and children for no other crime than being gun owners and wanting their rights respected. That's the first possibility. Second possibility, it's an accident. Somebody knocks over one of those Coleman lamps, and the fire spreads from there,

because within 15 minutes, it's a conflagration with the internal temperature reaching above 3,000 degrees. And then there's the third possibility. The Branch Davidians, these religious nutcases, who've been so terrible, done so many god-awful things and would have done more if the government hadn't stepped in, these idiots decide they'll burn themselves to death. It's part of the prophecy. Yeah. So, who knows what happened? All we know is that it burned. And we also know that nine people, nine adults, managed to escape the inferno and come out.

Their skin so burned that it's bubbling on their arms and hands as they're forced on their faces to the ground. But because the world media is there, all of us, you remember it, I remember it, we watch it happen. And it's horrible. And it must be somebody's fault, which of course is where. Everything happens subsequently. Anyone who doesn't remember this or was too young for that needs to look online and look at a few of those images. Because when you say Inferno, it truly is. It's a massive, massive fire.

The entire place is in flames and that's high up in the air. It looks like an oil refinery went on fire. The results of this are tragic. 76 of those 85 Divideons die. Nine escape but are arrested. Eight finally get convicted of firearms. You know, it does end, but it ends in great death. On the government side, were there casualties that day?

The government came out intact in terms of people being killed on their side. But of course, they came out horribly in terms of public perception. The day after the event, about 65, 70% of Americans' poll believed that the government had acted responsibly. Sure. But less than six weeks later, well over half the public believes that the government has committed a monstrous act. that's because different facts start to come out, starting with the fact that even though the government had initially claimed it wasn't true, there were a few combustible shells used. Now, the fact that we had proof these were used five and a half hours before the fire started made no difference to the

conspiracy minded. If the government had lied about that, they must have lied about everything else. I can speak for myself. I remember feeling all wiggly about it myself. I mean, it was undeniable that something extraordinarily unwise had happened and that excessive force was clearly apparent from the pictures that we saw. Why couldn't they wait it a few more weeks? It was kind of the sense of it, negotiate this thing out. The rumors of child abuse and things like that all seemed a little painted for us, you know, as a justification perhaps. I'm not saying I was right. I'm just being one of the masses who said, whoa, what happened here? And that was what was going on.

By the way, one of those 76 is David Koresh, who dies. And so we never know from the leader what was being said inside. The legacy of this event, Jeff, is profound, obviously, both specifically having to do with something happens two years later, but also what we live with still today. Two years later, on the second anniversary of Waco, a man named Timothy McVeigh, parks of van filled with a fertilizer bomb in front of the federal building,

in Oklahoma City and destroys the structure killing 168 people, including, tellingly, 19 children, seemed very calculated to be a statement about Mount Carmel and the Branch Divideans. This is ground zero for the modern anti-government militia movement in America. It starts so much off, which is why you wrote the book, I assume, because it's lasting with us today. Well, the first thing that surprised me that I found out when I started researching the book was Timothy McVeigh was outside Mount Carmel. Oh, really? For a couple of the days, he actually hawked anti-government t-shirts and bumper stickers.

I didn't know that. And he claimed two years later that Mount Carmel and vengeance for Waco was what drove him to do what he did. The fact that it's something we can prove, that the number of militias in America expanded exponentially because of Waco. If you look even today at the militia groups that have become so well known, they will claim that Waco was where basically they got started, the government doing this horrible thing. But in the course of my research, one thing stood out to me, and I would very much like to make that point if I may. You have three organizations, three groups that came together. and to this day, murderous controversy continues because of it. You had the Branch Divideans, you had ATF, you had the FBI.

In all three cases, I think we can see clearly that nobody bothered understanding the other side whatsoever. There was never any genuine effort to try to come together to bring something off peacefully. But here's the critical point. For ATF and the FBI, the best result for them politically, publicly, just in terms of their budget, if nothing else, would have been that this was resolved quickly and nonviolently. The only group whose agenda had to include death had to include a fight and people dying came from the branched of idiots, and that is a fact. Jeff Gwyn is an investigative reporter, feature writer, and critic, an author of a number of books.

But we've been talking about the one released just this year entitled Waco, David Koresh, the Branch Dividians, and the Legacy of Rage. It's a subject matter, as I hope we've clearly delineated, is still with us, and a very important one to understand when considering all the polarization in this country today. Thank you, Jeff. Great to meet with you. Thank you. Hello, folks. Thanks for listening to American History. Hit, each week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of great content, like mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements, to some of the biggest battles across the centuries.

Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Bye for now. Thank you.