WARNINGS FROM THE GENERAL CONFERENCE
Shirley Burton, Director of Communications for the General Conference of Seventh-day
Adventists, which is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, says that, the early spring of 1992,
she warned government authorities that something terrible was going to happen at the Waco
compound. She told them to go there and do something. Here are two reports, both of which
originated in her office:
"February, March, and April, 1982: Wild rumors began to circulate in the media in California and
Australia. I began soliciting and accumulating information on the group after a panic call very
early the Saturday morning before Easter Sunday. Australian media had reported that
Howell/Koresh/Jezreel had called for a suicide/martyrdom on Easter morning as a supreme
sacrifice to God. Media exposure and law enforcement awareness seemed to have thwarted the
plans. There was no apparent news of them thereafter." --Shirley Burton, "To Media Inquirers,"
March 2, 1993.
"The morning before Easter last year, Shirley Burton, spokeswoman for the Seventh-day
Adventist Church, said she got a terrifying phone call. On the line was a church official in
Australia, relaying a warning that the next day, an explosion of violence would occur in a Waco,
Texas cult that included dozens of former Adventists. The man got the warning from parents of a
cult member.
"The parents had just had word that there would be a 'suicide-massacre,' Burton said, adding
that her mind filled with images of the 1978 murder-suicide of Jim Jones and 900 of his followers
in Guyana.
"Church authorities tipped off Waco police and Easter passed without incident. But peace
came to a bloody end this past Sunday, when sect members began a shoot-out with federal
agents." --Washington Post, March 3, 1993.
It is of interest that both investigation teams began their work in 1992, within a month or two
after the General Conference alerted federal, state, and local authorities.
"Last spring officials of the Seventh-day Adventist Church heard from colleagues in Sydney that
the Branch Davidians were planning a mass suicide for Easter Sunday. About the same time the
State Department got word from sources in Australia that Koresh's group was stockpiling arms
and planning suicide. State passed it on to ATF, which began its investigation in June." --
Newsweek, March 15, 1993.
BY ROGER EBERT
Like many news-drenched Americans, I paid only casual attention to the
standoff at Waco, Texas, between the Branch Davidians and two agencies of the
federal government. I came away with the vague impression that the “cult,”
as it was always styled, was a group of gun-toting crackpots, that they
killed several U.S. agents, refused to negotiate and finally shot themselves
and burned down their “compound” after the feds tried to end the siege
peacefully with tear gas.
Watching William Gazecki’s remarkable documentary “Waco: The Rules of
Engagement,” I am more inclined to use the words “religion” than “cult,” and
“church center” than “compound.” Yes, the Branch Davidians had some strange
beliefs, but no weirder than those held by many other religions. And it is
pretty clear, on the basis of this film, that the original raid was staged as
a publicity stunt, and the final raid was a government riot--a tragedy caused
by uniformed boys with toys.
Of course I am aware that “Waco” argues its point of view, and that there is
no doubt another case to be made. What is remarkable, watching the film, is
to realize that the federal case has not been made. Evidence has been
“lost,” files and reports have disappeared,” tapes have been returned blank,
participants have not testified and the “crime scene,” as a Texas Ranger
indignantly testifies, was not preserved for investigation, but razed to the
ground by the FBI-presumably to destroy evidence.
The film is persuasive because:
- It presents testimony from both sides, and shies away from cheap shots.
We feel we are seeing a fair attempt to deal with the facts.
- Those who attack the government are not simply lawyers for the Branch
Davidians or muckraking authors (although they are represented) but also
solid middle-American types like the county sheriff, the district Texas
Rangers, the FBI photographer on the scene, and the man who developed and
patented some of the equipment used by the FBI itself to film devastating
footage that appears to show its agents firing into the buildings--even
though the FBI insists it did not fire a single shot.
- The eyes of the witnesses. We all have built-in truth detectors, and
although it is certainly possible for us to be deceived, there is a human
instinct that is hard to fool. Those who argue against the government in
this film seem to be telling the truth, and their eyes seem to reflect inner
visions of what they believe happened, or saw happen. Most of the government
defenders including an FBI spokesman and Attorney General Janet Reno, seem to
be following rehearsed scripts and repeating cant phrases. Reno comes across
particularly badly: Either she was misled by the FBI and her aides, or she
was completely out of touch with what was happening.
If the film is to be believed, the Branch Davidians were a harmless if
controversial group of religious zealots, their beliefs stretching back many
decades, who were singled out for attention by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco
and Firearms for offenses, real or contrived, involving the possession of
firearms-- which is far from illegal in Texas. The ATF hoped by raiding the
group to repair its tarnished image. And when four of its agents, and
several Davidians, were killed in a misguided raid, they played cover-up and
turned the case over to the FBI, which mishandled it even more spectacularly.
What is clear, no matter which side you believe, is that during the final
deadly FBI raid on the buildings, a toxic and flammable gas was pumped into
the compound even though women and children were inside. “Tear gas” sounds
innocent, but this type of gas could undergo a chemical transformation into
cyanide, and there is a pitiful shot of an 8-year-old child’s body bent
double, backward, by the muscular contractions caused by cyanide.
What comes through strongly is the sense that the attackers were “boys with
toys.” The film says many of the troops were thrilled to get their hands on
real tanks. Some of the law-enforcement types were itching to “stop standing
around.” One SWAT team member boasts he is “honed to kill.” Nancy Sinatra’s
“These Boots Are Made For Walking” was blasted over loudspeakers to deprive
those inside of sleep (the memory of that harebrained operation must still
fill the agents with shame).
When the time came, on April 19, 1993, the agents were apparently ready to
rock ‘n’ roll. Heat-sensitive films taken by the FBI and interpreted by
experts seem to show FBI agents firing into the compound, firing on an escape
route after the fires were started, and deliberately operating on the side of
the compound hidden from the view of the press. No evidence is presented
that those inside started fires or shot themselves. Although many dead
Davidians were indeed found with gunshot wounds, all of the bullets and other
evidence has been impounded by the FBI.
Whatever happened at Waco, these facts remain: It is not against the law to
hold irregular religious beliefs. It is not illegal to hold and trade
firearms. It is legal to defend your own home against armed assault, if that
assault is illegal. It is impossible to see this film without reflecting
that the federal government, from the top down, treated the Branch Davidians
as if those rights did not apply.