Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History

EIGHT: The Branch Davidians and Waco: The Culmination of Religious Intolerance

Chapter Eight The Branch Davidians and Waco The Culmination of Religious Intolerance April 19, 1993, Mount Carmel, Texas. By late afternoon on this day, ten miles outside Waco, Texas, the standoffbetweentheBranchDavidiansandthefederal government was over. After fifty-one days, the fbi, convinced that negotiations had reached an impasse, ended the siege. In the aftermath, David Koresh and over seventy of his followers (men, women, and children) were dead from the fire that engulfed their home. Only nine Branch Davidians escaped. They later testified that the fires, which began in three separate locations and eventually overtook the entire structure, occurred when fbi tanks knocked over lanterns inside the building. In contrast, the fbi maintains that Koresh and his followers set the fires as part of their desire to commit mass suicide; while still others charge the government with murder (a charge that gained currency in 1999, when the fbi revealed that it had covered up its use of incendiary devices on April 19). These three versions of the final events— manslaughter, mass suicide, or murder—provide us with the dominant interpretive perspectives on Waco.1 Some view it as a government debacle, a poorly handled incident with disastrous results, but they find no evidence of government ill intent. Others see it as the typical outcome of a crazy “cult.” They blame “unstable” and “criminal” “cult” leaders like Koresh, who take advantage of malleable adherents and lead them to their doom. While still others interpret events through the lens of conspiracy, claiming that Koresh and his followers became victims of the U.S. government’s quest to curtail individual rights and consolidate its power. These perspectives reveal how, as scholar Catherine Wessinger writes, “every act of violence in the Branch Davidian case is disputed.”2 216 The Branch Davidians and Waco Upon learning about these controversial events and divergent interpretations , one inevitably asks at least two questions. What really happened at Waco? And why? As it occurred less than twenty years ago—a relatively recent event in terms of American and world history—one would think that these questions would be easy to answer. Unlike research into the distant past, which is often plagued by a lack of sources and the challenge of entering a different historical-cultural world, the events at Waco occurred not so very long ago in a technological and cultural era aware of the importance of historical documents combined with the ability to preserve them. In 1993, we had computers, video cameras, twenty-four-hour news channels, a federal government sworn to uphold the First Amendment, and access to an everwidening reservoir of knowledge. How is it, then, that the evidence from Waco continues to defy definitive interpretation? Why does this event continue to elude authoritative answers? How could events that occurred within our lifetime be shrouded in such mystery and steeped in such controversy? This is the challenge of studying Waco. Despite its recent occurrence, evidence is missing, the interpretation of existing evidence is disputed, and people involved in the actual events tell vastly differenttales.As aresult,weas scholarsareleftadrifttryingtonavigateourwaythroughthevariousdroughts and floods of information, as well as the competing tides and currents of interpretation . Do a search about Waco on the Web and you will quickly be immersed in the flood—antigovernment conspiracy theories, Waco memorial sites, and anti–David Koresh propaganda. The sheer volume of information and competing perspectives can easily overwhelm, while the inability to determine whose information to trust frustrates. Studying Waco is not a task for the easily discouraged. Given these difficulties, this chapter provides you with insight into the turbulent waters that characterize these events. We may not be able to answer definitively the question of who shot first or who started the fires, but by placing Waco within the history of religious intolerance in the United States we can better understand why this deadly conflict occurred. Where, then, do we begin? We could start our study at the end of the confrontation, as described in the first paragraph, but given the deadly results and conflicting interpretations, perhaps we need to begin by examining Branch Davidian history. Los Angeles, California, 1929. In this year, Victor T. Houteff, a devout Seventh-day Adventist, began a reform movement within his denomination. Calling for increased purity and morality, Houteff indicted his denomination’s “worldliness” and called for a return to its roots. He saw himself as an Adventist prophet, like previous denominational lead- 217 The...