On the 30th anniversary of the FBI raid, an exclusive excerpt from the new book, 'Koresh: The True Story of David Koresh and the Tragedy at Waco,' reveals the roots of the far right's obsession with the cult leader and his death
There were times, too, when their talks seemed more like therapy than negotiations. David’s mind roamed back to his childhood in the small towns of Texas, his family life, schooldays. He talked about what things might have been like if he’d done something differently here or there. Maybe he could have been a true-blue American hero, like the FBI’s own Eliot Ness.
David: Now, the Fifth Seal, you know, in Isaiah 26, it says we have a strong city. Salvation will guard our plentiful walls and bulwarks… It says trust in the Lord, for the Lord is everlasting strength. So bringeth down them that dwell on high …Negotiator: No, listen, I just want to—For David and his lieutenants, politics was spiritual warfare by other means, and in the FBI’s actions they saw Satan at work. Steve Schneider, David’s second in command, returned to this theme again and again.
The siege at Waco was already acting as a bright beacon for the far right, Second Amendment absolutists, and those who felt Washington was out of touch and oppressive. Alex Jones, the future right-wing radio host, was a high school senior in Austin, a hundred miles away, as the siege unfolded. He was already delving into conspiracy theories, but as he watched the nonstop coverage on CNN, it “confirmed his belief in the inexorable progress of unseen, malevolent forces.
“You’ve got this maniac organization … on the loose. They’re terrorists. They should be dealt with as such. They should be investigated … Everybody is guilty until proven innocent, that’s what you’ve shown over and over again.” A year after the tragedy, in 1994, the first major militia sprang up in Michigan. Smaller, loosely organized groups had convened in other states before, but the Michigan militia attracted thousands of members and drilled them in antigovernment ideas. Many more such outfits followed. And they didn’t merely lie in wait. In the early nineties, the FBI was opening about a hundred domestic terrorism cases a year. At the end of the decade, it was ten times that.
He was right, of course. Nobody remembered the letters he sent out from the compound; no one started the Church of David Koresh. What really mattered, what moved millions of people about his story, was that a tyrannical government, in their eyes, had murdered him in cold blood. David would never have wanted to be a victim — it was weak, and his purpose was to avenge the martyrs, not to become one — but that’s what he ended up as.
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