The book were talking is waco. David koresh, the Branch Davidians and the legacy of rage with author jeff quinn. Jeff quinn is the author of 25 books, including the best selling mans manson and also the road to jonestown. It was 30 years ago that the Branch Davidian compound near waco went up in flames after a 51 day armed standoff with atf, the fbi and texas state law enforcement. All of that with the world watching the fires spread through the building after the fbi launched six tear gas canisters into the compound. The blaze caused the death of 76 civilians, including 25 children, two pregnant women, and david koresh, who was the controversial leader of the group. The dramatic and tragic events from start to finish played out on americas tv sets, and in many ways that fire has never gone out. Today it continues to burn, inspiring antigovernment, activist and militias. And so we need to not have a clear understanding about what happened during that raid. Who were Branch Davidians . Who sees them as innocent victims that need to be avenged . And also remember this event as proof. They see this as proof that the federal government has too much power and that the government will trample on peoples religious freedom and gun rights. And so we need an accounting of what actually happened at the waco burning two Branch Davidians. And thats this book does. Jeff corwin shows us that this is a its important to understand what happened in america then today. And jeff corwin, welcome to the center in your book festival. Well, thank you very much. Nice to be back. So when if youre in a conversation with someone, maybe at a bar. In a bar stool, and the guy next to you says, hey, man, you know what happened at waco, dont you . What is he saying . Depends how much hes been drinking. I think that over 30 years, a lot of myths have not only begun, but theyve been embellished to the point where now, when im out on a book tour and ive been out on the road for this book since january 23rd, always in the crowd. Theres some people who werent even born then, but the things theyve heard about waco in mount carmel are such that they these really important events and it sort of direct their beliefs and certain things. The guy in the bar stool probably believes that some time, a whole bunch of years ago there was a group, a religious group, maybe they were crazy cult, maybe they werent, who knows . But they had some guns. And first the atf and then the fbi charged in and it took them a while, but they finally accomplished what they wanted, which is killing most of the people there and burning the place to the ground. The fact that none of that is true is not evident to a lot of people. The whole story of all the parts of it all, we context really. Its never been out there. So it seemed to me it would be valuable to have a book that offered that information. And thats what they tried to do. So rather than tell the stories that maybe the guy in the barstool wanted to hear, that there was this black up helicopters coming in, nefarious action by the government that instead it was a bunch of ill informed leadership making bad decisions. Thats what we see in your in your book in waco. But lets get to the big decision was lets go and make the siege happen. Lets go to mount carmel, where david koresh and his followers are and attack them or siege them or somehow gain control of that compound. Even though we knew that they knew were coming. So my first question is, how did the Branch Davidians know that the atf was coming that day . And the plan, such as it was, was that the Branch Davidians were illegally transforming semiautomatic weapons into automatic stick. They had the parts to do it that was an illegal. But what was illegal, they werent registering and we werent paying taxes with them. And former Branch Davidians telling atf that the Branch Davidians believe they had to create a war to bring about the end times of revelation and that they might even take their guns and come on down to waco and get it started that way. The atf plan was to take the Branch Davidians by surprise in an Early Morning operation. They deliver that execute in order to arrest david koresh, a. K. A. Vernon wayne. How they would confiscate whatever illegal weapons they found and then they would leave. There was never any intention of any shooting, of any kind. A lot of the atf agents, instead of having magazines of bullets in their pockets, had candy bars for the Branch Davidian kids. The big problem was that the Branch Davidians wanted to be attacked. This is what david koresh had prophecy to them, that the forces of babylon, by which he meant the u. S. Government, would show up, attack them, and there would be a fight to the death where many would die. That would include koresh, the lamb of the book of revelation. Then theyd come back translated by god, and thered be a big final battle that the lamb and his forces would win. This was the end of the world. So when atf showed up that morning to the Branch Davidians, this proved david was right. And now were going to have a fight to the death. And thats what commenced. If everything for atf depended taking the Branch Davidians by surprise. The atf believed through wrong information that all the guns at mount carmel were locked in a room. And if the branch of indian men and women wanted to get to them and fight, koresh would have to give his permission. Then hed have to handle the guns out thatld be time to break through the door and get in there and take control before they had their guns. They all had their guns in their rooms already. The media, some members of the media had been tipped that atf was going to have a trade on the sunday morning, february 28th. The reason they found out that was because atf had called the local Ambulance Service. Well, just in case there is some shooting, we need a couple of ambulances and the woman at the Ambulance Service who took the call was the girlfriend of a tv cameraman in a local waco tv station. And so on the morning even before atf arrived, newspaper people were there, sort of ringing the road around the building. Tv crews were there to film david koresh being arrested and taken off the property. The problem was, one of the newspaper guys got lost and he had to ask directions and he saw a male car coming down the road and he waves, you know, because, hey, a mailman knows where everything is. And the mailman happened to be david jones, a member of the Branch Davidians. And the tv guy said atf is about to make this and ive just got to get in the right place. Can you tell me where is mount carmel . Jones pointed so you can see it right over there. You know, its a big building. And then he got in his car, reach back, told david koresh. By the time atf arrived, all the Branch Davidians with their fully automatic weapons were at their room windows all around this big building. They had the high ground. They had the more powerful weapons, and atf had no cover whatsoever. So the Branch Davidians, they were tipped off through this ineptitude that the atf was coming. But then the atf out that the Branch Davidians knew that they were coming, yet the order to go, go, go was still given. So what happened there . One of the frustrating things in writing this book is even though i can promise you after years of research, after going through all the document, after interviewing so many people, there was never any plot against the Branch Davidians. There was never any government intention to go in there and make an example of terrible individual decisions were made by some atf and fbi officials, and thats tragic. Thats horrible. Thats unforgivable in this particular case. Atf had an undercover agent inside the building inside mount carmel when david jones, the mailman. Got back and said, theyre coming. Atf and this undercover agent left the building and immediately called chuck, sarah and one of the two agents really in charge of the operation. Atf officials had promised that if they lost the element of surprise, theyd call the raid off. And Robert Rodriguez told chuck serban they know were coming. We have to call it off. Sarah ben and the other atf official in charge still thought that the guns must be in some locked room. Maybe there would be time. We still rush and get there now. They wont have time to arm themselves. So they gave the go order. This was a horrible decision. It was a deeply decision. It was not in any way part of an overall master plot to destroy the Branch Davidians, but it was still agreed. Yes. And so the raid took place. Really . Not a raid, but simply executing an arrest warrant. People died, right there on the spot. The next day, the fbi initiated to the siege media around the world flocked in. I know im probably the only person here old enough to really remember 30 years ago. I mean, the rest of you were all kids, but it was one of the first events in American History where you could literally watch on tv every minute of the day what was happening. And because of that, people started speculating. They havent stopped speculating since. Accusation is that the atf gave the go order because this was supposed to be a publicity stunt, a moment of glory, an opportunity for the atf to show a new president ial administration that they had value and worth and that the they needed to be funded or even have more funding. There is no question atf wanted this raid, this operation to go smoothly. There had been a fiasco seven months earlier called ruby ridge, in which the fbi, atf had both come out looking pretty. And for the atf, this was opportunity on a large scale, demonstrate. We know what were doing. Obvious certainly they didnt. And there were mistakes in the planning and carrying out of the operation. But perception so often overcome these reality. People tend to go with what they immediately think or what somebody they trust is them has to be the truth rather than trying to find the facts for themselves. And that is happened here. The worst mistake atf made even worse than the go decision was that there leaders did not in way teach the agents who were going to make that raid what the branch believed and it would have been easy enough to find out because david koresh was pretty open about if you know that a group a wellarmed group with firepower is actually waiting hoping you will come and give them the chance to engage in the firefight that their leader, their prophet has told them is going to happen. Why in the heck would you do . You wouldnt. But that decision wasnt made. And from that, Everything Else turned. If atf if the agents had known what the situation was, they would not have started in way they would have done a surrounded call out operation called the siege. And everybody just would have waited until the water inside mt. Carmel ran out, which it was going to, and they finally would have come out. So many mistakes, so many bad decisions and so many terrible for all of us. All these years later, beyond the fact that people died who did not have to die. So the day the siege of the attack, we have local tv cameramen shooting video of the atf agents climbing the side of the building being shot at. We have agents who were wounded who were on the hoods of vehicles evacuated from the scene. So a somewhat cease fire was was announced. It was dramatic incredible video that was shown at every newscast for the next six months. And it wouldnt stop. And then that got americas attention like is going on here. This is incredible. But how can this happen . Every satellite truck in texas and beyond was sent to mount carmel outside of waco, and they began do live hits at five, six and ten, thinking that this will wrap up any day now. But it dragged on and on and on for 51 days. Thats a long time, even by those standards. Back then, before cnn there, cnn had been on the air about ten years at the time, but they were just now finding their stride. So they were also broadcasting this non stop. This has became it became a magnet for attention at the time. And so we had daily briefings by the fbi only because you couldnt talk to the people in mount carmel. You couldnt talk to the of koresh. You talk to the fbi to find out whats on. And they used those briefings to demonize who david koresh was in the compound and the crazy people inside. Can you talk about what americans learned during the 51 day siege . There was a four letter word that the fbi used over and over because they desperately wanted americans to associate koresh and the Branch Davidians with two previous groups that had gotten a whole lot of attention in modern day america. Charlie manson and the manson family. Jim jones and peoples temple. And so they are lumped together by the fbi with the Branch Davidians as a crazy cult, with some obviously insane leader. And either they going to want to try to kill everybody else or they are going to go ahead and kill. The truth of it is, even we have the manson family, jim jones temple and david koresh and the Branch Davidians. They had very little belief in common. Charlie manson was just a kooky pimp who pretended, preach and some drug addled kids believe him jim jones was an early civil rights leader and in indiana and peoples temple, some great things before drugs and hubris twisted jim jones. But they were always about social movement, gender equality, racial equality. David koresh and the Branch Davidian were bible literalists who believe that god occasionally sent a prophet who would share extra knowledge with them. They believe that koresh was the greatest prophet of them all. And that god had told them in the bible, you have got to do this. Youve got to have this final fight. People have got to die. They truly believed it then. The survivors believe it now. But fbi did everything it could to go cults, nuts, guns, murder, death. If you went to pedophilia. Well, it was also known that by this time, david koresh had taken wives. He wouldnt let any of the other men in mount carmel have relation with any of the women. All the women were his wives and he took little girls as young as 12 in the name of his religious freedom, he was raping little children is awful. It was not a good situation. But atf in the fbi had no jurisdiction over that of lawbreaking at all for atf, it was strictly the guns. That was all they knew about really. That was all their operation was was meant to fix. Again. Theres plenty of places dig in and say, oh, to Branch Davidians had to be crazy to believe what they believed. And yet im sure theres many people today who were christians go to church on sunday and believe, right, this was just taking that belief steps further. The simplest way put it is we one Branch Davidian put it to me, a survivor. If you believe in god and you believe that god has told you to do something, wouldnt you do it to them . They in fact, were the warriors. They were the only ones who were right and anyone who would stand in their way try to prevent them from doing anything is violating their freedom of religion. Isnt there, during this 51 day siege, all sorts of attempts to get the Branch Davidians to come out at one time was david koresh going to send children out holding hand grenades . Koresh promised the fbi three days into the siege that if they would allow him to make a tape of his beliefs and tape was broadcast nationally on radio, that he would always would come out peacefully and the fbi let him do that. And the christian broadcasting network. And i think harold, at the dallas broadcast. This tape, david koresh, they got on the lamb. Heres the truth about the seven seals. Then the fbi waited for them to come out within mt. Carmel. The belief had grown. And david koresh was telling them this, that this was the time that they would go out and have their translation that he had prophesies that theyre to die and theyre all going to go to heaven. And they were going to come out as a group and they were going to have hand grenades. They also had illegal hand grenades, guns and they were going to blow themselves up, be translated, god. And if any fbi agents were within range, well thats just collateral. That was what they expected to the fbi. The Branch Davidians would come out quietly surrendered, be put on a scuba person, be taken to be processed. And it was about to happen when david koresh announced to his followers, god had told him they werent going to come out yet whether that because david koresh just didnt want to die himself that they whether david koresh truly believed god had told him not to come out who can say but they didnt come out the fbi that proved that you cant trust koresh. Whatever he says, no matter how often he promises will come out. He never will. Hes just going to stay in there indefinitely. Longer. Hes in there. The it looks the world is watching. How long can we let this go on . It seemed like david koresh was trying to orchestrate a dramatic conclusion to this standoff that would sizzle through the ages as it has and hes a showman in many ways, trying to figure out how to keep the the attention of the public capture that and exploit that. And i dont know if intended on having the the fiery inferno ablaze at the compound at the anthill. I think called it but you know thats what he got. Theres no that david koresh enjoyed the limelight. But you also have to remember that as far as he and his followers concerned, he deserved it, that he was the greatest prophet the lord ever put on the earth. And when whatever happened, finally happened, this would be the beginning of the end times. Thats what they were hoping. The armies of god will defeat babylon. True believers will be spared, and the thousand year kingdom god is going to begin on earth. So something radical had to happen for that. But then towards the end of the it looked like there was an opening. Koresh announced that if he was allowed to write out what he called the seventh seal of the great book of heaven, i dont know how m