Day Two of The Waco Siege

MONDAY, MARCH 1:
In the early morning, Acting Attorney General Stuart GERSON gives an update to CLINTON, who implicitly endorses a negotiated solution and asks to be advised if there is any change in strategy. Larry POTTS at FBI headquarters in Washington and JAMAR in Waco are in command. Negotiations continue, and over the course of the day, 10 children are sent out of the compound. By 5 p.m., the FBI takes control with a fully functioning command post. FBI agents in armored vehicles deploy to the compound's perimeter. KORESH becomes extremely agitated when the armored vehicles move closer and when his phone line is cut except for outgoing calls to the negotiators. At least twice, KORESH says suicide is not being contemplated. CLINTON and FBI Director William SESSIONS talk about how to handle crisis. SESSIONS favors "waiting strategy," and CLINTON approves this tactic. [ Scruggs 9, 27, 28, 29, 30, 126, 237]

(Myth: [Attorney General] Janet Reno took charge of Waco from Day One and privately vowed to burn the Davidians to death for defying the federal government’ s arrest warrant.)

[The Truth: Stuart Gerson, the acting attorney general and a creature from the administration of Bush the Smarter, was in charge of the Department of Justice when the Davidians shot the ATF agents. Since President Clinton was slow in making his appointments, when Burnin’ Vernon and his followers decided to shoot the cops, he didn’t even have an AG yet.

Burnin’ Vernon has now lied twice to the FBI when he said suicide was not being contemplated. Vernon’s brand of Christianity espoused that the U.S. government was part of ‘evil Babylon’ and that the Davidians would reach God sooner if they died in a fire.]

S. Olson