For most of his 30-year FBI career, Gary Noesner served as a hostage negotiator — including 10 years as chief negotiator — talking directly with emotionally enraged and desperate people, including Branch Davidian leader David Koresh. In his book Stalling for Time, Noesner recounts his most intense standoffs. In a chat with TIME, he explains how negotiators and tactical rescue teams sometimes butt heads, how more Branch Davidians could have been saved in Waco and how hostage-negotiation skills could help American politicians.
His motto: Kill ’em all! Let God sort ’em out!
Yep….burn little kids alive. Heckuva job Janet!
FBI freed the kids, by bombing them straight to Heaven.
Bombing is the same way the US executive branch is still saving Iraq and Afghanistan.
Say, is Ali Mohammed still under control of one of your handlers? You did real well with that too. New Yorkers thank you and especially USAG Patrick Fitzgerald for such a swell job helping the CIA funnel US and foreign money and weapons and freedom fighting skills, over to the freedom fighters in Afghanistan to successfully drive out the Soviets.
Can I ask a question: Does the FBI suppose your freedom fighters in Afghanistan and other nearby areas Still Have any of that US and foreign money and weapons and freedom fighting skills and anger at foreigners for annexing their property?
The lessons of the Waco fiasco/tragedy should not be forgotten because it’s the kind of thing that will surely happen again.
The best things I’ve seen done on Waco is the 1997 documentary “Waco: The Rules of Engagement”
There is no giant conspiracy theory revealed — just a series of bad decisions. The real culprit was David Koresh, to be sure, but law enforcement took a bad situation and allowed it to spin into horrific tragedy.
The movie makes a case that law enforcement, not the Davidians themselves, caused the fire. As I remember, the authorities where pumping some sort of tear gas which can be explosive in unventilated places (like many fine powders can do). The electricity had been cut off long before and the Davidians where using candles or lanterns which set fire to the gas.
Law enforcement should have anticipated this but it was just another one of their screw ups.
The law enforcement wasn’t to blame it was their superiors that wanted to put on a big show for the media so their budget wouldn’t be cut. Instead of just conducting quiet arrests, they tipped off the media, and David Koresh ended up finding out and was prepared.
MikeN,
You might be right about how the original raid was bungled. I believe that David Koresh would routinely go into the city of Waco and he could have been arrested there instead of with an assault on the compound.
Of course, the bungled raid was only the beginning of a series of bungles. Including by this FBI negotiator I would guess, despite his putting the blame on others. I do seem to remember that he argued to continue negotiations when others wanted to attack. But I suspect he sucked as a negotiator so that wasn’t getting anywhere.
But I’ve never heard it linked to budget cuts. Did you just make that up or is it documented somewhere?
“I believe that David Koresh would routinely go into the city of Waco and he could have been arrested there instead of with an assault on the compound.”
Your recollection is correct. Koresh was clearly the bad guy, but Janet really wanted a big PR trophy, hence the news crews on the scene to film the dramatic bust.
This is the best part of this article…. ..and how hostage-negotiation skills could help American politicians. Great idea.
Never mind Koresh and religious nuttballs in Wacko, Texas or otherwise.
What is needed is hostage negotiator skills with Republicans in Congress holding hostage the legislative process.
>hostage-negotiation skills could help American politicians.
Although to be fair, putting them all in a compound and firing flamethrowers at them does have an appeal.
Tear gas is combustible. They had old fashioned kerosene lights burning.
On the other hand the wicked Messiah had been teaching his followers for years that he was going to do a death stand after which he was going to rise from the dead which is why they were armed and refused to surrender.
Why David refused to surrender might have had something to do with the fact that, according to his followers, he regularly had sex with underage girls many of whom had born him children.
Most of the children that died were David’s. People refused to leave a burning building.
Nope, I don’t think that gem about the underage girls came out until later.
It is my understanding that if David had simply allowed the original raid to go forward they would not have found anything illegal but the people who made that claim might have been wrong.
It was human services/child welfare that should have nailed his butt to the wall.
#8 “Your recollection is correct. Koresh was clearly the bad guy, but Janet really wanted a big PR trophy, hence the news crews on the scene to film the dramatic bust.”
Reno had nothing to do with the BATF raid — she got the job two weeks after the siege started (and BATF wouldn’t have been under her control anyway — it sorted under the Treasury at the time). She did have something to do with the FBI-led attempted bust that led to the fire, but was actually one of the few people involved who demonstrated some kind of concern for what might happen.
…but since the people advising her were FBI and DoD people, she wasn’t exactly given all the facts, such as how CS + fire = cyanide gas.
As for the media blitz, that was also something the BATF had devised on their own — budget hearings were approaching, and they needed to make a big splash. Since they got one (albeit not quite the kind they had hoped for), the media stuck around and were therefore perfectly poised for broadcasting the fiery outcome of the siege.
#5 “The best things I’ve seen done on Waco is the 1997 documentary “Waco: The Rules of Engagement””
Yes, it’s an OK one, although I’d say that their hinting at the feds causing the fire sometime edges towards the conspiratorial. But it’s very much in the interpretation of the viewer, and as you say, in the end, it pretty much comes down to another one in the long row of boneheaded decisions on the HRT’s part, rather than malice.
“As I remember, the authorities where pumping some sort of tear gas which can be explosive in unventilated places (like many fine powders can do). The electricity had been cut off long before and the Davidians where using candles or lanterns which set fire to the gas.”
It wasn’t so much that the CS was explosive, but that when subjected to intense heat, it went through a chemical reaction that transformed it into what pretty much counts as ye olde Zyklon B…
The really sad part about Waco is that everyone was at fault in one way or another, and — perhaps saddest of all — that none of these fault were malicious. Even the Davidians and Koresh had a clear line of rationality, and one of the key issues the FBI faced (and failed to handle) was that this rationality was seemingly close to what they knew, but in actuality completely alien to their preconceived notions about criminal and religious thought.
GregAllen, Google of Waco ATF budget cuts provides some links, but nothing solid.
It wasn’t just ATF, but this was early 1993, and Congress was a little bit serious about cutting the budget deficit after Ross Perot got 19% of the vote. They cut some subsidies for mohair, were very close to eliminating the Space Station, after which NASA spread the jobs around, and killed off the SuperConducting SuperCollider when Texas elected a Republican Senator.
#14 Pedrito, I’m glad you agree.
Really, do we need yet another Waco analysis? Exactly.
The key piece is that host negotiation skills are in fact what is needed to put the Republicans back to their paid jobs of legislating.
BATF in those days was an out of control Gestapo. There was no way they were going to let those people out alive, and in fact snipers picked them off one by one during the siege when they had clear shots.
The question of who started the fire will never be known because the feds immediately bulldozed over the ruins to prevent forensic fire investigation.
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