home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=93TT1475>
- <title>
- Apr. 19, 1993: Waco's False Spring
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Apr. 19, 1993 Los Angeles
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 17
- NATION
- Waco's False Spring
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>A thaw in negotiations with Koresh appears to be only temporary
- </p>
- <p> For just a while, the signs were hopeful. The parties in
- Waco's six-week standoff seemed to look beyond, toward the
- multiboard legal chess match bound to follow a peaceful
- resolution. The Texas Rangers, for instance, were reportedly
- miffed that FBI negotiators had unintentionally caused the Branch
- Davidians to sanitize possible court evidence--scrubbing away
- blood, sweeping up spent cartridges and reducing automatic guns
- back to semiautomatics. The FBI denied the report. The Davidians,
- too, employed a kind of spin control that implied something will
- remain intact to spin. David Koresh's attorneys talked about
- contesting some government assertions--in court--and
- described in detail a surrender scheduled after the group's
- Passover. Koresh also deputized two New York City lawyers to
- handle his book, television and movie rights, hardly the act of
- a man contemplating martyrdom.
- </p>
- <p> Alas, matters degenerated. First, the Davidians distanced
- themselves from the Passover pledge. Then a cult member tried
- to climb out a compound window after dark, apparently breaching
- an agreement with the FBI. When agents upbraided Koresh over it,
- he cursed them. As if to symbolize the new low in
- communications, they hung up on him.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-