REPORT TO THE JUSTICE AND TREASURY DEPARTMENTS regarding law enforcement interaction with the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas

Abstract

he following report and recommendations are based largely on oral briefings conducted on July 1-2 at the Justice Department, as well as on August 3 at the Treasury Department and at the FBI Training Academy at Quantico. In addition, I have had access to a number of other sources. We were supplied with background information on many of the persons in the Investigative Support Unit, and I was supplied with a list of the experts consulted by the FBI during the affair. I have consulted with academic colleagues and have reviewed a good deal of the academic literature on New Religious Movements. Various political and lobbying groups have sent me information. I talked with Glenn Hilburn at Baylor, and I spent two hours with Pete Smerick and Gregg McCrary at the FBI Academy. I do not pretend that this represents a full accounting of what happened at Waco. That has not been my aim. Rather, what follows attempts to assess the nature and quality of the expert advice available to the agencies involved in this situation and to make some suggestions about how that advice might better be utilized in the future.