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Jeffrey K. Hadden
Few Americans had ever heard of a sectarian group called the Branch Davidians until the last day of February in 1993. The American public was not alone in being unaware of the Davidians. Fully 96 percent of the residents of the Waco area reported that they knew "little" or "nothing at all" about the Branch Davidians prior to publicity surrounding the shoot-out (Baylor 1993, 4}. Fifty-one days later, when the Mt. Carmel compground went up in flames, the Davidians were known to hundreds of millions around the world. Public opinion polls in the United States showed little sympathy for the Davidians and, in sharp contrast, substantial support for the actions of federal agents in handling the siege.
The absence of public criticism of the federal agents' behavior is not very surprising. From the onset, the mass media substantially reported the story without much scrutiny of the details of the raid and siege as these were presented to them in government press briefings in Waco. In presenting the story largely without criticism, the mass media contributed significantly to legitimating the government's role and portraying the federal agents as: (1) properly assuming responsibility for abused and endangered children, (2) duly authorized agents charged with responsibility for bringing to justice a band of criminals who had assembled an enormous cache of illegal weapons and ammunition, and (3) guardians of a community at risk of an armed assault by the followers of the fanatical and dangerous cult leader and his brainwashed followers.
Independent investigations by the departments of Treasury and Justice came to very different conclusions about the incidents in Waco. The Department of Treasury report was candid and quite critical of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF ), while the Department of Justice report laid the blame for the tragic outcome on Koresh while praising the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for "patience and restraint." Attorney General Janet Reno and President William Clinton blamed the Davidian leader, who would never be able to stand trial for his alleged crimes, while publicly exonerating each other and the public agents involved. Our task for this paper is not to debunk or criticize the media for their coverage of the story of David Koresh, h is followers, and their conflicts with federal agents. Nor is it our purpose to expose the mistakes or alleged wrongdoings of government officials. We leave it to others, and to history, to sort out a great deal of conflicting evidence and self-serving rh etoric on the part of all parties involved. Rather, our goal is to develop a conceptual model that is capable of objectively describing and analyzing both the accounts rendered by government agents and the story as it was reported by the mass media.
News and the Stock of Cultural KnowledgeOur point of departure may be characterized as a sociology of knowledge perspective. Our theoretical premise, widely accepted by scholars of the media as well as some journalists, is that news is not an objective reality that happens and needs merely t o be transmitted to the public by those who report the news. Rather, news, like all social reality, is socially constructed.
Those who make the news, or who get caught up in news stories, usually have a perspective on what they are doing or what has happened. That is to say, people interpret what they do or what happens to them; they may accept responsibility, proffer blame , or attribute happenings to fate or supernatural forces. Likewise, those who report the news bring a wide array of predispositions to the task. They will search for the facts, but that inquiry is shaped by prior knowledge or presuppositions they bring to the investigation. When public authorities get involved, they too have a perspective and presuppositions. The "news" is a composite that incorporates, to varying degrees, the wide array of perspectives and presuppositions that these actors- newsmakers, p ublic authorities, and news reporters-bring to the event.
Alternately, the general public does not just "hear" the news. Audiences filter the information and images through their own perspectives and experience. In many instances, a reader or viewer may not have prior knowledge about specific individuals or groups who make news, but they have attitudes, values, and presuppositions that both directly and indirectly come into play as they seek to make sense of any given news item. For example, an urban crime or drug story may automatically trigger the presuppo sition of a perpetrator or victim who is a member of a minority, lower socioeconomic class, and so forth.
When the Branch Davidian story broke, almost no one had foreknowledge of the group. However, a large proportion of the public was not without presuppositions, so the story did not break in an experiential vacuum. Once a little information about the gr oup and what had happened was presented, many viewers or listeners were able to bring their presuppositions to bear in such a way that the story immediately "made sense."
Some of what people bring to bear in interpreting a news story is particularistic, that is, unique to that individual's experience. But we can also speak of a common stock of cultural knowledge, or information and perspectives that are broadly shared by the general public. To speak of something as being part of a common stock of cultural knowledge is not to imply that the knowledge is prima facie true. It is merely to assert that the knowledge is widely accepted.
When the Branch Davidian story broke, there was a substantial reservoir of cultural knowledge that was widely shared by the general public, the mass media, and the federal agents who pursued what they believed to be illegal and immoral activities at M t. Carmel. First, and foremost, the episode in Waco was a "cult story." Cults are widely believed to be led by fanatical leaders who hold unusual sway over their followers. Both the leaders and their followers are capable of doing bizarre things and, furt hermore, they are potentially dangerous both to themselves and to others.
This image of cults is firmly anchored in American history, but has been recently reinforced by the plethora of new religions over the d past two decades. Virtually everyone knows about the mass suicide of hundreds of followers of Jim Jones in Guyana. But many other groups, such as the Unification Church (Moonies), Hare Krishnas, the Children of God, and Scientology, have been the subjects of high profile and highly negative publicity. Hence, the mere labeling of a group as a cult conjures up the most scandalous of images.
We have, on the other hand, a shared respect in this culture for law enforcement officers. We accept that their work can be dangerous, and we regularly exhibit public honor and sympathy when law enforcement officers all while performing their duty. Th us, the fact that four agents of law enforcement lost their lives and an additional sixteen were wounded in the initial confrontation evoked great sympathy for the BATF agents and, concomitantly, repugnance toward the presumed perpetrators.
The initial contours of the story, thus, were heavily weighted against much sympathetic play for the Davidians. But there is much more to understanding the framing of the Branch Davidian story than a widely shared stock of cultural presuppositions reg arding cults, which the death and wounding of federal law enforcement agents confirmed at the onset. What is required is a more complex analytical framework that can explain the unwavering character of the story, especially in the face of alternative pers pectives that possessed certain compelling qualities.
Such a model needs to explain why all the actors in this drama perceived the crisis as they did and behaved according to those presuppositions. It should be a model that provides general explanatory power, not just an accounting for the outcome at Wac o. The conceptualizations to follow are predicated on the assumption that actors in crisis situations are not so much oriented toward specific behaviors or outcomes but, rather, seek to sustain a narrative or account of what is happening so as to render t heir own behavior legitimate.
Action and the Problem of Managing LegitimacyOur analysis of the behavior of the key actors in the Branch Davidian crisis begins with an examination of the sociological concept of legitimacy. Contemporary sociological analysis of legitimacy is significantly informed by Weber's delineation of the relationship between power, authority, and legitimacy (Weber 1947, 124-32). Weber's tripartite distinction between rational, traditional, and charismatic authority is well known in several subdisciplines of sociology.
Social order and stable governance is possible because collective cognitions and affective sentiments render legitimacy to established patterns. It is not normally necessary to call in the militia to enforce the laws passed by a congress or parliament because these institutions are broadly perceived to have the authority to make laws. Further, it is widely understood that there are structures in place to sanction those who do not comply with the laws. While the threat of sanctions may contribute to le gal compliance, most such compliance is anchored in the perception that laws are legitimate. The reasons that laws are perceived to be legitimate may be explained, in varying degrees, by the imputed reasons analyzed by Weber.
In modern democratic societies, power and authority are widely diffused in both public and private institutions. Thus, we can conceptualize all institutions, as well as the roles within them (particularly leadership roles), as having greater or lesser degrees of legitimacy. For example, public education in America- especially in the inner cities of large metropolitan areas-is widely perceived to have failed. This perceived failure significantly undermines public trust and feeds the flames of critics w ho declare public education to be illegitimate. The perception of illegitimacy countervails and thus contributes to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Widespread negative sentiment, in turn, leads to a growing reluctance by some to commit resources to public edu cation.
In the same sense that it is possible to think of institutions as having greater or lesser degrees of legitimacy, so also may the idea of legitimacy be applied to specific individual actors, or incumbents of roles within an institution. Generally, the application of the concept would be restricted to agents of considerable organizational responsibility. For example, in American democracy there is virtual consensus regarding the legitimacy of the office of the president and there has been little varian ce on that consensus from the inception of the nation. Yet, there have been numerous occasions where there was widespread belief that the individual incumbent of the role was not legitimate. Presidents typically experience considerable fluctuation in popu larity during their terms of office and, hence, popularity is, at best, an indirect and probably not very useful indicator of perceived legitimacy.
It needs to be stressed that legitimacy is not to be equated with popularity. Weber's penetrating analysis cautions against such a conclusion. On the other hand, modern democracies, with relatively unfettered free presses, can turn unpopular actions-i ncluding evidence of inadequate or improper job performance-into major crises for role incumbents. This is so not only for presidents, but for incumbents of any high-profile public role.
Clearly, legitimacy involves a great deal more than public perception. At the same time, it is clear that widespread public disapproval of an institution, or role incumbent, can constitute a potentially serious problem for the institution or individua l in question.
Established institutions tend to have a taken-for-granted legitimacy. Still, there exists the ever present possibility of unfavorable events reflecting negatively on an institution and challenging its legitimacy. Thus, it is axiomatic that institution al leaders will strive to guard against the emergence of events that might undermine either their institutions or their leadership. Further, when threatening events do emerge, leaders will act in ways they believe to be consistent with eliminating or cont rolling threats to legitimacy.
Analysis of how this occurs requires the development of a simple nomenclature or set of concepts. We begin with the proposition that all organizations face an ongoing series of events that present either an opportunity or obligation to respond. We dis tinguish between routine or normal events, and crisis events.
Events are happenings or activities that normally require a response from appropriate public officials (public agents). Response to some events may be characterized as obligatory, as the case of the death of a prominent public figure. Other events may be seen as opportunities for public officials to identify with popular activities, for example, offering congratulations to the winner of the Super Bowl, or receiving Olympic medal winners at the White House. This broad array of routine events may have t he impact of enhancing the esteem of an institution, an institutional agent, but the high public expectation of a response tends to place the worth of such responses in the category of institutional or role maintenance. Habitual neglect, or conspicuously inadequate response, could have negative consequences.
Crisis events also require appropriate public agents to respond, but how they respond has potential implications for their perceived legitimacy. Responses normally include both accounts and actions. Accounts are narratives or explanations about what h as happened which may include assignment of responsibility. Actions may involve direct and highly visible activities, such as mobilizing the National Guard, or symbolic activities, such as a presidential visit to the site of a disaster, or the appointing of a commission to investigate the event.
The responses of public agents to crisis events may be viewed as crisis management activities. In the age of instant mass media, crisis prevention and crisis management have increasingly become important activities. Skillful management of crisis event s affirms the legitimacy of an institution. Failure to manage a crisis calls forth the precariousness of legitimacy. The appearance that a situation is out of control constitutes a serious blow to agents and the institutions involved.
The perception that a crisis was handled skillfully may enhance the reputation of the public agents involved. On the other hand, the perception that it has been mishandled has the impact of drawing attention away from the event to the agents responsib le for responding. When this happens, there is a risk that the responsible officials and the institutions they represent will face a challenge to their legitimacy. Agents who fail to manage a crisis event may suffer loss of popularity or esteem, reassignm ent and career derailment, dismissal, failure to win reelection, or-at the extreme-indictment or impeachment. Institutions may lose public support, suffer budget and staff cuts or-at the extreme-be abolished altogether.
Reporting EventsWhat we have here characterized as events, both routine and crisis are essentially public happenings. The mass media, or media agents, gather, sort, analyze, and communicate news about events to the general public. What media agents elect to report, an d the interpretation they give to an event, may well determine whether it is to be understood as a normal or crisis event.
Awareness of the role of the media in shaping public perceptions of events has been generally acknowledged since 1922 when Walter Lippmann published his classic work, Public Opinion. There is also a growing consciousness that journalists are like ever yone else in the sense that they have attitudes and values about all sorts of subjects {Lichter, Rothman, and Lichter 1986). Further, these sentiments do not disappear when journalists go to work, although some would like to convince themselves and others that their work role is pursued with objectivity and total neutrality toward any and all subject matters. Gans (1980, 68) terms this unconscious, rarely reflected-upon bias as a "paraideology" that exerts a steady influence even if journalists are unawar e or deny its existence. It helps determine what is covered, how it is covered, and how it is reported.
The mass media, of course, have been the subject of much criticism in recent years. Some critics regard the mass media as a conscious or, at best, inadvertently driven tool to apologize for and buttress the status quo (Parenti 1986, 10). Others see th e media as closet crusaders who mask their moral reform goals behind a shroud of objectivity (Lichter, Rothman, and Lichter 1986, 299). Altheide 1976, 24) describes the process of television news reporting as so "decontextualized" that electronic journali sts have virtual free rein in shaping an event to the meaning that producers and writers consciously or unconsciously intend.
Most journalists readily acknowledge that the act of reporting involves more than mirroring some objective events that are "out there." David Broder, syndicated columnist and veteran reporter for the Washington Post, candidly and insightfully discusse s the need for and difficulties in developing a cohesive story line (1987, 94): "Plot creation is an inescapable part of journalism. We are offered, or we dig up, fragments of information, often buried in a mass of irrelevancies, and we have to render a c omprehensive, plausible scenario from these fragments ... there are times when the journalistic product looks like a mastodon that was assembled from a fossil toenail find. Some plots described in the press don't bear much resemblance to reality."
From a sociology-of-knowledge perspective, news is a negotiated product that reflects the interaction of a complex web of factors including (1 ) the information available, (2) the values and interests of reports and their editors, and (3) the commerci al or market imperatives within which the newsmaking industry is embedded.
Further, crisis events trigger public response. Public Opinion consists of the perceptions people have regarding the legitimacy of the accounts and actions offered by public agents. The opinions that publics form about crisis events are often superfic ial and subject to rapid change. This is especially likely at the onset of a crisis event if the public is ill-informed about the specific details or the context of the event. Information disseminated by media agents gives shape to the crisis event and he lps to locate it within the broader value structures of the public. Yet mishandling of crisis events can turn public opinion against an institution and thus threaten its legitimacy. As a result, public opinion must be taken seriously.
Public agents may occasionally utilize the infrastructure of mass media to access the public directly for the purpose of offering accounts and announcing actions. For example, presidential addresses to the nation normally are proceeded and followed by the appearance of media agents who contextualize and analyze (1) the crisis event, (2} the president's account, and (3) the proposed actions. The mass media, thus, are not merely a conduit in the transmission of information about crisis events to the pub lic. The selection of information for transmission, as well as how the information is presented, can have a significant impact upon the definition and outcome of crisis events.
The nexus of relations between crisis events, public agents, media agents, and public opinion is diagramed in figure 1. A few comments need to be offered about the directions of influence in the model. First, note that the relation between the public and public agents is characterized by broken arrows. This is because direct access is at best a fleeting moment. Most of the information that public agents communicate to the public is mediated through media agents. And even brief moments of direct access are usually circumscribed by media agent commentary. Second, note the broken feedback arrows from public opinion to both public and media agents. While clearly there is a limited amount of direct public feedback to public agents, most of the feedback com es indirectly through opinion polls as well as secondary and even tertiary feedback from persons having access to public agents. Media agents also receive limited feedback in the form of letters and calls, but they too rely substantially on indirect infor mation. Finally, note the one-way broken arrow from the crisis event to the public. In an age when millions of Americans have witnessed the unfolding of crisis events on Cable News Network {CNN) or C-Span, one might question whether the arrow should be di rect rather than broken.
We offer several reasons for suggesting that the relationship between a crisis event and the public should be characterized as mediated. First, the number of persons watching an event actually unfold is usually quite small. Consider, for example, CNN' s live coverage of the ramming of the walls of the Branch Davidian compound to insert CS gas, and later the engulfing of the structure in flames. The large majority of the public who watched these events saw only a highly edited version on the evening new s. Second, the events were not merely broadcast. Reporters on the scene discussed and interpreted what was happening for audiences. Thus, even live coverage does not represent unadulterated transmission of a crisis event but one that is mediated by instan t commentary from broadcasters. In addition, most crisis events do not just suddenly happen in a cultural vacuum but are contextualized by prior public sentiments. In the case of the Branch Davidian fire, this crisis event was part of a larger crisis that had been unfolding for fifty days. Further, the framing of the story was, from the beginning, understood in the broader context of "cult stories."
The tension between public agents and a free mass media is inherent in the structure of their relationship. Probably every president since Thomas Jefferson has frequently looked upon the press as a personal menace, and at least occasionally, has seen the press as a threat to governance of society. The press, in turn, has frequently pursued a modus operandi that assumes that anything less than full disclosure is automatically evidence that public agents have something scandalous to cover up.
The tension between the press and government intensifies whenever a crisis event unfolds. Crisis events evoke a special measure of caution on behalf of public agents, while the crisis often brings forth the "killer instinct" on the part of media agent s (e.g., Sabato 1993).
In democratic societies, where the mass media are not monopolized, competition for audience share and advertising revenues figures importantly in the production of news. While most media organizations probably do not consciously or ordinarily calculat e how to treat a specific crisis event in order to maximize audience share and profits, most have general strategies or formulas that shape their orientation.
The rules of engagement between public agents and media agents can, thus, be highly variable. A crisis event may emerge anywhere. The centripetal structure of news gathering usually results in national crisis events quickly reaching the White House pr ess room. Here, usually with limited information, the task of formulating an account, that is, a story line about what has happened and who is responsible, commences. This is followed by a centrifugal flow of information gathering as news agencies fan out to fill in the details of the story.
While media agents seek to "tell the story," they also endeavor to "get behind the facts." This involves the pursuit of a whole range of issues. Is the account offered by the public agents creditable? Are there alternative accounts that may have crede nce? Is the action proposed appropriate and adequate to address the crisis event? Are there resources available to pursue the proposed action?
Public agents operating at many levels of responsibility and authority provide the media with information relevant to the story. This broad class of individuals we characterize as players. The media's pursuit of the story also involves gathering infor mation and opinions from individuals and agencies who are neither directly involved nor responsible for dealing with the crisis event. They are actors because of the knowledge they possess, or profess to possess, about the crisis event. This broad class o f individuals we characterize as experts.
Experts can generally be categorized as either corroborators or doubters. Corroborators provide information and voice that support the accounts proffered or actions advanced by public agents. Doubters come in many shades. The may range from skeptics r egarding the accounts offered or actions proposed to aggressive contrarians. Contrarians seek to refute the accounts and actions advanced and to introduce alternative accounts or propose alternative actions.
The media may utilize experts in a variety of ways. Their most common usage in news stories is to provide information and perspective that help the media agent understand issues relevant to the crisis event. Second, quotations in print journalism and commentary or sound bites in broadcast journalism help lend credibility to the story as framed by the media agent. The media's use of experts may have the effect of corroborating information available through public agents or it may serve to challenge cre dibility. Some media formats are structured to maximize controversy, such as by providing a format for aggressive contrarians.
Space does not permit a more detailed elaboration of the interactive model we have sketched. We hope we have provided adequate detail to apply the model to interpret the dynamics that ensued as the result of the raid by the BATF on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. One final caveat, however, is important. The mass media, and individual journalists, are also subject to assessment regarding their legitimacy. Like the office of the president, a free press is highly institutionalized and legi timated, but particular actions and policies are subject to assessment.
Narratives and the Social Construction of Legitimacy: An Interactive Account of the Branch Davidian Siege
The story of Waco as it emerged in public opinion is the product of sometimes conflicting, sometimes reinforcing narratives and subnarratives. Each narrative has been constructed by participants who seek not only to tell the story as they see it, but a lso to frame the story in a manner that renders their own roles legitimate. Specific behaviors, or even the final outcome, are less important, ultimately, than public perceptions of what happened and why. Thus, consciously or unconsciously, the issue of l egitimacy is the starting point of the accounts or narratives that various participants construct.
Of all the narratives and subnarratives that were at play in the Waco story, five can be identified as major narratives that have significant impact in explaining the outcome: ( 1 ) the public agent narrative, (2) the Branch Davidian narrative, (3) th e mass media narrative, (4) the anticult narrative, and (5) the contrarian narrative. Utilizing the conceptual model presented above, we shall seek to demonstrate how each narrative is an attempt to legitimize a perspective and how each contributes to the formation of public opinion.
The Public Agent Narrative
There were a number of public agents as the story unfolded, beginning with the McLennan County Sheriff's Department. They were quickly overshadowed by the BATF, which in turn was eclipsed by the FBI. In the course of the siege, the U.S. attorney genera l and the Department of Justice, the governor of Texas and the Texas Rangers, and the president of the United States became actors contributing to the legitimation of the initial raid and the final confrontation that ended in the tragic fire.
While there was some evidence of tension between the various public agents, they seemed to have quickly reached closure on the narrative that legitimated their actions and subsequent crisis management of events in Waco. The key components of this narr ative included: (1) a statutory mandate to search for illegal weapons, (2) a humanitarian in loco parentis responsibility to rescue Brand Davidian children and dependents from abuse and neglect, and (3) an obligation to round up illegal aliens.
Though the latter two concerns are beyond the statutory mandate of the BATF, they were included as part of a prima facie justification for the initial application and affidavit for a search warrant presented by BATF Special Agent Davy Aguilera (U.S. D istrict Court 1993). Despite the inability of a local child welfare investigator to confirm the practice of child abuse, and despite the total lack of attention to the case by Immigration and Naturalization Service authorities, such concerns played a role in the overall official acceptance of the February 28 BATF raid (U.S. Department of Treasury 1993, 28ff.).
The mass media did initially raise questions about the wisdom of such an elaborate plan to storm the Branch Davidian compound merely in order to serve a warrant (which, in fact, the BTAF assault team failed to bring). But the fact that a shoot-out occ urred, and that federal agents were killed and wounded, overrode critical examination of other accounts. From the onset of the siege, the BATF story line of being "ambushed" and outgunned" not only appeared to have credibility; it also overrode considerat ion of other possible narratives. More important, it confirmed the federal agents' contention that David Koresh and his followers were a "present danger" to the public and to the government.
When such events occur, it is the official duty of public agents to intervene. Those who resist them are ipso facto illegitimate regardless of other existing issues. Two alternating paradigms quickly surfaced: Koresh was criminalized as an inveterate "con artist" who had duped his followers. He was also medicalized as a psychopath against whom rational guardians of society could have little effect. The FBI's quick assumption of responsibility for the siege operations further legitimated the government 's initial ground for intervention. In the long run, the FBI involvement laid the foundation for questioning the ability of the BATF to pursue its operations objectives, but it did not challenge the legitimacy of the raid.
From the federal agents' perspective, the early days of the siege confirmed their understanding of David Koresh as devious, manipulative, unreliable, and extremely dangerous. In the course of the fifty-one day siege, federal agents pursued an unusual number of psychological warfare measures. The FBI tactics included the use of loudspeakers to bombard the Davidians with propaganda and harassment. Presumably the agents held out some hope that they would overcome the grip that Koresh held over his follow ers. At all hours of the night and day, the loudspeakers belched forth such curious content as audiotapes of rabbits being killed, chanting Tibetan monks, and Nancy Sinatra singing "These Boots Were Made for Walking."
If these tactics at times seemed to match the bizarre theological pronouncements coming forth from Koresh, in the end they served to legitimate the federal agents' conclusion that they had done everything they could to get the Davidians out. That they held out against psychological warfare tactics "demonstrated" that the Davidians were dogmatic, determined, and unrelentingly devoted to their leader. For their own safety and well-being, they had to be rousted out by any means necessary. Thus, the tacti cs of tear gas and battering armored vehicles that might have seemed indefensible during the first few days of the siege seemed less so on the fifty-first day. This tactic was further legitimated by returning the narrative to concern for the welfare of th e children.
The FBI cast the fifty-one-day siege in the context of a battle of wills between its agents and the forces of Koresh. Increasingly, the objective of the agents was to confront Koresh with the "fact" of his eroding power during the siege {despite prote sts about this strategy from the FBI's own behavioral science experts) and "to assert control and demonstrate to Koresh that they were in control" (Stone 1993, 14ff).
In reality, the federal agents were not in control of events. Repeatedly, their efforts to bring the standoff to a quick conclusion were foiled. There can be no question that the FBI agents were tired and frustrated. As one anonymous congressional aid commented: "I think you not only need to understand the psychology of cults but you need to understand the psychology of law enforcement as well. They [the BATF and FBI] had been challenged . . . there was the day-in-day-out appearance of impotence in a profession in which control is so important" (Riley et al. 1993, 43).
Federal agents had to know that there were risks associated with the plan to insert CS gas into the compound with armored vehicles. The possibility of a mass suicide had been entertained, even discussed with Koresh, but dismissed by those in decision- making roles.
We may never know whether the federal agents in charge seriously entertained the possibility of a calamitous ending. If they did, their behavior during the siege seems clearly to point to an explicit, or at least implicit, narrative that placed full r esponsibility for such an outcome on the shoulders of David Koresh. Koresh was taking the Branch Davidians with him down a Pyrrhic path of defiance. When the seemingly unthinkable tragedy occurred, Edward S. G. Dennis, Jr. 11993, 3) provided an internal D epartment of Justice report for Attorney General Janet Reno that concluded: "The events of April 19 were the result of David Koresh's determined efforts to choreograph his own death and the deaths of his followers in a confrontation with federal authoriti es to fulfill Koresh's apocalyptic prophecy." The government, in this account, was not at fault.
Independent reports by the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Justice served further to legitimate the public agents in the handling of the crisis event in Waco. The Treasury report in particular was unusually candid. Most important, the report acknowledged that the BATF agents undertook the raid, which was predicated on the element of surprise, despite the knowledge that Koresh had been tipped off that the assault was imminent, and that they then proceeded systematically to make "false or misleading public statements about the raid" that had the impact of "undermining the integrity of their agency" (U.S. Department of Treasury 1993, 194).
Having admitted that "mistakes were made," BATF Director Stephen Higgins and two assistants were permitted to resign ( though the latter were reinstated). By assigning blame and getting rid of key of officials, the Treasury report may be viewed as a f orm of damage control. Agents responsible for failed management of the crisis event had to go, in order to preserve the credibility and legitimacy not only of BATF, but also of the Department of Treasury.
The Department of Justice report, on the other hand, focused substantially on the wrongdoings of Koresh and the Davidians. Significant criticism or reflection about the handling of the entire crisis event was in short supply.
By the time the two investigations were released, almost six months after the siege ended, the story had passed from the front page. While the reports made the network television news and the front pages of most major newspapers, the revelations of mi sconduct by public agents did not register long in public memory. Long before the reports were released, even before the tragic conclusion of the siege, the public agents had succeeded in presenting a narrative of the crisis event that portrayed it as lar gely self-imposed by David Koresh and his Branch Davidian followers.
The Branch Davidian Narrative
The sequence of events precluded the media from obtaining authentic insider accounts of what the Davidians were experiencing and how the siege was interpreted. On the day of the initial confrontation, CNN aired a live interview with Koresh, and Dallas radio station KRLD aired messages and scripture readings from Koresh through an agreement worked out with the BATF.
All other contacts with Koresh and his followers were mediated in one way or another. Federal agents cut off telephone communications except their own. Thus, most of what was subsequently learned of the Davidian narrative was filtered through both gov ernment and media agents, and some of it through two attorneys for the Davidians, Dick DeGuerin and Jack Zimmerman, who were allowed into the compound.
There were also, of course, a few sensational personal narratives offered by disillusioned and hostile former members who had abandoned the group before the crisis events occurred (e.g., Breault and King 1993). However, these narratives display all th e earmarks of being colored by apostate and commercial motivations (Shupe and Bromley 1981).
Few of the principle actors survived the final conflagration. While the trials of surviving Branch Davidians did offer some vindication,l their testimony is suspect as literal history, given the pressures to slant memories coming from both prosecutors and defense attorneys. In addition, survivors experienced a wide variety of counseling and interviews that likely contributed to their understanding of what they had experienced. All in all, the methodological problems of interpreting the testimonies of the survivors are considerable (Wright and Ebaugh 1993).
Some independent evidence of the Branch Davidian narrative survives.2 There are films of Koresh's millennial preaching and knowledge of his claims and his remarks to both the media and the FBI negotiators. From Koresh's perspective, he was intensely e ngaged in interpreting critical parts of the book of Revelation which would conclude what he believed to be a divine theological mission. This mission is the heart of the Branch Davidian narrative. Koresh believed that he could decipher the allegorical me aning of the seven seals mentioned in Revelation and that he and his loyal followers would be part of the second coming of Christ. This claim was Koresh's source of authority over his followers (see Tabor, this volume).
Ironically, the raid and subsequent siege functioned to strengthen Koresh's vision of his prophetic role in history as well as his hold over his followers. These events confirmed Koresh's prophecies based on his interpretation of the book of Revelatio n. He had preached that in the last days there would initially be a killing spree aimed at the faithful. Koresh said that God had commanded him to wait under siege until others were killed. Phillip Arnold, a theologian whose advice to the FBI went unheede d, said in hindsight that "David felt that the prophecies of the Book of Revelation were being fulfilled this very week, this very day, in Waco, Texas" (Prime Time 1994).
This perspective was, of course, significantly at odds with FBI tacticians who considered Koresh's theology to be a hoax and the man himself a charlatan. Had federal agents taken this theological perspective seriously, they perhaps would have understo od how their tactics inadvertently confirmed the legitimacy of Koresh's prophecies and, in turn, his hold over his followers. From the initial presence of so many BATF agents, to the prolonged siege, to the media hoopla, Koresh's world-transforming prophe tic message must have been reinforced not only in the mind of Koresh, but in those of his followers as well.
This was a narrative that was incomprehensible to the federal agents who were responsible for the initial raid, and those later responsible for operations during the siege. Their dismissal of it as ravings unimportant to the "hostage/barricade" issue accounts for much of Koresh's alleged inconsistencies and erratic behaviors during negotiations. The narrative was also largely incomprehensible to the media agents assigned to cover the story.
Consultants to the investigations of the Justice and Treasury departments confirmed the presence of agents in the behavioral science division of the FBI who had at least rudimentary understanding of the Davidians' theological perspective, but the advi ce of these agents was ignored (Ammerman 1993; Stone 1993). Religion writers, including several working for Texas newspapers, had appropriate training and experience to understand the Davidians' theological perspective. Again, ironically, they were not as signed to cover the story.
The Branch Davidians' narrative, thus, remains substantially a private narrative. To the extent that it received any attention, it was shrouded by skepticism. At best, the theological narrative was viewed as evidence that the Davidians were either der anged or hopelessly brainwashed by their leader.
The Mass Media Narrative
Mass media coverage of crisis events performs two functions: 11) the dissemination of information in the form of accounts of events to news consumers, and 12) more subtly, the legitimation of media agencies as knowledgeable authorities. In a competitiv e news market the process of self-legitimation is critical for the retention of both an audience and advertisers. In presenting both information and an interpretation, it is critical that media agents present a narrative that appears accurate and appropri ate. When either or both of these imperatives appear to be violated, the media are vulnerable to accusations of bias which, in turn, constitute threats to the legitimacy of mass media.
In tipping off selected media agents about a vague but imminent law enforcement event (U.S. Department of Treasury 1993, 79), the BATF clearly anticipated favorable publicity that would aid their own pursuit of legitimacy. There were approximately a d ozen members of the press, including a television cameraperson, present to witness the raid and ensuing gun battle.
The failed raid rapidly progressed from an event of no particular significance into a crisis event of major proportions with a siege of indeterminate duration. The BATF was quickly replaced by FBI agents just as national news eclipsed local and region al reporters. Almost simultaneously, media agents were cut off from communications with those inside Mt. Carmel and physically cordoned from the compound to a location that was dubbed Satellite City. Their access to information about what had happened was restricted to the telephoto lens and press briefings conducted by FBI spokespersons back in Waco.
Whenever a big story breaks, the media first scramble for basic information about what has happened. In the Branch Davidian story, the first eyewitnesses were primarily the BATF agents and the Davidians inside the compound. The law enforcement agents' perspective was available primarily through agency spokespersons. After the first few hours the Davidians were available only through secondary information fed by the enforcement agents' spokespersons.
The most readily available background information was the series of articles that appeared in the Waco Tribune-Herald. While there was clearly much about Koresh and the Davidians that was not especially flattering, the Tribune-Herald series was partic ularly inflammatory. The articles drew heavily on information from disgruntled former members, and there is evidence that anticultists also contributed significantly to framing the story. The articles cited no academic scholars of religious movements. The availability of the Tribune-Herald articles provided the national press with initial background and a trail to former members as well as anticultists.
Four factors worked together to quickly shape the Branch Davidian story line: (l) the initial armed confrontation, (2) the common stock of conventional wisdom about "cults," (3) the availability of the Tribune-Herald investigative articles that served to corroborate the conventional wisdom, and (4) the tightly controlled access to information imposed by the FBI. These factors maximized the ability of the law enforcement agents to frame the narrative to suit their objectives, and they did not hesitate to do so. What ensued, then, was a codependent relationship of mutual legitimizing: the public agents needed to justify the government's prolonged siege tactics and the correctness of its presiege actions, while the media needed information to present a c oherent story line.
It is possible to challenge the supposition of media dependency. Why did we not witness the dogged, aggressive investigation that often typifies the mass media, especially when there is the slightest hint of scandal? We can only speculate, of course, but it would appear that the "destructive cult" story line not only appeared to be compelling, it was also very popular with the public, as judged by opinion polls that consistently showed strong support for the law enforcement agencies and condemnation o f David Koresh. Thus, we see the subtle feedback loop of public opinion. To have gone aggressively after the BATF or the FBI would have given the appearance of sympathy for a leader and his followers who were not viewed as deserving of sympathy.
The Anticult Narrative
The anticult movement (ACM) is a loose confederation of organizations opposed to virtually all new or innovative religious movements. The first organizations were founded in the early 1970s by parents who were distressed over their children's decisions to affiliate with a religious movement (Shupe and Bromley l9801. In recent years these groups have professionalized, becoming information clearinghouses and watchdogs over developments in American religion that their constituents perceive as troubling.
While the anticult groups pay lip service to the notion that not all religious movements are alike, they tend to be monolithic in their vigorous promotion of the concept of cults as organizations controlled by cynical and manipulative leaders, destruc tive to those who become involved and a danger to the broader social fabric.
Anticult movement leaders played an important corroborative role for the narrative created by the law enforcement agents. Indeed, they appear to have contributed significantly to the formation of the BATF's initial story line, as several other contrib utors to this volume suggest. Ammerman l993), in a report to the Justice Department, was critical of the government's reliance on anticult sources and stereotypical claims.
Priscilla Coates, an official in the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), claimed that no one in either Justice or Treasury spoke with anyone affiliated with CAN 1l994). Her claim, however, is contradicted by others. Rick Ross, whom CAN executive director Cy nthia Kisser described as "among the half dozen best deprogrammers in the country," asserted on more than one television program that he had consulted with BATF agents before the February 28 raid. The affidavits submitted by BATF special agent Davy Aguile ra to U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis G. Green contained idiomatic language strongly reminiscent of ACM ideology (U.S. District Court 1993). And, at least one FBI spokesperson allegedly affirmed to a reporter that the organization had consulted with CAN (Nan cy Ross and Linda Green 1993, 13).
The FBI repeatedly claimed that it consulted with "cult experts," yet no one, to our knowledge, in the relatively small world of academic social scientists who specialize in new religions was ever consulted before the February 28 raid or during the si ege. Thus, if the actual role of CAN and anticultist individuals is unknown, the thought and planning of BATF is certainly suggestive of anticultist input.
Whatever direct role anticultists may have had with law enforcement agents, their role as corroborators of the federal agents' story line was abundantly present in the mass media. They provided corroborative sound bites for network television news, co mmentary for special programming on the Waco crisis, and scores of quotations for print journalism. In addition, anticult leaders were frequent guests on television talk shows.
The anticultists also played an important role in framing the Waco Tribune-Herald story, the first background resource many journalists saw as they poured into Waco after the raid. Quotations from anticultists that appear in the story, as well as the one-sided character of the "Sinful Messiah" series, suggest a very strong influence in the development and presentation of the Tribune-Herald story. Rick Ross and Priscilla Coates are the subject of a sidebar story on "experts" that appeared in the series {McCormick and England, 1993).
In addition, Tim Madigan, a journalist who covered the Branch Davidian story for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, published a rushed to-print potboiler in which he cites and quotes extensively from ACM activists 11993). Deprogrammer Rick Ross wrote a for eword to the book.
While the mass media drew heavily upon the ACM activists for background and quotations, there was no parallel consultation with academic scholars of religious movements. If this appears curious, it is perhaps even more curious that editors did not ass ign religion writers to cover the Waco story. This suggests that "cult" stories are not perceived to be "religion" stories. Or, alternatively, it might suggest that the story line was well defined early on and that the expert input of a religion writer wa s neither required or desired.
The Contrarian Narrative
We have defined a contrarian narrative as one that is sharply at variance with the conventional wisdom about a crisis event. In a pluralistic media market it is virtually inevitable that contrarian voices will emerge. Leading the way in the Waco case w ere antigovernment libertarians and gun ownership groups that had pre-existing grievances with the BATF and the FBI. Soldier of Fortune, a gun magazine, ran several articles, including a carefully reasoned piece arguing that there was no probable cause fo r the raid on the Branch Davidians {Pate 1993). Another carefully reasoned article appeared in the American Spectator. Other articles, appearing in the alternative press, examined the past record of BATF and drew parallels between the collaboration betwee n BATF and the FBI in a shoot-out with a separatist named Randy Weaver in Idaho who was currently on trial le.g., Bock 1993).
Much of this literature appears to us to warrant critical examination. But there was yet another genre of literature emerging from the far right that espoused incredulous conspiracy theories. For example, Lyndon LaRouche (1993) wrote that the Waco tra gedy was a deliberate setup conspired by CAN, the Anti-Defamation League, and their infiltrators in both the FBI and the BATF. Attorney Linda Thompson (1993) of the American Justice Foundation produced and disseminated a video entitled Waco: The Big Lie. This document presented a number of troubling accusations, with footage that appeared to support several of her allegations. But her claim that the BATF killed its own agents, several of whom had been Secret Service bodyguards for presidential candidate B ill Clinton, challenged the credibility of the document. Thompson's credibility was further undermined by an electronic bulletin essay in which she claimed that Waco was the tip of a one-world conspiratorial iceberg that included "reported citings [sic] o f UN tanks going into Portland, Oregon" and various troop movements of unmarked military vehicles nationwide.
The contrarians variously accused the federal agencies involved of abuse of constitutional freedoms, of lying and covering up, and of essentially murdering an eccentric religious group that was minding its own business and not hurting anyone. In spite of the fact that some of the contrarian literature dealt seriously with anomalous and troubling issues-many of which turned out to be legitimate-these issues never surfaced as a serious problematic in the mainstream press. Only after the official narrati ve seemed firmly in place did the contrarian narrative gain limited credibility. For example, Fiddleman and Kopel, writing in the Washington Post, concluded in June that "[i]t is increasingly clear that the original federal raid on the compound never shou ld have occurred, because the BATF's application to search the premises was far below legal standards." And William Safire, highly respected syndicated columnist for the New York Times, accused the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney general's off ice of a "whitewash" in their internal reviews. But once the story is substantially off the front page, alternative truths or narratives don't matter much to either public agents or the public. Only under extraordinary circumstances can they be resurrecte d. For example, the conspiracy theory of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is the most celebrated instance of a contrarian view that seemingly will not go away.
That the contrarian versions of what happened in Waco are largely unknown or unaccepted by most Americans is testimony to the legitimacy most citizens accord to public agents who maintain social order and to media agents who manage the news. From thi s perspective, contrarian views that cannot find a niche in the mainstream press face a far greater problem than merely seeking a forum to get the word out. They challenge the prestige and legitimacy of two powerful institutions which, when they are toget her, construct a social reality that most Americans accept without question. Whereas most contrarians have some basic sense of the social construction of reality when they see one account but believe others are possible, most consumers of public opinion do not.
The Dynamics of Narratives and Claims to Legitimacy in Waco
The argument advanced here is that the siege and ultimate conflagration in Waco had separate, though sometimes overlapping, meanings for different sets of actors in the drama. These meanings all clustered around the seminal issue of whose actions were legitimate and whose were not. Each set of actors sought to legitimate its own behavior. Actions aimed at accomplishing legitimacy by some sectors involved delegitimating other actors. In the most abstract sense, that is what the conflict was about.
The Branch Davidians, primed by the Armageddon theology of the charismatic David Koresh, seemed to have cast themselves in an antinomian role helping to usher in the apocalypse. Part of this role apparently entailed stockpiling large quantities of arm aments, some of which they allegedly were in the process of altering to make fully automatic.
Like many postmillennialists who believe they must prepare in secular terms for the imminent time of social disorder and danger that precedes the second coming, this particular group wanted to prepare for Koresh's prophecy of attack and siege. The bas is of social order in the fallen world was, in their sacred terms, illegitimate and in need of cleansing, and they were its faithful remnant. The BATF attack confirmed the prophecy of Koresh and, hence, his legitimacy.
The BATF, as part of the duly authorized structure responsible for monitoring illegal weapons, learned of arms-purchasing by the Davidians. Relying on a cultural stock of knowledge about unconventional religions, they planned a raid on the Mt. Carmel compound that would simultaneously uncover the true extent of the weapons stockpiling and, it was hoped, lend the agency favorable publicity.
Having miscalculated and mismanaged the raid, the BATF was faced with restructuring their account of what they were doing, why, and what happened. This was facilitated by the FBI's assuming command of operations. But the FBI soon faced its own legitim acy problem. While the Branch Davidian violence against government agents unquestionably warranted a law enforcement response, the prolonged siege was complicated by several factors: (1 ) the government was in confrontation with a religious group; (2) man y of the besieged occupants were clearly not combatants, but rather mothers, children, and some elderly, even infirm, citizens; and (3) the occupants believed that they followed a higher law than civil authority. Furthermore, the public agents were aware that any definitive strategy would become a major news item, and thus carried a potential challenge to their legitimacy. Hence, they were under pressure both to delegitimate those inside the compound while justifying their policy of media containment as n ecessary for carrying out safely their duties to restore social order.
The media, feeling that an appropriate story line was in place, chose to settle for this arrangement. They basically adopted the government's narrative of why its actions were justified. As the siege went on, and as the media reported a government-fed account of events at Waco, the media were increasingly faced with a loss of credibility if anomalies and hard questions about government strategy that they had failed to report and examine earlier were raised.
The media thus also accepted the cultural stock of knowledge about cults as a convenient lens through which to validate the government's land their own) account. Meanwhile, it found the anticult movement a willing corroborator of all this.
Contrarians arose during and after the siege to challenge government and media accounts based on their own suspicions and presuppositions. But their different narratives were largely relegated to alternative media outlets and never seriously perforate d the dominant public opinion about the meaning of Waco.3
The delegitimation of Koresh and the Branch Davidians, as a parallel of the government's own attempts to legitimate its handling of the siege, became a daily task. The FBI negotiators, insisting on treating Koresh as a hostage-taker or terrorist, repe atedly ran up against his prophetic, apocalyptic world view To them it was transparently alien. Field commanders therefore treated Koresh as mad, manipulative, and duplicitous. They dismissed his theological statements as gibberish rather than as a road m ap to his intentions.
The April 19 conflagration, regardless of who started the fire, was the end result of a breakdown of communication. Neither the public agents nor the media agents were able to grasp sufficiently the fact that Koresh and his followers took their religi on seriously. The blatant strategy of power-the harassment while simultaneously trying to negotiate was antithetical to a successful conclusion of the siege.
The federal agents viewed the Davidians' coming out as the rational conclusion to the standoff, and the insertion of CS gas was reported to have been designed for this result. One hardly needed insight into the Davidians' narrative to have understood that leaving under duress was not an option. Beleaguered and tormented for fifty-one days, they felt that a successful conclusion had to include an interpretation of coming out as part of a miraculous divine intervention. This was not an option the federa l agents were capable of understanding or being a party to.
We view accounts not simply as retrospective explanations of actors' behaviors. They are also ongoing interpretations by actors and audiences of action in progress. Accounts, like all elements of culture, are sociologically emerging facts that have a habit of taking on lives of their own so as to influence persons' decisions and future behavior. Human beings use accounts to make symbolic sense of social order and disorder. Ironically, once created, these same human beings tend to have a vested interes t in preserving the legitimacy of those accounts. The Waco story illustrates this axiomatic point as well as the fact that most persons cannot make the distinction between literal truth and the narratives of the truth-givers.
1. Government prosecutors failed to convince a San Antonio jury of the murder and murder conspiracy charges.
2. In addition to the films mentioned here, a videotape made by the Davidians during the standoff was only recently released, after the trial. It is approximately two hours in length and contains the comments of a number of members, as well as Koresh himself, all of whom later died in the fire. Several members offer their own accounts of what happened in the initial raid. Space did not permit an analysis of this tape to be included in the paper.
3. Editor's note: Of course, on the second anniversary of the April 19 assault by the FBI on Mt. Carmel, the Oklahoma City bombing, allegedly perpetrated by right-wing extremists, changed dramatically the meaning of Waco for many Americans by linking it to the contrarian narrative.