The Raid on the Branch Davidians Interviewer: Lauren Melvin Interviewee: Lewis H. McClam Instructor: Michael Chapper Date: February 22, 2010 Melvin 2 Table of Contents Interview Release Form Statement of Purpose 3 Biography 4 Historical Contextualization: The Raid on the Branch Davidians 6 Interview Transcription 16 Time Indexing Recording Log 39 Interview Analysis 40 Works Consulted 46 Melvin 3 Statement of Purpose This project serves to provide an oral account of the tragic events surrounding the raid on the Branch Davidians compound in Waco, Texas, that was carried out by the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) in 1993. This task will be accomplished through an interview with Mr. Lewis H. McClam, a former United States Secret Service agent, who assisted with the Federal government‟s investigation of the raid. This unique perspective will bring clarity to the various conflicting accounts of why and how this raid was undertaken by the ATF and whether events and actions leading to the deaths of Federal agents and Branch Davidians members were justified. Melvin 4 Biography Lewis H. McClam was born in 1945 in Kingstree, South Carolina. He attended Tomlinson High School, from which he graduated in 1964. He described growing up in Kingstree as difficult because of the many challenges and obstacles that he faced. These challenges included not having the books and supplies needed to adequately prepare him for college. Mr. McClam attended Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia and in 1968 earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration. Following graduation, he went to work for a commercial credit company in St. Louis, and then soon after, was drafted into the United States Army. He was stationed at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, where he was part of the military police. He later fought in the Vietnam War and received the Army Good Conduct Medal. Melvin 5 After leaving the Army and realizing he did not want to continue his job at the commercial credit company, Mr. McClam then began a 37-year career as a Federal Investigator for the United States government, including 25 years as a United States Secret Service Agent. As a member of the Secret Service from August 1971 to August 1996, he managed the Service‟s training division in Laurel, Maryland and Washington, DC; maintained liaison with officials of Federal, state, and local law enforcement and other agencies; and planned, directed, and coordinated investigative activities. His job required him to travel throughout most of the world. From April 1993 to October 1993, he served as a member of the team established by the Department of Treasury to investigate the failed warrant execution attempt by the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas. He received numerous Outstanding Performance Awards and recognitions during his career. He retired in January 2008 and now lives happily with his wife in Gambrills, Maryland. Melvin 6 Historical Contextualization The Raid on the Branch Davidians Over a 51-day period in early 1993, the United States government was involved in one of its most controversial battles ever. The country was not at war with another country, nor was it dealing with a foreign terrorist attack. Instead it was fighting against its own American citizens in Waco, Texas. This horrible tragedy, which began on February 28, 1993, included government officials “scaling the walls of buildings, breaking windows, and throwing grenades into a compound that housed approximately 80 members of a sect known as the Branch Davidians” (Reavis 11). When the government raid on the compound ended on April 19, 1993, four federal agents of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) had been killed and over 70 members of the Branch Davidians were dead. This attack led to many questions about whether or not the government had been justified in its actions toward the sect or if the invasion on the compound had been purely a violent act. To understand how the government‟s actions turned into such a tragedy, one must examine who the Branch Davidians were, how the United States government viewed them, and what investigations of the raid revealed about both the actions of the Branch Davidians and the United States during this controversial event in history. The 1990‟s was characterized by a rise in groups, many with hateful messages, and terrorists who held negative views about the United States government. These groups included the Ku Klux Klan, as well as individuals: Randy Weaver was in charge of the tragedies at Ruby Ridge in Idaho in 1992; later, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were responsible for the Oklahoma City bombings on April 19, 1995. Collectively, these kinds of groups referred to themselves as the militia movement. The militia “(sometimes called the “patriot”) movement was an informal network of paramilitary activists, whose members were increasingly frustrated Melvin 7 with the country‟s social and economic difficulties” (Andryszewski 15). At the time that the movement was occurring, the office of the president had just changed from George Bush to Bill Clinton, and a new attorney general, Janet Reno, had just been appointed by President Clinton. The militia members were trying to defend the American citizens from what they saw as threats toward their national freedom and heritage. For example, David Lane, a member of an unspecified hate group, stated in his “Fourteen Word” motto that “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children” (Andryskewski 15). The members wanted to ensure that their moral thoughts were heard around the world by putting their words into the media, in hopes that their messages would then be assimilated into the mainstream culture. Some of these groups were characterized by extreme religious ideological views often associated with cults. In this regard, “America has hosted some of history‟s most notable separatist religious communities with behavior at odds with modern life; such communities have included…communal marriage, communal property, and belief in imminent millennium” (Kopel and Blackman 332-33). Other negative behaviors, such as polygamy and child abuse have also been associated with cults. Ultimately, many of these different people and groups aimed to get their view points across to the Federal government even when violent acts sometimes were required to do so. One of the groups that played a prominent anti-government role was the Branch Davidians. This sect was originally formed in 1833, as a part of the Seventh-Day Adventists, whose members followed the teachings of Baptist William Millar. The Seventh-Day Adventists believed that the Bible was to be studied as the literal way of truth and followed the Seven Seals in Revelations. The Branch Davidians proclaimed the Seven Seals to be the basis of their religion. The Branch Davidians viewed their religious beliefs as, “millenarian, sabbatarian, Melvin 8 authoritarian, and communal. Within these four beliefs they had set forth the principle that the Bible was a complex document which can only be understood by a select people who know how to decode the words” (Kopel and Blackman 21). As an example of their devotion to the religion, one of the members of the original sect, Ellen G. White, believed that she was God‟s prophet, put on earth for the purpose of providing the followers messages that she was receiving from God. After her death in 1915, Adventist member, Victor Houteff, took on this role, believing that he was the next prophet of the Lord. However, after several years, the sect‟s members started disagreeing with what Houteff was saying, and he left the sect and formed another group known as the “Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists” (History of the Branch Davidians). He moved the group to Waco, Texas and then built the Mt. Carmel Center, the compound where he and his followers lived and worshipped. Houteff and his people then implemented the “Davidic Kingdom” which they considered to be a society of pure righteousness. As advocates for peace, in 1942, after the enactment of the military draft, the members of the Branch Davidians made it known that they were “conscientious objectors” to the draft. Following Houteff‟s death in 1955, his wife, Florence, took over and continued their way of thinking. However, Florence predicted that the world would end on April 22, 1959. When this failed to happen, her prediction was considered “The Great Disappointment,” and led to the group splitting up. The members then started following fellow prophesier, Ben Roden, who incorporated the practice of observing the Hebrew feast days such as Passover and the Day of Atonement within their religion. Roden was later replaced by his wife after he died in 1987. Once she became president of the sect, she was attracted to an up-and-coming living prophet—a sect member, Vernon Wayne Howell—who was later to become the ultimate leader of the Branch Davidians. Melvin 9 Vernon Wayne Howell was born on August 17, 1951 in Houston, Texas. At the age of nine, he and his mother started attending Seventh-Day Adventist services in Dallas, Texas where Vernon started to love the “Adventism‟s theory of a small remnant of godly people in a faithless world, emphasis on prophecy, and recognition of modern-day prophets” (Kopel 22). As he became more indoctrinated into the Adventist ways, Howell started to believe the church had become too worldly and mainstream and that it was moving too far away from its original mission. While continuing his belief in Adventism, at the age of 20, he arrived at the Mt. Carmel Center in Waco, Texas in 1981. There Vernon Howell and others at the center believed that he was “chosen by God to free the people, to be Sirus, a final, annotated Christ that is mentioned in the book of Revelations” (“Waco: The Rules of Engagement”).