In No One We Trust

New revelations about the 1993 Branch Davidian siege in Waco have inevitably raised the question: Whom can you trust?

The choice isn’t easy.

On the one hand, there are the conspiracy theorists, who see shadowy black helicopters and Delta Force hit squads doing Washington’s dirty work. On the other are government officials, who seem to have worked overtime withholding the truth or downright lying.

What is clear is that official Washington has lost credibility over recent admissions about the fiery end of the Waco standoff and that the fringe patriot movement has gotten a boost, said Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist organizations.

Faith in government was already at a low ebb, Potok said. Last week’s disclosure, after years of denials, that the FBI used pyrotechnic tear gas canisters to help end the 51-day standoff can only further discredit Washington, Potok said.

The blaze that destroyed the Branch Davidian buildings April 19, 1993, ended a siege that began Feb. 28 when agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided the compound of cult leader David Koresh to search for illegal weapons. The bodies of Koresh and about 80 followers, including 20 children, were found in the remains of the complex.

A 1997 survey, conducted jointly by Democratic and Republican pollsters, found that 76 percent of Americans distrusted the government. By comparison, 61 percent expressed such distrust after the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s.

The new revelations about Waco “have provided more fuel to the anti-government movement than anything we’ve seen in a while,” Potok said by telephone from Montgomery, Ala. “I think this is a disaster.”

In cyberspace, there is an exultant air on such anti-administration Web sites as FreeRepublic.com, where participants have long posted their suspicions about the official version of the standoff.

“They feel they’ve been vindicated, big time,” said Connie Hair, a spokeswoman for the site, which has seen daily “hits” jump from 70,000 to 100,000 since the latest revelations about the Branch Davidian siege.

“It’s a great, big, I-told-you-so,” Randy Trochmann, 31, co-founder of the Militia of Montana, said of the movement’s reaction to the revelations. “Obviously, we’ve been saying this for how many years.”

Unlike Potok, who said he believes that the disclosures “have a potential to draw a number of mainstream Americans into the anti-government movements,” Trochmann said he wasn’t sure.

But the Montana militia leader said he is certain that the Waco stories “will make more of the mainstream look at whatever the government says with a skeptical eye. Obviously, the trust is gone.”

Allan Saxe, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, said the importance of trust in a democracy cannot be overstated.

“The American government is predicated to a tremendous extent on trust,” Saxe said. “And it needs to be strong for America to hold together.”

But the revelations, though damaging to the government, “show our system still works,” he said. “And even those conspiratorialists will see that, eventually, the information will come out, whether it’s from the media or former government officials finally raising their hand.”

Not everyone is so confident.

“It’s a terrible tragedy,” said Chip Berlet, who heads Political Research Associates, a Massachusetts-based organization that researches extremist movements. “What it’s done is legitimize conspiracy theories that people had put at arm’s length.”

In effect, he said, “The patriot movement is saying, `The government lied about this, so everything we claim is true, including that the government intentionally set out to murder those children at Waco.”’ Berlet said he perceived a weakening in the patriot and militia movements after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, carried out by men who reportedly were motivated by the Waco tragedy.

“Many people stepped back from the most virulent of conspiracy theories after Oklahoma City, saying, `You can take this too far,”’ Berlet said. “Now, they’re saying, `Heck, we weren’t taking it far enough.”’ Often lost in the current spate of disclosures is lack of proof that the FBI started the deadly blaze, Berlet and Potok said. Even the retired FBI agent who confirmed the use of pyrotechnic military tear gas said it was fired at a bunker about 40 yards from the compound several hours before the fire started.

The agency might have hurt itself by releasing only dry transcripts of conversations picked up by tiny microphones implanted in milk cartons, not the actual tapes of Davidians discussing setting fires inside the compound, Potok said.

Berlet said he found it ironic that the extreme right seems to be getting all the payoff from the new disclosures.

He noted that a Harvard Law School professor, a self-described liberal, was the only member of the Justice Department’s Waco investigation to openly criticize the federal agencies involved. The professor, Alan A. Stone, urged a continued inquiry. He found no intentional misconduct but determined that the tragedy could have been avoided.

“As a reward, I have been taken up by right-wing fanatics, pilloried by the liberal Democrats to whose campaigns I contribute, and assured by knowledgeable colleagues that my services will never again be needed in Washington,” Stone later wrote.

Political fringe expert Mark Pitcavage questioned how much the extremists will gain from the latest revelations about Waco.

Aside from their Internet chat rooms, which get limited exposure, “they don’t have many ways to influence the general public,” said Pitcavage, the Ohio-based research director of the State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training Program.

But the disclosures have revived a key issue for them.

“It’s been six years, and much of the initial emotion of Waco had faded,” Pitcavage said. “But now, with these revelations, it has made Waco again a rallying cry.”