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04/22/93
Report given to FBI predicted `fiery ending' to cult standoff
By Victoria Loe / The Dallas Morning News
David Koresh was obsessed by prophecy, but he never read this foretelling of how his life would end:
"The standoff . . . will end after Sunday, April 18th. . . . It must be a fiery ending, and David and a number of his followers must die.
"There will be some aggressive action by the federal law enforcement officials. . . . Even if the final conflagration is caused internally, it must be because of some act of the law enforcement officials.'
Those predictions come from a document written by Frank X. Leahy, an independent religious researcher in Waco. Mr. Leahy's 40-page analysis, which he gave to FBI negotiators on April 8 after an agent requested a copy, was derived from an exhaustive review of Mr. Koresh's teachings.
Its conclusion was chillingly clear. In order for Mr. Koresh to fulfill what he believed was his divinely ordained role, Mr. Leahy wrote, "David and some of his followers must be killed for their beliefs. The end must be a fiery conflagration.'
Mr. Koresh is among an estimated 86 people presumed dead after a catastrophic fire at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco on Monday, April 19, a fire that federal officials say was started by members of the sect under orders from Mr. Koresh.
Mr. Leahy says he immersed himself in Mr. Koresh's teachings after the Feb. 28 raid on the compound at Mount Carmel because he couldn't shake the question: "Where the hell is he coming from?'
He also had a personal interest. His wife, child-welfare worker Joyce Sparks, had investigated allegations of child abuse at the compound. In the course of that investigation, she had spent many hours listening to Mr. Koresh's rambling religious dissertations.
Mr. Leahy's conclusion, which sounds prophetic considering Monday's blaze, rests on the presumption that Mr. Koresh was not a con artist but a man who "does in fact truly believe that he is God's ordained prophet for these end times.'
Proceeding from that assumption, and reviewing hundreds of passages of Scripture cited by Mr. Koresh, Mr. Leahy apparently predicted not only the shape but also the timing of the tragedy at Mount Carmel.
His sources included Mr. Koresh's public statements as well as tapes of his teachings obtained by law enforcement officials. In addition, Mr. Leahy had the notes from Ms. Sparks' religious discussions with Mr. Koresh.
FBI Special Agent Jeff Jamar confirmed Wednesday that negotiators were familiar with Mr. Leahy's brief. He said it was one of many analyses provided to them.
"There were also a lot of other people with the same authority that these people had who were saying it wasn't going to happen,' said Agent Jamar. "And remember, there was a report of a planned mass suicide that was supposed to happen last year at Passover. That ultimately didn't happen, and there was more than one report like that.'
"The thing you have to remember,' said Agent Jamar, "Mr. Koresh's prophecies are adjustable.'
According to Mr. Leahy, Mr. Koresh was far more intellectually sophisticated than suggested by the popular picture of him as a dyslexic ninth-grade dropout. In addition to citing the Bible, Mr. Leahy says, Mr. Koresh quoted the writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Winston Churchill.
Mr. Leahy concluded that Mr. Koresh and his followers took as absolute, God-given truth that:
* Mr. Koresh was the reincarnation of Jesus, who was the reincarnation of David, king of Israel, and his followers were the "chosen people' to which the Bible refers.
* They were exempt from civil laws because they followed God's higher law, by which they had done nothing wrong. The strict discipline of children, Mr. Koresh's polygamy, the cult's armaments, all have biblical precedents.
* The Bible foretold everything that had happened to them, including the Feb. 28 attempt to serve a search warrant, Mr. Koresh's wounds, the FBI's decision to bombard the compound with sounds, and what Mr. Koresh viewed as authorities' slanders against him.
* The siege was one of the "tribulations' described in the apocryphal Book of Baruch, which Mr. Koresh sometimes cited. Each tribulation lasted seven weeks, meaning this one would end on or about April 18.
* Anyone who worshiped on Sunday was of Satan rather than of God.
The Bible not only allowed but also demanded that sect members deceive such outsiders, including their attorneys and federal negotiators.
* By revealing the meaning of the Seven Seals described in the Book of Revelation, Mr. Koresh would destroy the followers of Satan, including the government and organized religion. Mr. Koresh believed he had opened five of the Seven Seals, and in order to open the Sixth Seal, Mr. Koresh and his followers must die.
* Their deaths would involve a great fire, which would consume the forces of Satan arrayed against them.
According to Mr. Leahy, the image of fire and fiery destruction is found in several passages cited by Mr. Koresh: Psalms 50:3 ("a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him'); Isaiah 26:11 ("yea, the fire of thine enemies shall devour them'); and Jeremiah 21:14 ("I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the Lord: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof, and it shall devour all things round about it').
But the key text, the one that unequivocally laid out Mr. Koresh's plan, according to Mr. Leahy, is Revelation 6:9-11. It describes the opening of the Fifth Seal, after which are heard the cries of "them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.'
According to the writer of Revelation, these martyrs are told that they must await the coming of "their brethren, that should be killed as they were'-Mr. Koresh and his followers, according to Mr. Leahy.
"David has told the world that we are on the Fifth Seal,' Mr. Leahy wrote. "Quite simply, the Branch Davidians must be killed now to progress to the Sixth Seal.'
"I see no conceivable scenario for a peaceful resolution of this situation,' Mr. Leahy's report concludes.
Marathon days and nights of trying to enter Mr. Koresh's mind left him drained and depressed, Mr. Leahy says.
"I had a terrible foreboding, even before I reached the
conclusion,' he says. "I thought, "Something is terribly wrong here.' '
Mr. Leahy says the end did not come exactly as he expected. He says he thought the Branch Davidians would provoke a gun battle or hurl explosives at federal authorities, not torch the compound.
And although the FBI is describing the fire as a mass-suicide, Mr.
Leahy says he believes Mr. Koresh would have convinced himself that the government was murdering the chosen.
As he watched tanks ram the compound, he says, he wondered how federal agents could have played so neatly into Mr. Koresh's plan.
"Why in God's name did they (federal authorities) pick that date, the exact date?' he asks.
Staff writer Lee Hancock contributed to this report.
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