The Mysteries of History (February 28th and 29th [Leap Day] Edition)
Deerfield Massacre; DNA; Koresh vs ATF
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, 1905
1704 — Deerfield Massacre
public domain image from wikimedia commons
On February 29, 1704, during Queen Anne’s War, which is also known as the Second French and Indian War, Deerfield, an English settlement in western Massachusetts, was attacked by a combined force of French and Indians. One hundred of the settlement’s English colonists of all ages and both sexes were massacred as their village was razed.
The war was frightening to the colonists, and devastating to those directly affected by it, but to France and England this far-off dustup was a rather insignificant part of the wider War of Spanish Succession.
Questions: Is there a Deerfield, Massachusetts now at the same location? How many French and Indian Wars were there, and how were they historically connected to one another? Why did the Indians tend to side with the French rather than the British? Did Queen Anne have anything to do with the war? What was the War of Spanish Succession?
1953 — DNA Starts To Be Unraveled
image generated using Bing Image Creator
On this date in 1953, two scientists announced they had figured out the innards of DNA. Their work was much aided by Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), but for some unknown reason she was not mentioned by them in the announcement. Ms. Franklin also wasn’t a co-recipient of the subsequent Nobel Prize award for this research/discovery (but the person who showed them Franklin’s work was; then again, Franklin was dead by the time the Prize was awarded, in 1962).
Why was Ms. Franklin elbowed out of the way? Who knows for sure, but here are a few clues as to possibilities for that:
It was the 1950s, when many wives still received mail addressed to “Mrs. So-and-So” such as “Mrs. Theodore Shannon” (as my mom did even in the early-to-mid 1960s). I remember thinking, “That’s weird! Theodore is my dad, not my mom! Why would they think my mom was also named Theodore?!?” And when I found out (from my mom) that was a common thing, I wondered how my dad would feel if he received mail addressed to “Mr. Rosalie Shannon” or (her maiden name) “Mr. Rosalie Kollenborn.”
She was a woman.
She was Jewish.
The two scientists who “forgot” to mention her contributions were men.
Perhaps I’m assuming too much, but because of their seemingly hogging the limelight, I’m not mentioning the names of those two male scientists here. Of course, you can look them up easily enough, if you care to.
Knowing what DNA is has led to many important developments, some of them good, some of them not necessarily beneficial. These include the ability to identify human remains; being able to prove or disprove (exonerate) that criminal suspects were guilty of a specific crime; and genetically engineered foods.
A less vital but still interesting use of DNA is to find out the truth about your ethnicity. Before I had that checked using the AncestryDNA service, I thought I was mostly Irish, Swiss, and Portuguese; now I know I’ve got more Scottish blood than anything else, and hardly any Irish, as detailed here.
Questions: Can you spell deoxyribonucleic acid without looking at it? Can you pronounce it? When was DNA discovered? When was DNA’s connection to the inheritance of genetic traits realized?
1993 — David Koresh’s Branch Davidian Compound Raided by ATF
public domain images from wikimedia commons
The following is what I wrote about the 1993 ATF Raid on the Branch Davidian compound, in my book “Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006”:
The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department) and FBI agents raided the seventy-seven acre Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas in the spring of this year, investigating reports of a stockpile of illegal arms, as well as child-abuse allegations. When the ATFunit moved in on February 28th, the Branch Davidian members resisted by using some of their stockpile of weaponry. Four ATF agents were killed in the exchange, as were six members of the Branch Davidian community. The cult’s leader, David Koresh (real name Vernon Howell), was among the wounded.
Howell had adopted the name David Koresh for its Biblical symbolism: Koresh is the Hebrew name for “Cyrus,” the Persian King who had destroyed Babylon twenty five hundred years earlier. Howell apparently viewed modern society as a new “Babylon” and presumably saw himself as the future conqueror of such.
The “Branch Davidians,” as they were called (they didn’t normally refer to themselves by that name) had actually broken off from the Seventh Day Adventists in 1934 and had been living at “Mount Carmel,” as they called their compound located outside Waco, Texas, for almost sixty years at the time of the raid. The unwanted attention from the authorities came about when a UPS driver noticed grenade hulls and black powder in a shipment of boxes he was delivering to their compound, which had accidentally broken open while in transit. The alarmed driver contacted the local police, who then got in touch with the BATF.
It was believed that the residents of the compound were producing machine guns and grenades. The initial raid was made in order to search for evidence of illegal activity and to arrest David Koresh. One of the few survivors of the siege claimed that Koresh had invited the government to come and inspect their operation, which was supposedly a legal and above-board gun-dealing operation which the group carried out at gun shows. Rather than accept the invitation, the government forced their way in, upon which the aforementioned gun battle ensued.
Those who defended the rightfulness of the raid cited the following as just cause for doing so: The Davidians were regularly receiving large shipments of gun parts and other materials that could be used to manufacture illegal weapons (they were not federally licensed gun dealers, nor did they possess machine gun licenses). During 1992 alone, the group had received hundreds of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition, including parts for M-16s and AK-47s, grenades, a grenade launcher, and explosives. Suspicious at least was their practice of posting armed guards at their compound, who were told by Koresh to “shoot to kill” in the event that intruders were to infiltrate Mt. Carmel.
One possible reason for this fearful attitude toward outsiders on the part of the Davidians was that the former leader of the group, George Roden, had threatened Koresh, who had taken over leadership after a gunfight between the two factions. Koresh was also the regular recipient of hate mail from friends and relatives of members of his “flock.”
The legal basis behind the pursuit was that the gun activity in which the group was involved was deemed illegal. In order to own a machine gun, one must pay a $200 tax and fill out requisite paperwork. So it was a matter of registration and taxation. The basic issue contained elements similar to the Ruby Ridge incident (see the 1992 chapter) and the Whiskey Rebellion (see the 1791 chapter).
Koresh seemed to have more in common with fellow gun lover Randy Weaver than with the farmers of old Pennsylvania, though: He showed members gory footage of the Vietnam War and called these “training videos.” A former member of the group, a Registered Nurse, claimed that Koresh had fathered at least fifteen children from various women and girls in the compound—some of them as young as twelve years old. This nurse says that she delivered seven of these babies herself, and that Koresh annulled the marriages of members of his church and then gained sole sexual access to all the women.
From the more cynical camp of observers (those critical of the government, that is) came the charge that the raid was carried out due to—or at least timed so as to closely precede—an upcoming Congressional decision regarding BATF funding. Newsman Mike Wallace reported that most of the BATF agents he had interviewed called the raid a “publicity stunt.” After all, the BATF, as well as their partners in crime-fighting, the FBI, were still smarting from the PR bruising they had received after the debacle in Ruby Ridge.
David T. Hardy, a former U.S. Department of the Interior headquarters staff attorney, wrote a book entitled This Is Not an Assault: Penetrating the Web of Official Lies Regarding the Incident at Waco. In it he writes:
The ATF desperately needed publicity. It was reeling from a 60 Minutes series on sexual harassment (indeed, near-rapes) of female agents, stinging from a racial discrimination class-action lawsuit (which it soon lost), and was only ten days away from its appropriations hearings in the House of Representatives. Internally, agents were referring to the Waco raid as “ZBO,” slang for “Zee Big One,” the publicity stunt that would ensure the agency went into the hearings with headlines and national media coverage behind it. A quiet arrest in the countryside would not make for ZBO.
After the initial raid, additional BATF and FBI forces arrived on the scene, bottling up the members inside their compound. Various forms of “persuasion” were utilized to undermine Koresh’s influence on the residents of Mt. Carmel: The FBI played statements of former members over loudspeakers, and they sent into the compound videotapes and pictures of members’ children, as well as messages from family members. Their intent was to increase the flow of the exodus from the compound from a trickle to a flood—Koresh apparently allowed any who chose to depart to do so at any time they wished.
Perhaps even more disconcerting were the recordings of Tibetan chants, Christmas music, and the screams of rabbits being slaughtered which the FBI blasted over loudspeakers aimed at Mount Carmel. During the nights, a weapon of psychological warfare wielded was floodlights that served to disrupt the sleep of those involuntarily basking in their eerie glow.
Feeling the Mt. Carmelites were too comfortably ensconced in their collection of buildings, the feds shut off electrical power to the compound and surrounded their quarters with “concertina wire” (spiral barbed wire) fencing.
If the authorities had really wanted the group to surrender, as they claimed they did, one would think they would have wanted the people inside to be thinking straight and clearly, but this strategy was not conducive to such a state of mind. In addition to the previously mentioned tactics, they increasingly tightened the perimeter around Mt. Carmel, creating a shrinking concentric circle of concentrated power: Armored vehicles of various types, as well as a massive display of weapons and personnel.
Harvard Psychiatry and Law Professor Alan A. Stone wrote that these conditions caused a “constant stress overload…intended to lead to sleep-deprivation and psychological disorientation…and emotional chaos.” Stone also complained about the CS gas used by the FBI, which is known to be harmful, especially to children—the group of people inside the compound the government claimed to be most concerned about protecting.
In fact, it was later determined that the average concentration of CS gas inside Mount Carmel during the attack was 10–90 times that required to deter trained troops—enough to overcome protective masks. The suffering was all the worse in the case of children.
Most of the twenty-four children who died on April 19th did so of suffocation. Many of these deaths were from smoke inhalation, but some may have been a result of the CS gas. The cause of the fire is also disputed, both sides blaming the other for the ignition of the conflagration.
Helicopters were also used to—if you believe one side—simply observe the goings-on in the compound or—if you believe the other side—fire on the residents of the compound from above. Some say these shooters were government law enforcement agents, others (including a CIA agent) claim they were in fact members of the military’s secret Delta Force Unit. It is illegal for the government to use the military in police matters.
Due to the way they had been terrorized, many of those holed up in Mt. Carmel may have been afraid to go out into what they may have reasonably foreseen as a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid-like hail of bullets/blaze of gory “glory.”
The initial siege had lasted two hours. The final one, fifty-one days later, on April 19th, was much more chaotic and catastrophic. The FBI, fearing their team would lose its edge if they had to wait any longer, decided it was time to act. The orders came from above: President Clinton conferred with Attorney General Janet Reno, but told her it was ultimately her decision. Clinton’s delegation of this decision was not due to any ambiguity in his mind about the bent of the Branch Davidians and their leader. Clinton later said, “Koresh’s response to the demands for his surrender by federal agents was to destroy himself and murder the children who were his captives, as well as all the other people who were there who did not survive.”
Clinton also went on the record as being convinced that the Davidian dead had committed suicide: “I was, frankly, surprised would be a mild word, that anyone would suggest that the Attorney General should resign because some religious fanatics murdered themselves.”
David Thibodeau, one of the few survivors of the raid, claims that their gun operations were a legal money-making venture, and that Koresh had invited the BATF to come and examine the weapons weeks prior to the initial raid.
Thibodeau also asserts that Koresh was going to surrender to the authorities once he completed the writing of his interpretation of the Seven Seals of Revelation. The feds thought this was just another ploy (Koresh had earlier indicated he would surrender, but had reneged on those promises).
Two completed commentaries written by Koresh were discovered in the ashes of Mount Carmel in the inferno’s aftermath. Probably nobody knows for certain whether Koresh would have really “come out with his hands up” after completing the full complement of manuscripts. One may wonder, though: If Koresh intended to “go quietly,” why could he not have written the documents while in custody?
According to Thibodeau, all who were inside wanted to live. Differing with the nurse who had been a member, he also denies the child abuse charges.
The FBI began pumping CS (tear) gas into the compound several hours prior to the fatal fires breaking out. Thibodeau, who co-authored a book with Leon Whiteson named “A Place Called Waco: A Survivor’s Tale” wrote concerning this:
The noxious CS gas that the FBI shot into Mount Carmel (almost 400 rounds were fired at us) was mixed with methylene chloride, which is flammable when mixed with air and can become explosive in confined spaces. CS gas is so nasty that the United States, along with 130 other countries, has signed the Chemical Weapons Convention banning its use in warfare. But apparently there is no prohibition against its use against American citizens.
It could be that many who may have wanted to escape found it impossible to do so—they might have been prevented from doing so due to being trapped by the fire and building damage, or possibly even lost consciousness as a result of the massive amount of gas infused into their quarters.
The Davidians did, as during the initial siege, fight back on April 19th.
When the tear gas was “inserted” (in the euphemistic terminology of the government), the Davidians fired back. The fire, which led to most of the deaths, was either deliberately set by the Davidians in a pre-arranged mass suicide (according to the government’s story) or touched off by the ramming of the building by one of the tank-like vehicles, knocking over a lantern (which the Davidians were using for light and heat, since their electricity was shut off).
According to Thibodeau, the latter was the case.
Why did the Davidians have such a supply of kerosene laid up, though? It seems unlikely that they anticipated the authorities would shut off their electricity—the outrage they displayed when it occurred makes it at least appear they were not expecting it.
Thibodeau wrote of what it was like for those inside Mount Carmel during the attack:
It remains hard for me to clearly remember what happened after the tanks made their move. Walls collapsed, the building shook, gas billowed in and the air was full of terrible sounds: the hiss of gas, the shattering of windows, the bang of exploding rockets, the raw squeal of tank tracks. There were screams of children and the gasps and sobs of those who could not protect themselves from the noxious CS. This continued for hours. Inside Mount Carmel, the notion of leaving seemed insane; with tanks smashing through your walls and rockets smashing through the windows, our very human reaction was not to walk out but to find a safe corner and pray. As the tanks rolled in and began smashing holes in the building and spraying gas into the building, the FBI loudspeaker blared, “This is not an assault! This is not an assault!”
Around noon I heard someone yell, “Fire!” I thought first of the women and children, whom I had been separated from. I tried desperately to make my way to them, but it was impossible: rubble blocked off passageways, and the fire was spreading quickly. I dropped to my knees to pray, and the wall next to me erupted in flame. I smelled my singed hair and screamed. Community member Derek Lovelock, who had ended up in the same place as me, ran through a hole in the wall and I followed. Moments later, the building exploded.
As millions watched the shootout and inferno on live television, upwards of seventy people died inside the compound. Of the eighty-three members trapped inside the blazing inferno, Thibodeau was one of only nine who survived.
Quoting from an article the aforementioned David Hardy wrote, entitled “Call It Off ”:
During the siege, Davidians told FBI negotiators that the double doors were the best evidence of who fired first: The bullet holes through the left one were all pointing inward. After the fire, the left door (which, it should be stressed, was made of sheet metal, not wood) simply vanished. Although the scene was sealed off to all but the ATF and the FBI, divided into squares and searched as if it were an archaeological site, the left door somehow went missing and remains so to this day.
Two clues point to its fate. First, the soundtrack of an FBI video picked up radio transmissions as the fire was burning down: They reveal “T-1” asking: “Shall we begin taking this place apart?” Second, Jim Brannon, attorney for some of the Davidian survivors, located a home video made by one of the fire department personnel as the fire died down. This shows agents backing up a rented moving truck to the ruins and hastily loading a door-sized object, wrapped in black plastic, into it.
The evidence, in short, strongly suggests that the government knew the door’s bullet holes would incriminate the ATF as the initiator of the gunfight in front, and accordingly made its disappearance a high priority.
…
There is also a deeper question: Regardless of who started the fire, did the FBI deliberately initiate a chain of events which would cause one? Getting rid of the incriminating front door appears to have been a high priority. It would have been the most solid piece of evidence that the ATF began the gunfight, and coming after 51 days of government spokesmen blaming the Davidians, would have been stunning evidence that they were victims rather than cop-killers. The Davidians had been insisting that the door would prove them right and that the building bore bullet holes from above, as a record of the helicopters’ gunfire, as well. A fire provided the only convenient way of making the door and all the bullet holes in the walls vanish. A disastrous fire would, in short, be uncommonly convenient to the federal agencies.
Six years later, in 1999, the FBI admitted (reversing its previous vehement denials) that it had used pyrotechnics and incendiary tear gas cartridges during the final day of the siege. Precisely two years later, the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was bombed. The perpetrators claimed they had carried out their carnage in retaliation for the government’s acts in Ruby Ridge and Waco.
At the top, on the far right, is my paternal grandfather, Theodore Roosevelt Shannon (1902-1979) with two Native American employees of his gyppo logging outfit; at the bottom is my maternal grandfather, Albert Lee Benjamin Kollenborn (1907-1984)
Questions: Do you think the Branch Davidian compound should have been raided? If so, what, if any, mistakes on the part of the ATF could have been avoided? What would have been a better response?
