The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation.

Dick J. Reavis Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. 320 pp., $24.

Reviewed by Timothy K. McMorrow

Award-winning journalist Dick Reavis has written a book that he claims gives the true story of what happened before and during the 1993 government raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. It is a book that is filled with strange claims, questionable conclusions, and a description of Vernon Howell, aka David Koresh, that purports to be evenhanded but is just short of sycophantic.

Reavis shows his bias in the introduction in a remarkable passage in which he says that the Branch Davidians are "a group of people with beliefs incomprehensible to the majority of the population," facing "police agencies whose operatives could not distinguish custom from law, idiosyncrasy from threat."

Yet evidence shows that the Branch Davidians were clearly violating the law, not just following unusual social customs. Even by Reavis's account, they were converting semiautomatic weapons to automatic weapons. And David Koresh allegedly "married" underage girls.

Reavis claims there were problems with the initial Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) search warrant for the Branch Davidian compound. Records showed dummy hand grenades were being delivered to the compound, as well as gunpowder and 90 pounds of powdered aluminum, which could be used to make explosives to complete the grenades. Reavis also notes that Koresh and his followers inside the compound had purchased $40,000 in arms. Despite this, Reavis suggests that the search warrant affidavit was flawed and perhaps insufficient" because there could have been an innocent explanation for those purchases and because a gun dealer told ATF agents that Koresh was buying the guns as an investment.

Anyone experienced in criminal law knows that approach is nonsense. The issue is not whether there is a possible innocent explanation for seemingly criminal conduct but whether the information as presented shows probable cause to believe criminal activity is occurring. Given the facts that Reavis dismisses as insufficient, this reviewer has no trouble concluding that there was probable cause for the initial warrant.

By the middle of the book, Reavis pretty much destroys his credibility as an objective reporter. That is too bad, because he does raise several legitimate questions concerning the search warrant raid, the resulting standoff, and the eventual FBI raid on the compound. This account simply isn't persuasive.

Much has been made, and will continue to be made, about the April 19, 1993, FBI raid that culminated in the horrible fire that destroyed the compound and died 76 people. Reavis's fascination with Koresh's theology leads him to conclude that Koresh was about to surrender and that the tragedy could have been avoided had the FBI waited a little longer. The government agents, Reavis claims, were simply too ignorant of Koresh's theology to understand his obscure scriptural references.

Reavis constantly refers to government agents as befuddled and puzzled, but he fails to convincingly argue that the FBI should have interpreted Koresh's pronouncements as proof that Koresh was going to surrender soon or that the FBI should have accepted his word even if the agents had interpreted his statements as Reavis says they should have.

Only a small part of the book covers the trial of the surviving Branch Davidians. This is disappointing. The evidence presented at the trial would help support or refute some of Reavis's conclusions.

I was not surprised at the eventual verdicts, but I didn't know the facts well enough to make any reasoned judgment about the case. After reading this book, I still don't.

A book devoted to the trial itself would be fascinating for trial attorneys. This isn't the book.