Newsgroups: alt.activism,alt.conspiracy From: [b f rg 9732] at [uxa.cso.uiuc.edu] (Brian F. Redman) Subject: INTERVIEW: Waco Survivor (#2) Date: Sat, 19 Jun 1993 14:52:28 GMT INTERVIEW: Waco Survivor #2 June 15, 1993 Interview with Ruth Riddle (sp?) by Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC. [Note: I only got the last half, so the interview begins already in progress]. Note: Asterisks around a word or phrase indicate emphasis placed on the word or phrase by the speaker. For example, *emphasis*. ----------------------------------------------------------------- INTERVIEWER: ... David Koresh? RIDDLE: That's not true. The parents had discipline as well as whoever was in a situation with the children and needed to discipline them. But the children were *loved* more than anything. They were, they were the joy of all of us there. INTERVIEWER: Why all the guns? Why, why the seeming obsession with firearms and weapons? RIDDLE: I don't know that it was an obsession. I know that we had certain things we, um would have the right to protect ourselves with if ever anything happened, and also there was a business that David was conducting with selling firearms. INTERVIEWER: But we're not talking about bearing arms. We're talking about stockpiling enormous amounts of weapons. 59 handguns, 12 shotguns, 94 rifles, 45 machine guns, 1.8 million rounds of ammunition, a dozen silencers, more than 3 dozen assault rifles, including AK-47s. What was going on? RIDDLE: I didn't know of these things and I don't... how did, how did they know that we had these things, I mean... INTERVIEWER: These were from *court papers*. Why a gun business? If you wanted to make money why not a cake sale or arts and crafts? Why weapons? RIDDLE: Well, the right to bear arms is... is... constitutional. { Voice-over: There's no denying the compound was } { well armed. And as the stand-off wore on, federal } { agents, keeping their distance, resorted to some } { highly unusual tactics: blasting the compound } { nightly with floodlights and loud music, hoping to } { rattle the Davidians and break their spirit. } RIDDLE: I'm sure they thought they were using psychological warfare on us. INTERVIEWER: I get the idea that the music and the light was to keep you from sleeping. RIDDLE: I wore earplugs when it... when it... you know, at night. INTERVIEWER: So it didn't keep you from sleeping at all. Or were any of those tactics working? RIDDLE: No. INTERVIEWER: The spotlights, the, the music. RIDDLE: No. We... our faith is what keeps us going. INTERVIEWER: Did you have any sense of what was going on outside the fence, outside the compound; about the force that was being assembled against you? RIDDLE: We could see the tanks. And we knew that there was a lot of people that had come in the initial raid. INTERVIEWER: Did you have a sense for what a *media circus* this had become? RIDDLE: Oh, yeah. We could see the, um, satellite sitting, as they call it, and that there was quite a few people. INTERVIEWER: What was your reaction to all that? RIDDLE: We felt that this would provide us, David an opportunity to get the message out, in great detail. INTERVIEWER: So you were going to turn this adversity into an opportunity. RIDDLE: Exactly. INTERVIEWER: Good comes from bad. RIDDLE: Uh-huh. [affirmative] INTERVIEWER: Right out of the Bible... Except it didn't work out that way. RIDDLE: No. They, they backed down on their agreements and... they lost patience, took force. Whoever heard of Americans using tanks against Americans on American soil? INTERVIEWER: Authorities said they were concerned that, that if they let this thing go on much longer, that kids would have starved to death, or might have died from disease or unsanitary conditions inside. RIDDLE: No. We were all, we all kept ourselves very clean and we had plenty of food to eat to sustain us. INTERVIEWER: How long could you have lasted? How long could you have held out, given your food and other supplies? RIDDLE: 6 months. INTERVIEWER: Another 6 months or so. During the 51 day siege, was there, was there much dissent? Was there arguing inside about what we should do, what we shouldn't do? Should we give up, should we not give up? Were there discussions, was it a democracy? Who was making the decisions? RIDDLE: We were all um, well aware of what was going on, to the extent that we were backing, um, what David wanted to do, and turn a bad situation around into a good one. INTERVIEWER: So in some strange way what we all perceived to have been great hardship during this 51 day siege was... were the best of times. RIDDLE: Exactly. The very best. Some of my best times. Companionship was closer, um... our commitment was stronger, our desire to study was more, and the more we studied the more we could see how plainly what David had taught. { Voiceover: For David Koresh and most of the Branch } { Davidians, it all came to a shocking end on April } { 19th... but not for Ruth Riddle. } RIDDLE: I remember hearing, um, crackling-type voices coming over the speaker. It was hard to make out what they were saying. Um, some kind of warning, of some sort. And next thing we knew that they were ramming into the building. The building was being knocked around. And then pops, popping sounds as they threw the tear gas, yeah, shot the tear gas in. INTERVIEWER: Did you think you were being attacked? Was there a sense that they were going to come in after you? RIDDLE: Yeah, that's, that's what it was like. INTERVIEWER: When it became obvious that everyone would be burned to death, why didn't more people leave? RIDDLE: I believe that, um, they couldn't get out. They, uh, where the buildings were rammed is where staircases were. INTERVIEWER: Was anyone to your knowledge shot trying to escape? RIDDLE: No... That's ludicrous. Nobody would be trying to *escape*, except from the fire. And they couldn't. INTERVIEWER: What about the fact that 11 of the bodies have been found with gunshot wounds to the head? RIDDLE: Well, given the fact that they may have felt trapped, they may have opted for that rather than burning to death, that's a terrible way to die. INTERVIEWER: Was this a mass suicide? RIDDLE: No. There was no talk about suicide. This thing about Jonestown was not what we had going on there. { Voiceover: As for claims from the FBI that it was } { Koresh himself who had ordered his followers to set } { the fire, Ruth says she just can't believe it's } { true. } INTERVIEWER: Only 9 people escaped the fire. You are one of them. What happened after you jumped out of the window? RIDDLE: Some FBI, ATF agents came over and grabbed my arms and asked me if I was O.K. [inaudible portion] INTERVIEWER: One of the agents who ran over to you says that you were fighting him off, trying to go back into the compound. Were you trying to get back into the building? RIDDLE: I knew the building was on fire! I wouldn't want to burn up. That's why I jumped. INTERVIEWER: But you didn't want to leave. RIDDLE: I knew how the people that had left [previously] had been treated. And I knew that their, you know, that it was gonna be tough. [B.R. My sense here is that she is referring to treatment by the federal forces]. INTERVIEWER: Of everything that you went through that day, what's the most vivid, the most haunting memory you have? RIDDLE: I guess the part of looking back and seeing the building in flames... and them asking me about people, where they were. It was so obvious to me they were obviously burning up. I looked over at the building in flames... All those people. Such a tragedy. It didn't have to be. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - INTERVIEWER: Ruth Riddle [sp?] is living in a Waco halfway house and is expected to testify soon before a grand jury. The Justice Department is also investigating this entire episode. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Transcribed by Brian Francis Redman ([b f rg 9732] at [uxa.cso.uiuc.edu]) ([72567 3145] at [compuserve.com]) "Culture is an instrument wielded by professors to manufacture professors, who in turn manufacture more professors." -- Simone Weil