Newsgroups: alt.activism From: [b f rg 9732] at [uxa.cso.uiuc.edu] (Brian F. Redman) Subject: INTERVIEW: Waco Survivor Date: Mon, 17 May 1993 17:46:56 GMT What follows is an as close to verbatim as possible transcript of an interview which appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" on May 17, 1993. Interviewed are David Thibodeau, a survivor of the holocaust at the "Koresh Compound," his mother, Balenda Ganem, and Thibodeau's attorney, Gary Richardson. When I am unsure as to the exact word said, I follow the uncertain word with an enclosed question mark, as follows: [?] INTERVIEWER: ...one of them, the only one yet to be released from custody, is David Thibodeau. He's joining us this morning along with his mother, Balenda Ganem and his attorney, Gary Richardson. And I appreciate all of you being with us. Let's start with you, David. Briefly, the last day and your thoughts as the tanks came in. THIBODEAU: My thoughts as the tanks came in is, uh [sighs] it was pretty, it was very devastating. All along we were hoping to negotiate and work things out. David had made the claimer [?] that once his manuscript was written and he could be sure that it was in the hands of the two theologians mentioned, Tabor [?] and the other gentleman that, you know, he'd be coming out and we'd all work it out. INTERVIEWER: The government said, though, so many times he had reneged on things that they thought he had promised to do. Would he really have done that? THIBODEAU: I would be interested for them to play the negotiation tapes and maybe see a little more depth why he may have reneged on some of his promises. We have been promised things since, since day one on the inside and they reneged as well. INTERVIEWER: I know people who were in there contend that the fires were not set, but started when the tanks knocked over kerosene lanterns, as I understand it. But, but when I look at that videotape, it looks to me as if those fires broke out simultaneously, in a number of places in the compound, well after the tanks had come in. THIBODEAU: Well, I believe there is a videotape that shows the tank going in, I believe, was it the front section we saw that? RICHARDSON: Yeah. THIBODEAU: And then as soon as the tank pulls out, very shortly thereafter, that's when you start to see the smoke. GANEM: You don't see fire immediately... INTERVIEWER: So you don't... GANEM: You don't see fire immediately. It takes time for it to build. INTERVIEWER: But when you see fire, you also see fire in different places, where the tanks were not. So the question is how could the tanks have done that? Was there anything set in the house that could have been burned by people as opposed to the tanks knocking over the lanterns? Was there fires waiting to happen, something that needed to be set to start the fire? THIBODEAU: I believe that the probability for accident would... definitely existed. As far as the malicious thought to actually set a fire, no, I do not believe that existed. INTERVIEWER: The forensic pathologist who was with us in the last half hour said, "...bullet wounds in Koresh's head, bullet wounds in Steve Schneider's head..." Do you know how they died? THIBODEAU: No, I don't. INTERVIEWER: Does that strike you as strange that there were bullet wounds in their heads? THIBODEAU: Umm... I don't know if anything really strikes me as too strange at this point. INTERVIEWER: Was there a suicide pact? THIBODEAU: Let me put it another way: No, there was not a suicide pact. What I would say, and I've said this before, I know that if I were trapped in a fire and there was a fire next to me, and I was... it was very probable that I was going to burn, that I may, I may just take the easy way out. I could, I could see it happening. I could see people being trapped, 'cause when the tanks did go in there, there were hallways, there were places that were cut off. INTERVIEWER: Why didn't people try to get out? Or did they? THIBODEAU: Well, I believe some people did try to get out or else I wouldn't be sitting here... obviously. INTERVIEWER: [To Ganem] Let me ask you... about... so many of the families said that, "We were ignored. We weren't allowed to talk to the authorities. We wanted to have contact with the people inside. We were not utilized." GANEM: From day one when I first came to Waco, I was spurred, we were spurred to come down to Waco after talking to an FBI agent from the task force in San Antonio... who said to me after my calling him every four hours, "I'm sorry, but we have no protocol for family voices. We will be looking at it in the future." I said, "My son may not have a future." I was in Waco the next day, at which point I worked very hard to, to try to network families. There was no task force for families. Once I finally networked a group of families, we worked very hard for two months to try to get, to get our voices heard. I sent letters to Janet Reno, to William Sessions. I faxed the White House. I followed up everything with telephone calls. I compiled a list of families which I sent to the White House to make them realize that these people were ready to drop everything and come to Waco at any moment if we can work with the negotiating team. No voice. No recognition. INTERVIEWER: [To Richardson] Gary, you worked four years as prosecutor. RICHARDSON: Right. INTERVIEWER: Your reaction to the way this was handled, from a prosecutor's point of view. RICHARDSON: I think that it started out wrong and I think that it ended wrong. One mistake after another, I believe, happened. I said all along, from the beginning because I was involved from the beginning, why didn't they just go home, the government, and leave the people alone? No one was afraid of them. I talked to the sheriff there....... INTERVIEWER: .......There were four dead federal agents. RICHARDSON: Well, because they went in firing and these people were defending themselves. Things didn't get better by them staying there. So, I think the solution is obvious that they didn't come to the right conclusions. INTERVIEWER: [To Thibodeau] David, you lost a lot, lost a wife in that fire. Your feelings now... in the last thirty seconds we air. THIBODEAU: My feelings on that subject are very hard to deal with or talk about. I've come to a point where I'm kind of emotionless really, because of everything that's happened. Right now, the only thing that I do really to keep my sanity and everything is keep involved in the situation, keep explaining to people the issues and just make sure that people are aware that there were people inside there, very good people, wonderful people. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Transcribed by Brian Redman ([b f rg 9732] at [uxa.cso.uiuc.edu]) ([72567 3145] at [compuserve.com]) "History is written by the assassins."