Ready, Aim, Liberace!

By Richard Lacayo

The Revelation to John, the last book of the Bible, envisioned the end of the world as a succession of calamities announced by the sound of trumpets. Too bad for cult leader David Koresh, a man with apocalyptic yearnings, that the same book doesn't mention Andy Williams albums, marching-band music and Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walkin' -- the sort of thing he actually heard last week. To pry Koresh and his followers from their armed camp near Waco, Texas, federal agents bombarded the place at high volume with irritating songs, Tibetan chants and the piercing tone of a phone left off the hook. Every morning they even provided Koresh with the sound of a trumpet. It blasted reveille -- over and over again.

Begun more than a month ago in blood and gunfire, the siege near Waco remained a nerve-grinding standoff with a surreal edge last week. Exasperated negotiators, weary of fruitless phone conversations in which Koresh holds forth on scriptural prophecy and heavenly signs, kept up their psychological warfare. After dark, high-intensity spotlights were directed into the compound, which has been without electricity since federal agents cut the power on March 12. At times a helicopter circled overhead, playing a mobile searchlight into windows.

Koresh replied with mind games of his own. After a week in which no one emerged from the compound, six women and three men came out on March 19 and March 21, leaving about 100 members still inside. But their leader repeatedly failed to follow through on hints of a mass surrender. Three times negotiators seemed to be at the verge of a breakthrough, only to have Koresh balk at the last moment. At one point talks came to a standstill while the cult observed a high holy day associated with the new moon.

The head count inside the compound actually rose by one on Wednesday, when Louis Anthony Alaniz, a 24-year-old Houston man described by his mother as a religious fanatic, broke through the ring of agents and sprinted to the Davidians' door. Suspecting at first that he was an FBI double agent, members of the sect admitted him warily, but kept him on after he listened to one of Koresh's biblical harangues.

Federal agents also tried conciliatory tactics, delivering milk and medical supplies to the compound, as well as copies of national magazines that featured Koresh on their covers. Sensing that he's a man who enjoys the spotlight, the FBI even sent Koresh a letter offering a live appearance "on America Talks on the Christian Broadcasting Network hosted by Craig Smith." Like a cheerful mass mailing, it concluded: "This is an extraordinary opportunity for you."

Koresh passed. He may have a more spectacular event in mind. In a phone call to the Today show made from McLennan County jail, Brad Branch, one of 14 adults who have left the compound since the siege started, said last week that Koresh wanted a television appearance with other famous religious figures -- to engage them in a contest of biblical interpretation. "He wants to put on a challenge to all the churches and all the heads," Branch explained. "The Pope, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson."

At one point last week, negotiators considered blasting Koresh with repeated playings of the Billy Ray Cyrus song Achy Breaky Heart. Eventually they thought better of it. There is, after all, a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

With reporting by Jeanne McDowell and Richard Woodbury/Waco