Waco's False Spring

A thaw in negotiations with Koresh appears to be only temporary

FOR JUST A WHILE, THE SIGNS WERE HOPEFUL. THE parties in Waco's six-week standoff seemed to look beyond, toward the multiboard legal chess match bound to follow a peaceful resolution. The Texas Rangers, for instance, were reportedly miffed that fbi negotiators had unintentionally caused the Branch Davidians to sanitize possible court evidence -- scrubbing away blood, sweeping up spent cartridges and reducing automatic guns back to semiautomatics. The FBI denied the report. The Davidians,too, employed a kind of spin control that implied something will remain intact to spin. David Koresh's attorneys talked about contesting some government assertions -- in court --...

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