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04/21/93
Koresh vowed not to give in; FBI bugged compound, heard plans
By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News
WACO-Law enforcement officials heard the Branch Davidians plan the fire that apparently killed most of them shortly thereafter, a federal official said Tuesday.
In fact, federal officials had been listening to conversations inside the cult compound for some time, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
During the seven weeks of negotiations, agents slipped electronic listening devices into material delivered to the compound, the official said.
In the last week, FBI officials listening to conversations inside the compound became increasingly alarmed that the cult was planning to provoke a shootout with federal authorities.
"They were gearing up in there-bunkering in, readying for a fight. No talk of suicide, but they were getting ready for a fight,' the federal official said. "They talked freely of that. They just couldn't get the FBI to do it.'
The planted bugs also enabled federal officials to learn that their plans for a peaceful resolution had failed. They heard cult members giving instructions about setting the fires that consumed the buildings Monday afternoon, the official said.
Jeffrey Jamar, San Antonio-based special agent in charge of the FBI's Waco operation, refused to comment Tuesday morning on reports that listening devices had been planted inside the compound during the 51-day siege.
"I won't discuss what our intelligence techniques are. I'll just say to you that we had outstanding intelligence in many respects with varying consistency and sometimes very inconclusive,' he said at a news briefing.
But he later said that the FBI had "absolute certain intelligence' that cult leader David Koresh's latest promise to his attorneys to come out after completing a seven-part manuscript was "another sham, another stall.'
The federal official who would comment said that agents could be so certain because they had "ears' inside the compound: tiny, battery-powered listening devices sent inside with periodic deliveries of magazines, videotapes, video camera batteries and milk.
Officials mum
Federal officials would not describe the devices in detail or say how many were used.
But state-of-the-art bugs are not much bigger than a dime, have antennas as thin as a human hair and cost about $1,000, said Richard Aznaran, president of Phoenix Investigative Services and Spy Supply in Dallas. The devices can easily broadcast a roomful of conversation to a receiver hundreds of yards away, he said.
"We do a lot of electronic counter-measures,' he said, "which is basically finding bugs.'
Mr. Aznaran said federal agents would have access to the best in modern technology.
But even the best has limitations, which may explain why Agent Jamar said federal intelligence was sometimes "inconclusive.'
For instance, if the bug were hidden in a videocassette and the cassette were in a camera, the camera's electronics would interfere with the signal. And if the device were in a room like the central concrete "blockhouse' described by federal officials, metal reinforcements in the walls would block the signal far more than the wooden frame of the rest of the compound, Mr. Aznaran said.
Even in the best of broadcasting conditions, the battery would go dead in about a week, he said.
Federal negotiators worked out several deliveries during the seven-week standoff, offering the chance to send in new bugs as the batteries on the old ones died. And that's why the negotiators agreed to the deliveries, the official said.
"That's why they sent stuff in occasionally,' the official said.
"They had a purpose.'
The devices operated on a frequency unaffected by federal jamming devices around the compound and were small enough to place unobtrusively inside the packages sent in, the official said.
"They put it in all kinds of different things.'
Heard mood shifts
Authorities were able to listen in on the mood shift of the cult and its leaders, Mr. Koresh and Steve Schneider, the official said.
"They heard things that were being said inside, comments about how they thought things were going,' the official said.
Equipment supplied by the Federal Communications Commission was used to jam radio and television reception in the compound, but authorities ceased jamming every morning so the cult could monitor daily news briefings.
Those briefings provoked some of the most virulent responses from cult members, the official said.
"You would hear their comments about news conferences, yelling about (FBI Special Agent Bob) Ricks and (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Intelligence Chief David) Troy, yelling and screaming about people were lying about them,' the official said, referring to the two federal officials who served as spokesmen for their agencies in the briefings. "That came mostly from Schneider.'
The listening device was switched off during the five visits that a Houston attorney had with Mr. Koresh, the official said. But authorities later eavesdropped on conversations between Mr. Schneider, Mr. Koresh and others disparaging the meetings as a ruse for more time.
"The conversations about Koresh playing games with the attorneys came after those meetings,' the official said.
Staff writer Jeffrey Weiss contributed to this report.
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