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04/21/93
Koresh anticipated agents would face criticism after inferno, psychiatrist says
By Steve Kenny / The Dallas Morning News
Federal officials could have done little to prevent the mass suicide of David Koresh's followers, no matter what tactic was used to end the Branch Davidian standoff, a Dallas psychiatrist said Tuesday.
The criticism of federal actions that led to the Branch Davidian fire was probably anticipated by Mr. Koresh, said Dr. J. Douglas Crowder, an assistant professor of forensic psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
In a way, he said, the calls for federal investigations, the threats of lawsuits, and the criticism by news media and governments across the world give the cult leader the last laugh.
"He was a sophisticated enough man to know the sense of guilt and endless second-guessing which would plague authorities after a lethal outcome,' the psychiatrist said. "This ultimate act of control and influence would have been a high-priority option for Koresh at any point . . . even if the crisis ended months later.'
It's likely that Mr. Koresh, from the beginning, planned the fiery end that apparently took his life and those of dozens of his supporters Monday, the doctor said.
"He was going to be in control, no matter what,' Dr. Crowder said.
"I see this with individual suicides as well. Some people try to hurt themselves when other people are trying to help them. . . . They're saying, "Nobody else is going to control my environment.' '
His followers were probably more than willing to follow Mr. Koresh to their deaths, he added.
"The idea of martyrdom to attain a higher spiritual standing in an afterlife was likely quite appealing to cult members,' Dr. Crowder said. "There may even have been a sadistic component in the way he ended it.'
Dr. Crowder called the cult leader a classic "existential assassin' along the lines of John Hinckley, who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and another cult leader, Jim Jones, who led hundreds of followers to their deaths in the South American country of Guyana in 1979.
"They have otherwise drab, underachieving lives . . . and the deaths validate them,' Dr. Crowder said.
Mr. Koresh, however, never would have compared himself to either Mr. Hinckley or Mr. Jones, Dr. Crowder said.
"He would have seen himself as different and better than Jim Jones,' Dr. Crowder said. "I don't think there was any conscious decision on his part to copy what happened in Jonestown.'
The long siege at Mount Carmel-and the intense media coveragemight have encouraged Mr. Koresh to end the standoff violently, Dr.Crowder said.
"The media kept talking about how they (the Branch Davidians) were going to commit mass suicide,' he said. "That makes it all the more attractive. . . . After a certain point, the illogic of it melts away.'
Dr. Crowder also said that people criticizing Attorney General Janet Reno and the FBI leaders who decided to assault the compound are "doing so on a more emotional than rational basis.'
Dr. Crowder said many of the critics, especially those with close ties to the compound, may be acting out their private pain in a public way.
"Family members and other persons, such as attorneys who had contact with cult members who perished, may also unconsciously seek to diffuse their own sense of guilt from (their) inability to help those they cared for by finding a scapegoat,' he said.
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