trying to gain a cease-fire. we were taking an awful beating. so many men were hurt and wounded and laying down there. when i called the compound, it was steven snyder. steven snyder was koresh s top lieutenant. he started screaming through the phone that we had no right to be there, to get off the property immediately. i tried to stay calm. i said, steve, we have to talk. we have to work this out. you and i have to work this out. people are dying. people are hurt. we need to stop the shooting. soon cavanaugh is talking directly with david koresh. everything s okay. just you and me are talking. that s the main thing. you care for people. i had a radio mic in one ear with an agent pleading for his life and i had this guy on the phone who thought he was god.
the men in the group would choose to become celibate. if they were married, they would, you know, not have any more relations with their wives. it s true. i do have a lot of children. it s true, i do have a lot of wives. but koresh apparently did not stop there. when david first started teaching, he began to show that god asked prophets to do what we might consider strange things a lot of times. we had evidence that he had sexually abused girls as young as 12. is it my great wonderful looking, something that women just can t resist. we also discovered that that had been going on for a couple of years, and law enforcement had not done anything really to prevent it or stop it. but a field agent from the regional atf office was doing something. secretly. though his investigation had nothing to do with the abuse allegations.
in the book of revelation. in revelation the seven seals represent the apocalypse. the biblical end of days. in the bible only the lamb of god can open the seals. koresh preached that he had that power. by january 1992 disturbing rumors about the self-styled prophet had surfaced. the local newspaper, the waco tribune herald began to investigate koresh and his hold over the davidians. he had what was called his new light revelation and that was that as the messiah, he should generate a new population of people to inherent the kingdom of god. to do that all the women in the group belonged to him. as part of his new light prophecy, koresh dissolved all existing marriages in the group. the men in the group would choose to become celibate.
i will never forget the exact thought that went through my head when i saw the flames. thank god those mothers will bring their children out now, and we waited and waited and waited, and they didn t bring their children out. the entire scene unfolds before a live tv audience. look at that. this is gorgeous. there is tear gas that started on fire or something. the exuberance of a control room producer is tempered by the reality of the situation. it was quick. the structure was like a wooden match. we never stopped our negotiation efforts.
clive doyle is a branch davidian survivor, and to this day a believer in david koresh. david was constantly talking to god. god told me to do this. god told me to do that. we accepted that. god speaks to me. i have a message to present. to outsiders koresh soon transformed the davidian church into a cult. the most important element of the cult is the leader. and they always describe the same way as being charismatic. i mean, there are some things that god has concealed in his written word that are to be brought to do right before the end of time. koresh preached he wanted of days philosophy to his followers, a belief that was centered around a battle between evil armies led by a messianic leader who was the second