Word: atf
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...tries again. "When I found out that Tom Stokes' secretary had been given an award ... when I found out that all my agents, that ATF internally was going to give them awards, when I heard that managers above me were given awards and I was not even mentioned--I don't think I have the words to describe how I felt, how hurt, how devastated I felt...
...mark of ATF's curious culture, however, that even the most critical agents often proclaim a deep respect for the agency and its mission. "I love this agency," Stewart says. "I love this agency so much I would work for it 24 hours a day if they'd let me." Vanessa McLemore, another class-action plaintiff, says she wanted to become an ATF agent since high school. "Deep down I'm happy. I would not go to another agency. I love what I'm supposed to do. What I don't like is not being given an equal opportunity...
Director Magaw says ATF has begun to change. His first priority, he says, was to address what he saw as the central lesson of the Waco disaster: lack of training, even among field commanders. The initial raid, which took place Feb. 28, 1993, was by all accounts an inexcusable disaster. The Treasury's Blue Book outlined in cold detail a cascade of errors and placed primary blame on the fact that the raid leaders allowed it to proceed even after learning that they had lost the element of surprise...
...avert disaster. One leader rode in a helicopter, the other joined the raiding party that entered the compound. "It's the same effect as if the Redskins would send their coaches onto the field," Magaw says. "Your coaches were where they couldn't see what was taking place." The ATF, he says, had never trained the leaders to recognize the flaws in their thinking. "Had I only had the training they had, would I have made some of these same mistakes?" Magaw asks. "The answer is clear in my mind...
...BOLSTERED TOP-LEVEL decision making as well. A new Treasury review board, consisting of ATF officials and one person each from the Customs Service, Secret Service and Justice Department, must approve ATF's most sensitive undercover cases. An internal directive obtained by Time, dated May 5, defines such cases to include investigations "of possible criminal conduct by any foreign official or government, religious organization, political organization, or the news media." Says Magaw: "Anybody who questions why we're doing it differently now than we did before need only look at Waco...