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Cover: Photomontage: Explosion of Waco compound for TIME by Shelly Katz -- Black Star; David Koresh from Nine Network Australia
...members attended twice a day, Koresh underlined his authority by impressing upon them that he alone understood the Scriptures. He changed his interpretations at will, while his unsteady flock struggled to keep up. In a tactic common to cult leaders, Koresh made food a tool for ensuring obedience. The compound diet was often insufficient, varying according to the leader's whim. Sometimes dinner was stew or chicken; at other times it might be nothing but popcorn. On their infrequent trips to Waco, cultists could be seen wolfing down packaged cheese in convenience stores. Household and dietary rules at the compound...
...amount of adulation seemed to satisfy Koresh, whose egomania apparently disguised an emptiness at his center. Fallen-away follower Marc Breault, who sometimes played bass in the rock band Koresh organized at the compound, says that even practicing together was difficult because Koresh threw tantrums when he hit a wrong note in front of the others. "It's very difficult being in a band with God's messenger," says Breault...
...Davidians stockpiled guns and ammunition, Koresh's theology centered more obsessively upon the coming Apocalypse, binding Koresh and his followers in a vision of shared catastrophe in order to maintain their focus and resist the overtures of the authorities outside the compound. "Koresh would say we would have to suffer, that we were going to be persecuted and some of us would be killed and tortured," recalls David Bunds, who left the compound...
Those who dealt most closely with him doubted it. "He had been elevated way above his capability or accepted role in that compound," says Byron Sage, the main FBI negotiator. Before Feb. 28, the second in command was Perry Jones, the father and the grandfather of several other Koreshians. "Perry was killed, and all of a sudden you had the messiah and a quantum leap down to the next viable person, who was Schneider. He was not highly respected. Plus, after giving up his worldly possessions and his wife to David, it's a difficult thing convincing yourself that...