"Oh, My God, They're Killing Themselves!" -- FBI agent Bob Ricks

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Indeed, the desire to spread the message was so strong that it helped persuade agents that Koresh did not mean to end his life. Reno had to balance conflicting reports about whether the Davidians were prepared for a mass suicide, the one finale she hoped to avoid at all costs. Four times negotiators asked if Koresh planned to kill himself, and four times he denied them. "If I wanted to commit suicide," he told them, "I would have done that a long time ago." Agents pointed out that Koresh had backed away from the brink before. On March 2, when he was supposed to surrender, he arranged to strap grenades to his body, come out and blow himself up in front of TV cameras. All the preparations were made, he kissed the children goodbye in the chapel -- and then, at the last moment, "chickened out," Ricks said.

But there was also plenty of evidence pointing the other way. Fully a year ago the U.S. embassy in Australia, where many cult members had lived, sent Washington a cable about the cult, warning that the Davidians would never allow themselves to be taken alive. As members came out of Ranch Apocalypse, they confirmed the planning; a 12-year-old girl told the audience on the Phil Donahue show how they were taught to put the barrel of a gun in their mouth. The feds took the possibility seriously: they collected enough anticyanide kits to provide a lifesaving dose for every child and a few of the adults, and the medics of the HRT kept them at the ready at the forward command post.

Reno finally reached her decision on Saturday night. The Attorney General convened top aides in her fifth-floor conference room and demanded that the FBI once again justify its operation. "Is this the best way," she asked, to prod Koresh without aggravating the situation? "What would happen if we don't do it?" What was the risk of losing more lives both inside and outside the compound? She shook her head in horror as an FBI official offered a graphic description of human waste being thrown outside in pails. There was some discussion of child abuse, at which point Reno asked the FBI, "You mean, slapping them around?" They said yes, and talked about the "ongoing pattern of young girls in there being sexually abused." At around 7:15 p.m. she approved the operation. By 7:40 Saturday night Reno went home.

The following night she called the President and briefed him on the plan. They talked for about 15 minutes, as Clinton asked about the timing, the possible pitfalls and whether the military had been consulted. "I said that if she thought it was the right thing to do," he said later, "that she should proceed and that I would support it."

In the morning, as the assault began, reporters asked Clinton if he knew what was happening. In fact, Clinton had been briefed periodically on the progress in Waco from the start, by Reno's predecessor Stuart Gerson and by her deputy Webster Hubbell, a close friend of the Clintons'. "I was aware of it," he said. "I think the Attorney General made the decision." Pushed further, he added, "I knew it was going to be done, but the decisions were entirely theirs."