Agent Sage

Byron Sage (Photo By Robert Bryce)

Byron Sage shouldn't care as much as he does. He's not being paid to care. He retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation 13 months ago. He has a good pension, and he's found lucrative employment in the private sector. But he can't let go. Nearly seven years after the fiery end to the siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Sage has become the only current or former FBI agent who is actively defending the agency's actions during and after the siege. As such, he has in essence volunteered to make himself a target, a focal point for all the people who believe that the federal government purposely or accidentally killed David Koresh and nearly 80 others. But Sage can't help himself. And it doesn't take him long to explain why. "I worked 28 and a half years for the Bureau. I swore to uphold the Constitution and to protect this country from all enemies foreign and domestic. I never once strayed from that commitment," he says. "To now be called a liar and a murderer is very difficult to accept and I refuse to do it."

Of all the law enforcement officials who were at Waco, Sage may be the most recognizable. He was the lead negotiator during the 51-day standoff. His pale blue eyes, handsome face, and neatly coiffed grey hair are immediately recognizable to anyone who has followed the Waco controversy. During the past few months he has been particularly visible. He has appeared on numerous TV shows to rebut the latest allegations, including those that the FBI shot at the Davidians to prevent them from coming out of the compound after the fire started on April 19, 1993.

Last month, he wrote an Op-Ed piece for the local daily defending the FBI and insisting that the blame for the disaster "lies squarely at the feet of David Koresh."

As he sits at the kitchen table of his modest suburban home a few miles north of Austin, Sage talks about the dozens of e-mail responses he got to the article -- many of them nasty and threatening. As he flips through two thick binders filled with photos shot during the siege of the compound, he talks about the toll Waco has taken on his family. But he won't be deterred from his goal, which he says is "to present the facts as they truly are. Then back off and let the public decide."

To help explain what happened, Sage relies on binders filled with color 8"x10" pictures, all neatly arranged in chronological order. As we go through them, he points to various landmarks around the Branch Davidian compound, explaining why the latest allegations, particularly the one that the FBI shot at the Davidians to prevent them from leaving the building after the fire started, are false. "According to people I know and trust, there were no shots fired that day, from the front, the back, or otherwise," he says. In addition, he denies that the U.S. military was involved in any tactical way at Waco. He acknowledges that some military observers were there during the siege, and that a number of soldiers were on site to service the tanks and tracked vehicles used by the FBI. "We didn't need the military. They were there only as observers to see how we conducted ourselves."

Sage, 52, is a Navy veteran who served two tours of duty in Vietnam in the submarine service. In 1970, he joined the FBI. Over the next two decades he became an expert in hostage negotiation techniques. And although his training was extensive, nothing could have prepared him for the call he got about 10am on Feb. 28, 1993, ordering him to get to Waco as soon as he could. By the time he arrived, the gun battle between the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Davidians was still raging. Over the next 51 days, he did everything he could to convince Koresh to come out.

Although Sage is compelled to defend the FBI, his defense doesn't include the ATF or its initial raid on the compound. "We would not have carried out the raid at that compound," he says. "If you had a subject wanted on minor gun charges, who is potentially violent, lives at a fortified compound where there are women and children, it's the last place on earth I'd have tried to orchestrate a raid. We got called into the middle of it and inherited the mess."

Sage is also exasperated at the FBI for what he sees as its refusal to aggressively refute some of the latest allegations that have been made against it. "We need to be accountable," says Sage, who points out that he's not being paid by the FBI for any of the work he is doing on its behalf. But he adds quickly, "There's no excuse for their not responding" to what Sage says are "intentionally misleading allegations." He wants to assure the American people that the FBI acted honorably. If that doesn't happen, he fears that someone else, another Timothy McVeigh, will take matters into their own hands. "I don't want another Oklahoma City. I don't want someone else to take a hostile act because the facts about Waco were misrepresented," he says.

Is Sage haunted by Waco? He says no. But it's clear that the tragedy still weighs on him. "I've relived it a million times," he says evenly. "If there was anything I could have done to avoid that loss of life, I would have moved heaven and earth to do it."