From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 10 1999 - 09:44:49 MDT
Hal Finney wrote:
>I purchased the Washington Post article mentioned here, and temporarily
>I have put it on my web site at http://www.finney.org/~hal/waco.txt.
>At a minimum it suggests that the evidence is more equivocal than the
>film seems to imply.
Thanks Hal!
"Was Waco a Massacre? Four Years Later, The Question Hasn't Been
Extinguished". By Richard Leiby and Jim McGee, Washington Post
Staff Writers, Friday, April 18, 1997.
Here's the sequence of events described there:
1. FBI shows parts of tape to Post reporters, offers weak arguments.
Says if whole tape released, would support them, but refuses to
do so for "national security reasons." Gives 1hr excerpt to Post.
2. Post reporters mails one hour excerpt to their own experts to examine.
Three are named as supporting the gunshot interpretation: Horn, Smith,
Simpson. One is named as finding the evidence inconclusive: Friday.
No one is named or mentioned supporting the reflection interpretation.
3. Post shows tape at Fort Belvoir to "the military's top scientists."
They watch the tape together at full speed and then vote immediately
and unanimously for reflections. Only their leader Palmer is named
and no count of them is given.
4. Tape is shown to Zegel, "one of the top FLIR readers in the world",
now retired from the Army, who "knows and greatly respects Ed Allard,
the scientist in the documentary." On first fast viewing he supports
reflections. On second slow viewing with Allard, he switches to
gunshots.
"In all, 12 examiners offered opinions." But only 7 are named.
Yes of course things are more equivocal than the documentary suggests.
How could they not be, since there one expert gives one confident opinion.
But not much more equivocal; this still looks pretty damning evidence
to me. No named private expert supports reflections, while five support
gunshots. And I find it really hard to buy the reflection interpretation
of what I saw. But if you Hal will rent the video and tell me it looks
equivocal to you, I will rent it again and reconsider.
Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
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