Gary Patterson

The Trial


For a copy of this report and to order the book write to:
Pilgrims Rest
HCR 77, Box 38A
Beersheba Springs, TN 37305


WARNING FROM
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST


 WACO - When the Waco crisis suddenly broke on February 28, the phones began buzzing at the Seventh-day Adventist General Conference headquarters. Shirley Burton (who, ten months earlier, had a part in initially promption the ATF to begin their investigation of Koresh - see bottom of thsi page) and her staff at the General Conference Communications Department were on the phones from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. solid for days thereafter. They received request s for interviews from all over the U.S., Canada, and several European countries.

Her office sent fax correspondence to all local unions and conferences, and encouraged them to hold interviews with the media. Later, her office reversed itself - and sent out another fax to all Adventist entities NOT to be interviewed but to refer all inquiries to Gary Patterson (of the North American Division), who had gone to Texas so he could be close to the action. The objective was to give a single message to the world about Adventism, Patterson, as you may recall, was the Georgia-Cumberland Conference president who, in 1984, was removed from his office by the conference constitutency because he so strongly favored the new theology . He is now special assistant to the president of North America Division (Al McClure).




The February 28, 1993 Waco shoot-out followed an eight-month investigation by the ATF and the Waco Tribune-Herald. We now know that Shirley Burton of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventist Church was instrumental in getting the investigation started. The following is taken from a book being prepared here:

For a copy of this report and to order the book write to:
Pilgrims Rest
HCR 77, Box 38A
Beersheba Springs, TN 37305


WARNING FROM
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST


 Shirley Burton, Director of Communications for the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, which is headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, says that, the early spring of 1992, she warned government authorities that something terrible was going to happen at the Waco compound. She told them to there and do something. Here are two reports, both of which originated in her office:



"February, March, and April, 1992: Wild rumors began to circulate in the media in California and Australia. I began soliciting and accumulating information on the group after a panic call very early the Saturday morning before Easter Sunday. Australian media had reported that Howell/Koresh/Jezreel had called for a suicide/martyrdom on Easter morning as a supreme sacrifice to God. Media exposure and law enforcement awareness seemed to have thwarted the plans. There was no apparent news of them thereafter." - Shirley Burton, "To Media Inquirers," March 2, 1983.

"The morning before Easter last year, Shirley Burton, spokeswoman for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, said she got a terrifying phone call. On line was a church official in Australia, relaying a warning that the next day, an explosion of violence would occur in a Waco, Texas, cult that included dozens of former Adventists. The man got the warning from parents of a cult member.

" ' The parents had just had word that there would be a 'suicide-massacre,' Burton said, adding that her mind filled with images of the 1978 murder-suicide of Jim Jones and 900 of his followers in Guyana.

"Church authorities tipped off Waco police and Easter passed without incident. But peace came to a bloody end this past Sunday, when sect members began a shoot-out with federal agents." - Washington Post, March 3, 1993.

It is of interest that both investigation teams began their work in 1992, within a month or two after the General Conference alerted federal, state, and local authorities.

"Last spring officials of the Seventh-day Adventist Church heard from colleagues in Sydney that the Branch Davidians were planning a mass suicide for Easter Sunday. About the same time the State Department got word from sources in Australia that Koresh's group was stockpiling arms and planning suicide. State passed it on to ATF, which began its investigation in June." - Newsweek, March 15, 1993.



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