Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Will you, while you have your blue book out, go ahead and turn to page D-16?

Mr. NOBLE. Page what, sir?

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. D-16, and you're welcome, Mr. Director, also. I'm trying to get to the point, Mr. Secretary, to clarify I think going back to Mr. Chabot, the issue of whether or not on the day of the raid of February 28, 1993, how far up in Washington was it that people knew that the element-the so-called element of surprise had been compromised? And this is a diary by time that's an ATF diary. It's in your report beginning about 9:05 in the morning.

We see that Rodriguez departs compound at 9:05 in the morning, talks to Cavanaugh, calls Sarabyn. Sarabyn, who is at the command post, and Sarabyn, Chojnacki and Royster discuss Rodriguez' information and decide to go. So, clearly this illustrates that Rodriguez left, talked to Sarabyn and then Sarabyn, Chojnacki and Royster talked about what Rodriguez told him and then they made the decision to go at that point.

And then, at 9:10, about 5 minutes later, Chojnacki calls the National Command Center in Washington and informs that the operation is a go. Now, what is this National Command Center? Is that sort of the Crisis Center in Washington?

Mr. NOBLE. It's the ATF headquarters office where I believe Mr. Gardener, Mr. Vita, and those are the only two I'm certain were there at that point. I don't recall who else. There's someone else who was there, I just can't recall what the name is. It's like a phone bank, if you will, set up precisely to take information with regard to the raid, yes, sir.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. So in effect that's the Washington point that's monitoring this raid that day.

Mr. NOBLE. That's correct.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. These folks down in the field need to call Washington, they call the command center and talk to one of these two gentlemen and then they can contact you or Mr. Bentsen or Mr. Altman or whatever.

Mr. NOBLE. No, no, you can stop right at ATF. And I know people would love to take this up the chain of command and, unfortunately, the facts aren't there. In an operational matter like that, you would not want civilian oversight. If you could design the model, you do not want civilian oversight to be engaged in an operational matter that close to the time it occurs.

The call, as I understand it, looking at this, went from Texas to Washington, and the critical point is to this day, Mr. Chojnacki doesn't admit, will not admit to this committee or to anyone that he knew that surprise had been lost. So whatever he communicated, if he's consistent with his communication today, he won't admit to this day that he knew surprise was lost.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. So there's no proof, as far as you're concerned, that Washington was ever told that morning before the raid that the element of security or secrecy had been compromised. Mr. NOBLE. I'm saying the proof is the opposite. The proof is with Mr. Chojnacki making the phone call and protecting himself. Now, there's no doubt in my mind that he will go on, and on, and on,

and on, refusing to accept responsibility for having authorized the raid to proceed and I understand. Part of me understands it, but what he did to Robert Rodriguez, I think, is unforgivable.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Well, if Mr. Chojnacki would fess up to this, if in fact it occurred, that he did call Washington and tell them that the element had been compromised, what would Washington's obligation have been at that point, whoever answered the phone there?

Mr. NOBLE. You're asking me a hypothetical premised on a fact I know not to be true.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. I certainly can ask you a hypothetical. Mr. NOBLE. Hypothetically, if a raid commander called Washington and said that the undercover agent left the compound and reported to him in a very nervous fashion that Koresh had dropped a Bible, that he was shaking.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. All right, I see.

Mr. NOBLE. That he looked out the window for the ATF and National Guard. Thank you.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. If you would look at No. 21 there, that document that was given to you, it's redacted on it. And I think Members have this, this copy of the document, No. 21, and I refer you

Mr. NOBLE. I have it, sir.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Specifically, it's unnumbered, but paragraph 4, you see here that blank-and I'm going to refer to blank because it's redacted. Blank entered the CP, which I guess is command post, in Waco and proceeded to the radio room. Blank asked the clerk to get headquarters and Cavanaugh at the undercover house on the telephones. Blank informed Vita whom you referred to as in Washington at the command center, informed Vita in Washington that the teams were enroute and that they were almost at the compound.

Vita asked blank why the teams were going so early or going early and blank informed him of Howell's-and I guess that's Koresh, Howell's comments to the undercover, whom I assume is Rodriguez. Vita again asked why they were going early based on these statements and blank said he did not know.

Blank kept the telephone line open between headquarters and so forth. It goes on to say that-it talks about the rest of the raid there. But here very clearly is where whoever blank has talked to Mr. Vita in the headquarters in Washington and informed him of Mr. Koresh's comments to the undercover agent when Mr. Vita asked why they were going so quickly, why they were leaving early. Mr. NOBLE. May I ask the chairman's indulgence and stop the clock for just a second, let me ask my colleagues back here and then give you an intelligent answer? May I?

Mr. MCCOLLUM. You certainly may.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, while they are talking, may I make this an attachment to the record?

Mr. MCCOLLUM. Certainly. Without objection.

[The information follows:]

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. No. 21. I might also, for the record, indicate that this document No. 21, it was not a part of the report, the blue report. I think it's a document that

Mr. NOBLE. It's one of the it looks like one of the photocopies of a memorandum of interview and there were thousands of sheets of the memoranda of interview in this report as Chief Heineman said before is already too long so not all those memoranda of interview are included in this report.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Right. It appears to have been generated by the investigation and it was disclosed, looks like, as part of the documents from the White House. It has the number on the bottom.

Mr. NOBLE. Looks like we have serious discussions behind my back here, but we'll get to the answer, I'm sure.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. All right, if I might ask while we're waiting?

Mr. NOBLE. Sure.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Can I switch gears on you?

Mr. NOBLE. Sure.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. When did you start working as a consultant with the ATF?

Mr. NOBLE. I was a consultant with main Treasury and my responsibility included ATF. I was trying to find out the date. I believe it's January 25 or 26 or 27. It was either a Wednesday or a Thursday or Friday toward the end of January and I just don't remember the exact date. It's one of those things I keep saying on my check list I should find out when I first started, but one of those days.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. And I recall you said you worked on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Mr. NOBLE. My last class at NYU Law School concluded at 10 in the morning. I take a cab to La Guardia, fly down and then take a cab to the office.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Now, your meeting that you said you had with Mr. Higgins, who was the Director of the ATF at that time, that was just simply a get-acquainted meeting?

Mr. NOBLE. Well, I don't know if Director Magaw would admit it, but once they learn that there's someone who might occupy the position, it travels like wildfire. So I went to pay courtesy calls on all the Directors. John Magaw was Director of Secret Service; Steve Higgins, ATF; Brian Bruh was FinCEN; George Weise was not yet nominated, so it was Michael Lane; and then my office Directors today.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Did you meet with other people in Mr. Higgins' office? I mean, did you go to his office or did he come to yours?

Mr. NOBLE. I went to his office. I wanted to show them that I recognized that they were the power center and that I was going to be respectful of them and the experience they had, so I went to their office. And Mr. Higgins' secretary or administrative assist

ant

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. I think they're leaving now.

Mr. NOBLE. That worries me-introduced me to Mr. Higgins and then I went in his office and had a one-on-one.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. Were other people brought in

Mr. NOBLE. They were not.

Mr. BRYANT of Tennessee. As part of Mr. Higgins' staff?

Mr. NOBLE. They were not. None of the offices I visited, for some

reason.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Bryant

Mr. NOBLE. Wait. Director Magaw, I met with him privately in his office then you took me to a staff meeting.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Bryant, your time has expired. They are still trying to figure out this document. When the appropriate time comes, Mr. Noble, you will be able to answer the question. But I cannot let Mr. Bryant ask the question at this point.

Mr. NOBLE. OK.

Mr. MCCOLLUM. And so I'm going to yield time now to Mr. Condit.

Mr. CONDIT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. MCCOLLUM. You have 5 minutes.

Mr. NOBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CONDIT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, Mr. Director, nice to have you here today and I know it's been a long day and I'll try to be quick. I'm still a little unclear about the investigative part of this, the process by which you folks do your internal investigation if you have a shooting, an officer goes down or what have you.

It's my understanding that the Texas Rangers did an investigation, that the Justice Department did an investigation. Do you not have an internal process by which when you have an incident, a gun has been fired that you automatically go and investigate? Mr. NOBLE. The standard. I'm sorry, sir.

Mr. CONDIT. I am sorry, go ahead.

Mr. NOBLE. The standard operating procedure for ATF at the time was following a shooting, there would be a post shooting review. They began the post shooting review process and during that time two things happened: One is the assistant U.S. attorney in charge, Mr. Bill Johnston, made what I thought was a right decision and concluded that if ATF agents were the case agents for this murder investigation, then they would be accused of a whole host of misdeeds which might make the case less strong than it otherwise would be.

Therefore, Mr. Johnston asked the Texas Rangers whether they would agree to be special deputized U.S. marshals and conduct a Federal criminal investigation.

Now, at the same time this is going on, there are reports in the newspaper and on the-in the media and, in fact, I believe one agent went on TV saying that we knew, we, being the ATF agents involved in the raid, knew that the surprise was lost and went forward nonetheless and ATF headquarters was putting out the story that they didn't know that surprise was lost. Therefore, if we had permitted ATF to continue its post shooting review, as it ordinarily had, then that critical fact of what did you know when, coupled with agents saying there's a coverup going on would have made that a dangerous thing to permit to continue.