The Waco, Texas, ATF Raid and Challenger Launch Decision

• DOI: 10.1177/02750740122064848
• Date: 01 March 2001
• Author: Terence M. Garrett
• Published date: 01 March 2001
• Subject Matter: Articles

ARPA/March2001Garrett/ATFRAIDANDCHALLENGER DECISION

THE WACO, TEXAS, ATF RAID AND

CHALLENGER LAUNCH DECISION

Management, Judgment, and

the Knowledge Analytic

TERENCE M. GARRETT

University of Texas Pan American

The author arguesthat the Challenger space shuttle launch disaster and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco

and Firearms(ATF) raid on the Branch Davidian compound both offer insights for managers and orga-

nization theorists as to how managers make judgments concerning their employees based on concep-

tions of how the employees ought to do their work. Managers with a knowledge of “managementas sci-

ence” objectify the work of employees under them. Workersknow their work as craft based on firsthand

experience. The author argues that traditional management practice results in decision making that

does not take into account the knowledge of all organizational participants, and this leads to catastro-

phe. “Worker”knowledge and “management” knowledge, as well as other kinds of knowledge in orga-

nizations,are frequently incompatible. This aspect is characteristic of modern organizationsbut tends to

be accentuated during times of organizational crisis. These two cases illustrate well the problems

involved in decision making within complex organizations.

The Challenger space shuttle launch of January 28, 1986, and the Bureau of

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raid in Waco, Texas, on February 28, 1993,

are two infamous cases where managers made decisions that resulted in death and

destruction in an arguably unnecessary fashion. Tocome to an understanding con-

cerning the management practices of the Waco/ATF raid and Challenger launch

decision case studies, I will apply Carnevale and Hummel’s (1996) “knowledge

analytic.”1In short, the knowledge analytic is concerned with multiple knowledges

in modern organizations:

1. Idealism, two types: (a) the highly abstract and numerical knowledge of high-level

managers and executives (pure reason) and (b) the idealism affiliatedwith investors

and citizens;

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally presented to the Issues in Policy Development and

Administration Panel at the annual meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, San

Antonio, Texas, 1999.

Initial Submission: May 25, 1999

Accepted: June 25, 2000

AMERICAN REVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION,Vol. 31 No. 1, March 2001 66-86

© 2001 Sage Publications, Inc.

66

2. The scientific knowledge of managers (application of executive directives to work-

ers, or “public management” as it is now constituted); and

3. Realism, two types: (a) the knowledge of workers (experiential) and (b) the knowl-

edge of the consumer (recipients who use the goods and service, etc., provided by the

organization).

The primary tension within most organizations exists within the incompatibility

of knowledges based on management science and workerrealism.2Management

science as idealism needs constant revision to overcome its tendency to capture

itself within its own techniques, which are insensitive to human demands. The

lived experience of workers frequently defiesthe rational constraints placed by

managers on their work. When workers present work that is at odds with the

“perfect” plans put forward by managers, they tend to be ignored, at best, and/or

blamed, at worst, if managements’ plans go awry.3Nototal knowledge system yet

conceived by idealism can ever be perfect (Carnevale & Hummel, 1996, pp. 69-

70). Imperfection is an ever-present fact of human existence.

With the Waco/ATF raid and Challenger launch incidents, I will be comparing

two well-known examples of management failure to illuminate in a stark fashion

the incompatibility of worker and management knowledges. The two cases were

selected because they highlight the crucial nexus between “managers” and the

“managed” (i.e., workers). Managers cannot isolate themselves from their work

and their workers.4Worker-manager separation has been promoted in both theory

and practice by classic renditions of social science, especially through many analy-

ses of the Challenger launch decision. The knowledge analytic transcends these

two cases and is useful in beginning to understand the complexity of decision mak-

ing in human organizations. The knowledge analytic is not the theory of human

organizations but is useful for practitioners engaged in the art of management to

recognize the shortcomings of management science. Both cases share important

similarities that provide us (public administrators and the public) with knowledge

concerning decision making that is useful in future situations. I believe that the two

cases illustrate problems that are faced in many modern organizations,even though

the agencies under consideration here deal with missions that involve life-and-

death situations and most other public organizations do not share the same condi-

tions. In the analysis of both cases, I will render a historical judgment of events

leading to the ill-fated launch and raid. I examine the Challenger launch decision

first. I then follow with the Waco/ATF raid case and conclude with a discussion of

the implications of the knowledge analytic.

BACKGROUND OF THE

CHALLENGER ACCIDENT

Numerous interpretations and explanations of the causes of the ill-fated Chal-

lenger launch decision have been offered by NASA administrators, the Rogers

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