Chaos

Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties

by Tom O'Neill

Published: 2019

Not long ago, I was asked to attend a "Heritage Day" at a school, and answer questions about the sixties. While acknowledging I was alive then, I also had to admit that I started that decade pretty young. Over the course of that ten year stretch, my focus changed a lot, so my memories and point of observation provided only limited insight.

But one thing is absolutely true: in my lifetime, that period of time was one of profound change. 

Having written that, it can be acknowledged that there have been many decades that can be labeled "full of profound change," and for a variety of reasons - wars, depressions, discoveries, technological change. But at the same time, the 60's will no doubt always be recognized as a time when people turned a corner, socially and politically in the United States. One of the reasons this corner seems more profound than others is, no doubt, because it seemed to spring organically from the people, as opposed to being imposed upon them for survival - as in the case of a World War, a major economic shift, or the sudden appearance of a technology that changes how we relate (as in, the Internet and cell phones). 

But - this is the fourth book I've read that suggests the change was perhaps not as organic as it felt to anyone living through it. And it's the fourth book that, curiously, places one Charles Manson somewhere near the center of the action. 

"Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders" (2001) was prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi's first-person account of the summer of 1969, in Los Angeles, a series of brutal, seemingly random murders captured headlines across America. A famous actress (and her unborn child), an heiress to a coffee fortune, a supermarket owner and his wife were among the seven victims, all horrifically killed by members of Manson's "Family," a group of hippie kids who sat at the feet of guru Charles Manson and did his bidding. Apparently, at least some of Manson's purpose was to pay back pop music and culture for not recognizing his genius.

But was that all? In "Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood" (2007) writer Michael Walker suggests that many of the famous, and infamous, not to mention legendary musicians of the late 60s were drawn to The Canyon (this one as opposed to Benedict Canyon, where the victims of the Manson Family met their ugly ends) by forces perhaps bigger than their drive to tune in, turn on, and make music. 

In his book on the subject, "Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream" (2014) author David McGowan suggests that many of these hippie songwriters and musicians were the children of high-ranking military men, and, as such, may have been part of MK-Ultra and Project Monarch, kids who experienced mind-altering experimentation, in a "deep state" attempt to control the "newthink" that was threatening to overthrow the military-industrial complex. "Did you know that LSD and hippies were invented by the CIA in the 1960s? No? Well, the idea was to hook kids on sex, drugs and rock & roll (hey, it worked!), so they would not overthrow the military industrial complex." (from https://pleasekillme.com/cia-rock-roll/)

Noted in all of these books is Charles Manson. Not only, of course was he the author (if not an actual participant) in two scenes of grisly murder, but he was also a wannabe rocker, with ties to the Beach Boys, and producer Terry Melcher (son of Doris Day). 

While the Laurel Canyon books focus more on the music and culture scene in LA in the mid-sixties and beyond, Bugliosi's story and "Chaos" are more intent upon covering Manson and the story of how a small, odd, sad character like Charlie could have orchestrated "Helter Skelter," his name (he claimed it was a clue provided to him in the Beatles' song of the same name) for starting a race war, and the actual acts of murder he ordered his Family to commit.

Of the four books, "Chaos" is perhaps the hardest to get through; this may be in part because of O'Neill's obsession with the subject. What started out as a would-be article for the popular press became a 20-year chase to get "the facts" of the Family, the murders, the investigation, the trial, and Bugliosi's own account of how the trial went down. What does stand out is the sheer volume and detail of the reporting - O'Neill has left no stone unturned, spent hours (weeks, months, even years) chasing down leads, interviewing witnesses and those knowledgeable about the subject, and speculating on the "real" story. As the Amazon write-up suggests: "O'Neill's quest for the truth led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco's summer of love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences. The product of two decades of reporting, hundreds of new interviews, and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, CHAOS mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Steven Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. This is a book that overturns our understanding of a pivotal time in American history."

Certainly this wouldn't be the way to describe the 60s to 8th graders today, nor would it necessarily be the way a young kid of the era would have experienced the period, however much it went from "bobby socks to stockings," and soda shoppes to discos, malted milks to LSD. But "Chaos," like all the other books dealing with the period as expressed in the story of Laurel Canyon, the music, the murders, the war, the protests, the confusion and turbulence, is a fascinating glimpse of an era and one of its most infamous episodes.