There is no one simple answer to anything. So when i do write these books try to pick an era in American History. When i wrote about bonnie and clyde was really writing about the depression and growing up poor in the dust bowl. When i wrote about the gunfight at the o. K. Corral which was not actually a gunfight and wasnt at the o. K. Corral, but the accidental shooting in an empty lot on fremont street just did not have the same sort of ring to it when the first people were going to write this history. I wanted to write about the settling of the last part of the american frontier, and about three and half years ago it occurred to me that a lot of that unique time in American History that we know as the late 1960s is either getting completely forgotten or else people are sort of putting their own little twist on it. H, yeah. Some people say the hippies with a lot of sex and drugs. Wasnt that silly and cute . Other people remember the passion over the war. The students marching in the streets. Other people remember the space age with the cold war still going on. Tom hayden said when i interviewed him for this book that he does not think there has ever been a couple of years of American History where we were bombarded almost every day with an event that just almost seemed impossible to omprehend. We had assassinations of beloved leaders, or at least controversial leaders that would live in history. We had a war that was dividing the country. There was more racial violence in america than there had ever been since reconstruction and worse in many different ways, yet it was also a time when there was great literature being written, great music was being composed, the mets won the world series, which for those of a certain age will understand this was about as miraculous as things could get. And then there was the great day that a man first walked on the moon. On that day when that happened at spawn ranch the women of the manson family were doing what they always did every day. Harles manson had told the women that there role as dictated by the bible, as dictated by the beatles and dictated by him, they must be subservient to men at all times. And so all of the women in the family every afternoon were equired to form a sewing circle and mend things, because that is what women were supposed to do. And so theyre sitting there ewing, leslievan houten, Patricia Krenwinkel. The woman who was known as squeaky, sandra good, susan atkins, linda kasabian, names you heard before in other contexts. And one of them says, do you know what . I heard there was a man on the moon today. And the other women started laughing at her. And these folks who follow the man who preached, he was perhaps the Second Coming of jesus christ. There was an apocalyptic race war about to erupt where the blacks would annihilate the whites. The manson family during the war would hide in a Bottomless Pit in the Mojave Desert where, as they hid, they could change in to any pretty little being they wanted to, including fairies orel fs. Elves. When the war would be over and the black race would stand alone they would not be able to govern themselves. The manson family would come out of the hole in the desert nd rule the world. These women who believe that when one of them had the nerve to claim that a man was walking on the moon, they laughed and said, oh, come on. Somebody is making that up. And of the three years ive worked on this book, i dont think i heard an anecdote from nybody that quite captured the manson familys buying in to what they were hearing from their leader, and as he ordered them blocking out the outside world where he told them it was not safe, that if they ventured into it without him they would ever last. It was not my intention to write the book about Charles Manson when i decided to write about the late 1960s. As i always do, i made a list of people or events that i thought would be interesting for me to know more about. And i thought at first i might write a book about the weathermen. I think you folks might remember them. In that era in any given week of 1969 or 1970 according to government records, there averaged just over 40 domestic terrorist bombings in this country. Thats every week. We have seen in recent years terrible attacks on our country from outsiders. In 1969, 1970 the attacks were coming from ourselves. Ut when i started to that, i thought there just arent specific individuals that want to build this around. Its such a complex of thing. In trying to capture all the different named players we might lose the thread of the story. So what else is there . Then i started to write about the students for democratic society. Again, all of you are too young to remember this. Remember being in college and he campus s. D. S. Faction would want a meeting. Talk about overthrowing the government. We had to stand up, bring the war back to america. And i was in college being able to pay my way by working at kmart because my father, the retired air force sergeant had a little bit of pension coming from the government. That made a difference of whether i was in college or not. I didnt want the government overthrown then, even if i did not agree with everything. But tom hayden has written about that. Mark rudd. Ill ayres, whether we agree with them or not, they have told their story. I think they told it pretty completely. What is left . And so i tried to ask myself, who is one person from the 19691970, that time in American History, whose name would be recognizable not just a folks our age, but people who are younger, maybe even people who were still in college. Of course there is one answer to that. And that left me to do two things with this book i was going to write. After reading the other books about Charles Manson, and i believe you may know there have been many. If you wanted to collect each one of them, my last count was by reputable publishers since 1975 there have been 171 books about Charles Manson. If you throw and the self published books and to this day i am sure many of you realize he has active followers who are publishing their books on the internet. All of these things have been written, but i never found a book that was the one i wanted to write. The definitive manson book and en by Vincent Bugliosi curtis called helterskelter. So far sold almost eight and half million copies. My book is breaking in its first week in print. It will be the New York Times bestseller list number 13, which means i am only 8. 3999 bugliosi, if you folks are in a good mood and have a lot of friends, maybe you can move me up. I hope so. Bugliosi, who was so generous and kind in helping me write this book. I cannot stress is generosity enough. They told the story pretty much of the arrest of the manson family and the trial of followed. They did it brilliantly. I wanted to write a book that did two different things. First of all, i wanted to find out how Charles Manson became the person he was in 1968 and 1969 and 1970. All we ever had to go on and what has been accepted by everybody is what manson imself wants to tell people. Illegitimate son of that teenage prostitute mother who cared so little about her child that she once tried to sell him for a pitcher of beer. As a child, he was abused by the uncles she would have move into their home one after another. When he was 9 or 10, she was so tired of having to even try to perfunctorily take care of him that she threw him into the juvenile Justice System where he suffered greatly. From there his life turned bad. He did not know who his father was. Do not think his mother knew who his father was. So he said he finally learned even as a child that the street was his father and prison was mother. That is what everybody pretty much accepted. I decided to check it out. The first part is, lets look at the mans whole life. How did he get there . The second question, where was he and what kind of things were happening in our culture that made it possible for a Charles Manson to recruit a few dozen followers who would do these kinds of god awful things. Again, history does not happen in a vacuum. I am kind of convinced that if Charles Manson had been paroled from prison in nebraska and ended up in omaha instead of los angeles and tried these things, he would have been impaled on the pitch fork and stuck up in the field as a scarecrow. He was in the right place at the right time. How did that happen . So what i thought i would do because you folks tonight, you have heard over and over during the years, peoples different versions of what happened on the nights of august 9th and 10th 1969. That will tell you, there is some new material in my book because in the course of my interviewing quite a few people, including especially Patricia Krenwinkel, who was involved in both nights and besides a couple of sound bites on the 25th anniversary of the murders has never given a full account of it. She explained it all in such depth and with such honesty and clarity that she ended up answering the final couple of questions that the lapd has had about the murders all these years. So yes, there are some new things, but most of all, if its ok with you, i would like to talk very briefly about four parts of this book. Charles manson, his life, and the world he grew up in. Lets begin with his childhood. We talked just a minute ago about all the things manson claims. Guess what . They are all lies. Nd it is all documentable. I put 21,000 miles on my car in the last couple of years and went everyplace he went. A lot of lies can be proven with simple visits to the county courthouse. Charles manson was not illegitimate. His mother, when she was 15, was unhappy with their fundamentalist christian mother who believe that girls should not cut their hair, wear makeup and above all should not do hat terrible sinful thing that led to every evil in the world, that of course was dancing. We know her side of the story because Charles Mansons sister, nancy, never before interviewed anywhere, and i found her. She told her mothers side of the story for the first time, gave me dates and places that i could go try to look. Here is what happened. This is what everybody in the family knew. The real manson family, including charles himself. When shes 15, Kathleen Maddox living in kentucky crosses a bridge over the river to a town called ironton. She sneaks out of the house, goes because there are some clubs there where people can dance. And that one of these clubs, itzy rays is the name of it, she meets a man, an exciting call the man, 29 years old. His name is colonel scott. Colonel is his given name, not a military rank. But the colonel does not mind letting the 15yearold girl think he is a war hero. Of course, he actually works in the factory. He is married and has two children. Thats the part he leaves out. Not long later kathleen becomes pregnant. She is 15. And she tells colonel scott. The colonel announces that he is going to do the right thing for her, but he has just been called away by the army. He is going to come back in just a couple of weeks and will take care of everything. And so kathleen goes to her mother, says she is pregnant. The father is going to marry her. You can imagine her mothers reaction, but nancy really does love kathleen and so she says she will stick with her. They will all get through this. It is not the childs fault and colonel scott never comes back and kathleen is furious. There was another fellow in kathleens life who would like to get her attention. His name is william manson. He is a common laborer, whose dream is to be a dry cleaner. And knowing kathleen is pregnant with another mans child, he marries her about five months before the birth. There was never any question that Charles Manson was an illegitimate baby. His birth certificate was filed a few weeks after his birth. William manson was listed as the father but the whole family and charles himself knew throughout that the real father was colonel scott. No doubt whatsoever. So the later rumors that manson hated and feared blacks because he had a black father, never ever. Manson and kathleens marriage lasts a couple of years. He divorces her. She is still a young girl. She is trying to run around and have a little fun. Her son is never left with strangers or offered for a pitcher of beer. She did what many young women hat age do and sticks him with er mother or her sister glenna and her husband and daughter. Hes cared for always. Kathleen and her brother luther, spectacularly botch an attempted robbery. They try to use a ketchup bottle, poke it in somebodys back and say its a gun. Hey call them the idiot ketchup bottle bandits, the greatest dunderhead who ever attempted a crime. Kathleen gets five years in prison. Luther gets 10. Yes, that is on kathleens record. Never once before then or the next 15 years was there any record she was arrested for prostitution, ever warned about being a prostitute. She bungled a crime. She never should have tried to commmit it. But Charles Manson was not the child of a prostitute. Not then, not ever. He goes to live in west virginia, a little factory town with his uncle bill, aunt glenna, and cousin jo ann who was three years older. I found jo ann who has never talked before. And if you get a chance to look in the book youll see that the photograph section shows pictures of Charles Manson from his baby pictures and his wedding album. They come from his sisters. They tell the real story. Here is an interesting one jo ann told me about charlie. She said from the time he came to live with them at 5 years old, hes scary. Hes violent. He lies about everything. The first person he ever physically attacked was jo ann. He picked up a sickle in the backyard and tried to stab her. Her parents stopped him. His explanation, she made me do it. It wasnt my fault. Shes older than me. I was defending myself. In first grade, not only told to me by joann but corroborated by other people who were in school with manson at the time. First grade, he organized some girls in his class to beat up a boy he doesnt like. The principal comes looking for charlie. His explanation . The girls were doing what they wanted to do out of their own thats what they wanted. You cant blame me. The same defense he uses all the years later with tatelabianca. His mother gets out of jail. She wants her son back, and they live in a number of places where, no, there are no uncles oming in all the time. But charles becomes an incorrigible cutter of school. His mother gets a job in a Grocery Store where he immediately starts shoplifting, and begging the different patrons to buy him candy. He is scary. Shes talks to her mother, to her sister, to the school authorities. All this is documented. What can i do to help charles . And the common agreement is there are some schools for boys where maybe hell learn to follow some rules. Lets have him go there. These were not juvenile detention centers. They didnt have fences around them. When they didnt have fences around them he ran away. When he would run away he did things. The picture on the cover of the book is a picture of Charles Manson at age 13. He has on a suit and tie. He was appearing before a judge in indianapolis on charges get this one, of armed robbery. 3. The question is which rigid detention for boys will he be sent to . But manson, even then, knows how to convince people that hes not that bad. And he onvinces this judge that he, harlie is a devout catholic, and so the judge sends him to boystown, where three days after he arrives he steals a priests car and heads out for the coast. From there, yes, he goes to juvenile detention in places that are pretty bad. Things do happen to him. As a grown adult, 54, hes a tiny, scrawny little thing. When he says he was abused by other boys, beaten unfairly by that f the staff, yes, may very well have happened. But this is also true, within the First Six Months of entering these facilities Charles Manson is not the victim but the predator. Attacking other weaker kids. Organizing boys to attack somebody else. He has a bad record, and that ends the first part of where is this Charles Manson coming from. With this note, in later years, with people i interviewed, when he was in San Francisco and los ngeles, he would brag to other people that when he was in the juvenile detention system, he would play what he called the insane game. To keep bigger boys away from him, to intimidate staff he would act as crazy as he ossibly could. Screaming and gesticulating, nd he said laughing. That was the beginning of the part of the life that he calls becoming the man of a thousand hats. That no matter who he meets, he can change his personality on a dime to make you like him. To make you trust him. Hes very proud of this. When he is about to turn 18, is aunt glenna still living in mcmacon said if youll be released from the prison system, he can have a home with his uncle and aunt and long suffering cousin jo ann. His mother lives in mcmacon. His mother lives in wheeling. Hes let out, and decides to live with his grandmother who lays down the edict. He can only live with her, rent free, if he will go to the Nazarene Church services with her every sunday and join the nazarene teen club afterward. The house where he and his grandmother lived is still there. The church is right across the street, and some of his classmates from the nazarene teen club are still alive. Theyre still willing not only to remember Charles Manson, but they have photographs. Which are in the book. Charlie wants to impress these ids, and to tell you something megalomania, he figured once he set them straight about the world they would follow him. The Nazarene Church did not approve of halloween. Did not want to have those demonic influences, but the teenage kids in the church teen group, you know, they see their friend from school having halloween parties, they want one too. So the Church Elders make this concession. Fine, you can have a hot dog cookout at virginias house. All you kids can come and you can even wear costumes as long as they are not demonic. And charlie is excited. He comes dressed as a carnival barker. We have pictures with the hat and the band around the arm. And these nazarene kids let charlie in on a secret, theyre going do something special. Theyre going to take some aspirin and drop them in a glass of cocacola, because when you dissolve aspirin in soda pop, it gets you drunk. Ssh dont tell charles tells them, thats nothing. He brags that in his recent past, hes been shooting up. They have no idea what that means. First, they think maybe hes talking about shooting a asketball. Then they think hes talking about shooting road signs. Then they decide whatever it is, we dont like it, so Charles Manson is shunned by the kids his age. Thats not the end of it, because soon after that suddenly charlie is going steady with the prettiest girl in town. A nice little girl named rosaleewillis. And before you know it theyre going get married. People remember this is a situation where the wedding came late and the baby came early. Except there was no immediate issue. Charlies grandmother, you remember the one that never cared about him, the family that didnt love him, gave a wonderful wedding reception for them in her home. We have pictures of that. Ictures of the proud maddox family surrounding charlie and her mother standing in the corner glaring. She doesnt like this. And charlie goes straight. Lasts about four whole months. He gets a steady day job, he works in the town Grocery Store in the evening, but theres just not enough money to go around. So charlie gets another outside job. He starts stealing cars. Wheeling a few miles to the north is controlled by the mob. Charlie cant steal cars there. He starts going across the river in ohio stealing cars and driving them to florida to sell, which is a federal crime. Though charlie doesnt think about that. Meanwhile, mansons mother gets tired of wheeling and she moves to california. She moves to los angeles. This is the woman that never loved charlie. Never wanted him. He decides he and his wife will go to california to live with kathleen and they do. And charlie decides to augment his living again in los angeles by riding around in stolen cars. A cop catches him, hes brought to the justice, and in the process, its learned that he drove strollen cars to florida, which is crossing state lines. Federal offense. Should be prison time, charlie pleads with them. His wife is pregnant. He had a terrible childhood, he suffered greatly in juvenile detention. His judgment is bad. Show mercy on him, and the court orders some studies psychology studies and the minute charlie is out of the courtroom he immediately steals another car, puts rosaleein it nd went to indianapolis. Hes brought back to california and spend three years in prison. Now begins the interesting part of Charles Mansons life. Rosalee visits for a while, then runs off with a trucker. She gives birth to mansons first child. Mansons mother besieges law officials with please, let him out. He can live with me. I can give him a good home. Theres a little problem, for Charles Manson, prison indeed became his educational system. Not the way you might think. With incredible timing. Remember we said history doesnt occur in a vacuum . The year before Charles Manson goes to federal prison, the whole concept of the prison system is punishing the people who are in jail. Make the years theyre in custody so horrible theyll ever commit crime again. But the recidivism rate is just amazing. Theyre going do something differently. Theyre going to have class for the inmate and teach them skills that will help them function in the outside world when they get out. Which sounds reasonable, doesnt it . So Charles Manson enrolls in a class, and this class features the philosophy and the writings of the man who will become Charlie Mansons personal guru and his name is Dale Carnegie. During the research for the book, i went to nashville, tennessee where i met a man named phil cofman who was in prison with manson at this time. I said, phil, you know, i keep hearing that when people met Charlie Manson it was like he could look in their eyes, stare knew what oul, he they were thinking. Do you think he had some mystic power. Phil cofman now 80 years old bigger than any five of us in the room riding the biggest harley i have seen in my life, laughs so hard he almost falls down and screams. Ive been waiting almost a half a god damn century for someone to ask me that question i took a step back, cringing. Ell . Manson would come out of the Dale Carnegie classes, come back to the cell and practiced the lines he heard in class, because he thought he knew how to become a successful pimp. These lines were going help him get women later on, when i interviewed leslievan houten and Patricia Krenwinkel at the California Institute for women prison in california said, what did Charles Manson say to you the first time he met you that made you want to follow him . He said this, he said this, he said this. Word for word out of chapter 7. How to win friends and influence people. The rules in the Dale Carnegie class. Always let the other fellow feel that your idea is his own. Number two, the only motivations any of us have are the desire to be famous and the esire for sex. And then number three, always dramatize your desires. Actors do it. Singers do it. You must do it too to get attention. Manson took it to heart. Also studied scientology because he was very interested in how they could get people to accept that faith, and also in the concept that doing bad things is part of becoming good. You have to do bad things to overcome them, then you move up and you lose desire for verything. Which manson bastardized into there is no bad, theres no good, theres no life, theres no death. Charlie is ready to go. He gets out of prison and sets himself up as a nymph los pimp in loss angeles and back in prison in about four months. Hes stoant a tougher prison. Only three people ever tried to escape. One drowned and never found the body of the other two. There is Charlie Manson back in prison. This time he hears Something Else that changes his life. He hears music of the beatles. Immediately starts telling everybody hes going to be more famous than the beatles. He always loved music. His cousin jo ann remembers him picking out song on the piano their family had when charlie as growing up in poverty and every birthday his grandmother could take him to wheeling to get a new suit of clothes and he wanted a hat and had a pony once at the birthday. He was abused and never had anything at least to hear him tell it. He has a guitar in prison writing his own songs. He tells everybody he is going to become bigger than the beatles. He tells the prison authorities hes going to be a song writer and entertainer and make his living that way. Gets outs, next is this part of his life. Hes released in california and has a friend in berkeley who invites him to go there. He goes to berkeley and is overcome by the student protesters particularly the black panthers who scare the hell out of him. When he was in prison he was racially prejudice he wouldnt talk or acknowledge black or hispanic prisoners. But the black Muslim Movement in the prison impressed him. He started telling other prisoners if the blacks ever organize if they have enough guns, of course he didnt use the word black. We will not use the term he used. If they ever get enough guns, they can wipe out a good part of the white race. That idea goes back there. Comes to San Francisco, this beautiful city, just during the summer of love in the book i escribe how h e. I. D. Ht ashbury was not what thought it was going to be. You have an influx of thousands and thousands of young people. Disfranchised, problems with their own families, they are coming to San Francisco to haight ashbury. Everyone loves you. You come to a neighborhood that support a couple of thousand people at most. Then you have almost 30,000 teens showing up every week. They are overflowing. They are starving in the street. They are sick. Dr. David e. Smith of San Francisco starts the freedom free clinic to treat sick hippies who cant afford anything else. Which plays a big part for Charles Manson. Dr. Smith, when i interviewed him said he knew Charlie Manson well. When he first gets here, he goes around to golden gate park, the pan handle, and there in golden gate park, according to dr. Smith you would have a dozen gurus preaching. You ight have a hindu there, a baptist here, an anarchist here, an atheist here. He said manson would stand around listening to these people. Then he would come back to the free clinic and practice the best lines on the sick hippies waiting to be treated. Then he would go out into the park and using the best of everyone else would offer his own teachings. Thats how he got some followers. One at the time. In other words, Charles Manson is charsmatic. Hes not a stupid man even though hes uneducate. Uneducated. He is crafty. He is cagey. And he knows how to take the best of other people and it turn it to his own. A lot of what comes next you have heard read about before his decision to move the family as it grows to los angeles so he can be a rock and roll star. Hangs on to Dennis Wilson of the beach boys, moves in a time in theful wonderful log cabin mansion off sunset boulevard. Becomes disenhanced with wilson because wilson cant get him a recording contract. And my interview in the book with people there at the time from Greg Jacobson to any number of folks, the thing people dont know is Dennis Wilson wasnt the only rock star that manson tried to work through. He got to be buddies with neil young, neil young tried to push mansons music to the warner record label. They didnt sign him. Tried to cozy up to john philips of the mamas and the papas. All them are hearing mansons music and dont think its special. Charlie knows theyre wrong. The only way he can get the record contract that he clearvely deserves so you to go above the rock stars. That means the boy wonder producer of top 10 hits at that time. A guy named Terry Melcher at colombia. Doris days son. The guy who made the birds into a powerhouse. Took a local garage band called paul revere and the raiders. Made great hits for them. All he had do was audition for melcher to get the contract. There it would go. At this point things start to go pretty wrong in several ways. Out on spahn ranch a drug deal goes wrong. A motorcycle gang wants money back from the family who were brokering the deal. A friend of mansons named a couple of the manson women go to garys house music teacher to get the money out of him. He gave them the bad in theory, the bad drugs. He claims he doesnt have any money. They are beating him up. Manson shows up. He has a favorite weapon, a sword he took off he acquired from another biker. Slashes at hinman. Leaves they keep trying to beat him up. Didnt work. Finally calls manson and said do what you need do. They kill gary hinman. But at the same time charlie has been preaching about this race war that is coming. And he is telling the members of the family and again i have leslievan y from houten and patricia cren winkle. Krenwinkel. Its in the bible book of revelation which he helped memorize with his grandmother. I have the family bible where she underlined appropriate passages for him to memorize. Its in the bible in revelation theres going to be a great thing happening. The beatles are telling us about it. In the white album. Backbird fly, that means something. Helter scelter coming down fast. And he tells his followers you have two choices. You can believe what im telling you, and when the time is right we go out in the desert to save yourselves or you can think im wrong and stay. But if you do that, one of two things will happen. The blacks are going to win. Either theyll kill you, or theyll make you their slave because theyre going to do with white people. Thats karma. White people made black people slaves now theyre going to do the same thing. There are drug sessions every day. Mansons got them isolated on spahn ranch. There are physical beatings for some of the women. Its indoctrination. Should it have worked . Clearly no. People shouldnt be believing that. On the other hand it was a time when a lot of people thought the beatles were telling us what to do. A lot of americans, including some very prominent politicians, thought a race war was inevitable. Manson is picking up on the culture the day and turning it to his own end. With the hinman murder, they tried to make it look as though black panthers or black militants committed the crime. They try to leave a bloody paw print. They put a word in blood. Piggies. Manson figures what will happen then the police and media will buy into the fact that black militants are killing white people. That will kick off the revolution. And kick off helterskelter. Vincent bugliosi have talked about this at some length. He seems to agree that manson never really expected that this as going cause a race war. But his followers were getting a littdgo things for them, then theyre going to find somebody else. His followers, remember, have just seen Charles Manson who sometimes said hes the Second Coming of jesus. He failed miserably at auditioning for terry medical cher. Melcher. They saw charlie fail. Leslie said the day Terry Melcher turned him down is the day he acted differently. He started acting mad. So hes failed. Hes got do something. This murder of gary doesnt accomplish at all what manson aid its going to. Instead, hinman foolishly tries to drive off in one of hinmans cars. The police catch him. They find a bloody knife in the car. Its garys blood. Custody boseleinto and manson is afraid. Because they can always turn manson in to save himself. Patricia said within the family he doesnt know who it was. They get together and someone start to talk about copy cat murders. Somebody had seen a movie about that. Maybe if there were more murders, and it looked like the black panthers had done it, then the police would to think it couldnt have been bobby because the killers are still out there and let bobby go. Now manson incorporates Dale Carnegie. Let the other fellow think the idea is his. Nd on the night of august 9th, irst he calls in tex watson. We know a lot of conversation because its repeated in watsons book and because some of the other family members later would discuss it. The gist is manson is saying you have decided that youre going go out and kill people to try to get bobby free. Of course, youre thinking they have to be really important, rich people. That way the media cant ignore it. Now, everyone knows in the amily that Terry Melcher moved rom his wonderful house on cielo, but even though they dont know exactly who is living there now. Know you have to be rich and amous to afford the place. And as well, tex watson is going to lead this group that night. Tex watson has been to that house before. He knows how to drive there in the middle of the night. Thats why that house is chosen. As patricia tells us, manson and watson emerge, and watson tells three women patricia, susan, linda go change your clothes in something dark. Get your knives. Its not unusual for them to say that. They were going around armed. They expected black panthers to come after them any time. So they go get the knives. The women have no idea what is about to happen. They think maybe theyre going break in to a place and steal things. They have been doing it lately. They get in the car, and start driving, they get lost a couple of times. But finally they clamber up have you been to the site of the murders . Its up a steep hill. Narrow winding road. Signs everywhere to beware of deer. Here is a lot of them there. Only after watson leads them over the fence does he tell them theyre going to kill everybody inside. You know what . They go ahead and do it. I wont give you the blow by blow. Its pretty awful. Krenwinkel particularly was honest. Two things came out of the interview that hadnt come out before for certain. The first is when the murders were complete and they went back to spahn ranch, manson is waiting outside the gate and interrogating them. Did you make it look bad enough . Did you write the words in blood. They start explaining, well, they did some of that. Susan lost her knife. Kasabian couldnt go in. Waited by the car. Got kind of confused. Manson, furious, tells them to wash off the blood. He jumps to the car and drives back to the house where he does some rearranging of things at the murder site. The only way that the women who were there knew that happened is during the trial, murder scene photos are shown. In particular, what shocked patricia is back in one corner of the house there was a big American Flag. Now she looks at the pictures and the American Flag is taken out and draped dramatically over the couch in front of where sharon tates body is lying. Manson went back and did some rearranging. Then theres a second thing, when the bodies were iscovered, the Police Arrested the young caretaker, william garretson. He was on the grounds. Everybody else was slaughtered. Nothing happened to him. They thought he was the obvious suspect but later proved he was not. This is why william lived. Patricia chases abigail to the lawn and starts stabbing her. On the other side tex watson is doing the same to another victim. Patricia is not sure she killed abigail and yells i dont know if shes dead. He says ill finish her. You go kill whoever is in the back house. Krenwinkel starts down the sidewalk, turns the corner. Has a dizzy spell. Stops for a minute and then goes back and said to watson, i looked in the window. There was nobody there. Thats why the kid lived. Thats why they didnt kill anybody else that night. Then theres the details of the second night. The run in to the desert when they are hiding. The investigation where the tate and labianca investigative teams dont get along and pretty much dont talk to each other. They arrested the main family in the desert. Brought back to l. A. Susan decides to impress some fellow women prisoners telling what shes done. Tice everything together. We get to trial. This one last point, according to van houten and krenwinkel, just before the final arrest in the mohave desert. Manson gathers the family around him and said if shes hes ever arrested again hes going play crazy charlie for as long as it takes until he convinces everybody he is insane and they let him go. The rest of the family, if they see him acting like crazy charlie should never believe t. What we have seen since is an act that has successfully been carried on for over 44 years. When you talk to other family members now, they say, well, thats his crazy charlie act. He still writes to the other family members in prison trying to keep them loyal. I was talking to patricia and she got a letter and said you wanted to change the world, but you let the world change you. He has active followers today. He as an organization atwa air, trees, water, animal hes a committed environmentalist. If you would care to send a big enough donation he might send you a little of his art from prison. There are Charles Manson collectors all over this country. He gave me permission to reproduce one of his prison paintings. It runs mostly swastica, piders, and the world helter helterskelter spelled with two ls. Its a different book. Not just talking about manson in los angeles were talking about his whole life. Were talking about the times he lived and acted in. So i leave you with this thought again. History does not happen in a vacuum. Charles manson didnt either. He is a product of his time. He is a product of the 1960s and the 1940s and the 1950s. I think he held us captive because he was not put to death when he was supposed to be. He lived on. E is still here. Ugliosi wrote a brilliant book fromm tried to kill a president of the united states. Hes with us. Hes not going away. If my book accomplishes anything i hope puts anymore a little more perspective to understand who and what he is. You have been nice paying attention. I appreciate the heck out of it. Take care. Whatever you do, dont listen to people who tell you they can take your life and make it better. All so you to do is follow their commands word for word. Thanks, folks. Thank you for listening. [applause] [inaudible] if anybody has a question, sure. I would be happy to answer it. [inaudible] i dont want you to feel any pressure with the questions. [laughter] i think you said you interviewed manson . I wrote manson for about five months every day asking to see him. He lost most visitor privileges for having two cell phones in the cell. For what his followers describe as a lie, but according to the authorities he also fashioned a toothbrush handle to a shank and they caught him with it. He finally wrote me bookmaking it clear he didnt want me riting the book. And helpfully turned my email address and Contact Information to current followers who got in touch and we have been corresponding since. Some of them are actually very nice people although they are very protective of him. And later he gave me written permission to use some of his art in the book. Perhaps thinking it might be a good advertisement. If you of are overwhelmed by the stuff in the book, you know how to get in touch with him, i guess. You never actually met him . I have not met him. I have written to him. E has written to me. Here is what i think would have happened if i had. Hes carefully organize orchestrated his few appearances through the media anyway. I think i would have gotten the 20minute visitation we would have gotten twenty minute of crazy charlie. I think the only purpose it would served is me describe what he looks like now. We have been to be get his picture. His facebook page, which has posted a reply to my book they want it understood none of mr. Smoons real friends cooperated with me. So i guess that is the fair statement. I still stand by everything i have written. If you check the notes in every chapter it is still corroborated. Not repeated hearsay. Thank you. Anyone else . Shall we sing a mansoncomposed song together . I admire these folks too much to sing to them. They dont need to suffer like that. I was going ask you. I know, i had some questions earlier about this. What his situation is prison or whether its changed. You know, if hes if he was isolated. Has he remained isolated . How much contact he has with other prisoners. His first years in prison were tough ones. No warden really wanted him there because other prisoners might attack him and even kill him. What the heck, they have nothing to lose. You have to remember he was sentenced to death and was on death row for the first few years. The prisoners on death row immediately hated manson. It was because of mail. Everybody else collectively on death row might get one or two letters a week. Manson got 200 or 300 a day. And it infuriated the other prisoners on death row by not bothering to read them. He would throw them out. Another prisoner whose nickname was pin cushion because he survived so many stabbings in prison, finally braced manson and said why arent you reading the letters. Manson said he had trouble reading. Pin cushion organized some other prisoners to read it and couldnt believe the content of most the letters. Everything from people saying well, youre going to hell and im glad to youre misunderstood. You spoke the truth and stood up now theyre going kill you. Any number of young women asking mansons permission to join the family. To since, wherever he has this day, the nature of the letters hasnt changed. Its still youre going hell. Or youre a hero or can i join the family . He is not isolated anymore. A prisoner tried to set him on fire at one point. Hes in a special sort of holding area. Hes a vegetarian. He still has his guitar. Likes to play music, and above all else, he likes working in the hobby shop where he will make little metal spiders he will send to folks that have won his favor. And he always welcomes money if you want to send him some. But i have seen is a letter it was 20 and sent back a note what i could only get two pack of cigarettes for that. Send 200. So please remember, at least three figures or dont bother. Its been a pleasure. Thank you for coming out on a thursday night. If you read the book theres one more question. Yes . I was wondering if he comes up for parole any once awhile. Is there any chance hell get out. Charles manson will never get out of prison on parole and neither will the others. Susan died of cancer. Susan atkins died of cancer a couple of years ago. Leslie came up for the 20th and turned down again. The manson stigma is such that no governor is going let one of the killers out. I will say this. With van houten. Again, now ive spent an awful lot of time with her, with krenwinkel. One of the people asked do you think theyre really sorry . Yes, i do. They both when i would interview them, they knew i was writing things that were not necessarily going reflect well on them. They accepted that. They told me to tell me the truth when i asked them questions. They didnt know the other people i was talking to. And i would have to have to hear it from somebody else too o be on the safe side. They accept they did unforgivable acts. They are remorseble. Yes, they are resentful of manson. Now they dont just say it was him. That they should not have done of it. They are in their own ways attempting in prison to make some kind of amends. Leslie finished her masters in philosophy and organized educational courses for young women prisoners who dont have much in the way of that. Atricia trained rescue dogs to be guide dogs for the blind. They are hopeful of getting out. I think they know they wont too. I cant say that in any way i condone anything they did. Please understand that. But i do think they were honest and i think their honesty helped my book give a better truer picture. For that, i do thank them. How did he get off death row . The California State Court system declared the Death Penalty was unconstitutional. Cruel and unusual punishment. Thats why we still have Charles Manson today. Yes, sir . You mentioned bill ayres from that era who was going around doing domestic bombings. Hes known as unrepresented terrorist. Its odd, hes never gone to jail. Hes a professor now and launched Barack Obamas career, i think, in his living room. Its odd to contrast hes on the government payroll and established citizen now and bombing people in approximately the same era. Its interesting to talk to folks who were involved in the more violent student activities. I was able to interview mark rudd for this book. As you know, first became famous for the Colombia University taking. He was one of the folks from the sds who helped organize it. And rudd was a reverlation to me and that i expected him to be very defensive about the things that happened. In fact, he said the things we did were foolish. They were wrong. Serving as a teacher for poor indian children. He feels that is a way he can make up for things, not having poorest and helping the in society. I did not talk directly with bill ayers because he was not directly involved with anything i was riding about. I cannot offer an opinion on that. Yes, sir. [indiscernible] microphone . Could this happen today . The times are different. Could this happen again . Sure. We have had demagogues the registry. When he is discussed, if they compare him to someone, they compare him to hitlers. Supported artists, small artists. D thwarted small men. Hitlers lead nations into war. The best Charlie Manson could do was a couple dozen goofed up kids at a time. Smith,ng to dr. David e. When the lapd were trying to put the case together against manson, they came down to San Francisco and dr. Smith told them much the same things he told me and i related some to you. He said there was one thing he kept trying to tell the prosecutors that he wanted them to listen to and it seems he never does they never did. They said, based on your interaction with him, our use apprised Charles Manson did what he did and dr. Smith said no surprised Charles Manson did what he did and dr. Smith said no. He said, i am not surprised Charles Manson did those acts. I am surprised there are so many potential Charles Mansons around. Accomplishes nothing else, i hope it is the demystification of Charles Manson. He will be with us constantly. Let it be the choice about him than the selfserving has put out about himself over the years. Again, thank you for coming out. It was so nice to see you. [applause] [applause] [indiscernible] he has been in san quentin, no, not anymore area [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] today on American History tv, americanit on reconstruction. Explore americas past every weekend on American History tv. Q a, our destiny beyond earth and achieving digital immortality. Takesital immortality everything known about you on the internet, your digital footprint, york credit card records, yourrd pictures, your audiotapes, and completes a profile that is digitized that lasts forever. When you go to the library of the future. You will not take out a book about winston churchill. You will talk to winston churchill. Q a. Spans , on American History tv a panel of historians looks at various aspects of the revolutionary warera military. Topics include George Washingtons and how historians use a soldiers personal memoirs or journals. By the society for historians of the early american republic. I want to welcome you. Have for very young historians today, so i feel a generation or two beyond. I will introduce them in a moment. Before i do, a word or two on why we are actually here. All of our historians are specialists on the American Revolution witpa