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

[W. Niederhut]

        LOL.   I always loved those rare Westerns that didn't completely edit the Mexicans (and Spanish friars) out of American history-- the Zorro shows and, especially, Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns.  It's one reason that The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly has been my favorite Western for the past 50+ years, ever since I first watched it as a lad.

        One of the singular ironies in the history of the Old West is that after we extorted half of Mexico (at gunpoint) in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Mexicans were always depicted in our Western mythology as "bandidos."

[David Andrews]

15 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

        LOL.   I always loved those rare Westerns that didn't completely edit the Mexicans (and Spanish friars) out of American history-- the Zorro shows and, especially, Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns.  It's one reason that The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly has been my favorite Western for the past 50+ years, ever since I first watched it as a lad.

        One of the singular ironies in the history of the Old West is that after we extorted half of Mexico (at gunpoint) in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Mexicans were always depicted in our Western mythology as "bandidos."

The Mark of Zorro (1940), with Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone, kicks it.  Co-starring Eugene Palette as the friar.

Don't forget that - as my Mexican-American friend pointed out - all the Mexicans in Leone films are played by Europeans.  Plus Eli Wallach as Tuco.

Edited August 14, 2019 by David Andrews

[W. Niederhut]

26 minutes ago, David Andrews said:

The Mark of Zorro (1940), with Tyrone Power and Basil Rathbone, kicks it.  Co-starring Eugene Palette as the friar.

Don't forget that - as my Mexican-American friend pointed out - all the Mexicans in Leone films are played by Europeans.  Plus Eli Wallach as Tuco.

True, but at least Leone's films featured haciendas, sarapes, and authentic Roman Catholic monasteries.

BTW,  I noticed that the El Paso killer, Patrick Crusius, wrote in his pre-massacre manifesto about the "Hispanic invasion of Texas."

When I saw that, I wondered what planet the kid had been living on.  The Hispanic invasion of Texas started almost 500 years ago!

Edited August 14, 2019 by W. Niederhut

[Ron Bulman]

14 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

True, but at least Leone's films featured haciendas, sarapes, and authentic Roman Catholic monasteries.

BTW,  I noticed that the El Paso killer, Patrick Crusius, wrote in his pre-massacre manifesto about the "Hispanic invasion of Texas."

When I saw that, I wondered what planet the kid had been living on.  The Hispanic invasion of Texas started almost 500 years ago!

Well before the white invasion of then Hispanic/Indian Tejas.

[W. Niederhut]

31 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

Well before the white invasion of then Hispanic/Indian Tejas.

        Indeed.  We have old Hispanic towns here in southern Colorado (Trinidad, Alamosa, Salida, Pueblo, Durango, Monte Vista, Cortez, etc.) that existed long before my Anglo ancestors migrated out to the Colorado Indian territory after the Civil War.  In fact, like west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and California, south Colorado was part of Mexico that was "sold" to the U.S. in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

[Ron Bulman]

My Mother would have been flabbergasted.  I'm still a little bit incredulous.  I expect my wife to be more so when I attempt to explain it to her.  Doris Day was my Mom's all time favorite actress.  Mother played  piano and sang in the Church choir.  My wife grew up in the late 60's/early 70's watching TV re runs of her movies.  She still does.  They take her back to a time of innocence on her part.

"Melcher had promised Manson a record deal " on Day Labels," his mother's imprint.  But Doris Day Took One Look at Manson - "And Laughed at him (!) and said, "You're out of your mind (!) if you think I'm going to produce a f u c k I n g record for you. Said it to Charlie's face".  Doris!  Such language!

Might she have inspired Manson to act? 

[David Andrews]

10 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

My Mother would have been flabbergasted.  I'm still a little bit incredulous.  I expect my wife to be more so when I attempt to explain it to her.  Doris Day was my Mom's all time favorite actress.  Mother played  piano and sang in the Church choir.  My wife grew up in the late 60's/early 70's watching TV re runs of her movies.  She still does.  They take her back to a time of innocence on her part.

"Melcher had promised Manson a record deal " on Day Labels," his mother's imprint.  But Doris Day Took One Look at Manson - "And Laughed at him (!) and said, "You're out of your mind (!) if you think I'm going to produce a f u c k I n g record for you. Said it to Charlie's face".  Doris!  Such language!

Might she have inspired Manson to act? 

One of my favorite moments, spoken in Marty Melcher's tongue.  Hope it's true.

Imagine what she said to Terry later about the girls.

Edited August 15, 2019 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

My take on both Tom's book and the joke of a film QT made about this subject, please note the last line of my film review.

 

https://kennedysandking.com/reviews/vincent-bugliosi-tom-o-neill-quentin-tarantino-and-tate-labianca-part-1

[Cliff Varnell]

From DiEugenio's review:

<quote on>

Stimson postulates the other major alternative to the crimes, namely that they were copycat killings. The idea was to weaken the case against Bobby Beausoleil, and perhaps get him out of jail. Because Beausoleil had tried to blame the killing of Hinman on the Black Panthers by imprinting a paw on the wall, if the others did the same at Cielo Drive and Waverly, the police would think they had the wrong man and the killers were still at large. This is why similar bloody imprints were left at both the Tate and LaBianca residences. After Atkins was used up and wasted by the prosecution, she stated that this was the real reason for the killings. Krenwinkel realized this was the motive also. Cathy Gilles and Sandra Good, both members of the Clan, also thought this was the reason. Oddly, Stimson concludes it was Kasabian who originally floated the idea. (Stimson, pp. 233-43) </q>

Would it kill all these Tate-LaBianca "experts" to read Manson in his Own Words?

I think it was a major accomplishment for Nuel Emmons to extract from Manson an honest description of what actually happened.  Manson doesn't spare himself at all for his role in the murders, and although he doesn't come right out and blame Susan Atkins for "floating the idea" of copy-cat killings, it's easy enough to come to that conclusion.

 

 

 

[David Andrews]

Something that occurs to me in Bugliosi's trial strategy, and in the relationship of the killers to the victims, is the total non-use, non-investigation of property caretaker William Garretson, once he was released from his brief detention as a suspect.  It's almost as if the cops and  prosecutor were shielding property owner and Garretson "mentor," Rudy Altobelli.

The guesthouse at Cielo Drive was across a small swimming pool from the rear of the murder house.  Garretson was arguably awake during the murders, as his visitor, Steven Parent, was shot dead at the bottom of the driveway en route to exiting the property.  Garretson claimed that he was playing recorded music and never heard gunshots, screams, and other violence noise.  Yet if he was playing music, why did no murderer hear it and force their way into the guesthouse to kill Garretson as a potential witness, since they had already killed Steven Parent for that reason? 

Did the murderers assume Rudy Altobelli was in the guesthouse, and leave it off limits?  Did Bugliosi repeat that favor for Altobelli?

Is Garretson "the dog that didn't bark in the night," out of Sherlock Holmes?

"Three dogs were in the guest house with him. Their constant barking through the night did not alarm him, for, as he said, they often barked at night. "

https://zodiackilleridentified.com/2019/03/27/zodiac-killer-at-the-tate-house/

Edited August 19, 2019 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

That is an interesting question.

I was disappointed that Tom did not delve into that more.  Especially since he told me there was more to the Parent shooting than met the eye.

Your hypothesis might be correct.

[Cliff Varnell]

1 hour ago, David Andrews said:

The guesthouse at Cielo Drive was across a small swimming pool from the rear of the murder house.  Garretson was arguably awake during the murders, as his visitor, Steven Parent, was shot dead at the bottom of the driveway en route to exiting the property.  Garretson claimed that he was playing recorded music and never heard gunshots, screams, and other violence noise.  Yet if he was playing music, why did no murderer hear it and force their way into the guesthouse to kill Garretson as a potential witness, since they had already killed Steven Parent for that reason? 

From the testimony of William Garretson, emphasis added:

https://www.charlesmanson.com/testimony/william-garretson-testimony/

QUESTION: Did you fall asleep around dawn at all?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: But throughout the night you were awake?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: Listening to your stereo?

ANSWER: Yes, and writing letters.

QUESTION: Did you hear any gunshots during the night?

ANSWER: No.

QUESTION: Did you hear any loud screams during the night?

ANSWER: No.

QUESTION: Did you hear any loud noises of any kind whatsoever?

ANSWER: No, I didn’t.

QUESTION: How loud were you playing your stereo?

ANSWER: It was about medium. Something like that. It wasn’t very loud, you know. It was just enough so that I could hear it.

QUESTION: Well, if you were in another room of your guest house, could you have heard it?

ANSWER: Faintly.

QUESTION: You had it on about medium, is that correct?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: Do you have a volume control on that stereo?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: Is there a #4 on the volume control?

ANSWER: Yes, there is.
QUESTION: Do you recall whether it was on #4 during the night?

ANSWER: No.

QUESTION: It may have been?

ANSWER: It may have been, yes.

</q>

[David Andrews]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

That is an interesting question.

I was disappointed that Tom did not delve into that more.  Especially since he told me there was more to the Parent shooting than met the eye.

Your hypothesis might be correct.

If you look on DPF, William Weston (of TSBD research fame) has a thread proposing that Manson and an unnamed second person went to Cielo Drive later that night, after the initial violence.  This is said to jibe with reports among canyon residents that screams and gunshots were heard much later that night.  Also - and this is verifiable and disturbing - a large amount of Tate's and Sebring's blood was found on the door sill and just outside the house, when they were supposedly killed in the living room.  An implication might be that both survived, tried to crawl out of the house badly wounded, and were found and finished off on the second visit.

I believe that the Nuel Emmons book that Cliff favors, Manson In His Own Words, has Manson copping to going to Cielo later that night.

Could it be possible that Steven Parent arrived later and was killed on the second visit, and not the first?  Or that he was with Garretson in the guest house, and left when he thought it was all over?  Is that why one of the killers said that Parent protested [paraphrase], "Wait, wait!  I won't tell," before he was shot?

Though the living quarters in the house were a bit distant from where Parent's car was found, you would think that several gunshots nearby would have alerted the Tate party.  Also, Weston notes the strange disturbance of a hillside fence rail near the Parent car, as if Parent had backed into it, which no theory has ever explained.  Did no one in the house hear the fence crash, either?

If there was "more to the Parent shooting" than Parent, Garretson and Altobelli being gay, I wish O'Neill had tipped us to it.

The Weston thread, albeit strangely titled and begun:

https://deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/showthread.php?16991-Zodiac-Killer-was-a-Member-of-the-International-White-Guard&p=125454#post125454

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by David Andrews

[Joseph McBride]

That's a savvy review by Jim DiEugenio of the vile Tarantino

film. I might add that the part-Asian actress who is burned alive

with the flamethrower is playing Susan Atkins, the most evil

of the Manson girls. My film critic friend Jonathan Rosenbaum (whose

book MOVIE WARS: HOW HOLLYWOOD AND THE MEDIA

CONSPIRE TO LIMIT WHAT FILMS WE CAN SEE coined the term "media-industrial complex")

refers to the underlying metaphorical agenda of the Tarantino film as "napalming the hippies."

Casting a part-Asian actress as Atkins reinforces that connection, which

is not even subtle in the film, with its blanket aspersions on hippies by

traditional Hollywood characters and its mockery of Bruce Lee, etc.  Another

reason this theme is disturbing is that the agenda behind the murders

themselves (on the part of US government agencies involved, probably including the CIA

and Army Intelligence) may well have been to discredit the hippie and antiwar movements.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Joseph McBride

[David Andrews]

5 minutes ago, Joseph McBride said:

That's a savvy review by Jim DiEugenio of the vile Tarantino

film. I might add that the part-Asian actress who is burned alive

with the flamethrower is playing Susan Atkins, the most evil

of the Manson girls. My film critic friend Jonathan Rosenbaum

refers to the underlying agenda of this film as "napalming the hippies."

Casting a part-Asian actress as Atkins reinforces that connection, which

is not even subtle in the film, with its blanket aspersions on hippies by

traditional Hollywood characters and its mockery of Bruce Lee, etc.

I'm only going to say that the alleged Asian-bashing thing is going far afield in consideration of the film.  The ball being chased was never thrown, never hit, and isn't out there in the weeds beyond the outfield.

Edited August 19, 2019 by David Andrews