Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties Paperback – June 23, 2020

Going into this book you need to understand there is not going to be a smoking gun that proves all of the authors assertions. He started writing this and researching back in 1999 which was 30 years after the murders and didn't publish until 2019. Unfortunately that means that a lot of documents and key players were lost to time, but that doesn't negate the authors claims of what possibly happened all of those years ago.Having read Helter Skelter and Manson in his own Words, I found this to be a fascinating journey which picks up where the mainstream narrative left off regarding the case of Charles Manson and his followers.I appreciated the fact the author also presents their findings and never attempts to strongarm the reader into believing their claims, but rather just gives you their evidence and allows you to make your own conclusions.Honestly I don't know where I stand with all of this new information. I seems too fantastic of a tale to be real, but on the other hand I do have confidence in the author and the validity of their claims. Some things which bothered me since Helter Skelter and seemed to bother the author as well is, if Charles Manson was such a threat and habitually breaking their parole, why was he constantly being let go? Why did Charles Manson's Parole Officer know all of this and yet constantly go to bat for him, even going to the extent of taking Manson's kid when he went to jail for a bit? Why did Helter Skelter deliberately leave out the fact that Terry Melcher met with the family AFTER the murders?So many unanswered questions here and I don't know what to make of it.Anyways, enough of my rambling. It was an excellent read and I absolutely recommend.

Tom O'Neill should be awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor for his 20+ years of research that definitely proves that Leo Bugliosi's "Helter Skelter" narrative about Manson, the Family, and the Tate-LaBianca murders is false. This man's commitment to uncovering the truth is profound, and the facts he presents in CHAOS are mind-bending. On all points this book is a triumph. CHAOS is a profound, unsettling, and vitally important book. Not to be missed.

So...I approached this book with trepidation. I am not easily swayed by conspiracy theorists and their (more often than not) crackpot theories. I always read such books without suspending my disbelief and usually for my own enjoyment and entertainment rather than to take up the cause. I further questioned Tom O'Neill's bona fides as he is not an investigative reporter a la Woodward or even Capote for that matter. However, once I read the book, and having been familiar with the case since reading the original Helter Skelter, Ed Sanders' The Family, Jeff Guinn's The Life and Times of Charles Manson, and numerous other books either re-hashing the case or sociological analysis of the lasting impact from other nonfiction writers and memoirs from former Family members, I have to admit O'Neil may be on to something here and there. Other reviewers have pointed out some grandiose verbiage in his prose; others point out what they see as an annoying habit of repeating himself to make his points clear; and others attack him ad hominem for daring to question the "official" explanation and history of the case and its participants.Like many other authors and readers before him, O'Neill points out that the Helter Skelter motive is flimsy and Vince Bugliosi steamrolled the witnesses and the jury to prove it was the only motive. This is nothing new. I vaguely remember reading an interview with Bugliosi about 20-25 years after the trial and he hinted that he took a "crapshoot" with that angle, and, let's face it folks - it worked. He got his convictions. In one sense, that's all a DA is ultimately looking for. Now in this book, some interesting things come to light that maybe he tampered with witnesses, perhaps even going so far as to suborn perjury, but since he has passed away, no legal ethics committee or other form of judicial oversight is going to overturn the verdicts. Manson and Susan (Sadie) Atkins are also dead, and it's highly unlikely that Tex Watson, Patty Krenwinkel or Leslie Van Houten are ever going to be paroled (though Van Houten has been recommended twice, but denied by the governor of California both times). Even Stephen Kay, who was an assistant DA during the original trial and has campaigned against the parole of the convicted Family members ever since then, admits that a line of inquiry could be convened, but what would that accomplish in the long run.O'Neill, for his part, never bucks the fact that Manson and his followers were guilty of their crimes, heinous as they were. He doesn't absolve anyone from blame. What he does do, is present an argument that there were cover-ups about the case both during the original investigation, the trial, and the aftermath of the murders. He proposes that the Hollywood elite have taken some sort of vow/code of silence and no one speaks of the case or of even having ever met, let alone hung out with, Charlie in those final years of what is probably the most tumultuous decade in American history. He has uncovered questions about why a federal parolee could wander up and down the California between the Bay Area and Los Angeles without raising red flags. He has found links between the seamier side of the Southern California lifestyle and FBI/CIA operations to infiltrate and disrupt the "counterculture" of the anti-war movement specifically, and the general unrest related to civil rights and student demonstrations.Where O'Neill falls a bit flat in his argument is that he is so easy to dismiss Manson as an "career criminal with a lack of formal education who couldn't possibly persuade others to do his bidding." This is the mistake everyone makes with Charles Manson: they UNDERESTIMATE him. You see a short man with long, unkempt hair and beard, denim shirts and jeans, and mocassins and you immediately think "hippie." When he opens his mouth to speak, you hear an Appalachian drawl (Manson was raised in West Virginia near the Ohio border) and one immediately stereotypes as an uneducated hillbilly -- Manson was by his own admission barely literate, but some of his surviving handwriting exemplars on letters and notes show a man capable of putting down thoughts to paper, albeit in a deliberate scrawl. And then there's the explosive temper and the "crazy Charlie" act. I've heard a lot of people refer to Manson as "insane." Charles Manson was many things, but "insane" was not one of them. His "crazy Charlie" act was exactly that: an act, a show to unsettle others into thinking he was nuts. Charlie learned from many other career criminals how to run a con. He even took a Dale Carnegie course offered by one of the federal prisons he was incarcerated in. He learned to read (very slowly) but was well versed in the Bible and (as it's well know), read Hubbard's Dianetics and Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, or had parts read to him, both of which helped to formulate his philosophies. Combine that with a natural, charismatic personality and you have someone who could easily lead others and eventually use programming techniques/informal brainwashing to have them carry out your orders. It's not that far-fetched and yet O'Neill keeps running into people who can't understand how a "nobody" like Manson could do what the CIA and other government agencies could not when it came to controlling his disciples.In the end, O'Neil chalks it up to the zeitgeist of the 60's, the general isolation of the rich and famous not wanting to elicit more scandal than necessary, and the general refusal of law enforcement agencies to admit they were a bit remiss in initial investigations and for obvious reasons, no one from a district attorney's office is going to admit to any wrongdoing for fear of a mass upheaval in overturned convictions.So...what's the takeaway?To paraphrase, or rather upend, Neil Young (one of the few surviving celebrities from the ear willing to discuss the case), perhaps it's better to "fade away instead of burning out."

Especially for those who have no clue how this wold really is run! Excellent research and writing. It does take dedication to read, but that pales in comparison to what the author had to go through for 20 years. I can’t believe he never gave up! Bravo!