Chaos : Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (9780316529211)

by O'Neill, Tom; Piepenbring, Dan (CON)

  40 pallbearer at the gangster Mickey Cohen’s funeral: Author interview with Jim Dickson.

  41 “controlling” him with voodoo: United Press International, “Corrine Calvet Denies Threatening with Hex,” Dec. 12, 1967.

  42 “The only thing that I can tell you”: Author interview with Corrine Calvet. As for Calvet’s assertion that the FBI told her she was in danger, even though the FBI wasn’t supposed to have been involved in the investigation, several dozen people told me they were certain they were interviewed by investigators who identified themselves as FBI agents. Roger “Frenchie” LaJeunesse, an FBI field agent in Los Angeles, confirmed to me that he participated in the investigation in an “unofficial” capacity.

  43 sued the Los Angeles Times: Case 963676, Los Angeles Superior Court, Oct. 23, 1969. The case was dismissed after Tacot missed several hearings.

  44 acknowledged by the federal government: Carina A. Del Rosario, A Different Battle: Stories of Asian Pacific American Veterans (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2000), 95.

  45 Hersh Matias Warzechahe: Los Angeles Superior Court Archives, Case C36566, Henry Martin Fine v. Bloch, Robert D., Aug. 15, 1972.

  46 an assassin for the CIA: Author interview with Peter Knecht. Knecht, a Hollywood defense attorney, had been Jay Sebring’s lawyer and accompanied Roman Polanski and the psychic Peter Hurkos to the Cielo house after the murders. He represented Tacot on a charge of carrying an army-issued firearm. Knecht said one of Tacot’s assignments from the CIA included a failed assassination attempt against Fidel Castro.

  47 “soldier of fortune”: David Crosby and Carl Gottlieb, Since Then: How I Survived Everything and Lived to Tell About It (New York: Putnam, 2006), 209.

  48 ex-marine who’d served in Korea: Author interview with Mitchum; William Rinehart, LAPD Polygraph and Interview transcript, by Earl Deemer, Sept. 30, 1969.

  49 grew pot in Arizona: Author interview with Mitchum; author interview with Silverman.

  50 a child molester: Author interview with a person who wishes to remain anonymous.

  51 coke smuggler: Author interview with Silverman; author interview with David Berk.

  52 “Hey, man, aren’t you?”: Author interview with Mitchum.

  53 a movie PR man from the 1940s: Margot Tacot Silverman shared Fine’s personal papers, which her father inherited, with me. They included countless press clippings and promotional photographs of Fine with stars like John Wayne and Kim Novak.

  54 Office of Strategic Services: Author interviews with colleagues and friends of Fine, including Eddie Kafafian, Vernon Scott, Bob Thomas, Joe Hyams, and Eddie Albert; author interview with Shalya Provost Spencer, Fine’s daughter (she has changed her first name from the one she was given at birth, Sheila).

  55 German landing sites: Author interview with Albert; author interview with Spencer.

  56 espionage operations through the sixties: Author interviews with Kafafian, Scott, Thomas, Hyams, Albert, and Spencer.

  57 vast amounts of cocaine: Doyle, LAPD Interrogation transcript.

  58 Cass Elliot knew Manson: Sanders, The Family, 147. I have never been able to corroborate Manson and Elliot meeting, but it has also been reported by Hoskyns, Waiting for the Sun, 183; and Fiegel, Dream a Little Dream, 305. Michael Caine, in his memoir, What’s It All About? (New York: Random House, 1992), 318, claimed to have met Manson at a party at Elliot’s house that was also attended by Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring.

  59 Elliot had been friends with Frykowski and Folger: There are multiple references to this in both the First and Second Homicide Investigation Progress Reports.

  60 Elliot’s bandmates were close: LAPD Homicide Investigation Progress Report I, 10; John and Michelle Phillips, LAPD Interview, #22, by Celmer, Stanley, and Burke, Aug. 12, 1969 (1–2).

  61 renamed himself after a racetrack: Author interview with Larry Geller.

  62 Frank Sinatra and several casino owners: Author interview with Joe Torrenueva.

  63 “shot two guys who were going”: United Press, “Pistols Roar as Fans Scrap: Quarrel on Griffith Fight Ends with Gun Duel,” Dec. 1, 1929; Ovid DeMaris, Captive City (Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1969), 230; William F. Roemer Jr., Roemer: Man Against the Mob: The Inside Story About How the FBI Cracked the Chicago Mob by the Agent Who Led the Attack (New York: Ivy Books, 1989), 100.

  64 He later went to Havana: Baron FOIPA, 0926058-00, released Oct. 3, 2001; DeMaris, Captive City, 230; Roemer, Roemer, 100.

  65 Lansky’s eyes and ears: Roemer, Roemer, 100. Baron was “the closest associate” of Johnny Rosselli at the time that Rosselli was part of the top-secret CIA effort to assassinate Fidel Castro known as “Mongoose” (Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993], 199, 178).

  66 some type of security-intelligence clearance: Baron FBI FOIPA 92-251 LV (sec. 1, pt. 1); DeMaris, Captive City, 225; untitled article, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 14, 1961.

  67 a cabal of right-wing military intelligence: The others named by Torrenueva were Virgil Crabtree, the head of intelligence for the IRS in Los Angeles in the fifties and an undercover investigator for the L.A. District Attorney’s office in the sixties; Jack Entratter, who ran the Sands Casino until his death in the early seventies; Sy Bartlett, a retired army intelligence officer who moved to Hollywood and had a successful career as a screenwriter; and Tony Owen, the ex-husband of wholesome actress Donna Reed.

  68 General Curtis E. LeMay: See Curtis LeMay with MacKinlay Kantor, Mission with LeMay (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965); Warren Kozak, LeMay: The Life and Wars of General Curtis LeMay (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2009); and I. F. Stone, “LeMay: Cave Man in a Jet Bomber,” in In a Time of Torment, 1961–1967 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989), 92–104.

  69 “He was a bad businessman”: Sebring’s nephew, Anthony DiMaria, who is making a documentary film about his uncle, adamantly refutes the notion that his uncle was anything but flush at the time of his death, but I found ample evidence in police interviews and elsewhere suggesting the opposite was true. A few samples: In Restless Souls: The Sharon Tate Family’s Account of Stardom, the Manson Murders, and a Crusade for Justice (New York: It Books/HarperCollins, 2012), Alisa Statman and Brie Tate say that Sebring was “over a quarter million dollars in debt” (p. 85). Art Blum, a business partner, told me that Sebring “always had financial problems, spent it as fast as he could… [and] was losing his shirt at the salon.”

  70 a group of his stylists had defected: Author interview with Felice Ingrassia.

  71 “roughed up” several employees: Ibid.; author interview with Phillips.

  3. The Golden Penetrators

  1 Bugliosi had to give him a tranquilizer: Author interview with Vincent Bugliosi.

  2 “shaved a couple of visits to the ranch”: Karina Longworth, “Charles Manson’s Hollywood, Part 5: Doris Day and Terry Melcher,” You Must Remember This (podcast), June 23, 2015.

  3 divorced for the second time: According to State of California Marriage Records, Carole married Dennis Wilson on July 29, 1965, divorced him in December 1966, remarried him at an unrecorded date (and location), and divorced him again in June 1967.

  4 during his “rampages”: Case 711515, Superior Court of Los Angeles, Los Angeles.

  5 two young children: Scott, born in 1962, to Carole and her first husband (Scott Vanerstrom), was adopted by Dennis; the couple’s daughter, Jennifer, was born in 1967.

  6 Ella Jo Bailey and Patricia Krenwinkel: The story of Wilson’s introduction to the Manson Family is from the Tate-LaBianca trial transcripts and Helter Skelter, unless otherwise indicated.

  7 “just because we were men”: Tex Watson and Chaplain Ray, Will You Die for Me? (Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell, 1978), 57.

  8 “I Live with 17 Girls”: David Griffiths, “Dennis Wilson: I Live with 17 Girls,” Record Mirror, Dec. 21, 1968.

  9 “another artist for Brother Records”: Keith Altman, “Dennis Wilson: This Is Where It’s At,” Rave, May 1969.r />
  10 “Cease to Exist”: Ed Sanders, The Family, 3rd ed. (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002), 64. The key word “exist” was changed to “resist” and the song title was changed to “Never Learn Not to Love.” It was released as the B side of the first single from the Beach Boys album 20/20 on December 8, 1968. The band performed the song, with Dennis singing the lead vocal, on The Mike Douglas Show on August 22, 1969, less than two weeks after the Tate–LaBianca murders (see IMDB.com, The Mike Douglas Show, episode 8.240). Bugliosi didn’t report that Wilson had stolen a song from Manson until the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Helter Skelter—and then, only in a footnote (Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter [New York: Norton, 1994], 667).

  11 “though they’d probably deny it now”: Nick Kent, The Dark Stuff: Selected Writings on Rock Music (Boston: DaCapo Press, 2002), 310.

  12 the “Golden Penetrators”: Steven Gaines, Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys (Boston: Da Capo, 1995), 190; Barney Hoskyns, Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles (New York: St. Martin’s, 1996), 156.

  13 “roving cocksmen”: Gaines, Heroes and Villains, 190.

  14 he crossed paths with Manson: Melcher testimony, California v. Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, case 22239, 15083.

  15 Manson came along in the back seat: Ibid., 15097–98.

  16 upward of $100,000: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 335–36.

  17 Wilson gave three interviews: Griffiths, “I Live with 17 Girls”; Altman, “Dennis Wilson”; Lon Goddard, “The Continuing Story of Beach Boy Dennis and His House of Seventeen Women,” Record Mirror, July 5, 1969. Bugliosi omitted from Helter Skelter the fact that these three interviews were published before the murders.

  18 a Malibu beach house: Author interview with Gregg Jakobson.

  19 Melcher stood him up: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 323.

  20 ask the owner of the property: Ibid., 308, 306.

  21 visiting twice over four days: There are multiple references to this in Melcher testimony, California v. Manson et al.

  22 his friend Mike Deasy: Ibid.

  23 “Don’t draw on me, motherfucker!”: David Felton and David Dalton, “Charles Manson: The Incredible Story of the Most Dangerous Man Alive,” Rolling Stone, June 25, 1970, 39.

  24 the Family repeated their audition: Melcher testimony, California v. Manson et al., 15124.

  25 a frightening LSD trip: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 250.

  26 Melcher conveyed his rejection through Jakobson: Melcher testimony, Grand Jury, A253156, The People of the State of California vs. Charles Manson, Charles Watson, aka Charles Montgomery; Susan Atkins, aka Sadie Mae Glutz; Linda Kasabian, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie Sankston, Dec. 5, 1969, 127.

  27 Wilson and Jakobson knew that Manson had shot: I located more than a half dozen documents in the Los Angeles District Attorney files and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office files indicating that Manson had discussed the Bernard Crowe shooting with Wilson within a week of the Tate murders, although it’s unclear if the name Crowe was ever mentioned.

  28 “upward of a hundred times”: Jakobson testimony, California v. Charles Watson, 2 Crim 22241, 2851.

  29 “scatter [their] limbs”: Ibid., 2836.

  30 Tate was hanged from the ceiling: Coroner Thomas Noguchi testified, “Based on the wound findings on the left side of her cheek and the way the rope was tied at the scene… I would form the opinion that Miss Tate had been suspended”—see California v. Manson et al., 8907.

  31 Jakobson apparently didn’t make the connection: Jakobson testimony, ibid., 14235.

  32 “Tell Dennis there are more,” “The electricity,” and “Don’t be surprised”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 336–7.

  33 “I know why Charles Manson”: David Leaf, The Beach Boys and the California Myth (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978), 136.

  34 “Me and Charlie”: Joel Selvin, untitled article, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 8, 1984.

  35 including Henry Fonda: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 305.

  36 filing a lawsuit: Rudolph Altobelli v. Polanski et al., Superior Court of the State of California, Nov. 16, 1969.

  37 “about the musician that Manson”: Stephen Kay has said at various parole hearings (and in interviews with me) that Hinman met Manson through Wilson, Jakobson, and Melcher, something else left out of Helter Skelter.

  38 Altobelli moved back into the house: Melcher eventually admitted to me that he’d lived in the house with Altobelli after the murders. He’d said the opposite in his mother’s biography: “I hadn’t been in the house since the day I moved out,” Melcher wrote of the day in late November 1969 when he learned of Manson’s involvement in the murders (Melcher, quoted in A. E. Hotchner, Doris Day [New York: Bantam, 1976], 242).

  39 both privileged children of Hollywood royalty: Bergen’s father was the famous ventriloquist Edgar Bergen.

  40 “snuck out in the middle of the night”: Author interview with Allen Warnick.

  41 “‘we’ll kill you’”: Author interview with Genevieve Waite.

  42 “these people who have been harassing me there”: Ibid.

  43 Carole had had photos taken: Author interview with Dean Moorehouse.

  44 she pursued a romance with Jay Sebring: Carole Wilson, LAPD Interview, #66, by Gilmore, Aug. 15, 1969, which includes: “Miss Wilson states she slept with Sebring at his home off and on for the past two years.”

  45 longest and costliest in California history: “The Manson Murders at 40: ‘Helter Skelter’ Author Vincent Bugliosi Looks Back,” Newsweek, Aug. 1, 2009.

  46 stating in an official letter: Lorenzo Quezada, LAPD Discovery Unit, to author, June 4, 1999.

  47 stalked former members of the Family: Author interviews with multiple former Family members, including Dianne Lake, Sherry Cooper, and Catherine Gillies; author interviews with the children of Rosemary LaBianca, Suzan LaBerge, and Frank Struthers.

  48 falling-out before her death in 1992: Author interview with Bill Nelson; author interview with Debra Tate.

  49 Like Ed Sanders: Author interview with Ed Sanders.

  50 Carole Wilson, and Carole Jakobson: The wives of Dennis Wilson and Gregg Jakobson were both close to Sebring, Tate, and Altobelli, and they were frequent visitors to the Tate house. Both women also had harrowing encounters with Manson before and after the murders.

  51 “August 10”: I later learned that Carole Jakobson was the third person interviewed by the LAPD (Carole Jakobson, LAPD Interview, #63, by Varney, Aug. 10, 1969). According to Gregg Jakobson’s testimony at the Tate–LaBianca trial, he was also present for the interview, although his name doesn’t appear in the LAPD summary. Jakobson told the jury the detectives “really did not come to speak to me. They spoke to my wife more than me. I was there so they spoke to me, too” (Jakobson testimony, California v. Manson et al.). During his closing argument to the jury, Irving Kanarek noted the impossible “coincidence” that the man who knew most about Manson, outside of the Family, was among the first to be interviewed by police, and somehow never mentioned his friend as a possible suspect in the murders (Kanarek, final statement, ibid., 20274).

  52 spoken to police within a week: Carole Wilson’s interview was on August 15, 1969.

  53 “his way of living and how groovy it was”: Altobelli testimony, California v. Manson et al., 14769.

  54 “I think I have seen him at Dennis Wilson’s house”: Melcher testimony, Los Angeles Grand Jury, 128.

  55 he’d met Manson no more than three times: Multiple references in Melcher testimony, California v. Manson et al.

  56 “Manson and Watson attended a party”: Author interview with Stephen Kay.

  57 never once saw Watson inside his house: Melcher’s recollections about Watson changed dramatically according to the needs of the prosecution. Before the grand jury, when shown a photo of Watson, Melcher testified that he didn�
��t “know him” (Melcher testimony, Los Angeles Grand Jury, 128). When pressed, he said he may have seen him at Dennis Wilson’s house, but wasn’t certain (ibid.). He was never asked about Watson at the Tate–LaBianca trial (Watson wasn’t a defendant), but when Watson was tried by Bugliosi after the Tate–LaBianca verdicts and the prosecution needed to place the Texan inside the Cielo Drive house prior to the Polanskis’ residency, Melcher delivered. Asked by Bugliosi if he’d ever seen Watson in his house, Melcher replied that he had “approximately six times” (Melcher testimony, California v. Watson, 2207). These discrepancies were never reported in Helter Skelter.

  58 Gentry was working on the book: Gentry, Stephen Kay, and more than six other people who were present during the trial confirmed this in interviews with me.

  59 “obstructionist tactics”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 371.

  60 opprobrium from every corner: Kanarek first gained fame as the attorney for one of two defendants who killed a LAPD officer in a case that would later be immortalized as a book and movie called The Onion Field.

  61 Manson wanted the worst: Author interview with Burton Katz; Burton Katz, Justice Overruled: Unmasking the Criminal Justice System (New York: Grand Central, 1997), 163; author interview with Peter Knecht; author interview with Gary Fields.

  62 He objected nine times: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 417, 424.

  63 The judge jailed him twice for contempt: Ibid., 466.

  64 “the Toscanini of Tedium”: Ibid., 530.

  65 confidentiality prevented him: Several sources told me they believed Kanarek was paid by Melcher, accounting for, they said, Kanarek’s highly uncharacteristic decision to forgo cross-examining Melcher on the stand.