Chaos : Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (9780316529211)
Page 51
3 “no intentions of abiding by it”: “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation for Revocation in Absentia,” Sadie Mae Glutz, Case no. 4503-C, Dept. 2, Filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, Mendocino County, Statement of Fact, Margo S. Tompkins, May 29, 1969, 3.
4 “the defendant has not violated”: “Minute Order on Probation Hearing,” Glutz, Case no. 4503-C, Dept. 2, Filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, Mendocino County, June 18, 1969, 1.
5 murders of at least eight people: Atkins was convicted in the seven Tate–LaBianca killings and pleaded guilty to the murder of Gary Hinman.
6 a “traveling minister”: Mary Yates, Senior Probation Officer, City and County of San Francisco, letter to C. H. McFarlan, Deputy Administrator, Interstate Probation and Parole, Sacramento, Re: Susan Denise Atkins, Case CJ 4771-Oregon, Nov. 10, 1967, 1–2.
7 “is in love with all of them”: Ibid., 1.
8 “certain she will do as she pleases”: Ibid., 2.
9 “Her speech was quite disorganized”: M. E. Madison, Memo to File, Re: Atkins, CJ Prob. 4771, Nov. 14, 1967.
10 they wrote to the original sentencing judge: M. E. Madison, Supervisor, Interstate Unit, letter to Honorable Judge George A. Jones, Marion County Court House, Re: Atkins, CJ Prob. 4771, Dec. 12, 1967, 1–2.
11 terminating Susan Atkins’s probation: George A. Jones, Circuit Judge, State of Oregon, County of Marion, no. 61487, Oregon v. Atkins, “Order Terminating Probation,” Jan. 4, 1968.
12 Manson sent his girls there: The information in this section is from the same records, clippings, and interviews, with additional arrest, court, and probation files of the others arrested in Mendocino on May 22, 1968: Mary Brunner, Ella Jo Bailey, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Stephanie Rowe. Additional information comes from such books as David E. Smith and John Luce, Love Needs Care (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971), Ed Sanders, The Family, 3rd ed. (New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002), and Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter (New York: Norton, 1994).
13 “saw flashes when he closed his eyes”: David Mandel, “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation, Sadie Mae Glutz aka Susan Denise Atkins,” Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Mendocino, Case no. 4503-C, Dept. 2, Aug. 30, 1968, 3.
14 Brunner’s had just begun: Brunner was arrested in April 1968 with Manson and about a dozen other Family members while sleeping beside their parked bus on the Pacific Coast Highway in Ventura County. The officers found her week-old baby, Michael Valentine, sleeping alone in the bus and charged her with endangering the welfare of a child. She pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and was sentenced to two years’ probation, though there’s no record she ever met with a probation officer (“‘Hippie’ Mom on Probation, Returned Baby,” Oxnard [Calif.] Press Courier, May 14, 1968, 9).
15 Smith and his wife decided: This was first reported by Sanders in The Family. It was also confirmed by Roger Smith, and his ex-wife, Carol, in interviews with me.
16 Pooh Bear’s temporary foster parents: Ibid.
17 Alan Rose repaired to Mendocino County: Alan Rose’s involvement with the Family was first reported in “M.D. on Manson’s Sex Life: Psychologist Who Lived with Manson Family Tells About Commune,” The Berkeley Barb, Jan. 16–22, 1970, 1, 13, and later by Sanders in The Family and Smith and Luce in Love Needs Care. It was also confirmed by Rose, David Smith, Roger Smith, and others in interviews with me.
18 “former federal parole officer”: Mandel, “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation, Sadie Mae Glutz,” 4.
19 Manson and his “guru”-like hold: David Mandel, “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation, Mary Theresa Brunner,” Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Mendocino, Case no. 4503-C, Dept. No. 2, Sept. 6, 1968, 6.
20 used her name without her knowledge: Author interview with Carol Smith (who asked to be identified by her former last name).
21 “hostile and possibly vengeful”: Mandel, “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation, Sadie Mae Glutz,” 10.
22 “comply willingly”: Ibid., 4. According to the report, the couple said they knew Atkins for “approximately three years.” If true, that meant they’d known Atkins since about August 1965, two years before she even met Manson.
23 “manipulated by her present group”: Mandel, “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation, Mary Theresa Brunner,” 8.
24 his leniency with the Manson girls: Author interview with Duncan James (one of the deputy district attorneys who prosecuted Atkins, Brunner, and the others).
25 Winslow resurfaced in Los Angeles: The judge’s last day on the bench was January 6, 1969, according to the Mendocino County Office of Human Resources.
26 the attorney for Doris Day and her son, Terry Melcher: Winslow represented the pair in their lawsuit against the business partner of Day’s late husband for breach of contract and fraud.
27 Winslow who accompanied him: Author interview with Tom Johnson; also confirmed by Winslow’s widow, Betty, via Johnson (Mrs. Winslow declined to speak to me).
28 began to use LSD: Smith and Luce, Love Needs Care, 257–58.
29 Manson had been released from Terminal Island: The information in this section comes from a variety of sources, most prominently, Manson’s federal parole file, which I petitioned the U.S. Parole Commission for in a nearly two-year-long FOIA process. Other sources were police reports and case files I was able to obtain from various county, state, and federal offices, newspaper clippings, books (including Love Needs Care and The Family), and interviews, chief among them, Roger Smith, David Smith, and Alan Rose.
30 “sustained history of violence”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 203.
31 “criminally sophisticated”: Ibid.
32 Years earlier, Manson had had his parole revoked: Angus D. McEachen, Chief U.S. Probation Officer, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, “Petition for Action… Praying that court will order issuance of bench warrant…,” United States v. Charles Milles Manson, Central Division, Docket no. C-27806-CD (“Probationer has failed to submit written monthly report since Feb. 5, 1960 [and] to keep the Probation Office notified as to his whereabouts and current address”), filed May 25, 1960. Manson’s probation was also revoked in 1956 by the federal probation office in Los Angeles for missing a hearing (Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 196). I was unable to determine if McEachen was in the office at that time.
33 “requested and received permission”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 203.
34 The prosecutor had a copy of Manson’s parole file: Ibid., 190–203.
35 “now within the city of Berkeley, California”: John A. Sprague, Supervising U.S. Probation Officer, Northern District of California, letter to Angus D. McEachen, Chief U.S. Probation Officer, U.S. Court House, Los Angeles, Apr. 11, 1967.
36 Robert Heinlein’s: Robert Gillette, “Manson’s Blueprint?: Claim Tate Suspect Used Space-Fiction Plot,” Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Jan. 8, 1970, A1–2; “A Martian Model?,” Time, Jan. 19, 1970, 44–45; Smith and Luce, Love Needs Care, 258.
37 Roger Smith got a nickname: Gillette, “Manson’s Blueprint?,” A2.; Smith and Luce, Love Needs Care, 260.
38 “no powers of invention”: “A Martian Model?,” 44.
39 But Roger Smith approved: Smith and Luce, Love Needs Care, 258.
40 hazy on the details of how he became: I interviewed Smith on the phone several times and in person twice, first at his home in Michigan in 2001, and then at his home in Oregon in 2008.
41 funded by the National Institute of Mental Health: James Robison, Leslie T. Wilkins, Robert M. Carter, and Albert Wahl, “Final Report,” The San Francisco Project: A Study of Federal Probation and Parole, April 1969, 1 (“This study was supported by a $275,000 Mental Health Project Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health”).
42 The project studied the relatio
nship between: I reviewed the study’s papers at the Special Collections Department of the University of California Bancroft Library, Berkeley. This archive—catalogued officially as The San Francisco Project, University of California, School of Criminology, 1965–1969, Call no. NRLF (UCB) HV9303. C2 no. 14—consists mostly of academic papers, with no individual case files or specifics about clients (“No substantive estimate of the number and characteristics of these cases appears to be available”—William P. Adams, Paul M. Chandler, and M. G. Neithercutt, “The San Francisco Project: A Critique,” Federal Probation, Dec. 1971, 46). Neither Smith’s nor Manson’s names appear in the collection. The information in this section comes from these UC Berkeley files, as well as news articles and interviews with Smith and several other parole and probation officers who worked on the four-year-long study.
43 The six participating parole officers: Ibid.; author interviews with William P. Adams, M. G. Neithercutt, and Roger Smith.
44 winnowed his set of parolees: Roger Smith was vague about when and if Manson ever became his only client, but Gail Sadalla and Alan Rose, both of whom assisted Smith at the Amphetamine Research Project, said Manson was the only parolee they were aware of who came to the HAFMC for meetings with Smith (author interview with Gail Sadalla; author interviews with Rose).
45 a few days in 1956: According to Manson’s FBI “rap” sheet, he was held in the Chicago County Jail from March 9 through 12, 1956, while awaiting transfer to Los Angeles on a federal probation violation (“Charles Milles Manson,” U.S. Department of Justice, FBI Rec, no. 643 369 A, April 15, 1959).
46 violent behavior in Oakland gang members: Wallace Turner, “Addiction Linked to Violent Youth: ‘Rowdies’ Likely to Become Heroin Users, Study Finds,” New York Times, April 30, 1967.
47 through his own “immersion”: Author interview with R. Smith.
48 He and the other researchers created “outposts”: Ibid. One of the “projects” initiated by Blumer and Smith in 1965—with Smith serving as director—was the Juvenile Add-Center Project, an “action research program” for at-risk youth in the flatland district. In an academic paper, Smith described the center as a way “to penetrate the drug world… its primary goal is to obtain a clear view of the ways into and the ways out of the drug world” (Roger Smith, “Status Politics and the Image of the Addict,” Issues in Criminology, Fall 1966, 157, 307–8).
49 They embraced a “participant-observer” approach: As Smith explained to me, the best way to “understand how young people got involved with gangs, how they rationalized what they did, how they were able to justify it to recruit other people” was to “suspend judgment” and observe them. This included, he acknowledged, not reporting criminal activity he or his researchers might witness.
50 expert on gangs, collective behavior: “Seminar to Explore Use, Abuse of Drugs,” Oakland Tribune, Apr. 18, 1967.
51 to send Manson to live in the Haight: Author interview with R. Smith; Smith and Luce, Love Needs Care, 257 (Smith and Luce maintain that Roger originally turned down Manson’s request to relocate to the Haight, but later changed his mind and approved it).
52 “The summer of love was just”: George Varga, “The Summer of Love, an Epic Tipping Point for Music and Youth Culture, Turns 50,” San Diego Union-Tribune, May 27, 2017.
53 “A new nation has grown”: Peter Conners, White Hand Society: The Psychedelic Partnership of Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg (San Francisco: City Lights, 2010), 199.
54 dropped acid on a daily basis: Smith and Luce, Love Needs Care, 258.
55 “seemed to accept the world”: Ibid., 257.
56 “He appears to be in better shape”: Roger Smith to Joseph Shore, Parole Executive, U.S. Board of Parole, July 31, 1967.
57 At the time, Manson was sitting in a jail cell: All the information about Manson’s arrest and conviction in July 1967 is from police reports, news clippings, and interviews with the officers involved in the arrest, as well as with Dean Moorehouse (the father of Ruth Ann Moorehouse), who witnessed it.
58 merited only a footnote: Bugliosi did mention that Manson received a three-year probation sentence (Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 315), but he never said what happened to Manson’s probation supervision for his 1967 conviction. And I’ve never found any evidence that it was enforced, let alone enacted.
59 permitted into evidence during the trial: The information in this section is from the testimony of Samuel Barrett (Manson’s final parole officer), who was called during the death-penalty phase of the trial by Kanarek, in an effort to gain access to Manson’s parole records (California v. Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, case 22239, 22132–203).
60 he dispatched David Anderson: Ibid., 22161–74.
61 “incriminate the Attorney General”: Ibid., 22193.
62 “four inches thick”: Ibid., 22177.
63 occurred under his watch: Author interview with R. Smith.
64 to travel to Mexico: Smith to Shore, July 31, 1967.
65 Manson had been arrested in Mexico: Manson v. United States, “Forma Pauperis Affidavit,” no. 64-585-WM, filed Apr. 8, 1964 (Manson filed a motion arguing that his 1959 arrest in Mexico and reparation to the United States were unfair because he was unable to understand the proceedings in the Mexican court).
66 “Manson is not to leave”: There were two overlapping notes, one typed and one handwritten; the first, cited here, is Joseph Shore to Albert Wahl, Chief U.S. Probation Officer, San Francisco, Aug. 25, 1967.
67 record was “lengthy and serious”: Handwritten note with illegible signature to illegible recipient, on “U.S. Board of Parole” letterhead, Sept. 5, 1967.
68 “additives and mineral food supplements”: Roger Smith to Joseph Shore, Aug. 15, 1967.
69 The parole board rejected: Shore to Wahl, Aug. 25, 1967.
70 study of Mexican drug trafficking: Author interview with R. Smith.
71 Mazatlán, which was the main port city: Elijah Wald, Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas (New York: Rayo, 2001), 39.
72 “Was I a career, committed parole officer? No!”: Author interview with R. Smith.
73 to meet with “recording agents”: Roger Smith [to Manson], “Permission to Travel” (“Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., via Los Angeles… leaving Nov. 10, 1967 and returning within 20 days… to contact recording agents in Los Angeles and Florida regarding sale and recording of your music”), Nov. 16, 1967; Roger Smith [to Manson], “Permission to Travel” (“Miami, Fla… leaving 11-30-67 and returning within 20 days… to further the possibility of obtaining a record contract”), Dec. 4, 1967.
74 If they went anywhere: Mandel, “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation, Mary Theresa Brunner,” 5 (“They have also visited Southern California and Mexico lately”).
75 Susan Atkins’s probation officers: Yates to McFarlan, Nov. 10, 1967, 1–2. Yates wrote: “Today they leave for Los Angeles and then on to Florida. I told her she was not to leave without the permission of the Oregon Probation Department, but I am just as certain she will do as she pleases.” See also Madison, Memo to File, Nov. 14, 1967. Madison wrote: “At 3:15 pm Atkins called and advised she was going on trip with or without permission.”
76 quite a bit of time in Mexico: Mandel, “Probation Officer’s Report and Recommendation, Mary Theresa Brunner.”
77 “your status leaves much to be desired”: Samuel Barrett to Charles Manson, June 12, 1968, in Manson’s federal parole file.
78 Barrett was the parole officer: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 546–47.
79 three hundred parole cases between 1967 and 1969: Author interview with Samuel Barrett.
80 only twenty-one words for Roger Smith: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 225.
81 “apparently did not retain”: Pamela A. Posch, General Counsel, United States Parole Commission, letter to author, June 4, 2001, 1. Posch conceded that this was unusual in a follow-up phone conversation.
83 that file was missing, too: Author interview with Victoria Hardin, Director, Office of History, National Institute of Health. Using the information I gave her, Hardin was unable to find any record of the San Francisco Project in her archive, which inherited the NIMH files after several reorganizations of the program.
84 The headline: Charles Hillinger, “Wayward Bus Stuck in Ditch: Deputy Finds Nude Hippies Asleep in Weeds,” Los Angeles Times, Apr. 23, 1968, 3, 23. See also: “Nine Nude Hippies Arrested; Found Huddled Around a Bonfire,” Oxnard Press Courier, Apr. 23, 1968, 9; Associated Press, “No Disaster: Just Hippies Sleeping Nude,” Ontario Daily Report, Apr. 23, 1968, A-4; United Press International, “14 Nude Hippies Found Beside a Wayward Bus,” Oakland Tribune, Apr. 23, 1969, 14.
85 “Wait, my baby’s on the bus”: Hillinger, “Wayward Bus Stuck in Ditch,” 3.
86 She was later convicted: “‘Hippie’ Mom on Probation,” 9.
87 traveling freely “between San Francisco”: Albert Wahl, Chief Probation Officer, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, letter to Angus D. McEachen, Apr. 26, 1968, 1.
88 “Be sure to read the clipping”: Ibid., 2.
89 legal owner of the bus: Angus D. McEachen, letter to Albert Wahl, May 7, 1968, 1–2.
90 sending Manson back to federal prison: McEachen, “Petition for Action.”
91 “his adventuresome nature”: McEachen to Wahl, May 7, 1968, 2.
92 sitting in the Los Angeles County jail: Ibid.
93 DA had declined to file: Angus D. McEachen, letter to Albert Wahl, May 29, 1968.
94 “Failure to follow”: Albert Wahl, letter to Charles Manson, June 3, 1968.
95 “It would appear that Mr. Manson”: Albert Wahl, letter to Angus D. McEachen, June 11, 1968.
96 “succumbed to Manson’s obsequious manner”: Angus D. McEachen, letter to Albert Wahl, June 12, 1968.
97 The record label “would have to be idiotic”: Ibid.