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

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

  96 her father teaching Manson: Author interview with Robin Border. In addition, I reviewed the transcript of a taped interview Martin Lee conducted with Deanyer in the seventies. Deanyer told Lee that he “talked to Manson frequently,” adding, “the things, believe it or not, that he was asking me about were not on control… [but] expanded capabilities under hypnosis” (Lee interview with Deanyer, July 31, 1978; transcript courtesy of Philip Melanson).

  97 “The most puzzling question of all”: Bugliosi and Gentry, Helter Skelter, 626.

  98 After midnight on July 4, 1954: The information in this section is from trial transcripts, newspaper clippings, West’s personal file in the West Archive, and interviews with over fifty people who were connected to the case.

  99 “dazed” and “trance-like”: Charles L. Theall testimony, Texas v. Jimmy N. Shaver, case no. 2552, 409.

  100 “What’s going on here?”: Ibid., 394.

  101 “not expect him to be under these circumstances”: J. A. Griswold testimony, ibid., 138.

  102 “deepen the trance”: Gilbert Rose testimony, ibid., 102.

  103 “kill the evil girl Beth”: United Press, “State Argues Shaver Insanity,” Sept. 22, 1954, clipping in West Archive; West, “Transcript of Shaver ‘Amytal Interview,’” Sept. 14, 1952, 16–18, ibid.

  104 “quite sane now”: Howard Hunt, “Shaver Confessed the Slaying After Hours of Questioning,” San Antonio Express, Sept. 22, 1954, 1.

  105 “sat through the strenuous sessions”: United Press, “Shaver Won’t Take Stand,” Sept. 30, 1954, 1.

  106 ice water: Mrs. Everett McGhee (Shaver’s mother) testimony, Texas v. Shaver, 596–98; West, “‘Amytal Interview,’” 10.

  107 a two-year experimental program: West, “‘Amytal Interview,’” 10.

  108 whether Shaver had been treated: West testimony, Texas v. Shaver, 693.

  109 “Sa” through “St” had vanished: Author interview with A1C Airman Trehearne, archivist at Lackland Air Force Base.

  110 “practical trials in the field”: West, letter to “Sherman R. Grifford,” June 11, 1953, West Archive.

  111 “took your clothes off, Jimmy”: West, “‘Amytal Interview,’” 6–14.

  112 a play about it: Gilbert Rose, The Eve of the Fourth: A Docudrama in Four Acts (Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, 1996). Rose also wrote an academic paper on the case: “Screen Memories in Homicidal Acting Out,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 29 (1960): 328–43.

  113 maintained his innocence the whole time: Don Reid and John Gurwell, Have a Seat, Please (Huntsville: Texas Review Press, 2001), 37–40.

  114 the day Shaver was sentenced to death: West, transcript of lecture about Shaver case, June 15, 1956, 8, West Archive.

  115 against capital punishment: Milton Greenblatt, “LJ West’s Place in Social and Community Psychiatry,” in Mosaic of Contemporary Psychiatry, 9.

  116 most surreal belonged to Tusko: Information in this section is primarily from news coverage, papers by West and other academics, and interviews with West’s colleagues at the University of Oklahoma, including Chester M. Pierce, who assisted West in the experiment and coauthored their paper about it.

  117 Sidney Gottlieb had funded it: Author interview with Gordon Deckert; Richard Green, “The Early Years: Jolly West and the University of Oklahoma Department of Psychiatry,” Journal of the Oklahoma State Medical Association 93, no. 9 (Sept. 2000): 451.

  118 during the rutting season: West and Chester M. Pierce, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide: Its Effects on a Male Asiatic Elephant,” Science 138, no. 3545 (Dec. 7, 1962): 1100.

  119 “went into status epilepticus”: Ibid., 1101.

  120 The next morning’s paper: Claire Conley, “Shot of Drug Kills Tusko,” Daily Oklahoman, Aug. 4, 1962, 1.

  121 he liked to inform his lecture audiences: Author interview with Roger Smith.

  122 the Medical Tribune: Staff Report, “Oklahoma University Medical Center to Study Bull Elephant’s Rampages,” Medical Tribune, 1962, 8.

  123 “recurring psychoses in humans”: Conley, “Shot of Drug Kills Tusko,” 1–2.

  124 “individual personality”: Staff Report, “Oklahoma University Medical Center.”

  125 “sexually capable but behaviorally tractable animal”: West and Pierce, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,” 1103.

  126 “capricious”… “or purpose”: Charles Savage, M.D., letter to the editor, Science, Dec. 18, 1962; Kenneth Kiedman, letter to the editor, Science, Dec. 20, 1962. The originals of both letters are in the West Archive.

  127 “the department was worried”: Author interview with Deckert.

  128 “source was payment from the CIA”: Ibid. Deckert also told me it was his understanding that West’s objective was to create an “artificial musth.”

  129 Foundations Fund for Research in Psychiatry, Inc.: West and Pierce, “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,” 1103.

  130 and again involving Lawrence Schiller: Jack Ruby and William Read Woodfield, “My Story,” Long Beach Press Telegram, Jan. 28, 1964, 1, 8. According to multiple accounts, including the testimony of Ruby’s brother, Earl Ruby, to the Warren Commission (14: 402–3) and a memoir by Ruby’s first attorney, Melvin Belli (Belli with Robert Blair Kaiser, My Life on Trial [New York: William Morrow, 1976], 255–56), within seventy-two hours of Oswald’s murder, Schiller had made a deal with the Ruby family to allow his associate, William Read Woodfield, to secretly obtain access to Ruby in jail and then publish a first-person account of the Oswald shooting.

  131 Ruby “lost [his] senses”: Ruby and Woodfield, “My Story,” Jan. 29, 1969, 3, 8.

  132 “a ‘fugue state’ with subsequent amnesia”: Melvin Belli and Maurice C. Carroll, Dallas Justice: The Real Story of Jack Ruby and His Trial (New York; David McKay, 1964), 71.

  133 On the advice of his attorney: Final Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations, U.S. House of Representatives, 95th Congress, 2nd Sess. (Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1979), 158. Ruby had written a note to one of his attorneys, Joe Tonahill, stating “Joe, you should know this. My first lawyer Tom Howard told me to say that I shot Oswald so that Caroline and Mrs. Kennedy wouldn’t have to come to Dallas to testify. OK?”

  134 “a blank spot in his memory”: Belli and Carroll, Dallas Justice, 41.

  135 Jolly West tried to insinuate himself: Gene L. Usdin, letter to Jack R. Ewalt, President, American Psychiatric Association, Jan. 6, 1964, West Archive (“A few days after the assassination, Jolly phoned me to ask if I would be willing to have my name submitted to the court in Texas as a possible psychiatric expert”).

  136 approaching Judge Joe B. Brown: Libby Price, dictated notes from West, outline for West’s proposed book, A Police Man at His Elbow: Psychiatric Reflections on Jack Ruby Case, Feb. 16, 1967, ibid. Price was West’s assistant; the relevant passage reads, “Chapter 2—How West was asked to set up panel of experts—psychiatrists—later that winter [1963] before Ruby trial started—turned down by Brown Court.”

  137 Three documents among his papers: Ibid. (third document is a second draft of chapter outline by West).

  138 “targets will certainly be unwitting”: “Memorandum from DDP Helms to DDCI Carter, 12/17/63,” Kennedy-Inouye Hearings, Appendix A, 82.

  139 “highly qualified” skills: Hubert Winston Smith, “Motion by Defense Counsel, for an Order by the Court…,” Texas v. Jack Ruby, no. E-4010-J, Apr. 22, 1964, 5.

  140 helping him land a teaching position: Smith was fired from his professorship at the University of Texas School of Law in 1965 for “disruptive” behavior and a “completely inadequate performance.” “There is no question that the individual is ill,” wrote a member of the school’s Budget and Personnel Committee in a letter to the dean (Jerre Williams, letter to W. Page Keeton, June 15, 1965, West Archive), yet that didn’t stop West from seeing that Smith was hired at Oklahoma that autumn.

  141 the preceding “forty-eight hours”: Libby Price, summary of West’s testimony to the court, June 6, 1967, 13,
ibid.

  142 there were no witnesses: West, “Report of Psychiatric Examination of Jack Ruby,” Affidavit submitted to Court, Texas v. Ruby, Apr. 27, 1964, 2.

  143 “was now positively insane”: United Press International, “Refuse Ruby Mental Test,” San Mateo [Calif.] Times and Daily News Leader, Apr. 27, 1964, 1.

  144 “unshakable” and “fixed”: West, “LJW Talk on Jack Ruby,” UCLA lecture, Oct. 30, 1978, 6, West Archive.

  145 “He rubbed his head on the wall”: Ronnie Dugger, “The Last Madness of Jack Ruby,” The New Republic, Feb. 11, 1967.

  146 every doctor who examined Ruby: The physicians were Robert Stubblefield (the only doctor who’d examined him both before and after West), Jan. 28, (approximately) Mar. 10, Apr. 30, May 1, May 11, 1964; William R. Beavers, Apr. 28, 30, May 1, 2, 31, 1964; Werner Tuteur, July 12–15, 1965; Emanuel Tanay, date unavailable; Gene Usdin, Sept. 29, 1965; and Andrew Watson, Sept. 17, 1965.

  147 finding him essentially compos mentis: The psychiatrists were John T. Holbrook, Nov. 25, 1963; Manfred Guttmacher, Dec. 21–22, 1963 and Mar. 2–3, 1964; Roy Schafer, Dec. 28–30, 1963; Martin L. Towler, dates unavailable; Robert Stubblefield; and Walter Bromberg, Jan. 11, 20, 1964.

  148 “earlier studies were carried out”: West, “Report of Psychiatric Examination of Jack Ruby,” 1.

  149 “some real disinterested doctors”: “Texas: Trying for the Truth of It,” Time, May 8, 1964.

  150 from Dr. William Beavers: W. R. Beavers, M.D., “Evaluation Report on Jack Ruby,” Apr. 28, 1964, 2, Criminal Court District Court No. 3, Records Annex Building, Dallas.

  151 a “devious man”: Author interview with Libby Price.

  152 “egotistical”: Author interview with Bud Addis.

  153 inveterate “narcissist”: Bob Conrich, email with Dernburg.

  154 “womanizer”: Author interview with Addis.

  155 Bay of Pigs invasion: Peter Grose, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 533–54.

  156 “most important witness”: Jeffrey H. Caufield, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: The Extensive New Evidence of a Radical-Right Conspiracy (n.p.: Hillcrest, 2015), 539.

  157 “The Jewish people are being exterminated”: “Testimony of Jack Ruby,” Warren Commission volumes, 5H208–211, June 7, 1964, 210.

  158 “You have to get me”: Arlen Specter with Charles Robbins, Passion for Truth: From Finding JFK’s Single Bullet to Questioning Anita Hill to Impeaching Clinton (New York: William Morrow, 2000), 113.

  159 CIA and FBI had obstructed: Associated Press, “Senator Says Agencies Lied to Warren Panel,” New York Times, May 15, 1976, 12; David Binder, “F.B.I.–C.I.A. Laxity on Kennedy Found,” New York Times, June 24, 1976, 1, 8.

  160 failed CIA plots to assassinate: Binder, “F.B.I–C.I.A. Laxity,” 8.

  161 teamed up with anti-Castro Cubans: Church Committee, multiple references.

  162 overseen those schemes: Richard Helms with Richard Hood, A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: Ballantine, 2003), 203–4.

  163 “their own conclusions about the assassination”: Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence, The Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy: Performance of the Intelligence Agencies (book 5, final report; Senate Report 94-755), 94th Congress, 2d Sess. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976).

  164 make the Warren Report “persuasive”: Jerry D. Rose, The Fourth Decade: A Journal of Research on the John F. Kennedy Assassination, Volumes 1–2, State University College, 1993, 27; see also Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 69.

  165 There was a “probable conspiracy”: Final Report of the Assassinations Records Review, 1, Sept. 1998 [https://www.archives.gov/files/research/jfk/review-board/report/arrb-final-report.pdf Board]; see also Final Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations, 1.

  166 didn’t identify any potential coconspirators: HSCA Final Assassinations Report, 1.

  167 “The murder of Oswald by Jack Ruby”: G. Robert Blakey and Richard N. Billings, The Plot to Kill the President: Organized Crime Assassinated J.F.K., The Definitive Story (New York: Times Books, 1981), 339.

  168 obstruct the Warren Commission: HSCA Final Assassinations Report, multiple references.

  169 “Hoover lied his eyes out”: Pamela Colloff and Michael Hall, “Hoover’s Endgame, Conspiracy Theories: The FBI Theory,” Texas Monthly, Nov. 1998.

  170 rather than mounting its own: Grose, Gentleman Spy, 544.

  171 “The President felt that [the] CIA”: Associated Press, “Johnson Felt CIA Connected with JFK Slaying Files Show,” Dec. 13, 1977.

  172 in hopes of deposing the dictator: Blakey and Billings, Plot to Kill the President, 82–84.

  173 Griffin and his partner approached: Investigation of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vol. Xia, 287.

  174 “that Ruby was involved in illegal dealings”: Blakey and Billings, Plot to Kill the President, 82.

  175 “The CIA would be very limited”: HSCA Appendix, Vol. XI, 62.

  176 “An examination of Agency files”: Ibid., 289.

  177 “My Dear Mr. Chief Justice”: West, letter to Earl Warren, June 23, 1964, JFK Collection, HSCA, National Archives (College Park, Md.): (RG 233), 005633.

  178 “no need to do anything”: Earl Warren to Burt Griffin, July 13, 1964, 004150, ibid.

  179 Tuteur submitted: Werner Tuteur, “Psychiatric Report on Jack Ruby,” July 22, 1965, 1–13, West Archive.

  180 an edited version West had submitted: Werner Tuteur, “Report of Examination of Jack Ruby” (notarized), Sept. 3, 1965, 1–10, ibid.

  181 “‘They got what they wanted on me’”: Tuteur, “Psychiatric Report,” 7 (the passage had parenthesis drawn at either end of it and a black line drawn through the text); Tuteur, “Report of Examination,” 7 (passage no longer on page).

  182 his own book about Ruby: West, A Police Man at His Elbow. Libby Price, a graduate student at Oklahoma in the mid-1960s, shared a portion of the unpublished manuscript with me.

  183 “The fact is that nobody knows”: John Kaplan and Jon R. Waltz, The Trial of Jack Ruby (New York: Macmillan, 1965), 365.

  184 “good quote”: Note card, West Archive.

  185 “the book-filled room”: Don DeLillo, Libra (New York: Viking, 1988), 14–15.

  186 Gerald Ford wasn’t: Author correspondence with Ford staff.

  187 Specter had joined the Warren Commission: Most of the information in this section is from Specter’s memoir, Passion for Truth.

  188 as the Single Bullet Conclusion: Ibid., 1.

  12. Where Does It All Go?

  1 “I didn’t write the music”: Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, Helter Skelter (New York: Norton, 1994), 512.

  2 In 1968, Bugliosi fell into a scandal: The information in this section is from news articles, court documents, and interviews with the principals involved in the cases. Especially helpful was a 140-page manuscript called “The Vince Bugliosi Story,” written by George Denny, the attorney who represented both the “milkman” (Herbert Weisel) and the “mistress” (Virginia Cardwell) in their civil lawsuits against Bugliosi. In a 1999 letter accompanying the manuscript, Denny explained that copies of it were “disseminated at the Beverly Hills Bar Association luncheon in May 1976 in connection with the DA’s race that year… the matters set down in this document are factually accurate in every respect.” Bugliosi refused to discuss both cases with me, claiming he was still bound by the nondisclosure agreements he’d signed as part of the settlements. That wasn’t true, as Denny had explained to me in 1999. He, the Weisels, and Cardwell had all deliberately violated their NDAs in 1976 when Bugliosi made his last run for public office, in order to prevent him from getting elected. They knew he’d never sue them, Denny said, because he’d never go under oath again about his involvement in either case.

 
; 3 Bugliosi suspected his milkman: Bill Boyarsky and Robert A. Jones, “Former Milkman’s Complaint Adds to DA Race Confusion,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 24, 1972, II-1.

  4 Weisel had left his job in 1965: Arden Farms—Personnel Record, Herbert Weisel, Employment Record, “Date Terminated: 6/16/65” (copy courtesy of Denny).

  5 eight months before Vincent Jr. was born: Ancestry.com, California birth record for Vincent Bugliosi Jr.

  6 the evidence must’ve been in Weisel’s personnel file: Anonymous letter to Weisel, postmarked Mar. 28, 1969 (“Dear Mr. Weisel, When I first spoke to you, you volunteered the statement that I could look at your records at Arden to verify that your leaving work there was unrelated to my wife’s pregnancy. Now that I’ve accepted your offer, you refuse to grant me permission and won’t even talk to me….”).

  7 demanding him to release his files: Rose Weisel, Declaration, Nov. 3, 1972, 1; Herbert Weisel, Declaration, Nov. 3, 1972, 1.

  8 “changed your phone number” it said. “That wasn’t nice”: R. Weisel Declaration, 2; H. Weisel Declaration, 1.

  9 the hopes that she could arrange: R. Weisel Declaration, 2; H. Weisel Declaration, 3.

  10 “but that he wouldn’t do it”: R. Weisel Declaration, 2; Herbert Weisel, (Second) Declaration, Nov. 4, 1972, 2.

  11 paternity and lie-detector tests: R. Weisel, (Second) Declaration, Nov. 4, 1972, 3.

  12 “He’s got a mental problem”: Ibid., 2.

  13 to take the bus to school: R. Weisel Declaration, 1; H. Weisel Declaration, 1.

  14 They hired a lawyer: R. Weisel Declaration, 3; H. Weisel Declaration, 4.