Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret Historical past of the Sixties

Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the younger followers of Charles Manson murdered seven individuals, together with the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Household adopted their chief’s each order — their crimes lit a flame of paranoia throughout the nation, spelling the tip of the sixties. Manson grew to become one in all historical past’s most notorious criminals, his identify ceaselessly hooked up to an period when charlatans combined with prodigies, free love was as attainable as brainwashing, and utopia — or dystopia — was simply an acid journey away.

Twenty years in the past, when journalist Tom O’Neill was reporting {a magazine} piece in regards to the murders, he fearful there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed stunning proof of a cover-up behind the “official” story, together with police carelessness, authorized misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence brokers. When a tense interview with Vincent Bugliosi — prosecutor of the Manson Household and writer of Helter Skelter — turned a pleasant supply right into a nemesis, O’Neill knew he was onto one thing. However each discovery introduced extra questions:

Who had been Manson’s actual pals in Hollywood, and the way far would they go to cover their ties? Why did not regulation enforcement, together with Manson’s personal parole officer, act on their many probabilities to cease him? And the way did Manson — an illiterate ex-con — flip a gaggle of peaceable hippies into remorseless killers?

O’Neill’s quest for the reality led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco’s summer season of affection to the shadowy websites of the CIA’s mind-control experiments, on a path rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences. The product of 20 years of reporting, a whole bunch of recent interviews, and dozens of never-before-seen paperwork from the LAPD, the FBI, and the CIA, Chaos mounts an argument that might be, in keeping with Los Angeles Deputy District Lawyer Steven Kay, sturdy sufficient to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. This can be a ebook that overturns our understanding of a pivotal time in American historical past.

 

From the Writer

Writer ‏ : ‎ Again Bay Books (June 23, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 528 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0316477540
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0316477543
Merchandise Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 kilos
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.38 x 8.25 inches