Vince Bugliosi: The Whole Story

[Jim DiEugenio]

But Drew, starting a race war that could consume the country? That's pretty bad.

But let me add one other thing I discovered. But is not in the essay.

The morning after the murders, Sebring's butler told the cops that there were two visitors to the home.

By the description rendered, one can deduce that one was C. McAffrey, the girl who worked for Sebring and was Rostau's paramour.

The other girl is strongly suspected of being Steve McQueen's agent. Why were they there?

By the time the cops found the secret place where Sebring stored his stash of cocaine--it was in a detachable part of his bar--it was gone.

The cover up was instantaneous. Neither Hollywood nor the Mob wanted any involvement.

And the LAPD went along with it.

PS: The reason I spent a lot of time on this was that it made Bugliosi's career and name. It has his trademark on it. If it can be shown to be something other than he represented, then that deflects from the trademark.

Second, if Bugliosi could be shown to cut corners here, that would be a precedent for doing it in Reclaimng History.

Which, as anyone who reads Reclaiming Parkland can tell, he did.

[Cliff Varnell]

"In fact, unfortunately for client Leslie Van Houten, this had been Ronald Hughes' first criminal trial".

Isn't that incredible?

See, in Helter Skelter, Bugliosi and Gentry do everything they can to paper this over. That is, the fact that the defendants had incompetent counsel. During the trial, Bugliosi was a bit more honest about it. And I quoted that. But he was not so honest in his book.

See, when the defense offered no case at all, this left the door open for Bugliosi to use that fantastic race war fantasy. And because it was uncontested by the defending counsel, it apparently worked. That, plus the success of the book, kept these people behind bars for life.

Which, I think is ridiculous.

Didn't the fantastic race war fantasy originate with Susan Atkins' 12/14/69 LA Times article, which laid out the whole Manson-as-Cult-Mastermind scenario?

http://www.cielodrive.com/archive/susan-...of-murder/

Didn't Atkins' dad denounce her as a liar?

If the Tate-LaBianca murders had a "master-mind" it sure looks like Susan Atkins to me.

[Cliff Varnell]

Lots to digest in your article Jim. Have you looked at the threads here dealing with the LA music scene and connections to milintel?
Many tangled webs.

The Bug was one arrogant ADA. The Beatles music as a motive was pure bullshit from the start. I wonder if he actually believed his own bs.

He bought Susan Atkins' bs hook-line-sink.

The Laurel Canyon stuff is pure bullshit, as far as the rocknroll part goes.

[Jim DiEugenio]

This is what I mean about people who accept the Helter Skelter story.

And this is what I mean about it being so ingrained in our society.

As I wrote in my essay, Atkins got screwed over by Bugliosi. Because she would not testify against anyone else. Kasabian would.

The reason she would not goes hand in glove with what VB wanted.

See, Atkins actually acted weird and told bizarre stories not to just two women at the detention center, but to FOUR! Bugliosi only mentions two. The two who called the police. But the first two people she approached understood what she was doing. She was acting as she did to make herself attractive to the police as a stooge. This is because she felt she would be jailed for Hinman. So, all that stuff about stabbing Sharon Tate and licking her blood, which Schiller played up, this all turned out to be forensically not possible. There was no blood found on her knife.

But see Atkins would not go all the way, like Kasabian would.

Now, if you look at what Atkins wrote later, you will see that she eventually came clean. She wrote a book which was not published entitled "The Myth of Helter Skelter". There, she exposes all this Bugliosian baloney for what it is. The only race war was what Manson expected from the Panthers for believing he killed Crowe. And the reason she stuck around was because of her little child who Manson kept in a kind of kiddie center.

But see, since Atkins' book was never published, what people remember is what Schiller and Bugliosi played up for dramatic impact.

I would think that someone who knows the JFK case would understand who Larry Schiller was and is.

I guess not enough people read CTKA.

[Magda Hassan]

If the Tate-LaBianca murders had a "master-mind" it sure looks like Susan Atkins to me.

I think Tex Watson was more than was shown in the court case.

[Peter Lemkin]

[Tracy Riddle]

The general public is so vulnerable to whatever story/narrative is put out there and repeated constantly on TV, in movies, popular fiction, etc.

[Jim DiEugenio]

If the Tate-LaBianca murders had a "master-mind" it sure looks like Susan Atkins to me.

I think Tex Watson was more than was shown in the court case.

I think that this will end up being the case.

That guy who I talked to, who is writing a book on the Tate/LaBianca murders, strongly suspects that one reason LAPD will not make public the tapes made by Watson in Texas is because Watson takes too much responsibility for the whole thing.

Remember, prior to the Cielo Drive event, Manson was not even at Spahn Ranch for something like 7 of eight days. And Manson was not at the scene that night during the violence. Although he did later admit going up after.

[Cliff Varnell]

If, as I believe, Mae was correct, then Bugliosi was chosen by intelligence to cover up the truth...and was 'in the fold' long before he did his hatchet job on JFK. Manson was part of CHAOS and the operations to destroy the progressive '60s' movements and paint those with long hair, smoking grass and alternative values, etc. in a bad light. Think McGowan- Murder and Mystery In Laurel Canyon. Think chaos and CHAOS.

Charlers Manson is a life-long fuck-up who had a way with women.

Intel operative?

Bollocks.

McGowan's attempt to revise the history of 60's rocknroll is beyond pathetic.

The roots of the 60's music-fueled counter-culture are found in San Francisco and Texas, not Laurel Canyon.

Laurel Canyon is the birthplace of Middle-Of-The-Road soft Adult Rock.

Elevator music.

Did the CIA have a large role in a plot to make American youth dope-stupid?

Yes they did!

And the name of the narcotic the CIA smuggled in support of this plot is...HEROIN.

LSD is too unpredictable to have operational value.

[Cliff Varnell]

Another thing to keep in mind about Manson was the timing of the Tate-LaBianca murder charges, December 9, 1969.

December 6, 1969: Murderous violence during the Rolling Stones free concert at Altamont.

It was a one-two punch that brought out a "Death of the Counterculture" narrative in the mainstream media.