06-07-2013, 03:37 AM
Searching around following Jim's comment, I see the Manson book in question is Nikolas Schreck's THE MANSON FILE: MYTH AND REALITY OF AN OUTLAW SHAMAN. Schreck published a study of Manson in the late 80's, and the new edition (not on Amazon, which only carries the older, defunct edition) updates it after two additional decades of research.
Schreck's thesis is absolutely startling and makes me want to order his book. Not to hijack Jim's thread but this excerpt from an interview with Schreck from Metal Impact magazine (linked at the bottom - English text follows the French version) makes some things clear to me for the very first time. (I'll be getting the book myself asap).
.........
MI. According to me - please correct me if I'm wrong - this book is a demystification of the Manson myth, as a "serial killer" and even as a kind of "modern evil", as he's still seen in America. You turned him into a simple citizen, always on the verge of legality and on the loose. Do you think he was a kind of scapegoat for the government, and used as a symbol for the 60's freedom repression?

Nikolas. Yes, you're right; my book's devoted to demystifying the myth, thus the "myth and reality" subtitle. Not only the Manson-bashing myth of the Satanic serial killer, but also the equally untrue Manson fan's fantasy of the completely innocent political prisoner. If there's a "modern evil" in this case, it's not the petty crook Manson but the lawyers, mobsters and show biz sleazebags who used him as their fall guy. It's too simple to say that Charles was specifically selected by some all-powerful "Them" as a scapegoat. It's more that right-wing politicians ruling California and Washington shrewdly leaped on the convenient opportunity of "a hippie cult leader" to discredit the counterculture by redefining its revolutionary aspirations as criminal psychosis. With such opponents of peace, love and LSD as the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover, Ronald Reagan as Governor of California, and Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon as Commander in Chief, Manson's media coverage and trial was a tightly controlled exercise in government propaganda. And the way the Manson case was covered really did have political consequences in that it defused the counterculture by convincing the public to fear hippies and dissidents as potential murderers. However, we can't ignore the fact that Atkins, Krenwinkel and Van Houten cooperated with the official script by convincingly playing the parts of "brainwashed hippie cultists" for the TV cameras at their trial. As I attempt to clarify, if Charles or any of his co-defendants opened their mouths at the trial to reveal even some of the real motives of the crimes, they could've brought down Bugliosi's fragile house of cards instantly. But the girls' defense attorneys convinced them they could get off if they showed the jury they were mindless zombies under their master's hypnotic control. And Manson's loyalty to the underworld code of silence meant that the Establishment knew that they could get away with their "Helter Skelter" anti-hippie theater without being questioned in court. So the government's scapegoat for the Sixties was at least partially responsible for allowing himself to be scapegoated. 


MI. The real story - and I must say that my opinion is very close to yours on this matter - was actually just a struggle between two parallel worlds. Hollywood "glamour" (Dennis Wilson, Sammy Davis Junior, Kenneth Anger, Mama Cass) versus Drug dealers. In your book, the real frontdoor protagonists emerge as the true actors of the tragedy, I mean, Charles « Tex » Watson, Jay Sebring and « Voytek » Frykowski, Polanski's "friend". Was this version of the story too Down-to-earth for the conservatives? Did the American people really need a tragedy in flesh and blood to bury the 60's?

Nikolas. I'm glad you came away from the book understanding that "the true actors of the tragedy" were actually the Watson-Sebring-Frykowski drug dealing network. I wanted to finally cast light on this trio usually relegated to the sidelines as "brainwashed follower" and "innocent victims". This was never the bizarre story of a cult attacking innocent strangers for irrational reasons. It's just a fairly typical tale of violence breaking out between two criminal factions who were working together. Actually, though, the cover-up of the drug-dealing nature of the crimes wasn't inspired by the conservatives. A clique of hip liberal rock stars and film industry players concealed the Mafia narcotics ring being run from the home of one of Hollywood's leading directors while he was out of town. Also, as my book makes clear, the FBI were preparing a sting operation on Jay Sebring, Leno LaBianca, and Joel Rostau (the mobster who delivered the drugs to Sebring and Frykowski the night of the murders) and others involved in a large-scale Mafia money-laundering scam whose trail they suspected led directly to Paramount Studios. To allow the true circumstances of the murders to be known to the public would have blown the FBI's agenda. The FBI, the Mafia, and the Hollywood establishment were united in their vested interest to distract the public from the truth with the "Helter Skelter" fairy tale. The utter failure of journalists to question the huge inconsistencies in the official version of the murders is to blame for letting the powers who ruled Hollywood get away with the perfect crime in court. 


MI. Your book can be seen as an objective piece of work. But what's your intimate feelings and opinion over some of the protagonists of the Manson story, Tex Watson, Lynne Fromme, Susan Atkins, Jay Sebring or even Dennis Wilson for instance?

Nikolas. I tried to put myself in the shoes of the main players rather than judging them. You can't write in such depth about the intimate lives and deaths of even the most flawed people without feeling empathy for them. My subjective feeling is that they were all caught up in the momentum of a needless tragedy that wouldn't have happened if psychedelic drugs hadn't been made illegal three years before the murders. I'll give you my spontaneous impressions of the people you named. Tex Watson: an emotionally impoverished sociopath. His violent temper was triggered by his abuse of amphetamines and Belladonna in the weeks leading up to his rampage on Cielo Drive. He didn't have a serial killer profile, he just freaked out in a speed-fueled rage. As I once wrote to him, if Watson was the disciple of Jesus he pretends to be, he'd practice what the Bible preaches about "the truth will set you free" and tell the truth about the crimes he instigated. Lynette Fromme: I know her to be of great integrity, intelligence and idealism. She was sincere in her revolutionary zeal to change society and the natural environment for the better. I hope she finds peace in her newly won freedom. I only spoke to Susan Atkins once. She was so guarded it was hard to see beneath her pose of Christian repentance. But she's a tragic case too, since despite her self-destructive bragging, she didn't participate in the murders of Gary Hinman and the Cielo Drive victims, but was just along for the ride on what she thought were going to be non-fatal settlings of her friends' drug dealing disputes. She was promised immunity if she "confessed" to the crimes according to the fictional cover story contrived by her Mafioso lawyers. Her life can only be seen as a complete waste. Jay Sebring: a professional criminal who knew the risks of the dangerous profession he chose and I don't mean hairdressing. Violent death is an occupational hazard for high-stakes drug dealers. Sebring was an insecure striver concerned with putting up an impressive front who numbed his anxiety with cocaine and alcohol. Dennis Wilson: a nervous wreck haunted by the knowledge that he introduced Manson to the whole fatal cast of characters, including Tex, Tate, Terry Melcher, Rudy Altobelli, John Phillips, Mama Cass. His last years were a wasteland of remorse. And long before that he was a tortured soul due to the stress of living up to his clean-cut Beach Boys image. All of these people's lives and the Sixties dream itself were ultimately torn apart simply because a few petty drug burn disputes got out of hand on a stoned summer night. And, as Manson's pointed out, if a minor but newsworthy celebrity like Sharon Tate hadn't canceled her plans for staying at a girlfriend's house that night, the drama would never have escalated into the legendary nightmare it became. 


MI. Don't you think sometimes that Bugliosi was just a puppet whose strings were pulled by both the Nixon Administration and the Mafia? To focus the attention of the American people on a mock trial, rather than on the Vietnam crisis and the influence of the mafia over the entertainment/drug industry?

Nikolas. Not a puppet of the Nixon administration, because Bugliosi was a Democratic Party supporter, and an admirer of Nixon's liberal arch-enemy John F. Kennedy. As for your second charge of who pulled his strings, it's relevant to note the Mafia's long-standing ties with the Democratic Party and the Kennedy family, a power syndicate Jay Sebring was also closely connected since he provided drugs for his most famous haircutting client JFK during his secret trysts with Marilyn Monroe. I find it interesting that like several other shady characters behind the Helter Skelter smokescreen, Bugliosi ardently argues that Lee Harvey Oswald was JFK's lone assassin and that the Mafia had nothing to do with the Dallas hit. Manson's told me explicitly that he believes that Bugliosi's primary task was to conceal Leno LaBianca's long-standing Mafia activity and "bring New York to Hollywood." That translates from Mansonese to mean covering up the real circumstances of the crimes to allow the East Coast mob to secure their hold over the L.A. film industry. This hostile takeover was celebrated in the movie The Godfather, which was filmed while several mob figures who could have testified in the Manson trial were executed to keep them from snitching. Bugliosi wasn't only a puppet. He had his own motives in exploiting the publicity the Manson trial received to push his own failed political ambitions to be elected as the Attorney General of California.
http://www.metal-impact.com/index.php?na...0732fe82af
Schreck's thesis is absolutely startling and makes me want to order his book. Not to hijack Jim's thread but this excerpt from an interview with Schreck from Metal Impact magazine (linked at the bottom - English text follows the French version) makes some things clear to me for the very first time. (I'll be getting the book myself asap).
.........
MI. According to me - please correct me if I'm wrong - this book is a demystification of the Manson myth, as a "serial killer" and even as a kind of "modern evil", as he's still seen in America. You turned him into a simple citizen, always on the verge of legality and on the loose. Do you think he was a kind of scapegoat for the government, and used as a symbol for the 60's freedom repression?

Nikolas. Yes, you're right; my book's devoted to demystifying the myth, thus the "myth and reality" subtitle. Not only the Manson-bashing myth of the Satanic serial killer, but also the equally untrue Manson fan's fantasy of the completely innocent political prisoner. If there's a "modern evil" in this case, it's not the petty crook Manson but the lawyers, mobsters and show biz sleazebags who used him as their fall guy. It's too simple to say that Charles was specifically selected by some all-powerful "Them" as a scapegoat. It's more that right-wing politicians ruling California and Washington shrewdly leaped on the convenient opportunity of "a hippie cult leader" to discredit the counterculture by redefining its revolutionary aspirations as criminal psychosis. With such opponents of peace, love and LSD as the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover, Ronald Reagan as Governor of California, and Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon as Commander in Chief, Manson's media coverage and trial was a tightly controlled exercise in government propaganda. And the way the Manson case was covered really did have political consequences in that it defused the counterculture by convincing the public to fear hippies and dissidents as potential murderers. However, we can't ignore the fact that Atkins, Krenwinkel and Van Houten cooperated with the official script by convincingly playing the parts of "brainwashed hippie cultists" for the TV cameras at their trial. As I attempt to clarify, if Charles or any of his co-defendants opened their mouths at the trial to reveal even some of the real motives of the crimes, they could've brought down Bugliosi's fragile house of cards instantly. But the girls' defense attorneys convinced them they could get off if they showed the jury they were mindless zombies under their master's hypnotic control. And Manson's loyalty to the underworld code of silence meant that the Establishment knew that they could get away with their "Helter Skelter" anti-hippie theater without being questioned in court. So the government's scapegoat for the Sixties was at least partially responsible for allowing himself to be scapegoated. 


MI. The real story - and I must say that my opinion is very close to yours on this matter - was actually just a struggle between two parallel worlds. Hollywood "glamour" (Dennis Wilson, Sammy Davis Junior, Kenneth Anger, Mama Cass) versus Drug dealers. In your book, the real frontdoor protagonists emerge as the true actors of the tragedy, I mean, Charles « Tex » Watson, Jay Sebring and « Voytek » Frykowski, Polanski's "friend". Was this version of the story too Down-to-earth for the conservatives? Did the American people really need a tragedy in flesh and blood to bury the 60's?

Nikolas. I'm glad you came away from the book understanding that "the true actors of the tragedy" were actually the Watson-Sebring-Frykowski drug dealing network. I wanted to finally cast light on this trio usually relegated to the sidelines as "brainwashed follower" and "innocent victims". This was never the bizarre story of a cult attacking innocent strangers for irrational reasons. It's just a fairly typical tale of violence breaking out between two criminal factions who were working together. Actually, though, the cover-up of the drug-dealing nature of the crimes wasn't inspired by the conservatives. A clique of hip liberal rock stars and film industry players concealed the Mafia narcotics ring being run from the home of one of Hollywood's leading directors while he was out of town. Also, as my book makes clear, the FBI were preparing a sting operation on Jay Sebring, Leno LaBianca, and Joel Rostau (the mobster who delivered the drugs to Sebring and Frykowski the night of the murders) and others involved in a large-scale Mafia money-laundering scam whose trail they suspected led directly to Paramount Studios. To allow the true circumstances of the murders to be known to the public would have blown the FBI's agenda. The FBI, the Mafia, and the Hollywood establishment were united in their vested interest to distract the public from the truth with the "Helter Skelter" fairy tale. The utter failure of journalists to question the huge inconsistencies in the official version of the murders is to blame for letting the powers who ruled Hollywood get away with the perfect crime in court. 


MI. Your book can be seen as an objective piece of work. But what's your intimate feelings and opinion over some of the protagonists of the Manson story, Tex Watson, Lynne Fromme, Susan Atkins, Jay Sebring or even Dennis Wilson for instance?

Nikolas. I tried to put myself in the shoes of the main players rather than judging them. You can't write in such depth about the intimate lives and deaths of even the most flawed people without feeling empathy for them. My subjective feeling is that they were all caught up in the momentum of a needless tragedy that wouldn't have happened if psychedelic drugs hadn't been made illegal three years before the murders. I'll give you my spontaneous impressions of the people you named. Tex Watson: an emotionally impoverished sociopath. His violent temper was triggered by his abuse of amphetamines and Belladonna in the weeks leading up to his rampage on Cielo Drive. He didn't have a serial killer profile, he just freaked out in a speed-fueled rage. As I once wrote to him, if Watson was the disciple of Jesus he pretends to be, he'd practice what the Bible preaches about "the truth will set you free" and tell the truth about the crimes he instigated. Lynette Fromme: I know her to be of great integrity, intelligence and idealism. She was sincere in her revolutionary zeal to change society and the natural environment for the better. I hope she finds peace in her newly won freedom. I only spoke to Susan Atkins once. She was so guarded it was hard to see beneath her pose of Christian repentance. But she's a tragic case too, since despite her self-destructive bragging, she didn't participate in the murders of Gary Hinman and the Cielo Drive victims, but was just along for the ride on what she thought were going to be non-fatal settlings of her friends' drug dealing disputes. She was promised immunity if she "confessed" to the crimes according to the fictional cover story contrived by her Mafioso lawyers. Her life can only be seen as a complete waste. Jay Sebring: a professional criminal who knew the risks of the dangerous profession he chose and I don't mean hairdressing. Violent death is an occupational hazard for high-stakes drug dealers. Sebring was an insecure striver concerned with putting up an impressive front who numbed his anxiety with cocaine and alcohol. Dennis Wilson: a nervous wreck haunted by the knowledge that he introduced Manson to the whole fatal cast of characters, including Tex, Tate, Terry Melcher, Rudy Altobelli, John Phillips, Mama Cass. His last years were a wasteland of remorse. And long before that he was a tortured soul due to the stress of living up to his clean-cut Beach Boys image. All of these people's lives and the Sixties dream itself were ultimately torn apart simply because a few petty drug burn disputes got out of hand on a stoned summer night. And, as Manson's pointed out, if a minor but newsworthy celebrity like Sharon Tate hadn't canceled her plans for staying at a girlfriend's house that night, the drama would never have escalated into the legendary nightmare it became. 


MI. Don't you think sometimes that Bugliosi was just a puppet whose strings were pulled by both the Nixon Administration and the Mafia? To focus the attention of the American people on a mock trial, rather than on the Vietnam crisis and the influence of the mafia over the entertainment/drug industry?

Nikolas. Not a puppet of the Nixon administration, because Bugliosi was a Democratic Party supporter, and an admirer of Nixon's liberal arch-enemy John F. Kennedy. As for your second charge of who pulled his strings, it's relevant to note the Mafia's long-standing ties with the Democratic Party and the Kennedy family, a power syndicate Jay Sebring was also closely connected since he provided drugs for his most famous haircutting client JFK during his secret trysts with Marilyn Monroe. I find it interesting that like several other shady characters behind the Helter Skelter smokescreen, Bugliosi ardently argues that Lee Harvey Oswald was JFK's lone assassin and that the Mafia had nothing to do with the Dallas hit. Manson's told me explicitly that he believes that Bugliosi's primary task was to conceal Leno LaBianca's long-standing Mafia activity and "bring New York to Hollywood." That translates from Mansonese to mean covering up the real circumstances of the crimes to allow the East Coast mob to secure their hold over the L.A. film industry. This hostile takeover was celebrated in the movie The Godfather, which was filmed while several mob figures who could have testified in the Manson trial were executed to keep them from snitching. Bugliosi wasn't only a puppet. He had his own motives in exploiting the publicity the Manson trial received to push his own failed political ambitions to be elected as the Attorney General of California.
http://www.metal-impact.com/index.php?na...0732fe82af