← REDACTED: Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana
Loading summary
Transcript17 lines
- [00:01]
Tom O'Neill
Wondery subscribers can listen to redacted declassified mysteries early and ad free right now. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. In the library basement of UCLA on a June afternoon in 2001, time suddenly slowed to a crawl for journalist Tom O'Neill. For more than two years, O'Neill had been searching for the truth about the notorious cult leader and murderer Charles Manson. In dusty archives just like this. He was convinced that Manson did not act alone when he sent his followers to slaughter Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and six others in August of 1969. Manson and members of his so called family all went to prison for the shocking crimes. But O'Neill thought other people had blood on their hands too. He had begun to suspect that the CIA might somehow be involved. So what started out as an assignment to write a magazine article had become an obsession. And O'Neill had missed his deadline by more than two years. Now he was determined to write a book that exposed a potentially massive government cover up. If that is, he could prove it happened. Standing over a box of old government documents in the UCLA basement that day in 2001, O'Neill felt the rush of a eureka moment. Finally all the pieces of his exhaustive research seemed to fall together. In oneals hand was a 1963 letter from a CIA psychiatrist requesting to examine an infamous murderer. The letter was written just two days after Jack Ruby had shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who was suspected of assassinating President John F. Kennedy. And the psychiatrist, Dr. Jolly west, was eager to learn more about Ruby's state of mind. Eventually, Dr. West was permitted to visit Ruby in prison. It was a one on one meeting. No witnesses, cameras or recordings. And then something strange happened. The very next morning, news broke that Ruby had suffered an acute psychotic breakdown. Overnight, Ruby had gone insane. Doctors declared the condition unfixable. As a result, Ruby could not testify before the commission investigating JFK's assassination. His mind was too scrambled to explain why he killed the man who killed the president. To O'Neill, who thought it seemed conspiratorial, the implications were clear. Dr. West, an early researcher in mind control techniques, had visited Ruby with the deliberate intention of of ruining his mental state. The goal was to ensure Ruby wouldn't be able to provide more information on why he killed President Kennedy's assassin. It was a brazen act, derailing the investigation into a presidential assassination. As O'Neill dug deeper into the box of Dr. West's papers, he found letters describing the doctor's larger role in CIA backed experiments. Using drugs and hypnosis to control people's minds. By 1967, Dr. West was doing mind control research with LSD and other drugs at the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco, where many of the city's hippies hung out. And curiously, that was also the year that one man became a favorite patient at the clinic, Charles manson. At last, O'Neill thought he might just have his smoking gun.
- [04:10]
Narrator/Advertiser
Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Discover the year's top audiobooks, podcasts and originals in all your favorite genres, from memoirs and sci fi to mysteries and thrillers. Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best in audio entertainment, like a stunning new full cast production of George or 1984 heartfelt memoirs like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's lovely one. The year's best fiction, like the Women by Kristin Hannah and Percival Everett's brilliantly subversive James. Another worthwhile listen is Amy Tinterra's thrilling and twisting whodunit. Listen for the Lie. This laugh out loud, funny tale follows Lucy, a woman who needs to clear her own name after a true crime podcast decides to probe into the worst night of her life, one she conveniently can't remember. Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen. Go to audible.com wonderypod and discover all the years best waiting for you.
- [05:12]
Alex Rodriguez
Behind the bright lights and adrenaline of pro sport is an equally exciting world of negotiations and deal making. That's what we cover each week on our podcast, the Deal. I'm Alex Rodriguez, former baseball player turned business executive. And I'm Jason Kelly, chief correspondent for Bloomberg Originals. Over the next couple months, we'll hear from all stars like Jay Williams.
- [05:32]
Narrator/Advertiser
I want to be an owner one.
- [05:33]
Alex Rodriguez
Day, Billie Jean King, learn the business and so many more. Listen to the deal wherever you get.
- [05:39]
Tom O'Neill
Your podcast from Ballin Studios and Wondery. I'm Luke lamanna and this is Declassified Mysteries, where each week we shine a light on the shadowy corners of espionage, covert operations and misinformation to reveal the dark secrets our governments try to hide. This is part two of Charles Manson and the CIA. It was a sunny July morning in 2001, a few weeks after his visit to the CUCLA Archives, Tom O'Neill sat across from his literary agent on the patio of a cafe in Venice Beach, California. They were there to discuss his recent findings about the CIA psychiatrist Dr. Jolly West. O'Neill thought he detected a hint of worry on his agent's Face each time he shared a new bizarre discovery about the Manson case. O'Neill feared he might be pushing things too far. Fortunately, his agent remained supportive. O'Neill dove into the subject of Jolly West. He couldn't interview west himself since he had died in January of 1999, but he'd learned quite a bit about the man. Oneals said that despite his cheerful name, Jolly spent his life doing dark business. West got his start in the army during World War II, and by 1953 he was doing classified work for the top secret CIA program MKULTRA in several states. There he experimented on unsuspecting test subjects using LSD and hypnosis. O'Neill told his literary agent that he believed Dr. West's overlap with Manson at the Haight Ashbury Clinic wasn't a coincidence. More and more, it seemed to him like strings had been pulled to make their paths intersect. His agent asked an obvious exactly who pulled these strings and what did they stand to gain by having west and manson interact? To O'Neill, there was only one possible puppet the CIA. Specifically, officials from MKUltra. This was the agency's long running research program aimed at finding techniques to brainwash and manipulate individuals. MKULTRA researchers had started off using LSD as an interrogation tool in the 1950s, but they had gradually become more interested in mind control. And Dr. West was one of the mind control pioneers. In 1953, at the height of the Korean War, 36American pilots captured by the North Korean army went on national radio and confessed to spraying the local countryside with biological weapons. This was a war crime and made global news. O'Neill told his agent that the pilot's accusations were never proven. But US military officials suspected that the men had been brainwashed by the communists to make them give false statements. When the pilots were eventually freed, the CIA sent Dr. West to deprogram them. Although the specifics of Dr. West's methods weren't revealed, the results were a triumph. Most of the pilots renounced their confessions, claiming they had been obtained using torture. Oneils said this made Dr. West a hero in military circles and sparked the CIA's fascination with controlling people's thoughts. West had successfully deprogrammed men who had been brainwashed. Now the CIA wanted to figure out how to brainwash people themselves. To O'Neill, Dr. West's career from then on always pointed him toward the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, where Charles Manson would soon be arriving too. It seemed like destiny. Dr. West was convinced drugs, especially LSD, were integral to controlling people's thoughts. So what better place to do the research than a medical clinic that catered to free spirited hippies who often took drugs anyway? Oneills agent finally interrupted with another where did Charles Manson fit into all this? O'Neill admitted that that was the million dollar puzzle piece, but he thought it was plausible that the CIA saw Manson as someone who could be used, trained, or weaponized for some purpose. And since Manson was an ex con who did drugs, he was someone they could discredit if he tried to spill secrets. Oneills agent was intrigued, though he worried about how far the journalist was straying into the weeds. O'Neill promised his agent that he was doing his best to stay on track. In the meantime, he needed to go back down the rabbit hole. One morning, a few months after meeting with his agent, Oneals phone rang. It was earlier than usual. His brain felt fried from too many late nights trying to organize his research. He knew the project was consuming him, but he was determined to fight his way through the fog. On the phone was a man named Bob Conrick. O'Neill had left him a voicemail months ago but never heard back, which he was used to by now. O'Neill had first learned about Conrick from reading about the early days of the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. Conrick handled the administrative side While clinic founder Dr. David Smith oversaw the research and day to day patient visits. But Oneills reason for reaching out to Conrick concerned one of their employees, Dr. Jolly West. O'Neill had heard from one of his sources that Conrick objected to Dr. West joining the clinic in 1967. He was curious if this was true, and if so, why. Conrick was blunt. He never trusted west, not from day one. West's reputation made Conrick suspicious. He had learned that west was a military insider with high ranking connections. His previous assignment was on an Air Force base in rural Texas doing psychiatric projects so classified he couldn't discuss anything about them. Conrick still remembered the day west walked into the clinic. He wore a colorful knitted shirt, loose pants, and brand new sandals with wavy hair and a bushy mustache. To Conreck, west looked like a narcotics agent trying desperately to pass as a hippie. Conrick was convinced west had hidden motives. He was soon proven right. Within weeks, Conrick learned about an experiment Dr. West was conducting at a hippie apartment only blocks from the clinic. There, young people were invited in off the street, offered drugs, and then observed by a rotating staff of graduate students. The research was apparently for a book west was writing that examined how LSD broke down a person's ego and made them easier to manipulate. Conreck's story reminded O'Neill of something he had found in West's archives at one time. The scientific leader of MKUltra instructed West to see if it was possible to change a person's memories or implant a false memory without them realizing it. O'Neill wondered if this might have been what Dr. West was doing at the hippie apartment. Conrick thought Oneills theory sounded likely. In his experience, everything Dr. West did was a cover up. He also said west never finished his book. Conrick wasn't sure if it ever even existed, or if that was a front, too. He wondered if the apartment research was a real study at all, noting that West's graduate students told him they didn't even record their findings. After O'Neill got off the phone, he took a walk along the beach to stretch his legs. Conreck's words swirled in his head. If West's scientific projects were just a facade, what were they hiding? And why would the CIA pay for studies but not collect any results? As O'Neill strolled across the sand, an idea began to take shape. Maybe west was using the apartment as a net to find a candidate for their real project, a pawn for the CIA to be trained or deployed for some unknown purpose. Once he was back home, O'Neill reviewed his notes. On April 11, 1967, at the exact time West's LSD study was happening, Charles Manson arrived in San Francisco and reported to the local parole board for the first time. Within months, the apartment research was shuttered and west never mentioned his book again to conrice. Maybe, O'Neill thought, West believed that the project was no longer needed because maybe he had found the perfect test subject. Two months later, on a cool autumn afternoon in late 2001, O'Neill strolled through Santa Monica with a coffee. He'd been trying to keep his morale up, but life had been hard lately. O'Neill had been forced to borrow money from his family to stay afloat. Since he was too busy writing to take on other work, his apartment had gradually transformed into a storage area filled with files, books, and three ring binders. His phone rarely rang since he was too busy to make time for friends. If someone did come over, they'd cast anxious looks around the place, wondering what the hell he'd gotten into. The book was eroding Oneills life, but his head was too full of ideas to even consider stopping. There was no doubt manson and the CIA had grown into a full blown obsession. O'Neill realized that to anyone else, the idea that the CIA had a purpose in mind for Manson still seemed far fetched. Both because Manson was a career criminal and not easily controlled, and for a larger reason. What potential could a loose cannon like Manson have had for the CIA? They seemed like opposite forces. The thought reminded O'Neill of one of his earlier interviews. Back in his office, O'Neill dug out the notes from his chat with a deputy sheriff named Preston Guillory. Guillory claimed his department was ordered not to interfere with the criminal activities of the Manson family. Guillory also said the sheriff's department had been running heavy surveillance on Manson and his followers at the time of the murders. Towards the end of O'Neill's interview with Guillory, the former deputy sheriff speculated why law enforcement was so lenient with Manson. He thought it was because they shared a common enemy, the Black Panthers. A radical organization that preached black nationalism. The Black Panther Party was despised by the police because they carried guns and openly insulted cops as pigs. Even worse, they were admired by hippies, students and progressive young people. The Black Panthers were equally despised by Charles Manson. His many years in prison had hardened him into a staunch racist among his followers. Manson talked about the Black Panthers constantly, how dangerous they were, and his constant paranoia that they were about to attack Spahn Ranch. When Guillory suggested this theory to O'Neill, he initially thought that it didn't seem like a strong enough motivation. It was no secret that the police were hostile towards the Black Panthers, and Manson hated them so much that he concocted an entire apocalyptic fantasy about them that he called Helter Skelter. But this didn't necessarily make law enforcement and Manson into allies. But the more he thought about it, the more O'Neill wondered if Guillory was onto something. After all, Manson didn't just command his followers to kill strangers in cold blood. He also instructed them to write messages on the wall that sounded just like the Black Panthers, like death to pigs. O'Neill realized he needed to zoom out and better understand the Black Panther's role in the 1960s. So he made another pot of coffee and went to his bookshelf. When he had first started researching the CIA, O'Neill had also done some digging on other classified government programs of that era. Among them was an FBI domestic surveillance program called cointelpro. The purpose of cointelpro was to undermine the peace movement and any other organization the FBI considered radical. Only a few months after COINTELPRO was activated, the CIA followed the FBI's lead and formed their own program. They named it Chaos. Both cointelpro and Chaos were active in San Francisco, which was just across the bay from Oakland, where the Black panthers were based. O'Neill thought the location of the government programs was no coincidence. The more O'Neill read about COINTELPRO's tactics, the more he thought about that description of Dr. West trying to pass as a hippie. This is precisely how cointelpro operated. Cointelpro agents were trained to dress and speak like the youth groups they were infiltrating, even though they were in fact government agents. They were even trained how to take LSD and not break cover. O'Neill shook his head, imagining how many stiff, awkward men in flowy shirts loitering around Haight Ashbury in 1967 were actually undercover federal agents. But this wasn't COINTELPRO's only tactic. They also recruited certain inmates from the prison system. Potential candidates were offered a deal. Freedom in exchange for going undercover for the FBI. Most prisoners agreed. In 1960, Manson was given a 10 year sentence for forging a U.S. treasury check while he was already on probation for other crimes. But for unknown reasons, Manson was transferred from Washington state to California and given an early release. On March 21st of 1967, O'Neill had one simple question. Did the FBI or CIA offer MANSON A deal? O'Neill realized he was deep in the weeds of conjecture, but that didn't mean he was wrong. As he finished his third cup of coffee, O'Neill found something in his COINTEL profiles that made him sit up even straighter. It was a transcription of a series of leaked memos sent by Cointelpro to the Los Angeles police in the late 1960s. In the memos, Cointelpro shared ideas for how the LAPD could help weaken radical political groups. The Cointelpro officials suggested that police shouldn't rely mainly on direct harassment of groups like the Black Panthers that could too easily blow up in their faces. Instead, they should harass people sympathetic to these radical groups, such as civil rights advocates and Hollywood liberals. The targets for harassment in the cointelpro memo perfectly describe the people that Charles Manson's family killed. One of the victims, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, was actually a member of the White Panthers, a group of white activists set up to support the Black Panthers. And Sharon Tate and her husband, the famed director Roman Polanski, were known for hosting Hollywood's liberal elite. Most of the guests on the night of the murder, August 9, 1969, were likely Black Panther supporters. O'Neill knew it was a wild thought, but it was almost as if the Manson family was doing the work of the FBI when they went on their rampage. Sure, cointelpro did not recommend murder as a form of harassment, but the parallels between the FBI's strategy and Manson's were disturbing. ONeills head was spinning, but did these strange parallels prove anything? Was he unraveling a mystery or unraveling himself? The line between cracking the case and becoming a crackpot kept getting thinner.
- [23:17]
Narrator/Advertiser
Did you know that you can make your life saving donation to Doctors Without Borders go even further? Whether you donate stock, recommend a grant through your donor advised fund, or make an IRA qualified charitable distribution, you can take advantage of strong market performance this year to maximize your charitable impact, making it possible for Doctors Without Borders to stay ready to respond in more than 70 countries around the world. Together we go further explore ways to give@doctorswithoutborders.org podcast this message comes from Strawberry.
- [23:50]
Me Making personal coaching accessible to everyone Feeling like life's gotten messy? Or maybe you're just not moving forward like you'd hoped? A certified coach from Strawberry Me could be the turning point. You need to find clarity, set achievable goals, and stick to a plan. If you're ready to unlock your full potential, visit Strawberry Me podcast for 20% off your first month membership. That's Strawberry Me podcast.
- [24:29]
Tom O'Neill
Three weeks later, on a brisk November morning, O'Neill sat in his office finalizing a list of interview questions. He felt rattled. O'Neill had been told by a source that the author of the overwhelmingly popular book about the Manson murders, Helter Skelter, had been asking about him, Vincent Bugliosi, had been undermining oneills credibility, saying O'Neill was only pretending to be a magazine journalist. O'Neill figured it was because he felt threatened by what his book would contain. After all, Bugliosi's book made it seem like Manson had been the lone mastermind of the Tate murders. And that wasn't what O'Neill was finding. O'Neill did his best to block out the drama and stay focused, and he had more questions about Bugliosi, who had been the prosecutor at Manson's trial. O'Neill wanted to reach out to another person who knew all about the actual Manson murder investigation and who could provide a different perspective on Bugliosi's version of events. Mike McGahn had been the lead investigator on the Tate murder, working side by side with Bugliosi. McGahn had retired to Idaho, and many of the documents from the investigation had ended up in his possession. When O'Neill finally got McGahn on the phone. He could tell the retired detective's patience was thin. McGahn was blunt in his assessment of Bugliosi. Everything in Vince Bugliosi's book is wrong, M'Gant said. Bugliosi didn't solve it. Nobody trusted him. O'Neill was eager to get more details, but McGahn insisted he needed to be paid for his time. O'Neill knew that wasn't an option. As a journalist, he couldn't pay someone for information. And even if he wanted to, O'Neill was flat broke. So he hung up, frustrated. It seemed like Bugliosi and his book didn't have as many fans as O'Neill had assumed. Even Charles Manson criticized Bugliosi's work during a prison interview in 1972.
- [26:39]
Charles Manson
Bugliosi looks in the mirror every morning when he shaves. And that's the only person in bullying else's world. Just him.
- [26:50]
Tom O'Neill
What about the accuracy of the book though, Charlie?
- [26:54]
Charles Manson
He had the dates right and the names right, but he had a million illusions that had nothing to do with my reality. He was only trying and convicting his own reality didn't have anything to do with me.
- [27:14]
Tom O'Neill
O'Neill knew he had to keep asking questions and circle back to the CIA and its mind control program, MKUltra. It felt like he was climbing a mountain as he went from interview to interview, and the air was getting thin. Today, O'Neill was speaking to a man named Alan Schefflin. He had written one of the first books about MKUltra, published in 1978. O'Neill hoped he would be able to clarify some of his theories. O'Neill dialed the number and waited. It was a familiar feeling. By now he had interviewed over 500 people and his list kept growing. When Sheflin answered, O'Neill laid out his case about Manson's connection with the CIA. Sheflin reminded O'Neill that in 1973, the head of the CIA ordered all files connected to MKULTRA destroyed, so a complete understanding of the program could never be known. But Schoefflin said some documents survived, most importantly, a stash of 20,000 pages at an off site warehouse. Eventually, in December 1974, the New York Times obtained those records of the CIA's secret mind control research, forcing the agency to finally admit the program existed. The MKUltra files exposed how illegal and invasive the program really was. They dosed people with psychoactive drugs and conducted extensive experiments to test the limits of the human mind. They were convinced the brain was a code that could be cracked by the right combination of stresses, chemicals and manipulation. More often than not, MKULTRA subjects emerged from the experiments deeply damaged. There were many cases of permanent mental illness, shocking episodes of violence, and unexplained suicides. One of the most disturbing MKULTRA files revealed CIA attempts to manipulate someone into attempting an assassination. Sheflin told O'Neill that fortunately, the CIA had failed in this. When the CIA finally acknowledged MK Ultra's existence, they admitted that despite all their efforts, they had never successfully brainwashed anyone. Then O'Neill told Sheflin that he hated to be the bearer of bad news. But it looked like once again, the CIA had lied. They just might have succeeded in brainwashing after all. O'Neill described a letter he had found, dated in 1956, from Dr. West to the head of MKUltra. In the letter, west boasted that he had finally achieved the impossible. He had successfully replaced true memories with false ones in a subject using drugs, sleep deprivation and hypnosis. Even better, the subject of West's experiment had no idea his brain had been changed. Schefflin was speechless. This was science fiction, treating a person's mind like putty, to be molded at will. But if Dr. West had accomplished this, it meant that MKULTRA wasn't a failure. Which raised the question, what other horrifying achievements could they have hidden? O'Neill had one more question, for he had saved his biggest for last. Was it possible that Charles Manson was an MKULTRA experiment in mind control gone wrong? Schefflin's response was chilling. He told O'Neill no, but it was possible that Manson was an MKULTRA experiment. Experiment gone right? After sheflin hung up, O'Neill paced his apartment, his mind racing. What if Dr. West had conducted a session at the clinic with Manson using drugs and hypnosis? Could Dr. West have planted the seeds of Helter Skelter and mass murder in Manson's mind? Or maybe Dr. West showed Manson how to combine LSD, sleep deprivation and hypnosis to change the brains of others for a different mission. Manson seemed too unstable to treat like a weapon that could be aimed. But maybe that was the point. He was an element of chaos to unleash into the heart of the hippie movement. The day passed in a blur as O'Neill mapped every scenario that might explain the connections between Manson and the CIA. There were too many, yet somehow not enough. Maybe that's the way it would always be with Manson. O'Neill knew he couldn't wait any longer. It was time to start putting it all on the page. Across the next decade, O'Neill dug through his research, trying to tie all the threads together. He scoured his interviews and files for the clearest and most direct links between the places, people and events. Gradually, the book took shape. Even small details from early in ONeills investigation now began to fall into place. For instance, one of ONeills sources had mentioned something curious about Reeve Whitson, a CIA agent who allegedly was at Sharon Tate's house on the night of the murders as well as the morning after. The source told O'Neill that they had heard that Whitson believed there was an operation to destabilize American youth. Could the Tate murders be a part of that operation? The source speculated. At the time, O'Neill thought it sounded like confused paranoia. But with the benefit of more context, he believed there could be truth to it. Whitson may have been involved with the FBI's COINTELPRO, which routinely targeted political dissidents. Whitson had been friends with Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. It may have been just a cover for doing surveillance on their circle's liberal political activities. Another Reeve Whitson rumor was that he had told several friends that the murders might have been prevented if his agency had listened to him. O'Neill had dismissed this as the hollow boast of an agent trying to sound more important than he really was. Now a different theory began to take shape in oneals mind. What if Whitson had actually tried to warn his agency about the threat posed by Manson and his followers but was ignored? Maybe Manson had simply taken things too far beyond what the agency had intended. Then it was too late. Whatever role the CIA played in Manson's evolution, there was no denying law enforcement had let him get away with too much. After the murders, the LA County Sheriff's Department raided Spahn Ranch and arrested members of the Manson family on auto theft charges. They never charged anyone, which Bugliosi attributed to issues with dated arrest warrants. But O'Neill suspected the CIA or FBI might be behind the raid, hoping to provoke Manson into attacking the Black Panthers. And then there was the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. The clinic had stayed connected to Manson even after he left San Francisco to set up camp at Spahn Ranch. Dr. David Smith had even sent his assistant to the ranch to study the Manson family's lifestyle. The assistant said he witnessed and participated in multi day LSD sessions and even orgies. O'Neill didn't know if this was the CIA's way of keeping tabs on Manson or If they were trying to prod him in one direction or another. Manson's world was spinning faster and faster in late 1968 and early 69, as more and more people joined his cult. O'Neill had read police reports of interviews with some Manson family hangers on who mentioned how tense the vibe was getting. Apparently, Manson had grown paranoid that the Black Panthers were planning an attack on Spahn Ranch. So much so that he sent guards into the hills around the property with telescopes and guns to be ready when the Black Panthers made a move. The Malibu sheriff's deputy, Preston Guillory, claimed his department was surveilling Spahn Ranch during all this. Was it possible they saw this mania taking hold and did nothing? Or were they actively encouraging Manson to hit his boiling point? If so, then it was mission accomplished. On August 8, 1969, the experiment officially spun out of control when Manson sent his followers out to wreak havoc and to commit murder for some combination of motives. But the motives mattered less than the result. The bloody, senseless killings marked the end of the 60s and the death of the hippie movement. Charles Manson had done his job without even realizing it. Somewhere, O'Neill thought, Dr. Jolly west was smiling.
- [37:09]
Narrator/Advertiser
Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out. Procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road. Plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done.
- [37:23]
Tom O'Neill
Out.
- [37:23]
Narrator/Advertiser
Carpet in the bathroom. Like why? In knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download thumbtack today.
- [37:43]
Tom O'Neill
In January of 2019, on a cold, clear February evening, O'Neill clinked glasses with his agent. They had met at a beach bar to celebrate the completion of O'Neill's book. Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties was slated for publication in June. O'Neill had turned 40 when he started the assignment. Now he was about to turn 60. The book had taken a third of his life during that time. He was evicted from his apartment and had to get loans from his family to survive. O'Neill even became an Uber driver to support his investigation. Everyone who had heard about the book was anticipating answers to burning questions, like what actually happened? What was the big reveal? And that's when Tom O'Neill had to take a deep breath. It was like answering a riddle. He presented a significant amount of evidence that challenged the official narrative around the Manson murders. However, despite 20 years of extensive reporting and investigation, O'Neill didn't feel like he could definitively prove or disprove one specific theory about the government's role in the Manson murders. The one thing O'Neill was able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt is that many of the facts presented to the public about the Manson case were simply not true. He believed the prosecution, led by Vincent Bugliosi, deliberately lied and distorted key details. For example, Bugliosi said Manson was motivated by something Manson called Helter Skelter, his apocalyptic vision of triggering a race war. But O'Neill thought Bugliosi exaggerated and embellished the extent to which Helter Skelter was a true driving force behind the crimes. In fact, Bugliosi himself later admitted to journalists that he didn't believe Manson truly believed in Helter Skelter, but had used it to manipulate his followers. Beyond that, O'Neill explored the possibility that Manson may have been a product of the CIA's MKUltra mind control experiments. While this was a likely explanation, O'Neill ultimately could not conclusively prove or disprove this theory to his own satisfaction. In the end, O'Neill felt it was important to present all the contradictory evidence he uncovered, but leave readers to draw their own conclusions. But ultimately, he believed other forces were at play beyond Manson's paranoid mind. Overall, O'Neill felt confident that his reporting was thorough and professional. He followed every thread as far as it would go and admitted when he came up short, he had turned over stones and found people connected to the case who hadn't spoken on the record their entire life. But he knew one man whose blood would have boiled if he read it. Vincent Bugliosi. Bogliosi died four years earlier, in 2015. Manson died two years later, in 2017. It was the end of an era for the Manson saga. Even though Bugliosi had been hostile towards O'Neill's efforts, O'Neill still felt a bit sorry for him. Bugliosi convicted Manson when he was 36 years old. He spent the next 44 years in Manson's shadow, completely unable to escape it. O'Neill took a swig of his drink and watched the sun set into the Pacific. He couldn't help but think a similar fate awaited him. Oneals book titled Chaos was published on June 25th of 2019. It quickly became a New York Times bestseller. O'Neill had set out to challenge the accepted narrative of the Manson family murders. In the process, he opened a Pandora's box of dark secrets about one of the most complex eras in American history. He had mapped out the way the FBI and the CIA had fought dirty against the hippie movement in the 1960s, resorting to everything from surveillance to harassment to drugs to maintain control over them. The CIA's MKUltra and chaos, like the FBI's COINTELPRO, were all deeply un American in their practice, yet designed to defend a fading notion of how the country should be into this whirlpool walked Charles Manson. His life somehow became a conduit for everything happening around him, whether he was the evil cult leader as depicted in the media or whether he was a pawn in a bigger game. O'Neill could never definitively prove one way or the other, but his book successfully upended the accepted version of events of one of the most scrutinized crimes of the 20th century. Since the book's publication, ONeills perspective has sparked significant debate and controversy about domestic surveillance and governmental abuse of power in the 1960s. As of 2024, Tom O'Neill is writing a second volume of Chaos, following the story even further. Follow Redacted Declassified Mysteries on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Redacted early and ad Free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondery.com survey from Ballint Studios and Wondery. This is Declassified Mystery, hosted by me, Luke LaManna. A quick note about our stories we do a lot of research, but some details and scenes are dramatized. We used many different sources for our show, but we especially recommend Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neill and the LA Times in depth reporting into the Manson Family murders. This episode was written by Brit Brown. Sound design by Ryan Potesta. Our producer is Christopher B. Dunn. Our associate producers and researchers are Sarah Vitak, Teja Pelikanda, Adam Melian and Rafa Faria. Fact checking by Sheila Patterson for Ballin Studios. Our head of production is Zach Levitt. Script editing by Scott Allen. Our coordinating producer is Samantha Collins. Production support by Avery SIEGEL. Produced by me, Luke Lamanna. Executive producers are Mr. Bolin and Nick Witters. For Wondery, our head of sound is Marcelino Villapando. Senior producers are lauradonna Palavoda, Dave Schilling and Rachel Engelman. Senior managing producer is Nick Ryan. Managing producers are Olivia Fonte and Sophia Martins. Our executive producers are Erin O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis. For Wondery.