171. Did the CIA Help Create Charles Manson?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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(00:24):
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Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello, and welcome to Revery True Crime. I'm your host page.
Today we're going to talk about a story that's way
different than the version we've all heard before. You probably
think you know all about the Manson murders, a crazed

(00:59):
cal brainwashed hippies, and a madman obsessed.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
With the Beatles. But what if I told you?

Speaker 2 (01:08):
There's a lot more to it, and it leads straight
to government agencies, mind control experiments, and evidence that mysteriously vanished.
In this episode, we're going to explore the book Chaos,
Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the

(01:29):
Sixties by journalist Tom O'Neill. This is not your average
true crime Manson story. Tom O'Neill spent twenty years digging
up evidence that the CIA law enforcement and intelligence operatives
may have played a much bigger role in Manson's story

(01:52):
than anyone ever admitted. By the end of this episode,
you might question everything you thought you knew. So let's
get into it. We all know Charles Manson as this
crazy eyed cult leader responsible for one of the most

(02:16):
infamous murder sprees in American history. But what if I
told you he probably should have been in prison when
the Tate Lobianca murders happened. By every legal standard, this
man should have been locked up. So why wasn't he.

(02:37):
Manson wasn't some misunderstood hippie who just snapped. By the
time he got to San Francisco in nineteen sixty seven,
the so called Summer of Love, he was already a
career criminal. Decades of prison time, theft, fraud, pimping, you

(02:57):
name it. He even did for stealing cars and violating
the Man Act, which involved trafficking women across state lines.
When he was released from prison in March of nineteen
sixty seven, even he didn't want out. He told prison
officials that he would rather stay behind bars, not because

(03:21):
he was reformed, but because, in his words quote, prison
was home. So why would they let a repeat offender,
someone with zero interest in rehabilitation, just walk free And
it gets worse. Once he was out, Manson broke the

(03:42):
conditions of his parole again and again without facing any consequences.
We're not talking about small stuff. There were drug charges, assaults,
and even accusations of sex trafficking under age girls. Yet
somehow Manson just kept skating by. So the big question

(04:08):
is how this is where Roger Smith, Manson's parole officer,
comes in. Parole officers are supposed to make sure x
cons follow the rules. If you break those rules, you're
headed back to prison, no questions asked. But Roger Smith

(04:30):
he wasn't your.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Average parole officer.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
For one, he was deeply connected to behavioral research at
the height Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, which was the very
same place Manson and his family hung around.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
So while he was supposed to.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Be monitoring Manson, Roger Smith was also working with researchers
who were studying drug abuse and social behavior. During the
time that Manson was under Roger's supervision. He got arrested
at least eight times, and not for just jaywalking. These

(05:11):
were serious crimes, yet every single time his parole was
never revoked. It's almost like someone wanted.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Him on the streets.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Tom O'Neill, the author of Chaos, discovered that there was
a secret program operating in San Francisco at the time,
something called the San Francisco Project. It was a research
initiative that combined law enforcement with psychiatric studies. Basically, it
was a program to monitor and manipulate social deviance. And

(05:50):
guess who seemed to fall right into that category, Yeah,
Charles Manson. Now there's no smoking gun document saying hey,
Charles Manson was part of a mind control experiment. But
when you start connecting the dots, it does get creepy.

(06:10):
Manson was always in trouble, but he never faced real consequences.
He wasn't just slipping through the cracks. Someone somewhere seemed
to be protecting him. And the fact that his parole
officer was linked to a research clinic that was known
for studying human behavior, it just doesn't seem like a coincidence.

(06:35):
Tom O'Neill even found documents suggesting that the CIA was
running mk Ultrastyle experiments right in Highte Ashbury during the
exact time Manson was there. If you don't know about
MK Ultra, let's put a pin in that because we're
going to go down that rabbit hole soon. Here's where

(06:59):
things go from a little weird to outright shady. When
Tom O'Neill started digging through official records for his investigation,
he found that Manson's parole files were missing. Not just
a few pages, not just a redacted section, the entire

(07:21):
file was gone. Pim O'Neill went to the US Justice
Department and they told him that they couldn't find the documents.
And he's not the first person to run into this problem.
Other journalists and researchers trying to investigate Manson's parole have

(07:42):
hit the same wall. So let's do a quick recap
of what we know so far. Manson was a repeat
offender somehow got out of prison despite.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
Not wanting to leave.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
He repeatedly violated his parole, but his parole officer, who's
connected to social behavior research, never sends him back to prison.
Official parole records that should explain all of this completely missing.
Something's not really adding up. So let's really think about it.

(08:22):
Why with law enforcement and government agencies go so easy
on a guy like Manson? This man was dangerous, violent,
and out of control, but instead of locking him up,
they let him loose, right in the middle of a
counterculture movement that the government was desperate to suppress. If

(08:46):
you know anything about the nineteen sixties, you know the
US government was obsessed with controlling and undermining political freethinkers
and nonconformists. The FBI had co intel pro, a secret
program to disrupt and discredit activists like the Black Panthers

(09:09):
and anti war groups. Meanwhile, the CIA was knee deep
in mind control experiments through mk Ultra. Was Manson's freedom
possibly part of a bigger plan?

Speaker 3 (09:25):
Here is a theory.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
What if Manson and the violence he inspired was used
to paint the hippie movement as dangerous and depraved. After all,
nothing kills a social revolution faster than a brutal, high
profile murder spree. And by letting Manson Rome free, someone

(09:49):
made sure that the chaos he created would destroy the
peace and love image of the nineteen sixties. For good coincidence,
you tell me. When Manson got out of prison in
nineteen sixty seven, he didn't just wander aimlessly into the

(10:10):
California hippie scene.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
No, he walked right into ground zero for.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Some of the strangest, most suspicious experiments in American history.
And it all leads back to a seemingly harmless place,
the height Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. It sounds innocent enough,
a free clinic helping out the flower children of San Francisco.

(10:38):
Well not exactly behind the peace and love facade. There's
evidence that something else was going on, something involving drugs,
mind control, and secret government projects. The height Ashbury Free
Medical Clinic opened its doors in nineteen sixty seven, right

(11:01):
in the heart of San Francisco's counterculture movement. It was
a place where young people, many of them homeless, addicted,
or mentally unstable, could get free health care. On the surface,
it seemed like a perfect fit for the times. The
Summer of Love was in full swing, thousands of hippies

(11:24):
flooding into San Francisco, tripping on LSD, rejecting authority, and
living free. A clinic like this was a lifeline for
people who could not afford medical care. But there's always
a twist, right The clinic wasn't just about helping people.

(11:46):
Tom O'Neill discovered that the clinic had some very unusual connections,
specifically to government funded research projects studying drug use and
human behavior. And it wasn't just any research. We're talking
about studies that echo mk Ultra, the CIA's infamous mind

(12:08):
control program that experimented on unsuspecting Americans, and the clinic
was right in the.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Middle of it.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
So let's talk about a guy named doctor David Smith,
no relation to Manson's parole officer Roger Smith, but equally
important he's the one who founded the clinic. But it
gets interesting. Doctor David Smith was heavily involved in drug research,

(12:40):
especially around LSD and amphetamines. In fact, his work was
funded by federal agencies that had a long track record
of partnering with the CIA. In the nineteen sixties, the
US government was obsessed with understanding and controlling human behavior,

(13:03):
and drugs like LSD they were seen as a way
to unlock the brain and reprogram people's thoughts. At the clinic,
doctor Smith and his colleagues were studying the effects of
these drugs on patients, many of whom had no idea
they were part of an experiment. According to O'Neill's research.

(13:27):
The clinic was part of something called the Amphetamine Research Project,
which was tracking how people responded to heavy drug use.
During the exact time that the highte Ashbury Clinic was
conducting these studies on human behavior, Manson and his growing
family were regulars there. Manson was not just dropping by

(13:51):
for a quick checkup. He was actively recruiting followers from
the clinic's patient pool. Vulnerable young po many of them
mentally fragile from drug use, were like easy pickings for
someone with manipulative charisma. Despite all of his parole violations,

(14:13):
despite the fact that he was basically building.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
A cult, no one stopped him.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
According to O'Neill, there are zero records of Charles Manson
ever receiving official medical care at that clinic, So why
was he there so often? It's like he wasn't just
hanging around, he was allowed to be there. Was the

(14:41):
clinic just affront for something else. When you look at
Manson's manipulation tactics, they start to line up a little
too perfectly with the kind of mind control techniques being
studied by the government, for example, breaking down individual identity.

(15:02):
Charles Manson separated his followers from their families, He renamed
them and stripped them of their old identities. Rug induced
suggestibility He used LSD and amphetamines to lower his followers
inhibitions and make them more suggestible. Sleep deprivation he would

(15:27):
keep his followers awake for days at a time, another
classic method of controlling the mind. Reward and punishment. He
alternated between love bombing and cruelty, which created psychological dependency.
All of these methods match mk ultra techniques, methods that

(15:51):
the CIA had been perfecting for decades. Did Manson learn
these tactics on his own or was he taught Tim
O'Neill's research points to a disturbing possibility that Manson may
have been more than just a parole ee. As I said,

(16:14):
he was being monitored by a parole officer who was
connected to behavioral studies. Manson spent tons of time at
a clinic involved in drug and psychological research. Manson somehow
avoided arrest time and time again, even when he should
have been sent back to prison. It's almost like someone

(16:38):
was watching and waiting to see what would happen next.
The CIA had a track record of this kind of
thing under mk ultra they secretly dosed unsuspecting people with
LSD to study how they reacted. They wanted to see
if drugs could reprogram them or even turn ordinary people

(17:04):
into uncontrollable killers. Tom O'Neill even found evidence that Manson
might have been protected to keep these experiments running. And
if that's true, it changes everything we thought we knew
about the Manson murders. If Manson wasn't just a random

(17:26):
cult leader, if he was part of a larger experiment,
then the entire official story falls apart. That raises some
pretty big questions. Did the government know what Manson was
doing and let it happen anyway? Where the Tate LaBianca

(17:47):
murders a side effect of a failed behavioral experiment? And
how much of this is still being hidden because, as
Tom O'Neill's research proves, someone went to great lengths to
keep this buried. Okay, so far, we've talked about Manson's

(18:08):
suspicious parole and how he spent way too much time
around a research clinic connected to government funded experiments. But
what if all of that was part of something bigger,
something darker, Because there's serious evidence that Charles Manson was
tangled up in mk Ultra, and when you start connecting

(18:31):
those dots again, it's almost impossible not to ask. Was
Charles Manson upon and a government experiment gone horribly wrong?
So we have to understand mk Ultra to see how
it might connect to Manson. In the early nineteen fifties,

(18:53):
during the height of the Cold War, the CIA became
obsessed with controlling human behavior. They weren't just worried about
bombs and spies. They were terrified that enemy countries had
developed ways to brainwash people, and if the Soviets or
the Chinese could do it, the CIA wanted to do

(19:17):
it better. So they launched mk Ultra, a secret program
aimed at figuring out how to control, reprogram and even
erase human minds. I know it sounds like science fiction,
but it was very real, and it went on for

(19:37):
twenty years that.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
We know of.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Through mk Ultra, the CIA ran hundreds of experiments, many
of them illegal, on unsuspecting civilians. Here are some of
the things they tested, LSD and other hallucinogens to see
if they could weaken the mind. Sleeped privation to break

(20:01):
people mentally, sensory isolation to push subjects into psychosis, hypnosis
to plant false memories or erase real ones. When the
program was first exposed in the nineteen seventies, the CIA
destroyed most of the evidence. What we know today comes

(20:25):
from fragments of those surviving documents, and a huge chunk
of those experiments were conducted in California the same time
and the same place where Manson was building his family. Now,
let's talk about a guy named doctor Lewis Jolly jolly

(20:46):
On West, and if you've never heard of him, well,
doctor Jolly West was one of the top psychiatrists involved
in MK ultra experiments, and his entire career was built
built around studying how to break and control.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
The human mind.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
This man was not just playing around with theories. He
was performing real life experiments on people. Once he even
killed an elephant with a massive dose of LSD just
to see what would happen. That's the kind of person
we're talking about. Doctor Jolly West spent a whole lot

(21:28):
of time in the late nineteen sixties at the highte
Ashbury Free Medical Clinic. Doctor Jolly West had a research
project there called the Violence Center, which focused on understanding
and controlling violent behavior. And wouldn't you know it, this
project had deep ties to the same government agencies funding

(21:53):
mk Ultra. Tom O'Neill did find evidence that doctor Jolly
West may have had direct contact with Manson and or
the people around him. In fact, doctor Jolly's research in
San Francisco revolved around predicting and influencing violent outbursts, right

(22:16):
when Manson's family was becoming more violent. Manson became famous
for controlling his follower's minds and convincing them to commit
horrific murders. Of been talking about connecting the dots, so
let's connect some right now. Manson's parole freedom despite being

(22:41):
a repeat offender, he was allowed to roam free the
Free Medical Clinic, a place tied to government drug studies
where Manson often hung out. Mk Ultr's focus mind control
through drugs, hypnosis and so psychological breakdown, all techniques Manson

(23:04):
used on his followers the presence of doctor Jolly West,
a known mk ULTRA psychiatrist who was working right there.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
At the same time.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Does that sound like it's all coincidence or was Manson
being watched, studied, or maybe even manipulated as part of
a secret government program. As we touched on in the
early stages of his cult. Manson used those techniques that

(23:38):
mirrored mk ultra experiments like LSD dosing. Manson controlled when
and how much LSD his followers took. Just like mk
Ultra's experiments sleep deprivation, he kept his followers awake for days,

(23:59):
which is a classic mind breaking technique repetition and brainwashing.
Manson would repeat his teachings endlessly until his followers believed
they were true. So why would the government even care
about some ex con cult leader. Well, during the nineteen sixties,

(24:23):
hippies and anti establishment movements were seen as a national
security threat. The government's goal control the chaos. What better
way to discredit the entire hippie movement than by associating
it with insane, drug crazed murderers.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Manson and his family fit that bill perfectly.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
If the public believed hippies weren't just harmless flower children,
but dangerous lunatics, that would destroy the counter culture from
the inside out. And guess what, it worked. After the
Manson murders, the peace and love image of the nineteen

(25:10):
sixties was gone, replaced by fear and paranoia. O'Neill's investigation
raises a disturbing possibility that Manson's violence was allowed to
happen or even influenced because it served a political agenda.
Manson's freedom was unexplainable by legal standards. The missing parole

(25:35):
files were evidenced that disappeared when researchers got too close
the media's narrative, it was carefully shaped to paint the
hippie movement as dangerous. If even some of this is true,
the Manson murders were not just a freak crime. It

(25:57):
would mean they were part of a much bigger picture,
one that is still being covered up today. Now, let's
talk about a man named Reeve Witson, a figure who
raises the biggest questions of all. If Tom O'Neill's findings

(26:17):
are correct, Reeve Whitson might be the missing link connecting
the Manson murders to government intelligence agencies. Here's the craziest part.
Reeve Witson knew about the murders before anyone else. So
who exactly is or was Reeve Whitson. Well, here's the

(26:43):
thing nobody actually knows. When Tom O'Neill started digging into
the Manson case, Reeve Witson's name was not part of
the official narrative. You won't find him in Helter Skelter,
Vincent Bugliosi's famous book about the trial. In fact, for decades,

(27:06):
Reeve Whitson was basically invisible, but behind the scenes he
was everywhere. Reeve Whitson wasn't just some random person. He
had deep ties to the US intelligence agencies. Several sources
told Tom O'Neill that Reeve Whitson worked as a covert

(27:29):
operative specializing in psychological operations, or psyops for short. Psyops
are tactics used by intelligence agencies to manipulate public opinion
and control narratives. That fits perfectly with what happened after
the Manson murders. According to Tom O'Neill's research, Reeve Whitson

(27:54):
somehow had inside information about the Tape murders even before
the police discovered the crime scene. One of Tom O'Neill's
most jaw dropping interviews was with Bill Boyd, a private
investigator who worked with Sharon Tate's family. Bill Boyd claimed

(28:16):
that hours before the bodies were found, Reeve Whitson told
him that quote, something bad had happened at the Tate
residence before the media, before the cops. This Reeve Whitson
character already knew. How did he know and why didn't

(28:37):
he do anything to stop it. Multiple sources confirmed that
Reeve Whitson had intelligence training and it wasn't just a
casual side gig. People described him as a person who
could disappear for months at a time, only to resurface

(28:57):
with vague, unsettling store worries about his work. Tim O'Neill
found evidence suggesting that Whitson's activities aligned with the CIA's
broader mission in the nineteen sixties, which was to neutralize
the counterculture movement. Was Reeve Whitsen monitoring Manson and his

(29:19):
family for the government, and if he was, why didn't
anyone stop them before the murders happened. Tim O'Neill also
found multiple witnesses who said that Reeve Whitson wasn't just
an outside observer, he was actively involved behind the scenes.

(29:39):
During the Manson trial, one witness, an attorney named Paul Fitzgerald,
claimed that Reeve Whitsen was pressuring people to stick to
the official narrative of Helter Skelter. If you remember, Helter
Skelter was the prosecution's theory that Manson wanted to start.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
A race war.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
But a lot of people, including some close to the case,
always thought that story was too simple. And guess who
made sure that no other theories were explored in court.
Reeve Whitson, he allegedly warned people not to ask too

(30:24):
many questions, especially about Manson's connection to law enforcement and
intelligence agencies. Tom O'Neill kept running into the same wall.
No one could explain why Whitson had such a huge
role in the Manson investigation. He wasn't a cop, he

(30:46):
wasn't a lawyer, he didn't even officially work for the government,
and yet there he was controlling the narrative, working behind
the scenes, and intimidating anyone who got too close to
other explanations. When Tom O'Neill tried to track down official

(31:07):
records about Reeve Whitson's role in the Manson investigation, they
were gone. He documents from the LAPD, the Sheriff's office,
and even the Justice Department had been quote misplaced or
outright destroyed. It seems kind of convenient. The more Tom pushed,

(31:33):
the more people clammed up. Even those who confirmed Reeve
Whitson's intelligence background refused to go on record. It's almost
like someone wanted to make sure that his involvement stayed buried.
What was Reeve Whitson really doing well? Tom's research suggests

(31:56):
two possibilities. One, Reeve Whitson was monitoring Manson as part
of a government experiment, possibly linked to MK ultra and
behavioral control programs. Two, Reeve Whitson helped craft the official story,
ensuring that the Manson murders were framed in a way

(32:20):
that discredited the entire counterculture movement. Either way, it means
that someone in power wanted to take hold of how
the public understood these crimes, controlling the narrative, and they succeeded.
So why does any of this matter now? Because if

(32:43):
the Manson murders weren't just random chaos, if they were
part of a covert government operation, it changes everything we
think we know about the nineteen sixties.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
It would mean that the official story was a cover up.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
It would mean intelligence agencies were directly involved in shaping
public stories. It would mean we still don't know the
full truth because so much of the evidence is gone.
And if they covered up this, what else don't we know?

(33:21):
By now, you've seen how the Manson murders are way
more complicated than the simple craze tippy cult narrative that
we've been fed. But here's the thing, we only know
that version of the story because someone wanted us to
the media was not just reporting the facts. They were

(33:43):
basically creating and shaping the story to fit a specific narrative.
And if you follow the trail, it looks a whole
lot like a coordinated cover up.

Speaker 3 (33:56):
So how did the media.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Turn a messy, confus using case into a clean cut
story about a race war, brainwashed hippies and a cult
leader from hell? And more importantly, why From day one
the media was obsessed with the Manson case And honestly,

(34:19):
can you blame them? A sadistic cult leader, celebrity victims,
Hollywood mansions, and apocalyptic visions. It was made for headlines.
Almost immediately, the media latched on to the same explanation
Helter Skelter. We've all heard that Manson believed a race

(34:41):
war was coming, inspired by the Beatles song Helter Skelter.
We've heard that he thought the murders would ignite this
war and leave him and his family in power when
the dust settled. It's a wild theory that most of
us have believed for decades, and it might not even

(35:03):
be true. Tom O'Neill's investigation uncovered a ton of evidence
suggesting that Helter Skelter was just a smoke screen, a
story created by prosecutor Vincent Buliosi to wrap the case
in a neat little bow, and who helped sell that

(35:25):
story to the public the media. Here's what most people
don't know. Helter Skelter actually wasn't the original theory. When
the Tatelabianca murders first happened, the police had no clue
what connected the crimes. Four months, investigators were chasing everything

(35:48):
from drug deals gone wrong to organized crime hits. But
then Buliosi came in and suddenly the story changed. According
to to Tom O'Neill, Buliosi needed the Helter Skelter narrative
to simplify the case and secure convictions. A big, messy

(36:10):
conspiracy would be way too hard to prove, but a
simple quote race war motive that was easier for a
jury to follow. The media ate it up because it
was so sensational. Think about it. Most people do not
want to read a confusing legal mess about parole violations

(36:35):
and intelligence agencies. But a cult leader who was charismatic
and brainwashing kippies to kill in the name of the
Beatles that sells. While newspapers were plastered with headlines about
Manson's prophecies, what they were not talking about were all

(36:58):
the things we're talking about Tom O'Neill's discoveries. When O'Neill
started asking questions years later, he found that even the prosecutor,
Vincent Bugliosi's own notes contained evidence that contradicted his public claims.
But by then the story was already.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
Set in stone. Why would law.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Enforcement and intelligence agencies care so much about shaping the story. Well,
the nineteen sixties was a time of mass rebellion. The
government was freaking out about the growing counterculture.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
There were anti war.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
Protests, civil rights movements, radical leftist groups, and the Manson murders.
They were a perfect weapon to discredit that entire movement.
If you paint hippies as drug crazed killers, it comes
a lot easier to justify cracking down on them, and

(38:05):
that's exactly what happened. After the Manson trial, public opinion
turned hard against the hippie movement. Politicians used the fear
that was generated by the murders to push for harsher
laws and increase surveillance of political activists. Of course, it

(38:27):
wouldn't be the first time the government had manipulated the press.
We know for a fact that during the nineteen sixties
and seventies the CIA was running something called Operation Mockingbird.
This was a program where the agency planted stories and
major newspapers, and they controlled the public narratives. Journalists from

(38:53):
outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and
Time magazine were either paid by the CIA or acted
as informants. So if the government wanted to shape the
Manson story, they definitely had the tools to do it.
Among the evidence Tom O'Neill found were sealed LAPD records

(39:17):
that have never been released to the public, missing transcripts
from key witnesses that vanished during the trial, government documents
related to Manson's parole that no one can find, and
when O'Neill tried to push further, he was shut down
time and time again. If the government was willing to

(39:40):
manipulate the Manson story, what else have they done?

Speaker 3 (39:45):
What else are.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
They doing today? And if they could use media manipulation
to control the narrative in the nineteen sixties. What's stopping
them from doing it right now? A lot of people
have speculated the government has always controlled the media, but
it raises such huge questions. How much of what we

(40:10):
think we know about history has been engineered? What other
events have been twisted to fit a government friendly story?
And if the real truth about the Manson murders is
still hidden, what else are they hiding. Something to think
about is who benefited from the Manson murders? The US

(40:35):
government big time. By nineteen sixty nine, the counterculture was
out of control. You had anti war protests that were
shutting down cities, Black panthers and other groups openly challenging authority,
young people rejecting mainstream American values in huge numbers. The

(40:59):
government saw these movements as a threat, and then boom,
The Manson murders happened. Overnight. The media linked hippies with violence, drugs,
and chaos. The peace and love image of the nineteen
sixties was dead. After Manson, public opinions started to shift. Suddenly,

(41:25):
the hippie counterculture was not about freedom, It was about danger.
Politicians used this fear to expand police powers, target activist groups,
and shut down dissent and the best part, The public
did not even question it because the Manson case made

(41:48):
them scared. So I'll ask you these questions as we
wrap up. Was Manson a test subject in a psychological experiment?
The CIA use the murders to discredit political movements? Are
there other crimes that were part of similar programs and

(42:10):
we just don't know it yet? Tom O'Neill spent twenty
years on this investigation, and even he admits he probably
only scratched the surface. The deeper you go, the clearer
it gets. Something else was going on, and the people
in power wanted to make sure we never found out

(42:33):
the truth. What if the truth about Charles Manson has
been hidden for over fifty years. The story we've been
told about Charles Manson and the tate Lebanca murders doesn't
add up. There are too many unanswered questions to chalk
this up to a simple case of a crazy cult

(42:56):
gone rogue. What if Manson's violence wasn't just random chaos.
What if it was engineered, or at the very least
allowed to happen because it served a political agenda. The
US government wanted to destroy the anti establishment movement and

(43:17):
the Manson family gave them the perfect excuse. Do you
think Manson was just a crazy cult leader or part
of a bigger plan? Did the CIA and other agencies
use him to experiment on the public and how much
of the world we know today is the result of

(43:40):
hidden manipulation.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
The truth might be out.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
There somewhere, but only if you're willing to question everything.
Check out Tom O'Neill's book, Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA,
and the Secret History.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Of the Sixties.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
I might have been a little repetitive in this episode,
but it's a lot to piece together, a lot to remember,
to go back and forth and connect these dots. But
Tom O'Neill lays out everything in his book, from why
he started digging into the case and how it went
unfinished due to people completely shutting down. It really has

(44:27):
made me rethink the whole narrative we've known for so long.
For the last few years, I've tried to write and
rewrite about this book, and I.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
Hope I did it a little justice.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
But definitely go check out the book for yourself. There
will be a link to Tom's book in the show notes.
Thanks so much for listening, and tune in next week
for a new episode, Stay safe and take care.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Thank you for listening to this episode. As we close out,
let us not forget. Awareness is our greatest defense in
a world that can be dark and grim. Vigilance is
our beacon of hope when it comes to the cases
we have explored together that have remained unsolved. If you
happen to hold a piece of the puzzle, there to
step forward. As Arthur Lois McMaster bouge Hold once said,

(45:26):
the dead cannot cry out for justice. It is a
duty of the living to do so for them until
we reconvene, my friends, stay vigilant and stay informed.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}171. Did the CIA Help Create Charles Manson?