🎭 "Manson Unhinged: The Lost Prison Interview"

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the discovery of these crimes in southern California, a
media circus followed. Banner headlines normally reserved for the outbreak
of war trumpeted every gruesome detail America read that Manson
led the marauding killers, that he held drug and sex
orgies at his makeshift ranch, that he commanded others to
kill to prove their love and loyalty to him. At
the trial, Manson called himself a child of the system.

(00:23):
Some said he had Satanic powers. Now, twelve years later,
at the age of forty seven, Charles Manson remains in prison,
serving a life term at the California Medical Facility at Vaccaville.
I interviewed Manson last Saturday at the jail. You will
see most of that tonight. It has been edited only
for purposes of time and also because the language at
times was rough, very rough. Certain words have been taken out.

(00:48):
Some people might ask, why run the Charles Manson interview?
While television is supposed to make all of us look
at ourselves, and that responsibility goes beyond picturing all of
us as normal and rational people who are suddenly shocked
when the time bomb of insanity goes off in our midst.
To not run the Charles Manson interview now would be
to ignore his perversity and that of others, which now

(01:10):
and again disrupts our lives. To ignore it, to pass
the interview by would mean accepting wickedness and insanity in
place of dealing with its problems. The Charles Manson interview
will probably provoke dismay, possibly fear, even some anger.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
I hope it provokes some thought. It begins right after this.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Tell me about your life here in prison. Do you
read newspapers? Do you listen to the radio, Do you
watch television? Do you communicate with people in the outside?
What goes on for Charles Manson in this prison?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Well, I can feel the grass growing out down the lawn,
and there's a few trees. It got some leaves on
it that I can feel. And I've been in jail
all my life, so I'm actually right here at home. Uh.
How long have I been in jail? Thirty four years?
Thirty four years, so uh about of forty seven you've
been here thirty four I've been in jail, uh prison,

(02:18):
Uh a long time all my life. I was raised
up in here, so I understand jail. So I understand
myself and I can deal with that. I set my
cell and I do my number like a convict does
its number.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
You like jail, don't you?

Speaker 3 (02:33):
I I don't dislike or like.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Let's go back to nineteen sixty seven, the time you
were winding up serving a term of number of years
ten years, and written accounts indicate that you told the authorities,
don't let me out. I can't cope with the outside world.
Do you have a recollection of that?

Speaker 3 (02:55):
And now, UHY make it a desperate plea out of something. Man,
there's no desperate plea out of it. I say, I
can't handle the maniacs outside. Let me back in.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
I didn't use the word desperate. That's your word.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
True. Yeah, Well, your your inflection and your voice tones
were uh implications there.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, Uh, you use the word maniacs on the outside.
How are you different from the maniacs on the outside?
And why do you call them maniacs because you know something?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
They think you are one?

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, it would reflect if you hold the negative up
to the light, you don't see the light, you just
see the negative. So I'm a reflection of your negative.
There's no doubt about that. And I can handle that also,
I've been handling it now.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I don't know, have you.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Well, I've been up down these damn hallways in and
now these nut wards for the last ten years. You
think you could follow that act?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Don't wanna follow that act. I don't wanna get in it.
But why do you wanna get into that? Well?

Speaker 3 (03:49):
Well, crowd?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Why what your crowd?

Speaker 3 (03:51):
My land for?

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (03:52):
I'm playing for my life? You working for money?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
What does that mean? You're playing for your life?

Speaker 3 (03:58):
I'm working from a life, mister. I'm not playing for money.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
I don't mean work and keep souse. I mean you're
working for your life.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
I'm just laying for real.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
What does that mean? You're playing around?

Speaker 4 (04:07):
You?

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Horr?

Speaker 3 (04:07):
How are you that's something you're playing by?

Speaker 1 (04:10):
When you say you're playing for your life, I might
assume that you think that someday you're gonna get out
of here.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Get out of here?

Speaker 5 (04:19):
Mm get out of here?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Where would I go?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
See? What would you do if you got out of here?

Speaker 3 (04:25):
I got out of here?

Speaker 1 (04:25):
What if they said they said to you tomorrow morning, Charles, Hey, listen,
you're free and go wherever you wanna go, do whatever
you wanna do.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
What would you do.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
I'll probably go out front on the grass and sit down.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
For how long?

Speaker 3 (04:40):
For right now?

Speaker 4 (04:44):
How long?

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I wouldn't I could put a track record on it,
or I could uh put a computer on onda. Fact,
we don't know.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
Come on down, get off computer, Get off precks.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
If you got out of here, there are a lot
of people who think you'd go start killing.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
People again again where you guys? It was informed? I
hadn't killed anyone?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
What about uh? What about Shave? What about him?

Speaker 4 (05:05):
Well?

Speaker 2 (05:05):
What about him?

Speaker 3 (05:06):
He got killed?

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Well? The word is you killed him?

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Word?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Does you stabled him?

Speaker 3 (05:09):
What's the word?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
What does it feel like to kill?

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Word? DROs? Word is that you're an old woman? Word
is you have turkey in the sky? Where it is?
I don't know what word is? Somebody else tell you
that I didn't tell you.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Did you kill Shave?

Speaker 3 (05:21):
Hell? No?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Did you cut the human's zero?

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Hell? Yes?

Speaker 6 (05:25):
Why? Y?

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Why?

Speaker 2 (05:25):
How did that feel when you cut his zero?

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I felt bad?

Speaker 1 (05:29):
It was fun though, and the truth thumb not when
you seria? Okay, cut his zero?

Speaker 2 (05:32):
What is it?

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Trud?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
What do you feel like to cut his zero?

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Tell me about it?

Speaker 2 (05:36):
Come on?

Speaker 3 (05:37):
What did it feel like? Yeah? Well, I had done
what he said for about twenty years. I've done everything
he told me to do. And I got to thinking, now,
why don't this guy do something I tell him to do?
And he said no. I said, well, how comes I'm
always doing what you tell me to do, but then

(05:57):
you never do what I say do And he said, well,
blah blah blah. So I said, now you do what
I say and he said no. I said, you do
exactly what I say. And he said no, I'm telling you.
I'm not asking you. I'm telling you. You do exactly
what I say. And he said, wow, would you get that?

(06:21):
I said, got it from my father in prison? He
gave it to me. I had a little charm brace
that I used to carry it on when I was
about that big.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Skip that for a second. Why was it so.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Important for him to do what you say? Why do
you like having people do.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Big what you want 'em to do? Why do you
wanna control of God?

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Wait a minute, No, No, I was asking the dude
asked me. He says, you my brother. I said, yeah,
I'm your brother. He said how much are you my brother?
I said completely. See if I'm gonna explain it to you.
It's not gonna be that easy, so you gonna have
to bear with me. So Bobby said, he was a
young dude, and he said, I'm your brother. I said, okay, Bobby,

(06:59):
I'm your brother, Baslet Boslet, I just got out of prison.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Wait wait wait wait wait wait yeah, let me interrupt
you for see.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, well then we're gone with that.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
No no, no, no, because you're you're getting.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
On the move. Go to another one and then you
make me look crazy.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
No, no, no, you can make yourself look crazy, Charles.
I can't make you look crazy. And please believe me.
All right, I believe you, and I let me make
my left hand pocket.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Let me later, let me take you back to you
wanting this man henman, I cut you?

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Do you zero off? Because cause he was wor over Bobby.
And Bobby was a youngster and really didn't know what
the hell he was doing. He was a kid and
he never had no man show him nothing. See. So
I was telling him, boy, I said, uh uh, the guys.
He says, you got my money. I said, go ahead
and get the money or leave him alone.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
You're taking me to another story.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
I'm taking I'm trying to tell you the same thing,
and we'll be here for a thousand years and you
let me finish.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
No, no, no, we won't get here for that long
at all, if you'll just speak to this one point.
And that isn't why I cut the dow zerof man.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
That's the point.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
I didn't ask you that.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
I said, why was it important to you to make
Himan do what you wanted him to do? Because if
one follows yourself, well okay, and if one follows your
story through the times on the ranch down in southern California,
it was important for Charles Manson to be a leader
to have people follow it.

Speaker 3 (08:15):
I'm on district attorney, See you can full of brain wash.
That's a district attorney. Nobody's lead, and I'm nobody's follower.
I got a pro officer, I got a sleeping bag
and a guitar, and I'm standing an old blind man's ranch.
And that's about the extent of it.

Speaker 7 (08:31):
All.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
This all cult, all that hope is pope and stuff
that you guys are playing. I don't know nothing about all.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
You know nothing about something called helter Skelter. You know nothing.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
Yeah, I know about Helter Skelter. It was a song
that some people are saying, and that's always some other
kids picked it up in their minds and they said,
what do you think help the skelter is? I said, well,
I get out of the penitentiary in the fifties and
everybody's going dump dump dumb and they're walking like that.
I get locked back up. I get out in the
penitentiary in the sixty five and it's going dump don
dun dunk, and I get locked up again. I come

(09:00):
out in the sixty nine. It is going come dun
dun dun dun dun dun dumb dun sinking Wow man, wow,
wow wow, what come on? Well, I was a nick.
I was a beat nick in the fifties before the
hippies came along. You know. I cut a rut down
through Acapulco and I smoked Acapulco before you knew what
it was. And I lived in the tombs and I
was in the Cook County jail in Chicago when you

(09:22):
were playing cricket in UH high school. See like you
live in another world. I live in street people's world. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Manson had the UH a little scheme called creaky Crawlers.
He'd send people in the move furniture around. Is that
all a fakement of somebody's imagination so far? Or is
that or is there any truth to that? Tell me, Charles,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
It's very It's worse than a fay.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
It's a fairy tale.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
It's a it's a comedy. It's a comedy, tragedy, opera
that was played in the early morning sixth name off
the station. You know, Well, that's what the DA gave
you for reality.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
He stood in the courtroom and said this man did this,
and this man did that, and you all believed him.
He said this man did that. And I said, Johnna, man,
I speak, and he said, no, you can't speak. That's notara.
I got a voice. Let me talk. He's gonna sit
down and shut up. Then the handcuff me take me
back with my What are you gonna do? I come out,
sit down there. I ain't gonna get whipped again.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Didn't you stand up in that court room? And by
the way, by the by the way, let.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
Me just the repercussions in the back of the Okay,
you say the whole thing's a fairy tale. You say
the whole thing is make believe.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, that's his helter skelter.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
The body of sharing is make believe.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
That's make that's make believe. You believe, that's make believe
to the people that went in there and did what
they did.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
And who were those people?

Speaker 3 (10:51):
You know who?

Speaker 2 (10:52):
But you know who they were?

Speaker 3 (10:53):
Sure know who they were with you with the spawn wrench.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
They were part of this thing called if not the
Menson family or the man some coffee, the Manson ramch
call it was so then what and.

Speaker 1 (11:04):
Text Watson testified in the court.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Of law that you told him go to the house that.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Uh Terry Melcher used to live in and kill those
people in a most gruesome way, a man that was once.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Your associates said that of you. And now you sit
here and say that's not true. That's all Mapley, get
a stone wall there. Once you take it down a
little bites, look here, UH explain something to you.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Text took the witness stand and missus record and he said,
I don't know whether I'm Charlie Manson or my mother.
Text didn't have his own mind one way or the other.
He was balanced back and forward because I had already
took his mind in another game down the road that
I was playing with some Hell's angels that you don't

(11:49):
know nothing about it, and you probably never will know
nothing about it, because you would have to know those
people to get in that thought. See. But there's different
colors on different people's acts, doing different things. It's a
different world. I love the world I live in, too,
just like Reading loves the world he lives in. You
love the world you live in, monster, Surely it's me.

(12:10):
You love all the pain that you've caused people all all. Oh,
I don't know pain. I don't know pain. I have
no depth of pain. I have no depth of suffering.
I don't know ridicule. I don't know all the bad things.
I haven't been punished by you all my life, since
I was ten years old. I've been at every reform
school you got across the country, and you used to
lay down and have to get my ass with till

(12:32):
I couldn't walk. Tell me about some pain, man.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
That's all fault.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
That's all wrong. People know a fault, and they strong
good pain. Understand pain not bad. Pain's not bad. It's good.
It teaches you things. It teaches you things like when
you put your hand in fire owl, you know not
to do that. Again. Yeah, yeah, I understand that, But
how come you do? That's the reason I never stick

(12:55):
my hand in fire.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
But excuse me. You've got quip and put your hand
in the fire and you were a little boy I
haf by.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
You just told me a couple of minutes ago that
out of forty seven years, you spent thirty four of
them behind bars.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
Now that doesn't keep putting your hand in the fire.
I don't know what is What year was in the
year is not important to me. What's important is you.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
Just say that you learn by pain not to experience.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
Again, don't put your hand back in the fire.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Why you've been in out of prisons for the last
for thirty four of your forty seven years. All that
normal behavior, Charles, is that something that.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
You're never out of?

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Me?

Speaker 3 (13:27):
No, never where. I never thought I was normal, never
tried to be normal. Normal runs in a little ret
down there.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
I don't know nothing.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
About being normal. I've been in jail all my life. Man,
I've lived on a handball court. This guy raised me up.
All the men in the joint raised me up, told
me what to do, what was right and wrong, told me.
When you say I'm standing up, I just did everything
were told. You know. I got to the end of it.
I just turned around and said, wow, all right, you know,
and then I went outside and all these little kids
got a hold of me and said, we've got to
stop to get now morning. We wanted to do this. Whoa,

(13:54):
I don't know what's happening. I've been in jail all
my life, man, everyone went to vocation. You ever seen
me in vocational training? M real abilitation? They never played
no real abilitation. I sweep before in the kitchen. Go
out and play handball. I'm still ten years old in
your world you were, I'm still a kid, and I'm
not gonna grow up. I'm not gonna go to college.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
How old are you in your world?

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Uh? Forever since breakfast? I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
I don't know what that means to come out off
the space Shuttle trails?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Right, yeah, it's off the space shovel.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
How old are you in your world?

Speaker 3 (14:22):
How old am I? I'm as old as my mother
told me. How that your mother tell me about your mother?
What's your mother tell you? My mother told me when
she worked on death roll and they took that dude
in to hang him, and his head popped off and
went down in thirteen stairs and rolled over by her
schedule for her you know, so I said, wow, that's
sure as a five trip mom. So then when I

(14:43):
got up on death row and sell thirteen from nine
counts of Murder nineteen sixty nine, and I looked at
at her fears that guy's head popping off, that hangman's noose,
and I said to myself, Uh, and I'm Tennis, what
the hell am I doing here? I didn't wanna I'm here.
I didn't break the law judging him that, but the

(15:05):
people didn't wanna hear it. They're judging in it. He
washed his hands, he said, I know it, But what
can I do? People want their judge of such. Yeah, trudures,
that's what older said.

Speaker 5 (15:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Trust wouldn't say that he got out and stick in
their hands, didn't he? Trudge would not say that he
washed his hands. He's a trying tagger man for Madame
Changkin Shack. I just wrote, Judge, judge, justge didn't say
that you were innocent, Charles, innocent. Let's go back to
your mother innocent one other minute. Wait a minute, wait,
let's get back to that word innocent. You so white
and pure trust. Didn't say you were innosome? Are you innocent?

(15:35):
Innocent of what? No, that's what I'm saying. None of
us are innocence. Yeah, just because you're convicted in the
courtroom doesn't mean you're guilty of something. What does mean
you're guilty when you know you're guilty?

Speaker 2 (15:43):
And how do you feel about yourself?

Speaker 4 (15:45):
Tell me about feel I feel pretty good.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Why did it take you back to your mom? Take
me back to or what else could she talk to
you about?

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Besides the fella whose head popped off?

Speaker 3 (16:10):
The head popped off? Yeah, she was living in the
Blue Moon Cafe and she hit a dude in the
head with it with one of them bottles of uh
uh Jim Dean whiskey. She tried to hustle a few
dollars on the corner, but there wasn't no money. So
when she jammed this whiskey bottle upside and they clowns
here and he went down. She took the bread, come
up and got me and we left went to Indiana.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
When you were a boy, did you love your mother? Uh?

Speaker 3 (16:36):
I didn't know what there was. Did you respect your mother?
How did you arnove about you? How do you feel
about your mom right now? If your mother, Uh, I
don't know if she's alive Charles or not? Yeah? You knowing?
Uh do mm let's see alive now? Yeah? Yeah me?
I mean if she could be watching this right now,

(16:56):
you watching, What would you say to Charles?

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Uh way, what I would you say about it?

Speaker 3 (17:01):
I'd say, you sure went through a whole lot of
changes to get me as far as you did, and
you did a damn good job with the help of
my grandma. My grandma was a mountain girl from Kentucky,
up in the mountains, and uh, she never did drink
or smoke or cruss or lie. She used to clip
me salvation, I mean, and she was a human being

(17:24):
good one. I go to church down there and sweep
the floor for her.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
Well, Ho, how were you in school? I hear that
you weren't too good, but maybe I heard her.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Uh, it depends on which school. I did very well
in reform school. Yeah, I did good in uh in
uh every place that uh I was ever told to
do good in as much as I was allowed to do.
You know, a lot of times good for some might
not be the same for others, And sometimes it kind
of bumps heads. But when it does, then I just

(17:56):
chew on a pipe and think about it and do
the best of can. But you dealt the hand down
there in La You in that press, you in at
the La Times.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
You dealt the.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Hand you put me on Life magazine had me convicted
before I walked in the courtroom. You had what people
wanted to buy when they wanted to buy it. They
didn't give a damn. They had to convict the district attorney.
They had to convicted the whole building to get that
dollar bill going. Now they had big bucks going there,
and you made twenty seven million, hundred billion. I'm bumming
ten fifteen dollars for my friend.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Here like this before, but I'm gonna make it. I'm
try it one more time.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
No cars now you.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Can see them. Mark, you got a pistol on you? No, sir,
They wouldn't let me in here if I had a pistol.
You know that as well as I do. So why
even ask the question? Okay?

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Well, I just thought you might not like what I'd done.
You want to do something about it.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
I don't much care for what you've done. Yeah, lot
of people don't. How do you feel about that? Oh? Well,
I think you're a monster, Charles Height.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, they think you're a monster because you reflect this
news media on me. Cult leader. I never had a
long hair before I got busted. I never had a
beard before I got busted. I went to shave, and
the guys, no, you can't shave, and I said I
need to raise and shaved. No you can't shaves. Let
me get a haircut. He's now, we don't want you
to change your appearance. So when you put put the
camera first one, you got long hair and a beard,

(19:24):
the first time my life ever had long hair and
a beard.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
You wanna you wanna shave him?

Speaker 3 (19:27):
You had a haircut.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
I'll shut 'em off, or you will get a shaven haircut?

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Am I telling him right? I'm not of this generation.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
I wanna shave a haircut right now. I'll shut him
down right now, you wanna shave a haircut.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
I was trying to explain to you, man that a
lot they pushed off on me is not me. They
said I had a great family, and I was the
following and leaders and all that. It isn't followers of leaders.
A bunch of kids out the ranch playing to me,
playing at what playing it living.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
The accounts say that you that you gave him dope.
I'm just saying what the accounts say. I'm not saying
I know it to be so, So here's your chance
to to say it was true. Yeah, that there was
a lot of hanky panky. Yeah, turned the girls on
with dope and sects out there.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
That's the sense what I said.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
Alright, that's what they said. Hm, well are they wrong?

Speaker 3 (20:09):
Oh well? I went down to hate Ashbury and little
kid ten years old come up said, do you wanna
ask a pull? I said, what's that? He said, this
is good, make colors go. I said, no, I heard
about them things and I don't want none of that.
And then and then another little kid was rolling a
joint and they were sitting there smoking a joint and
asked me if I wanted one?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
What sect?

Speaker 3 (20:32):
I said, I used to smoke this stuff in the sixties,
but it never earned the fifties. But it really really
wasn't that. You know, it was funny, but it's not.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
How much, suh? How much dope did you use in you?
What time were you a heavy user at dope?

Speaker 2 (20:42):
No?

Speaker 3 (20:43):
I smoked a little grass and I've taken some acid mescalin, uh, psilocybin,
pouty mushroom, but actually take uh dope. No nothing. I
wouldn't take anything with it. I feel would hurt me.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
M field up those things that you just mentioned hurts
you at all? Charge uh physically, uh, spiritually, mentally? And
then on what level, on the level of society, the
way you view the norm?

Speaker 4 (21:09):
No no, no, no no, and stop the hogwash.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Do you feel that the drugs that you did use
in your earlier lifetime confused you, altered your mind? Uh,
juggled it, scrambled it made you see things differently?

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Uh? Stay on that level if you can.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
And maybe I find uh a spirit of uh cave
man think through brain.

Speaker 2 (21:34):
Let me try it again. Do you think the drugs you.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Use hurts you? Drugs hurt me? No, I don't think
the drugs had hurt me. If I've overdone it, I
think it would.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
You don't wanna be anybody's leader to you? No, never
did wanna be any no leader.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
Don't like attention? Then why do you most insecure people
need attention?

Speaker 1 (21:54):
I don't Well, I was just gonna say, then, if
you don't want attention, why do you keep why all
your life?

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Have you kept waving your I'm saying, hey, look at me.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
That's what I've been doing all the while.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
I would have to say.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
That a young man, see if I got that documentary
who by the time he's twenty years old, Uh, has
been in and out of jails and reform.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Schools for a variety of offenses that include white beating
all the.

Speaker 3 (22:17):
White I mean, now that's never lived by old lady.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Didn't you.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
No, I punched my mother I once.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
Oh you did. Alright, well we'll call it mother beating.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Uh, forging the chief.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Wrong, she lied to me and beat me for my
money and uh and she didn't do right, forging dealing
in for forging checks, uh.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Car theft.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
I mean, these are ways of waving your arms and saying,
look at me, give me some attention. Yeah, you say
you don't want any attention now, Charles, that's contradiction. Yeah,
that doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
Well, over a period of about twenty years, I imagine
you'd wanna change something. I'm not very wise too many things,
but I am wise to one thing. You know.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
What's that?

Speaker 4 (23:00):
H I M.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I don't care you.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah, okay, you punched your mother, did you hate your mother.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
No, I love you. That's a good girl.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
M What about your wife? You you were married once,
wasn't you.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah, how'd that go? Why'd you wanna get married? That's
kind of conventional, that's kind of normal. That's kind of
in the rut.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
I got married, get married one to getting in that's
what I got. Uh married?

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Married for sex? Was the reason you got married?

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, that's what. I didn't know what was happening, and
I knew there was something happening, even no one would
tell me. So I had to find out. You know,
I didn't have books like you guys, playboys and stuff
and MD I had to find out for myself.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
Why do you think us guys are all playboys?

Speaker 3 (23:31):
They would can? Oh? Man, I didn't say you would
play boy. That's talking about Playboy magazine type thought can Okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
You had a son by that marriage, didn't you.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Uh Yeah, I got a kid somewhere.

Speaker 2 (23:44):
Do you think about 'em?

Speaker 3 (23:45):
Uh? Not as about as much as my father did me.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
So two wrongs make a right control.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
No, I didn't say there's anything wrong with the way,
but my dad's been taking care of me. Less me live.
I'm alive.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
H I remember were you saying or being quoted in
the corn room in Los Angeles as saying, the children
who came at you with knives.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
Are your children?

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, I ain't raising you raised me.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
You are the ones who kicked them out.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
You are responsible for what they've done.

Speaker 3 (24:19):
That's right, just as much.

Speaker 5 (24:21):
As I am.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
So you, in my mind, were criticizing society for kicking
their children out.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
And here I've just seen you sit here and say, yeah,
I got a kid, yeah somewhere. Now, how can you
criticize other people for kicking their kids out?

Speaker 3 (24:38):
And you did the sifference? The difference difference, many levels difference.
See my older that left me and run off with
a truck driver. She said, let's steal a car and
go to California. And I said, man, I ain't gonna
steal on a car and go to California and go
back to jail. She says, we won't get caught. We
didn't get caught. Just I got caught. She didn't get caught.

(24:58):
So then she had a kid, and then so the
truck driver came along. And I was a green kid,
and I didn't know what I was doing, you know,
So she said you know, I got arrived and you know,
I'll see you later. She took off and got married
to somebody else. You know, she's a good girl.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
And besides the son that you had in your marriage,
you've got what four other children somewhere. Uh.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
I don't uh uh think I've been uh uh uh
responsible for as much as you people wanna lay on me.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Well, how many children do you have? Child?

Speaker 3 (25:25):
How many children do I have? Uh? I don't know.
Uh I have lots of children, man. Uh In fact,
uh sometimes I even think you're a child.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
But you just said you don't have any children.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
You don't have any family in the context of the ranch,
I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Children that are your natural children.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Children that are my natural ego.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
No children, no children.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
I would divide one child from the other and all.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Right, somewhere out there, somewhere, there's at least one son
that we know of. That's your child, who's probably about
twenty five or twenty six years old. Was the ride, Yeah,
what can that? But what do you say to that kid?
What do you say to your son? Out there's watching
this old man on television, maybe the first time he's
ever seen his old man with his face all carved
up in his eyes glory. You talk to that kid,
what are you gonna say to him?

Speaker 3 (26:12):
You gotta catch it on your own. Boy. Trains hard,
roads rough, and that's it. So I knew the only
way anyone ever told me. All Right, and you wanna
hear something, Yeah, he'll do it better than me.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Do what.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
Whatever he does, he'll do a little better. Kids do,
don't They sometimes parent? That's what makes him such a guess.
They always seem to get through.

Speaker 1 (26:46):
There was a story about a celebrity. His as you ever,
a kid was absolutely.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
Still am in many ways. He was not not not
your way.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Oh my way, And I don't know what my way is.
They'll make you telling me. I got all these things
I read the other day where I had magical powers,
and I told everybody in the chapel, I said, zap lap, zapsap,
I said, where's my magical power? Should I? Well, you
can't read. You can't believe what you read in the press.
I can't get no magical powers, mystical trips and all
that kind of crap. Yeah, it's kind of silly. Yeah,

(27:19):
got witches and devils and no one. Guy come up, said,
I I heard you said you were Jesus. I said,
uh no, Man, I ain't said nothing. He said, I'm glad.
He said, I'm damn glad. I said why. He said,
I know you mean here? I said, how do you know?
He said, cause I am. I said, okay, but I mean,

(27:40):
you know, I've been in the nut work for ten years,
so you can't expect me to uh to rationally take
this thing serious.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Don't you think you belong in the nut ward?

Speaker 3 (27:50):
Well, it's all right, I could do, but don't you
belong every where? Way belong, where I belong, where I'm
allowed to go. Man like, uh, you know I'm by belonged.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
What do you let me? Let me nail down one other,
real simple one. Not listen to how simple this is? Charles.
There was a story in the media back when the
trial was going on that Charles Manson had a celebrity
hit list. I don't know who was on it.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
Maybe there never was such a list, But was there
a list of people? Famous people that you thought about harassing, bothering.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
If I wanted to harass them, I just wouldn't watch
their TV show.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Talk to me about your life in prison in terms
of your being in isolation. You are not on what
is called the main line. You're not with the prison
population here.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
How do you feel about that?

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Ah? Do I feel about it? I don't feel about it.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Would you rather not be an isolation? Oh?

Speaker 3 (28:57):
I've been trying to get on the main line. I've
been trying to get to the prison in for the
last thirteen years. Why why hm walk around? Play some handball,
play a little guitar?

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Do my number, do my time like any convict does,
like I've always done, like my mind has been.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Set to do.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Like my Uh. Past LIFs have been in jail, during
time in jail. In fact, when I got out, I
just got outside and sat down. I wasn't going nowhere.
I gave up.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
See, if you were on the main line, wouldn't you
be exposed to some dangers?

Speaker 3 (29:35):
Come on? Man, if we thinking exposure danger than that
danger you're thinking's coming around you?

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Well, what would happen to James Arlway? You heard about that? Now?

Speaker 3 (29:43):
James Arrolray's got his problems. I got mine.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
But you heard what happened to him?

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Have you heard?

Speaker 2 (29:47):
He got stuck?

Speaker 3 (29:48):
And twenty two people died in India too, got stuck?
And some other people died in Hawaii, you wouldn't be
staring all over or you wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Be frightened or afraid. Then of the uh of the
uh prison population.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
Try to make a hit on you, man, I s
been staying alive in prison this long without no help.
What is s ward to net Ward?

Speaker 2 (30:12):
What goes on in there? Uh?

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Whatever goes on in there? You'd have to ask the
people responsible for that.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Well, do they do things to you in there?

Speaker 3 (30:25):
Do they do things to be?

Speaker 4 (30:28):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (30:28):
That depends.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
They give you medication here, Yeah, they give you medication. Here,
you have medication.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
No, no, no, It took me about a few years
to get off of medication. The medication has toned me
down quite a bit whole lot. That's the reason I
like the desert. When I get out in the desert

(31:02):
to then I can let it out and say, if
I see you within fifty miles, they will know something.
And I used to love that desert out in the
woods and things I didn't know you could get out
in the woods thirty years.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
How do you feel about spending the rest of your
life in prison?

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Well, we're all our own prisons, we each our own wardens,
and we do our own times. We used to get
stuck in our own little trips, and we'd kind of
judge ourselves the way we do.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Uh, I can't judge uh nobody else. The best thing
I could do is try to judge myself and live
with that. See, what other people do is not really
my affair unless they approach me with it and want
me to do something about it. Uh, then I'll uh
take into consideration of what has to be done. But

(31:54):
other than that, I just uh try to do my
number and do my time, get out on the main
line place and tennis, walk around and make the child
a little better m you know. And then there's possibility
the preacher could teach me something because the preacher, the
reverend is h is quite a guy. And I'm finding
that got two or three doctors here has got a
lot of sense. I mean, as far as I'm concerned,

(32:16):
they got a lot of sense in my world, you know.
And I've tried to shake two or three of 'em,
but they they're pretty smart. And uh then they got
some uh pretty good inimates here trying to get out
work their lives into a decent sort of way, uh,
trying to promote harmony, put ourselves together, be right, do right,

(32:38):
and have the understanding of what it is in the
congenial form for a world peace. There's a lot of
people working for world peace. Let's assume that one day
you will parole. What's just on the rod. Well, let's
just make believe you ever think you will be? Yeah?
Do I ever think that will be?

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Well?

Speaker 3 (33:00):
I never been paroled before I went up to the board,
and they never would They said I was incorrigible, and uh,
not only was I incorrigible, but that I'd never grow up,
and I kind of agree with him, and I had
a war left you.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
I mean, let's just play make believe her for a second.
Let's make believe you. Uh, let's let's make believe your
getting out tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
Tomorrow, okay, and tomorrow creaks this petty paste.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, would you go after anybody, Charles, after anybody?

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Do you feel uh?

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Do you have do or l let me go to Charlo.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Do you feel do you do you do you.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Feel you have any scores to settle with anybody on
the outside?

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Hm? Anything?

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Now?

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Then I have any scores out there and would make
you believe right, and I'll tell you, but he well,

(34:00):
I don't rightly know. I'm stupid to the point to why,
I'm not really sure. And if you've asked the question again,
maybe the answer will come to you. What was it again?

Speaker 1 (34:17):
If you got out tomorrow, do you have any scores
to settle on the outside?

Speaker 3 (34:20):
Scores? You mean people that have done me wrong, or
you feel you have done you wrong? Oh, that feel
that I've done them wrong?

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Oh I feel that they've done you wrong. Oh you
feel have done you wrong?

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Oh? Well, most people do themselves wrong.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
But would you wanna go you would you wanna go?
Get anybody?

Speaker 4 (34:36):
Now?

Speaker 2 (34:36):
If you got out? No?

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Now, they pushed see what they do? See they take
all that bad and they push it off on each other.
I told the dude, you're doing this to yourself. Man,
you know I've been setting in in there, and it
was I'm in the cell right and he let me
out and I walk around. The guy says, if you
don't do this, we're gonna lock you back up. I said, okay,
I I don't care anyway. I done gave up that

(34:58):
thought presents in you mine, man, like you know, okay,
you set and sell and the guys that you in
prisoners no, I'm just here and see what are you doing?
So I'm just sitting here waiting for these uh people
to get done doing what they're doing so I could
get out.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Do you have a television set? Do you watch television?

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah? I I used to watch it a little bit,
but it kind of looks uh, I don't really like
it that much.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Okay, Well, what about newspapers? Do you get the newspaper? No?

Speaker 3 (35:19):
I don't bother with those. I know that they're they're
jiving there alright.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
What it was the radio? Listen to the radio?

Speaker 3 (35:24):
I listened to a Hearts and Space program. I like
that and the rest of it just like a bunch
of ever I don't remember. There's no uh what about
your music? At I get some classical music on the
ninety eighth station. That's saying something.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Okay, but what about your own music? I remember uh
reading that you at one time had a recording stint
at uh at a studio in Hollywood, and that you
liked guitar and you do lote music or sing music.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
You still do that? Yeah? Yeah, I do that. Yeah
I do that, but uh, the way I do it
ain't the same way you guys do it. And the
way I do it scares you guys. So I didn't
wanna scare you guys out of the neighborhood right away.
So I just took a can and start banging on it.

Speaker 5 (36:07):
You know.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
But we used to have some cosmic gatherings back in
the mountains that would probably shake h a Mormon tabernacle
or choirs ear drums.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
You said, uh, the kind of music you play scares people.
Why shouldn't people be scared by you.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
There's only one person you can be as scared of,
and that's yourself. Afraid of what losing your bank account,
afraid of your wife going uh away. Now you have
all those things. I'm not afraid of losing my watch
or someone taking my money or robbing me. I went
down to Mexico in the fifties and go down where

(36:49):
the Yakis was, and they said, man, you don't go
down where the Yakis are. I said, he said, they're terrible.
I said why. He said, well, they don't like people
like you. I says, well, they didn't say any nah.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
But I asked that question in the context that will
you believe it or not? There are a lot of
people on the outside that think about the possibility of
you coming out of here, and they're genuinely scared.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Oh boy, I might just just make dust everything terrible
one little guy, terrible booh boor how insecure are we?
It's human beings put all our fear on one little guy,
afraid to let him out, he might break all the toys.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Why do you say it the little guy?

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Because I'm not the guy you trying to make out
of meat. That's not me. That's some guy in somebody's
imagination that wanted to make a couple hundred million dollars
for himself. He got rich. He had a good game going.
He had a better game going than I did. But
he had a good mother to help him. She helped
him in a nice game. I was kind of over
on the sideline. See, I had to get around in
that game and.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Look over the tracks.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
M okay, now here we go on mother again for
a second. You said he had a nice mother to
help him. Does that mean you did not have a
nice mother to help you.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Oh well, I imagine I got a whole lot of
nice and others that would help me, and so I
would help them. You know, how much would you help yourself.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
When I asked you, Uh, why you got married? You
said for sex?

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Uh, that's when I was twenty years old.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah what kuh? Yeah, this is funny. What kind of
sex life is there for Charles in this prison?

Speaker 3 (38:22):
Well? I have been down and then I try to
hide it, not to embarrass other people. But I've been
doing it ever since I was ten. I get to
thinking here, I'm an old man sitting in and sell
and that's the damn thing. I everything you know. It
looks like, uh, I grew up, but I really don't
know how yet I'm learning. Did you teaching me how.

Speaker 2 (38:44):
To grow up?

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Do your?

Speaker 2 (38:46):
Miss? Women?

Speaker 3 (38:47):
Certainly? My goodness? Yeah? Damn right? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:52):
What do you think of him? Oh?

Speaker 3 (38:53):
I like 'em? Yeah. They're nice. They're put together well
and everything, and they're saw it's fongy. Yeah, they're nice
as long as they keep the mouse shut and do
what they're supposed to do. Why do you say that,
Cause that's what a woman's supposed to.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Do, is keep her mouth shut and do what she's
supposed to do.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
Sure, who taught you that?

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (39:11):
I wanna snitch it.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
On me New York for a couple of seconds. But
we shall continue the interview with Charles Manson at the
California prison facility in Vacaville in just a.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Couple of moments.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Here there is a man who's uh who's uh uh
considered by prison authorities to be Charles Manson's closest friend
in this world.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
His name is Newell Emmons, and.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
He has spent the last year researching and beginning to
write the autobiography of Charles Manson, which would be called
Manson by Manson. More than anyone else, Emmons knows when
Manson is telling the truth and when he's lying.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
He uh is back tonight uh with us here in
New York, and he's been watching the interview with us,
and I wanna get his views and what we've seen
so far before we continue with Charles Manson. So we'll
continue with mister Emmons from New York in a couple
of seconds, and then go back to Vacaville right after
this for the NBC television stations.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
Manson in the California prison shortly but uh here in
New York was a gentleman who, in the words of
some authorities, knows Charles Manson better than most people. His
name was Newell Emmons, who.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Went to see Manson about writing a book a year ago,
and they've spent over three hundred hours since. We hired
Newell Emmons as a consultant for tonight's program, and he's
here the scene to discuss the interview and UH help
us understand what's going on in the mind of Charles
Manson before that, mister Emmons, could you just briefly trace
your relationship with Charles Manson? Where did you meet him
and how did you develop a relationship with him?

Speaker 7 (40:33):
Well, I've had a similar childhood as Manson, only unlike him,
with nobody, I did have people. So I met Manson
in jail in the UH pedrol prison, I guess, uh
at Terminal Island in UH middle s fifty six or so,
and so anyway, not that we lined up together, but

(40:56):
I was few years older than he, but I did
know him and smaller than again, we were both repeats.
So then I ran into him again and McNeil Island
years later fifty nine, I guess, and I came home
in sixty three, and since him straighten out my life
and uh, after the family was raising whatever, I began

(41:17):
a writing career, mostly journalistic, step sports and newspaper items.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
How can we tell when Charles Manson is conning and
when he's on track? I was mystified by this man,
as you know, I s.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Well I.

Speaker 7 (41:32):
And prior to the interview, I think that he felt
that the questioning line was gonna be a little bit different.
And Uh, I have a rapport with Manson where we
talk almost as normal.

Speaker 5 (41:44):
As you and I are talking right now.

Speaker 7 (41:47):
And I think when Manson is really unsure of himself, uneasy,
he performs. And then also but as far as conning,
he does con he pulls.

Speaker 5 (41:59):
Your leg to extent.

Speaker 7 (42:00):
But uh, if you've noticed, he did not lie, he
evaded when he did not want to answer. So that's
a con or a joke in a way. He plays
games with people.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
Have you w he discussed this evasiveness that uh surfaces
in him from time to time. And is he more
level when you're talking privately without cameras on uh than
he was during this?

Speaker 5 (42:22):
Oh?

Speaker 7 (42:23):
Very definitely kind of Remember I we say a year,
you said a year, but uh, it began in August
of nineteen seventy nine when I first began and renewed
our acquaintance, and at first he denied me the book
wasn't his ideal at all.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
He Uh.

Speaker 7 (42:40):
I he he resents being a victim of as he's
told you in the interview in several places that uh,
he didn't do the things and it didn't come down
as said. I don't think in hasence, Manson denies that
he's guilty of things that he knows that he belongs
in jail, but the way it was convicted and is

(43:02):
came down, and in his mind he has been served
an injustice himself.

Speaker 5 (43:07):
But uh, we have a very rational relationship.

Speaker 7 (43:11):
I mean, there are days when I don't gather any material,
but I accept that and.

Speaker 5 (43:19):
Come back again another day.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Have you gotten him to the point where he has
uh admitted or discussed any complicity or planning in the
deaths of the people in southern California?

Speaker 2 (43:31):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Was he shy away from it as he did here
when we got onto this lobby angle?

Speaker 7 (43:34):
Well there again, I in this interview, he uh says
he referred to you as a prosecuting attorney.

Speaker 5 (43:41):
I mean in that in his thought.

Speaker 7 (43:43):
Well, uh, some of the questioning line was very similar
to a prosecuting attorney's line. So he rebelled against it immediately,
and uh we have our moments of rebellion. But yes,
but it's his version and it is contradictory to Helter Skelter.

Speaker 5 (44:01):
I mean not the deaths.

Speaker 7 (44:02):
I mean they're there for everybody to uh see and
to know that it happened. However, uh there are many
many circumstances that uh.

Speaker 5 (44:14):
Sort of destroys the.

Speaker 7 (44:17):
Motive and the image and everything that previous books have
put out about him. And if I might go on, well,
that's where my book is motivated. It isn't in defense
of Manson. Uh I say not in defense. I think
in the first portion of it, I do reach a
certain amount of sympathy just illustrating a childhood and how

(44:39):
he was unlike me. I had parents that cared, and
I had a trade and probably a better understanding. I
don't say that the people in jail raise me ah
like he does and the of the begn of that.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
But uh, I lost my thoughts. You'll have to come
back to him.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
No, no, you you you you were saying that the
b that your book cause not intended to be a
defense of Manson order r apologia for him, but that
you right understand him in terms of his upbringing without
a family, and you're sympathetic towards that. But then I
think probably your part company is uh is history developed?

Speaker 2 (45:11):
Right? Thank you?

Speaker 7 (45:12):
And anyway, well, he, by his own admission, he doesn't
wanna be and he himself has become a considerable victim
of the images. And you also said on your Wednesday
night uh who mention of the show for Friday night
that uh you didn't find a mystic person or someone

(45:34):
with powers. Mm mm, well the book brings that out
very clearly too, and I and Manson also resents those
earlier publications and uh, he feels and I feel also,
and I bring it out of my book that more
injustice has been done because of similar books, that particular

(45:54):
book that we mentioned, Helter Skelter has done more to
create the image and the followers and everything that.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Still presist, except the Helter Skelter just didn't come out
of the blue vincent BOLIOSI didn't make that up out
of whole claw. I mean, there was a lot of
conversation that was tracked among the people involved in those
killings where that thing kept coming out over and over.

Speaker 7 (46:14):
Again, and none of it came out until Susan Atkins
made her first confession and then once heard, it's almost
as power as Manson himself, for Jack's power of suggestion
and so on. We've heard it before and this is
our best way out.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
And d do you think there's anything today knew like
a Manson cult?

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Does he get letters to your knowledge from people who
see him as a cult leader or somebody that they
would like to pattern themselves after.

Speaker 7 (46:40):
Well, only after reading the books that have been written previously.
Because of the end, he does get letters. The Institution
will verify it. And I've been recipient of letters.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (46:51):
When I first my first media and re enter release
on Manson was uh, I guess March of eighty one
and the paper.

Speaker 5 (47:01):
I work for a Yukaia journal, will it?

Speaker 1 (47:03):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (47:03):
Naturally you don't give your own address.

Speaker 7 (47:05):
But I was a recipient of Maile wanting to know
how they could get in touch with Manson and so on,
and other people's other than the ones I got, uh
right to the institution.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Have you ever gotten a letter from a purported Manson
follower saying your book better be fair to him or else?

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Anything?

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Right?

Speaker 5 (47:23):
It's gone other than that?

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (47:25):
One particular letter to the Yukaia Journal was from Hawaii.
So I uh, answered it. What's your interest? What your concern?
And I ended up meeting the party that wrote the letter.

Speaker 7 (47:36):
And uh over yet on this Manson thing and so on,
and I a little pride or a little I won't
say pride, but a little vanity and my writing and
a potential book coming up. I mentioned where I was at,
what I was trying to project. She says, you're the
luckiest son of becoming the world, cause I was. She
was prepared to waste me if I was gonna be

(47:57):
more detrimental to Manson than the previous books had been.
So it is an easy role, and I, uh, I'm
doing it for Manson as well as for myself. And well,
there's a lot of things. Because he says he's where
he belongs in a sense.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Do you think he is?

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (48:18):
I do think he is at this point because there's
he's probably bitter today.

Speaker 5 (48:24):
Than he was in sixty nine through the things that
he's gone through.

Speaker 2 (48:27):
The Lemons thank you for being here in New York.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Tonight We're going back to Backaville, California and more with
Charles Manson.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Right after these announcements, he is, you know you were
sentenced to the gas chamber and then they modified the

(48:53):
death penalty. Were you happy when that was done?

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Was I happy when what was done?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
When you found out that you weren't going to gas chamber?

Speaker 3 (49:01):
You talking about dying now? It gets me nervous. Why
did you have any thoughts about something? Was you want
to go anywhere?

Speaker 2 (49:13):
Were you happy when you found out you weren't gonna
go to the gas chamber? Charles?

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Uh, I knew I wasn't gonna go to the gas
chamber cause I hadn't done anything wrong.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
You scared to die?

Speaker 3 (49:29):
Sometimes I feel I'm scared to live. Living is what
scares me. Dying is easy, getting up every day and
going through this again and again. It is hard. Say
I'm carrying the heaven of your thought. See thought I'm
carying is very heavy. Like I'm on football team and

(49:51):
everybody's and I I'm a little guy. I don't have
no s I don't have no home team. You get
all the home I got one one cheerleader for one
uh uh, coach, say you got me at disadvantage because
I'm on your ground. See sold, and this is your street,

(50:15):
I reckon. You got the cameras and the money and
the things but you can believe me that m bully
Olsi's had you all on a rib and all the
guys that sold you most of that stuff sold you
a bunch of things that weren't uh, weren't real, not

(50:36):
to me. We used to have games when we'd play
on the movie set. We would take on different people.
I'd be riff raft Rackers, and Steve would be uh
John Jones just come in from Minneapolis and driving the truck.
And we'd just take other people and play act other people.
And then we've lost track of who we were and

(50:59):
it went off and do other dimensions and levels of
thought and understanding and comprehensions that were beyond most people's minds, functions,
computers that I so all I did was watch and
learn everything I could from everybody I ever met. Then

(51:20):
when I got out of prison, I just walked around.
I didn't tell nobody to do nothing. I said, do
what you wanna do to do, don't tell me what
to do. I don't like people tell.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
Me what to do.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
They say, come from a place where they told me
what to do all my life. You know, I wanna
find out what to do with myself, you know, And
I never did not yet, but I was gonna take
a trade one of these days, maybe learning to be
a welder or something.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
What I do to then.

Speaker 6 (51:56):
Til I get to the front gate anyway where people
were killed. How did you get involved on that problem?

Speaker 3 (52:18):
Well, I was born illegitimately. That put me on the
other side of the law. I've been an outlaw ever
since I was born. I went to reform school when
I was about ten, and I learned to box and cry,
and I learned to do all the things that you
do in reform school. Then I went to UH I

(52:40):
escaped there a bunch of times, and I went to prison,
and I learned everything that you do in prison. And
I talked to all the guys and ask him everything
they knew, and they told me all the things they knew.
And then I went to the end of it. And
then the old man would be ready to die and
he'd say, well, so I'm a Sincerity is the best gimmick,
remember that. And I said, alright, be sincere, that's that'll
win it. He said, that's it. Sincerity and honesty, you

(53:02):
said it'll do it. It'll trick 'em. Every time I said, well,
sincere and honesty, I never tried that. I tried everything else,
but maybe I'll try sincere in honesty. So then I
looked in the book and said the wages of Sin's death.
Now I figured, well, I don't wanna die. So maybe
I have been sinful here. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe
I take a look at my life and say, well,

(53:24):
I'm gonna change it, start all over, you know. And
I know I go to God and I say, hey, man,
you gonna forgive me? And you gonna say, what do
you do? You forgive you? And what'd you come to
me for? Forgive yourself? Mann't be bothering me, you know,
And I think, well, he must be a big mighty god. Man.
He just you know, he ain't got time. You gotta
make appointment or something.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
So I see the whole aspect of the whole trip
for children to play, you know. And then I get
stuck in the game of playing the goat here or
the lamb or the or the some other trip. I
was a teddy bear and then I was a a
goof ball and whatever, and uh, whey is the real one?

(54:04):
Who is deria one? I don't know where a real
one is. It's in a nut ward somewhere.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
The real Charles Manson hardly the glowering sinister and a
sort of mastermind that was pictured of his life before
and after the Tate Lobbianca killings in Los Angeles. The
real Charles Manson appears to be confused and frightened.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Confused if you.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Recall his admonition that we look at ourselves to better
understand him. Yet each time I pressed him on details
about the murders, Manson could not even look at himself,
nor his relationships with his mother, his.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Wife, and his son. And he's frightened.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
During our conversation, you recall, Manson said, I'm living, aren't I?
They let me live, didn't they? Followed by that little
nervous laugh. The man does not want to die. I
think he's frightened by death. And I think that he
is as scared of us as we are of him.
I get the feeling he'll be quite content to spend
the rest of his.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Life playing mind games in the jail house.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
And I also believe that Charles Manson knows exactly what
he's done. A word about what you might think was
my belligerence with Manson. I lived in Los Angeles all
during this trial. I still lived there from time to time,
and a quiet neighborhood just crossed the canyon from where
Sharon Tait and the others were murdered. At work, by
day I broadcast the six o'clock news in Los Angeles,

(55:21):
the whole story of the trial, the shaved heads, the
car foreheads, for the harangues and threats in the courtroom.
And by night I tried to assure my young daughter
that yes, even though the murder house was close by,
Charles Manson and company were under lock and key, and
there would be no creepy crawlers in the night. So
it was that Manson I was listening to, and not
the one who now sits alone in a far away prison, where,

(55:44):
barring a most perverse miracle, he will spend the rest
of his life. Thank you for watching, and good night everybody,

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