One of the dominant theories around Charles Manson Does the infam chief of worship had intended to encourage a racial war by orchestrating his so-called family Kill a wave in the 1960s.
But Errol Morris throws doubts about this story in his new documentary, “Chaos: The Manson Murders”, now on Netflix. Based on Tom O'Neill Book With Dan Piepenbring, Morris's film presents alternative theories surrounding the 1969 Tate – Alabianca dirt – Including how Manson may have had links with government programs related to the control of the mind and brainwashing.
With Manson music, “Chaos” present that these alternatives mainly take interviews with O'Neill, the prosecutor of Manson, Stephen Kay, and the former partner of Manson, Bobby Beausoleil. The documentary also includes archive interviews with Manson and his supporters.
The film calls into question the precision of (and the motivations behind) the theory of “Helter Skelter” presented by the main prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in the Tate-Labianca trial. Thanks to distinct interviews, O'Neill and Beausoleil offer different theories about how and the reason why the murders led by Mans could have occurred.
Here is a ventilation of alternative theories presented in “Chaos: The Manson Murders”.
Manson may have links to secret government's mental control programs
While recognizing that there are still loose sons to this theory, O'Neill suggests that Manson may have links with secret government programs in search of mental control and brain washing, such as the MKULTRA project of the CIA.
According to O'Neill, Manson's time as a conditional release in the bay region has coincided with the moment when the government is carrying out research on the effects of drugs such as LSD on the mental states of individuals.
Meanwhile, Manson and his supporters attended the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic for treatment as well as to meet his parole agent Roger Smith. Clinic patients were allegedly used as research subjects for these mental control studies. O'Neill also explains that the psychiatrist Louis Jolyon “Jolly” West, who is known to have links with the Mkultra project, put research on brainwashing in the Haight-Ashbury region at the time.
Although he recognizes that there is no evidence that Manson and West have definitively crossed, O'Neill underlines that the two men were in the orbit of the other while Manson gained followers that some could describe as a “brainwashing” at a time when the government was looking for brainwashing. O'Neill also thinks that Manson having links with these government research programs could explain Smith's mercy on Manson despite his rupture rules which should have endangered his parole.
Charles Manson was escorted to court for a hearing in 1969.
(John Malmin and Bill Murphy / Los Angeles Times)
The attempt to pinning the murders on the Black Panthers could have been personal or a government plot
Among the facts known on the murders of 1969, there are that the words written in the blood of the victims were left on various surfaces in the crime scenes. These words – including “Pigs”, “Rise” and “Helter Skelter” – helped build the case of the accusation that Manson intended to encourage a racial war.
According to the documentary, at the time of the murders, Manson thought that the Black Panthers were going to retaliate against him for having killed one of his members. (Manson had shot Bernard “Lotapoppa” Crowe, who survived the meeting and was not a member of the Black Panthers in July 1969. The murders of the Tate-Babanca took place in August.)
Alternatively, O'Neill explains that the secret government counterintelligence programs at the time intended to discredit left-wing political movements such as Black Panthers.
Manson was perhaps just motivated by paranoia
Beausoleil, a former manson partner who was found guilty of having killed Gary Hinman for a drug problem that went wrong, believes that Manson's motivation behind the 1969 murder series orchestration is much simpler.
He suggests that Manson urged his acolytes to commit these serious crimes because of his paranoia. According to Beausoleil, Manson probably intended to use these murders to keep his supporters online.
(The murder of Hinman is also quoted as a reason for the murders of the Tate-Labanca. It was suggested that Manson orchestrated the subsequent murders in order to give the impression that the three incidents were linked.)
