Chaos
Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties
Ratings22
Average rating3.8
15
Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties
Ratings22
Average rating3.8
______________________________ A journalist's twenty-year obsession with the Manson murders leads to shocking new conspiracy theories about the FBI's involvement in this fascinating re-evaluation of one of the most infamous cases in American history. In 1999, when Tom O'Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the thirtieth anniversary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Weren't the facts indisputable? Charles Manson had ordered his teenage followers to commit seven brutal murders, and in his thrall, they'd gladly complied. But when O'Neill began reporting the story, he kept finding holes in the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's narrative, long enshrined in the bestselling Helter Skelter. Before long, O'Neill had questions about everything from the motive to the manhunt. Though he'd never considered himself a conspiracy theorist, the Manson murders swallowed the next two decades of his career. He was obsessed. Searching but never speculative, CHAOS follows O'Neill's twenty-year effort to rebut the 'official' story behind Manson. Who were his real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties? Why didn't law enforcement act on their many chances to stop him? And how did he turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers? O'Neill's hunt for answers leads him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from the Summer of Love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with cover-ups and coincidences. Featuring hundreds of new interviews and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI and the CIA, CHAOS mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. In those two dark nights in Los Angeles, O'Neill finds the story of California in the sixties: when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia-or dystopia-was just an acid trip away. ______________________________ 'Riveting ... Sensational revelations ... True crime fans will be enthralled.' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Reviews with the most likes.
A journalist spends twenty years researching the Manson family murders and other crimes surrounding those, throwing the official trial story and the book Helter Skelter into doubt.
I finished the book feeling bad for O'Neill who, while succeeding in showing that Bugliosi was probably full of it, never finds any confirmed answers to his questions.
Reallllly interesting. Did I get any actual answers to any of my questions? No. Do I have even more questions than I did to start? Yes. I feel reinvigorated around a story which has gotten so tired and gone over it isn't even funny. Lots of new information in this book. That said: I'm not entirely sure that the author isn't just a conspiracy theorist chasing something a bit farther than needed.
Reading this book made me feel like a legit conspiracy theorist
It is by nature kind of a frustrating book to read because so much of it is investigating dead leads or pieces of evidence that were ultimately destroyed? It gives you a real sense of how the 20 years of research involved made Tom O'Neill feel like he was losing it...
Reading this definitely convinced me that the CIA in the 60s was WACK (as it probably is now...) but O'Neill doesn't have enough information to make any clear conclusions. Which, I respect him for not exaggerating or drawing any false conclusions but it's also kind of unsatisfying to read a book whose conclusion is kind of just ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I guess I'd really only recommend this if you're really into like the grunt work of true crime investigations and/or Charles Manson?
This book is interesting, I'll give it that. But it is very difficult to follow and inconclusive. I think this book would have worked better in two parts: as a tear down of Helter Skelter and as an investigation into CIA operations and how that connects to Manson. It kind of is written that way but it all blends together too much and could have used more in depth reporting into both areas.
I understand why O'Neill couldn't go too hard at Bugliosi and I understand why he couldn't frame his own theory about what all happened in the Manson investigation. But I think the book suffers for this and O'Neill purposefully ignores writing a compelling narrative in order to get all the facts he's found on paper. Which is fine but again it makes for a much less interesting read. If you find all of this information that points to a cover up, I wanna know why it needs to be covered up.
