01x03 - Nobody Joins a Cult

[bunniefuu]

- 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.

I 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 asked them
everything they knew.

And they told me, sincerity
and honesty will do it.

It'll trick them every time.

And then I went outside,

and all these little kids
got a hold of me and aid,

"We want to stop the Vietnam
w*r, and we want to do this."

What? there was a w*r?
I don't know what's happening.

I've been in jail all my life.

You ever see me in vocational
training? Rehabilitation?

They never planned
no rehabilitation.

I sweep the floor
in the kitchen,

go out and play handball.

I'm still ten years old
in your world.

In your world, I'm still a kid.

- Now at this point,

we are going to leave
Golden Gate Park

to go into,
I think a slight sojourn

through the Haight-Ashbury
District of San Francisco.

This is the new avant-garde

left bank area of San Francisco,

which has evolved and developed
over the past number of years.

In fact, I would say
that the last 18 months

has seen a tremendous increase
of the so-called hippies,

who have invaded
and live in this area.

It is the belief of the people

who live within the area
that we, the middle class,

or the upper class,
have done a very, very poor job

in running our government
and our way of life.

- Haight-Ashbury is
where the action is.

This is where the hippies
began their march

towards flower power
and the quiet revolution,

and a rallying point
for the new and irreverent

way of life of those
who preach the dropout gospel.

- In 1967, the American public

first becomes aware
of what is described

as an aberration happening
out in San Francisco.

Because San Francisco
has always been

where the weirdos go.

The idea was starting to spread

among younger Americans,

casting off supposedly
the conservative chains

of old American society.

This current way
of life we have,

the way our parents
are living is wrong.

- The Haight-Ashbury community
has created the council

for a Summer of Love
in San Francisco.

- We affirm life, love, peace,
and self-discovery.

- People come here
to love one another,

and to be in love
with each other.

- I think in
Charlie Manson's case,

he really suffered
from a lack of love.

And then he got out in '67,

and, wow, you know,
it's a cultural revolution.

I mean, it's free love,

and everybody's talking
about getting rid

of your inhibitions,
you know, and your fears,

and so he just
grew his hair long

and started thinking
about the role of a man,

you know, in this
new alternative culture.

- It really was a perfect storm,

all those elements
that came together,

the music, the drugs,
free love and everything.

The ideology that we thought we
had discovered something new,

that we, oh,
we finally figured it out.

- There was a feeling of...
That we were all

brothers and sisters
more than we felt before.

And that might have been
enhanced by acid.

- LSD, lysergic acid
diethylamide.

Easy to make, incredibly potent.

A single ounce contains


each dose drastic
in its effects.

- LSD is the most potent drug
ever discovered.

To understand
how profound it is,

you have to understand
how it works in the brain.

This is the brain.

This is the white matter,

the thinking part,
consciousness.

LSD comes into the brain,
alters a switch,

alters the electrical patterns
going into the memory circuit.

This has a very profound impact

on those neuroanatomical
connections,

in which one sensory modality
is translated into another.

You see the universe in a way

that you've never
seen it before.

It's like having, like,
a religious vision.

And you feel that
you have broken on through

to the other side.

- The best, most direct,
the most natural way

to find God
is through chemicals,

and today, it's marijuana,
LSD, peyote, mescaline,

and many other
mind-expanding drugs,

for sure,
coming along every month.

- Some four million Americans

are said to have
taken LSD last year.

Far more than a fad,
it is to some a new religion.

- It is a drug in which
there is no knowledge

about the eventual
harmful results.

One individual can apparently
escape with no problem.

Others immediately
have a great problem.

There is a residual effect
that this can come back

with what might be permanent
brain damage.

Anyone that would engage
in this or indulge in this

is just a plain fool.

- Across the bay in Berkeley,
there was student unrest.

College was
the place to protest.

And of all the places
that this was happening,

Berkeley was probably
the greatest.

- The feeling,
the passion against the w*r

was just ferocious.

Every night, the network
leading anchor people,

giving you a death toll of
the dead Americans in Vietnam.

- And the figures for last week

reflected the sharp increase
in the fighting.



the highest number since the end

of the enemy's May offensive.

- Americans
dying for who knew why.

- And this is where we find
Charlie Manson moving.

He ends up in Berkeley.

And he would be perfect

fitting into the anti-w*r
demonstrations,

to the feminists.

Except he didn't care about
any god damn w*r overseas.

If blacks and women
were oppressed,

he thought that was great.

That's the way the world's
supposed to work.

Free love, that screwed him up.

How can you be a pimp
if everybody

can get laid for nothing?

So Charlie's out
of his element in Berkeley,

but he does home in
on the one thing.

You've got young people
who feel alienated.

They don't feel
like they belong.

Mary Brunner's a librarian
in Berkeley.

She's out of place there.

Instead of wearing
sort of the hippie garb,

she's wearing blouses
buttoned up to the neck.

She's from the Midwest.

Charlie can tell
she's uncomfortable.

When he meets her,
she's walking her dog.

And Charlie makes inroads with
her by fussing over the pet.

They start talking,

he's using all
the Dale Carnegie techniques.

They're becoming friends,

and Charlie just happens
to mention

he doesn't have any place
to stay right now.

Mary says, as he knew she would,

"Well, you can stay at
my place for a couple nights."

Once he's there, he goes about
talking his way into her bed.

Then Mary gets the idea
this is a love affair.

It's her and Charlie.

So she's gonna work
and make the money,

and Charlie will go out
during the day

and work on his music
and do Charlie things.

She soon sees that
he's bringing girls back,

but he's telling her, "But you
can't get upset about this.

"Nobody's body is their own.

We're just... we're just
doing the natural thing."

She gradually sees she's gonna
have to share Charlie.

- Charlie Manson came
to the Haight-Ashbury

during that transitional period,

when things were getting,
you know, harder and meaner.

Charlie took LSD.

He'd become
part of that culture.

- So I went down and
I looked around and I said,

"Hey, this is love here."

All I want is the little girls.

They picked me up,


I said, "Where you sleep?"

He says, "Wherever I lay down."

I said, "Well, don't you
have to have an apartment?"

And he said,
"No, I sleep in the park."

I said, "How do you do that?"
He said, "Sleeping bag."

I said, "Is that right?
What do you eat?"

He said, "Food."

I said,
"Man, where do you get it?"

He said, "Wherever I can."

I said, "Don't you have a job?"

And he laughed at me and said,
"No, we're now the Diggers."

- The Diggers, adopting the name

of a Christian society
of Cromwellian England,

are the conscience
of the hippies,

who find dirt
and disorder appealing,

and only work when they must.

- A group of compatible hippies,

sharing their rice and beans,

and hepatitis
and venereal disease.

- The diggers decided
to feed the street kids.

We had to wind up
sending our women

holding babies
to the farmer's market,

and the old Italians
would give them

all the day-old food
right that day.

And that night, anyone
who showed up with a bowl

and a spoon could get fed.

We set up free stores
which had clothes, tools,

televisions, bicycles,
everything worked.

And the supposition was,
why do you want to get a job

and become an employee to make
the money to be a consumer?

We'll give you the sh*t.
Now what do you want to do?

What are you gonna do
with your life?

These were America's children.

And they were runaways,

because a lot of the people
who came back

from World w*r II had PTSD,

and it was undiagnosed.

And they were drinking
themselves into coma,

they were beating their kids
or beating their wives.

In the '50s, it was not a lot
of fun for a lot of people.

And I think the kids
who left those families,

they were looking for something,

because life wasn't working.

And they were looking
for guidance

wherever they could find it.

And anybody
with a lot of charisma

and the ability to rap
could swing somebody.

- ♪ Your home is where
you're happy ♪

♪ It's not where
you're not free ♪

- Everybody's talking to gurus,

great philosophers
who can teach you how to live,

if only you will follow them.

And in San Francisco,
in Golden Gate Park,

any time of the day or night,

there's dozens of people
proclaiming themselves gurus.

- We're lost in a beautiful
energy, an energy of life.

- Charlie is not
some great philosopher.

But from his pimp days,

he knows how to recognize kids,

particularly young girls,
that might be seduced

in the right ways
if only he can learn them.

And so, he hangs around Golden
Gate Park listening to gurus.

- ...might k*ll a fly.

And we love all that energy,

we'll love life so much
that we'll never die,

because you'll be so sure
that you're part of God.

- The standard message
that all of these gurus said

was society is corrupt.

You need to drop out of society

and become involved
in this alternate reality.

- Drop out of high school,
drop out of college.

Drop out of graduate school.

Turn on, tune in, drop out.

- These gurus, however,

controlled the ultimate reality.

- Don't think in right and
wrong, just think in truth.

All the answers are there.
There are no big answers.

All the big colleges
that we've been building,

that's taking people
the other way.

The smartest people in the world

are really the most cut off.

It's the common people,
man, with soul.

- Charlie used a combination
of sort of psychological ploys.

Your families
don't understand you.

I'm the only one that loves you.

Come with me
and be part of a real family.

Judicious use of drugs,

making sure that the kids
were high a lot of the time.

And he gradually started
a little group,

beginning with Mary Brunner,
adding Lynette Fromme,

who was a runaway that he met
in Venice, California.

Patricia Krenwinkel,
a sad sort of case

who was living in
a sort of chaotic situation

with her sister

and was met
and seduced by Charlie.

And then his first real find,
Susan Atkins,

who Charlie
particularly cherished

because she was
a very attractive girl,

and he could use her
as sort of sexual bait

to try to get men
into his group.

- He went in, gave him LSD,
had sex with the girls,

talked about this alternate
vision was the real vision,

and Charlie was the master.

But he also took LSD

and had this altered
consciousness experience

and believed his philosophy.

- There was a free clinic
in Haight-Ashbury

for the hippies who were sick

and didn't have hospitals
to go to.

- Greg, come on over here.

- Bad drug trips
led many in the Haight

to Dr. David Smith's
free clinic for treatment.

- One thing that people
don't realize is that

the Haight-Ashbury
is a symptom, not a cause.

- The clinic opened
in June of '67.

I think we saw 25,000 patients
the first year.

And into that scene
came the Manson Family.

Their place where they lived

was right around the block
on Cole Street,

just two blocks from our clinic.

Manson was a fairly
well-known individual.

When they came
to our clinic in '67

for medical reasons,
it was really interesting,

almost creepy how much
control he had over them.

But if you see something creepy
in a weird environment,

you don't think it's that weird.

What I heard was that
he was recruiting

in the neighborhood,

but there was a lot
of recruitment going on

by a number of different people.

It was kind of like
competing cults.

- That was a problem for
Charlie, because essentially,

he's competing
with all the other gurus.

So he had to set up something
that was different.

Charlie still wanted to be
a rock and roll star,

and intended
to make that happen.

- By the time he spent
a couple of months

in San Francisco,
he had his little entourage.

Charlie loaded his girls
in the bus,

and off he went on his merry way

from San Francisco down to L.A.

- KHJ Weather.

- Look for sunny skies today
with a high of 95 downtown,

up to 105 in the valleys,

and 80 at the beaches,
light to moderate smog.

- No two people are alike
and no two communities either,

but the people and
the community of Topanga Canyon

are even more different
than most.

- Everybody up here
has kind of got

an individualistic trip
going, you know?

They like to get out
in the sunshine

and take off their clothes,

and groove with the trees,
and paint their paintings,

and vote for Goldwater
if they want to.

- I mean, you can't really help

but be on a good trip up here,

because it's so beautiful.

The true hippies are the people

that just live the way that
life is really meant to be

without really
materialistic things,

and they're very happy.

They get along very well
without any money.

Well, sometimes it gets
kind of rough.

- Hippie tribes gather


The new waves come bearing
beads and blossoms and bells,

looking for new experience
and new magic.

- When my parents starting
tuning on and tuning in,

at the same time,

there started to be
a group of people

that would go to Griffith Park,

and, you know, with tie-dyed
shirts and flags and drums.

They called it a be-in,
so people would just go and be.

And my dad and a couple
of the guys

decided that they were
gonna do the drop out thing,

and got bread trucks,
converted them campers,

and we had a big yard sale
and sold everything,

and in September,
we went on down the road.

And we ended up at the Hog Farm,

this commune.

It really was a hog farm.

They painted the pigs,
they rode the pigs.

There was no electricity.

My dad put a big geodesic dome
on the hill,

and they would
have these "om" circles.

And there was
lots of characters.

It wasn't too many days
later that the leader,

Hugh Romney, and his wife
Bonnie Jean,

came and had
a little talk with me,

letting me know that
they were uncomfortable

with my being there
because I was jailbait.

I was a sexually active,
you know, 14-year-old,

so they arranged for friends
to come and talk me

into going to live
with them, which I did.

And they invited me to come
along with them to this party

at the spiral staircase house

to meet this groovy guy
and his girls.

These girls started coming over.

"Diane, Diane, you're here.

Charlie, Diane's here,"
you know?

You know, and he was
in the circle playing music,

and he got up
and offered me his root beer

and gave me a big hug,

and, you know,
"Come, join us in the circle.

We've been waiting for you."

Charlie did take me
to the bus that night

and made love to me in a way

that I had never
experienced it before,

and made me really feel very,
you know, womanly.

I felt totally accepted
and totally loved and adored,

and it was really magical.

It just all ended up seeming,

you know,
like providence or something.

- Paul Watkins showed up
at the house in Topanga

where he was told
he could get good weed.

And knocked at the door,

and suddenly these half-naked
girls said, "Hi, come in."

And he thought, well,
this is rather interesting.

And he went in, he got his
weed, and he met Manson.

Paul was good-looking,
very easy to talk to.

So he became Manson's chief
recruiter for young women.

And he'd go out
and pick up hitchhikers

and bring them back again.

Because Watkins
looked very young,

Manson suggested that he get
himself some kind of fake ID

and then enroll in high school,

where he could actually look

at possible contenders
for the Family.

And the girls brought in

Angela Lansbury's daughter,
Deidre.

And Deidre,
for one period of time,

did get enamored
with the Manson Family

and allowed them
to use her credit card.

But then her mother, Angela,

was worried about her daughter
getting into drugs.

She immediately grabbed her
and sent her to Ireland.

Bobby "Cupid" Beausoleil.

A good-looking guy called Cupid,

because he was a conquering
hero with the girls.

Son of a milkman
in Santa Barbara,

troubled kid,
went to reform school,

decided he was going
to become a musician.

- Beausoleil is a couple things

that Charlie wants to be
and is not.

First of all,
he's extremely good-looking,

and he's got good-looking
women following him.

And Charlie doesn't have that.

Second, Beausoleil is a better
musician than Charlie.

And he and Charlie even decided

to be in a band together,

and they played a couple gigs,

and Charlie couldn't
keep up with Bobby,

and Bobby knew it.

But they both could be
of use to each other.

- Charlie was a guy who
marched to his own drummer,

literally.

When Charlie played music,

his tempo and his rhythmic
structure would shift,

and he would do it deliberately.

He didn't want to be
in regimented time.

He had an aversion to, you know,

any sort of regimentation,
and no doubt that had to do

with having come out of
an environment in prison

where a lot of things
were regimented.

- The music scene had primarily

been in New York City
for rock and roll

during the '50s
and the early '60s,

and it shifted to
the west coast in 1964

when the Beatles came out,

because Capitol Records,
their label,

was near the corner
of Hollywood and Vine.

And Phil Spector had been
making records in L.A.

for a few years,

and also the Beach Boys became,

like, the most popular band
in America at that time.

The Beach Boys were like
the only American group

that kind of kept up
with the Beatles.

There was even a friendly
rivalry between them.

And then d*ck Clark
moved "American Bandstand"

out to the west coast.

Rock and roll
was displacing movies

as the most exciting thing
happening in Hollywood

during the middle '60s.

The Sunset Strip
was sort of like downtown

for this burgeoning
rock and roll scene.

In 1964,
the Whisky a Go Go opened.

And before you know it,
the Whisky a Go Go

has got all the great groups,

like Frank Zappa's
Mothers of Invention,

and Jim Morrison
and his group, The Doors,

and Buffalo Springfield with
Neil Young and Stephen Stills,

and Love with Arthur Lee

and all his wild,
psychedelic things.

And eventually,
Led Zeppelin would play there,

and Cream would play there,
and all the biggest groups.

- The Whisky a Go Go
had female deejays

spinning records
between the groups.

They were in a glass booth
above the dance floor,

and they would dance
to the records.

One of the deejays,
Joanie Labine,

designed a fringe dress based
on the flappers of the '20s,

and paired it
with white go-go boots.

Producers hung out
at the Whisky a Go Go too.

Terry Melcher was a producer
at Columbia Records.

Melcher came from
Hollywood royalty.

He was Doris Day's son,
and was good friends

with Dennis Wilson
of the Beach Boys,

and he was working with some of

the most influential
bands of the time.

- ♪ Eight miles high

♪ And when you touch down

- His main group was The Byrds.

Their anti-establishment
and socially conscious lyrics

became a new type
of rock and roll,

because everybody had bonded
together through rock and roll

as kids in the '50s,
but during the '60s,

they were dealing with
the Vietnam w*r, civil rights,

and the larger threat
of nuclear weapons.

So the music began
to reflect that.

All the groups that broke
on the Sunset Strip in 1965

and 1966 were getting huge.

So producers like Terry Melcher

were looking for new artists.

And on to that scene
comes Charlie,

looking for a record deal.

- Manson made it clear
in his last years in prison

that his goal was to be
a professional musician.

The last couple years
of his sentence,

he meets Phil Kaufman.

Phil is in for a marijuana bust.

- I was walking in the yard,

and there was this guy
playing a guitar, you know,

and he's singing his song,
he was singing...

♪ The shadow of your smile

You know, a very popular song,

and I thought he was quite good.

I asked him what's going on
and he said,

"You know, I write songs,

and, you know,
I'm gonna be out of here soon."

- Phil knew some people in L.A.

who were in the music business.

To Manson, that made Phil
the perfect best friend

he'd ever known.

- Phil had given him the name
of Gary Stromberg,

who was a music producer
at Universal Studios in L.A.,

and Stromberg invites him
into the office

to record a demo disc.

- Hi, Charlie, baby.

Okay. - Let's see.

- Do whatever
you feel like, man.

- Yeah.

If I can make myself nervous,

I should be able to
make myself un-nervous.

It makes sense that
it works both ways there.

Let's see.

♪ I once knew a man

♪ So loved he was to be

♪ Now is forever lasting
constant in the mind ♪

♪ Illusions with memories
scheming and alive ♪

♪ In the mind all the time ♪

♪ One and one
are one if you find ♪

- He brought the girls,
the Family with him,

who have no musical talent,

and they got to play drums
and beat sticks,

and, you know,
impossible to record.

And they dismissed him.

They wouldn't touch it
with a 10-foot pole.

- ♪ He is your love

- When I got out, this fellow
I knew named Harold True

took me to this house
in Topanga Canyon.

It was an abandoned house

with no electricity
and no plumbing.

The first time that
I actually met the girls,

and it was all huggy-kissy,

"Phil, oh, Phil. Hello, Phil!

Welcome, Phil." I said, "Whoa."

I just got out of prison.

There's sex, and there's food,

and there's hanging out
with girls,

and it was just
an idyllic situation.

We all took acid a lot,
did a lot of that.

And Charlie's music
became his drug of choice

to entice people.

When a new girl would come,
everybody'd sit around.

He'd play his guitar
and play his song,

"Look at your Game Girl."

- ♪ Look at your game girl

♪ What a mad delusion

♪ Living in that confusion

♪ Frustration and doubt

♪ Can you ever live
without the game ♪

- You could see where it would
be an enticement, you know?

A girl lost, these people
are all over her, hugging her,

kissing her, combing her hair,
and Charlie's singing to her.

You know, it seemed
like a good deal.

- ♪ Sad game

- I lived with Harold True,

and when Phil got out of prison,

we invited him to live with us
up Los Feliz, on Waverly.

The house is on a hill,

and the front lawn
is covered by hedges,

so you can't really see
until you get up there.

And I look over,
and I see all these fairies

dancing on the front lawn.

So Harold used to like
to bring home

the freaky freaks
for our entertainment.

So I thought
this is another crew

that Harold found
and brought home,

but it turned out to be
Charlie and all his girls.

- Harold True had a nice house,

and we went over there
and partied.

He had always lots of grass,
and sometimes he had some acid.

And we'd just spend the night,

or a couple nights
there at his house,

and he was just
a friend of Charlie's.

- Oh, I thought Charlie
was just a great conman,

a P.T. Barnum.

I got the impression
that he picked up

a lot of things
made from different people

in Haight-Ashbury
or around there and down.

And then he put them
in his repertoire.

- One day we ended up
on Leo Carrillo,

Sycamore Canyon area,

and we were gonna go farther
in the woods,

but the bus got bogged down
in the mud or something,

and we couldn't go any further.

And we stopped
in the woods somewhere,

and we stayed there for a while.

One night, the police came,
and they arrested us all,

and, you know, there was
an article in the paper

about the nine nude hippies
that they found.

I mean, we were sleeping
in sleeping bags,

and we slept in the nude,
so yeah, we were nude,

you know, when they arrested us.

So we put our clothes on
and for some reason I had,

like, four tabs of acid,
you know, in my pocket.

And so I'd always heard,
oh, if you get busted,

swallow it, right?

So I took four tabs of acid.

And they took us
to Ventura County Jail,

and it ended up
being a good trip.

Every Beatles song
that I'd ever heard

just came flowing
out of my mouth,

and so I had everybody
singing all the Beatles songs.

We were only there
for one night.

We went to court the next day,
and they released us all.

It was a trespassing charge.

And I think it was
shortly after that

that they found Spahn Ranch.

Experimental Band's

- ♪ San Francisco...

♪ In L.A.,
no one's on the street ♪

♪ Let's go off on our own
in the country ♪

♪ All our friends
will be there ♪

♪ No one will give us
a hard time ♪

♪ We can make it alone

♪ In the country

- Spahn Ranch was out
that long road out Topanga.

It was dusty, it was dirty.

There we oak trees,
there was a little stream,

and there was
these funky old buildings,

and the sets, the saloon,

and the sheriff's office,
and all this stuff.

It really felt like
another world up there,

on the edge of the
San Fernando Valley and L.A.

It was perfect.

It was really fantasyland,
and just fit right in.

- Charlie introduced us
to the joys

of dumpster diving
behind the grocery stores.

We had our favorite ones,
because they had better food

that they threw out
that was still good.

Charlie would tell us
that needing food

was just, like, our imagination.

Air and water was enough.

Then there was always, like,
the evening get-together.

Drugs were being smoked
and taken.

- Charlie builds a bonfire
out in the middle of the yard,

and he gets a guitar,

and has everybody
smoke marijuana,

and gets them all stoned,
and then they sing songs.

One of Charlie's basic creeds
is that there is no crime,

there is no sin,
that it's all just a game.

And Charlie considers
himself to be Jesus,

the second coming of Christ.

And he told me that I had to
be me before I could be him,

because he was
a reflection of me,

and he was only
what I saw in myself.

And that I was supposed
to give up my world

so that I could have his,

and that by giving up,
God would come through me,

and I would just be
a hole in the infinite,

as he says he is.

- Thank you. Hey, all right.

- Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you.

- In 1968, all of a sudden,

Beach Boys find themselves
out of sync with the times.

- Thank you.

- The perception of them
in the public was,

you know, they're not part
of the counterculture

on progressive rock radio.

So they're all struggling.

- Dennis, of course, I mean,
he was drinking,

and he was not really
in control of himself.

And somehow, he picked up
Charles Manson's girls.

- Ella Jo Bailey
and Patricia Krenwinkel,

they were hitchhiking,

and Dennis Wilson picked them up

and took them to his home.

He just said, you know,

"My house is your house"
kind of thing.

And they took him literally.

Later on, he went
to a recording session.

- He came back at 2:00
in the morning

and discovered that there was
a bus parked in his driveway.

And guess who greeted him at
the front door of his mansion?

Manson kissed
Dennis Wilson's feet,

and Dennis thought,
oh, this is cool.

And he told him to stay,
and they stayed,

and they provided Dennis
and anybody else

who came to Dennis's house
with a ready supply of drugs,

a ready supply of sex
if they wanted it,

and Dennis thought
he was in Nirvana.

- Dennis was rather
a quiet individual,

and he also had an affinity
for finding the waifs

and people that seemed
to be misfits.

They would all seem to find him.

Charlie was able
to manipulate him.

Dennis was enamored with him

and kind of took him
under his wing.

- Dennis Wilson liked
to tell his pals,

come along to my house
to see Manson

and these scantily-clad
young women do their thing.

It was a free show,
and a freaky show,

and Charlie had
a c*ptive audience

at Dennis Wilson's house.

A lot of people had to sit there

and listen to Manson perform.

- One day, Tex Watson,
he's out hitchhiking,

and is picked up
by a guy he doesn't know,

but it turns out
to be Dennis Wilson.

Wilson takes Tex to his house,
and there's people there.

It's Charlie and the girls.

And by God, Tex,
in his dope-addled brain,

wants nothing more than to be

an acolyte of this guy, Charlie,

who's got girls that will do
anything he tells them to do.

Whatever Tex dreamed
about finding in California,

this was it.

Growing up, Tex Watson
was your quintessential

Texas country good ol' boy.

He lived in a little tiny town
in east Texas.

He was the kid
that everybody else

thought was gonna do
great things.

- He once taught Sunday school
in this church,

and he worked behind
his father's

country store counter
across the street.

He was the kind of boy
a community like Copeville

could be proud of.

- Charles was above average,
very definitely so.

He excelled in football
and basketball and track.

He was well-liked
by the student body,

and he was very active
in all kinds

of extracurricular activities,
you see.

- He was one of the few
who went off to college.

But once he was there,
he discovered drugs,

and forgot about class.

And Tex then announces
he's going to Hollywood.

He's working in a wig shop,
sleeping on the floor,

and smoking dope
wherever he can get it.

Charlie went through
a series of people

who were really Charlie's,
you know, group captain.

And Tex very much
wanted to be that man.

Charlie knew that in Watson,
he had a piece of clay

he could mold however he wanted

whenever he felt like it.

- I was living with Bobby in
our teepee in Topanga Canyon.

I like to take walks by myself,

and I met up with Paul Watkins.

He actually
just handed me a joint,

and I took a couple drags.

And he said, do you want to see
a really pretty place?

And I said, sure.

So we went to a waterfall
and a pond,

and we went skinny dipping,
and we ended up having sex.

About three days later,

here comes a car
with an old, scruffy cowboy,

and two girls up front,
and two girls in back.

And Bobby goes over to him
like he knows him,

and this cowboy says,
"Hey, do you want to

go swimming at
Dennis Wilson's house?"

So I get into the car,
and we're driving,

and this old cowboy
is checking me out

in the rearview mirror,
and no one else is talking.

And every time
he says something,

they kind of giggle,
like a little acidy giggle.

We go into
the Pacific Palisades.

He said, "Do you
like the Beach Boys?"

I said, well, not really.

He laughed,
and everybody kind of giggled.

So we pull up to a gate,
and he puts in a code.

After we pull in,
this cowboy turns around,

looks and me and said,
"This is your dream, girl,

so now you can start living it."

I walk in,

and there's beautiful
young people everywhere.

And in walks the rock star

with freshly-washed
chestnut hair,

good-looking, cleft in his chin,

dreamy eyes, in a silk robe

and silk harem-looking pants.

I found out later they were made

with Dennis Wilson's sheets.

He looked totally different,
but I knew it was the cowboy.

And he goes,
"Hi, I'm Charlie Manson."

- ♪ There's a time for living ♪

♪ The time keeps on flying

♪ Look at your game girl

- And then the very first song
that Charlie sang was

"Look at Your Game Girl."

And the words were just
hitting me here,

like, was I playing a game?

Are my feelings real?

And it just really...

...got to me.
It really got to me.

And I think I was drawn in
not only with the music,

but with feeling of belonging.

At the end, I said,
"You know what? I'm staying."

- ♪ Sad game

- Charlie was very charismatic,

and he had this uncanny
ability to read people

and immediately know
what our weaknesses were

and what we needed,

and he would become
that person and fulfill that.

- And he would tell us,
"I don't think at all.

So when I get a thought,
it doesn't come from me."

We took that to think
it comes from, like, a god.

So we just thought
he was the closest thing

to being the one,

and we all wanted to be
not only like Charlie,

we wanted to be Charlie.

We wanted to have
no thoughts, no cares,

and be able to be a conduit
to truth coming from on high.

- What struck me is
how excited they were,

when Manson kind of
gave them the entre

into Dennis Wilson's house.

I mean, they were these young
kids who, all of a sudden,

were hobnobbing
with Dennis Wilson,

and all these people,
the Mamas and the Papas,

and Dean Martin's daughter.

They thought this was heaven.

Terry Melcher, Gregg Jakobson,

and Dennis Wilson
were all bosom buddies.

These young men,
all good-looking,

still needed a little
extra pizzazz to their lives.

So anybody with
a rough reputation

might have been adopted
into the scene.

And Manson was incredible
in the way

he was able to put a magic
spell on all these guys

who were fascinated
by this odd character.

- We were at
the Whisky one night.

There was a table at the Whisky

that was reserved
for the music people.

I was with Terry, I think,

and Dennis had
come in with Charlie,

and Lou Adler was there.

There were a lot of people
at the table.

And all of a sudden,
there's like

almost a commotion
on the dance floor.

And I finally stood up
on the booth, and I'm looking.

I said, "Hey, you guys,
you have to see this."

And it was Charlie in
the middle of the dance floor

at the Whisky,
and he was going off.

I swear to this day that
there was electricity

coming off the guy's head,
and he cleared the floor.

I mean, he was in a zone,
and he was just out there,

arms, legs, head, hair, spittle.

It wasn't rehearsed or planned,

but that's Charlie.

The Beach Boys had formed
their own record label,

Brother Records,
and Dennis thought Charlie

could potentially be
one of the artists.

They did try working with him,

and they did try making
something happen with him.

Brian Wilson had
a studio in his home.

- We went to Brian Wilson's
to do a recording,

or a session that they were
gonna record, maybe a demo.

I think it was like
Nancy Pittman and I,

and we didn't have
bathing suits,

so, you know, we were
swimming in the pool nude,

and I think Brian's wife
was there.

And she, you know, she wasn't
happy about us being there.

- Stephen Desper
is the recording guy

at Brian Wilson's house.

- Charlie was not
going to be produced.

He wasn't.

He had no idea what recording
sessions were about,

how to make records.

He took it all very personally,

and he was not
a professional artist.

- After about an hour
and an argument,

Desper throws his hands up,
and they all leave.

- We were swimming in the pool,

and Charlie comes out.

"Girls, get your clothes on.
We're leaving."

The way he said it,
it was abrupt,

and the way we pulled out,
there was squealing brakes

and, you know, acceleration.

He was mad.

Summer was coming to an end.

I think it was September now,

and Dennis was gonna go away
for two weeks on the road.

He says, "Gregg," he says,
"Can you get me out of here?"

He says, "Can you
find a house for me?"

And I found a house
on the way to Malibu

on the Coast Highway.

And the whole idea was to not

let the girls and Charlie know.

He was really trying
to divorce himself from that.

He was really done with it.

- Direct from our newsroom
in Washington, in color,

this is the "CBS Evening News
with Walter Cronkite."

- Good evening.
Dr. Martin Luther King,

the apostle of nonviolence
in the Civil Rights Movement,

has been shot to death
in Memphis, Tennessee.

- 1968 was a horrible year.

There was the Vietnam w*r,
which was raging.

- Do you think it's worth it?

- Yeah, I don't know.

They say we're fighting
for something, I don't know.

All: Hell no, we won't go!
Hell no, we won't go!

- The protests got violent.

The cops got violent
with the protesters.

- All of it began
the first time some of you

who know better
let young people think

that they have the right
to choose the laws

they would obey as long
as they were doing it

in the name of social protest.

- In '67, '68,

there's racial unrest
between blacks and whites.

There were race riots
in every major American city.

- Channel Five will present
a documentary account

of the violence and insurrection

that has torn this great city
asunder for the past five days.

- The Watts riot of '65 was
one of the earliest riots.

This one came out
of a police encounter

that went terribly wrong

between a paramilitary
organization called the LAPD

and the African-American
community.

The LAPD was one that prided
themselves on their investment

in tactical equipment

that was most appropriate
for warzones.

They were there to enforce
order like an occupying force.

That meant there were
all sorts of moments

in which police brutality
became just the way of life.

This time there was pushback.

It went on for several days.

The National Guard
was called out.

- Cameraman Ed Clark, who's
just returned from the area,

would you tell it how it was
tonight compared to last night?

- Well, Stan, in my 15 years
in the news business,

this is undoubtedly the worst
thing I think I've ever seen.

Well, I can honestly say
that I was scared to death.

- And these are roving mobs
of mostly teenagers,

would you say?

- No, I wouldn't say
they're all teenagers.

No, sir, they're not teenagers.

There are adults as well.

I mean, there's
everything down there.

There are men, there are
women, there are children,

and very frankly, if you're
white, you are in trouble.

- In the aftermath of it,
there was an effort to address

some of the reasons
why Watts was such a tinderbox.

But because of
the continuing segregation,

continuing deprivation,
but most importantly,

continuing hostility
from the police,

by '68, black people
had had enough.

- And that the only course
for the negroes

is to bring about

a final, violent,
apocalyptic confrontation

of black and white.

- They not gonna fight
down here no more.

You know where they going?
They after the white people.

They're gonna caravan out
in everywhere else

the white man
is supposed to stay.

They gonna do the white man in.

- Something like it happened

in 76 American cities
this summer.

We saw soldiers patrolling
our streets.

We saw stores and houses
in our neighborhoods

that looked as if they'd
been hit by bombs.

Next summer,
it could look like this

in the downtown sections
of our city.

It could look like this in the
neighborhood where you live.

The simple fact is this:

We're in the worst crisis we
have known since the Civil w*r,

and time is running short to
try to find some answers to it.

- If the extremists
can divide the rest us

into two hostile camps,

all of our hopes
for the future will be lost.

- What has been going on
within the United States

over the period
of the last three years,

the divisions, the violence,
we can start to work together,

and I intend to make
that my basis for running

over the period
of the next few months.

All: Revolution has come.

All: Off the pigs!

- The majority of white people

associated rising demands
of African-Americans

with such a deep threat
to the social order

that some actually thought that

the rise of the Black Panthers

was a precursor to the arrival
of the Antichrist.

- The Second Amendment of
the Constitution

guarantees the citizen

a right to bear arms
on public property.

- Taking advantage of a law

which authorized
the carrying of visible arms,

patrols of the Black Panther
Party for Self-Defense

cruised in the ghetto
following police cars.

As soon as a black is arrested,

they check the procedure,

making sure the law is observed,

and that their brother
knows his rights.

As a result,
the police hate them,

and the black community
admires them.

- We have to understand
that we're talking about

our survival and nothing else,

whether or not
this beautiful race of people

is gonna survive on the Earth,

that's what we're talking about.

- How many white folks
you k*ll today?

- There's this sense
that everything

is about to break loose.

Something big
is about to happen.

- A doctor, we need a doctor
right here at the microphone,

please, immediately.

- A few months after Martin
Luther King was assassinated,

heir apparent
to the White House,

Bobby Kennedy was m*rder*d

in the kitchen
of the Ambassador Hotel.

And then you have
all these runaway children

that are the product
of this chaos,

all the lies, hypocrisy,

and they're of course attracted

to somebody like Charlie,

who said
society needed to change.

And also, it's extremely
empowering to them to hear

that they are going to be
part of the wheels of change.

All: Revolution has come.

All: Off the pigs!

- Manson's response was to try
to start the ultimate race w*r.

All: Time to pick up the g*n.

All: Off the pigs!

- ♪ Cease to exist

- I heard there was a song
that Dennis and Charlie

had been working on,

and that it was gonna go
on one of the albums.

- ♪ I'm your kind

♪ Oh your kind and I can see

♪ Never had a lesson
I ever learned ♪

- The Beach Boys did take

one of Charlie
Manson's song ideas,

"Cease to Exist."

- And they turned it
into a Beach Boys song called

"Never Learn Not to Love."

- ♪ Never had a lesson
I ever learned ♪

- And Dennis took
the songwriting credit,

but it was written
by Charles Manson.

- ♪ Learn not to love you

- Charlie had signed away his
right to the writer's royalty,

and Dennis also
changed it around,

which really angered Charlie.

- You're stealing my music
every day.

You're writing my songs,
you're playing my game.

- Charlie really thought that
he had been taken advantage of

or cheated, or something
had been taken away from him.

- He was angry, angry at Dennis,

and Dennis knew
he was very angry at him,

because Charlie
sent a b*llet to Dennis

and said, "This is for you,

and there's other b*ll*ts
where this comes from."

- Dennis was aware enough
of what Charlie was capable of,

which is why he slept
with a g*n under his pillow.

- When I come up with a song
and they change the words,

I say don't change the words.

If you change the words,

my shadows are running
fast, man.

- ♪ Once I was blind
but now I see ♪

♪ Now that you're
in love with me ♪

♪ You made a believer
out of me babe ♪

♪ You made a believer
out of me ♪

♪ I doo right, yoo doo right

♪ Doo right, yoo doo right

♪ When they ask what's wrong
you say okay ♪

♪ I'm in love with my girl,
and she 's away ♪

♪ Once I was blind,
now I can see ♪

♪ Now that you're
in love with me ♪

♪ You made a believer
out of me, babe ♪

- Greg, move your head.