Steel Notes Magazine
July & August 2016
Fresh out of prison, no money, no friends,
no nothing, Manson drifted into the hippie
scene. And he admits he’s another ex-con to
everybody and yet he’s still more than accepted. Charlie Manson was schooled on what
to do and how to do it because he was going
to pretend to be a hippie, but he admitted he
wasn’t a hippie, he was a beatnik and hated
hippies. They gave him an old school bus and
they called it the Manson Family and they
headed south. Manson learned to play the
guitar, to sing, and write music. This is what
he was trained for in the federal prison. Charlie had an inkling for music, and he was a natural. He’s probably horny as hell and wanting
to get on the road anyway. And he loved the chicks. He was just perfect for the role; he was just ripe for it. When
they let him out of prison, he was going to be a musician; here was Charles Manson, a year out of prison, mingling with Hollywood stars Dennis Wilson and the Beach Boys, Neil Young, Terry Melcher, in 1968. The Manson
Family was, somehow, making it with the Establishment. And Manson was going to some of Hollywood’s plushest parties, right in there with the biggest people of all. That’s pretty interesting considering the lawyer that he
saw before he got out of. These boys were wined and dined in the music scene, in the art scene, by certain people
before the massacres took place.
Never lose sight of the fact, the CIA’s prime objective, at the time, was to debunk the ‘hippie’ movement which
was proving to be an economical and sociological threat to both the government and its Vietnam war effort.
Charles Manson was perhaps a social experiment and that the CIA had not only been supplying drugs to the
Manson family but also funding their living.
It’s no secret that the CIA regularly experimented with drugs in an attempt at mass mind control. MKULTRA is
one of their most famous projects and Manson was in prison during the time they were known to be using inmates at Vacaville prison in the MKULTRA experiments. Tex Watson, a family member and one of the convicted
Tate-LaBianca murderers claimed that in the months leading up to the murders, the Manson family had all been
taking a drug called ‘Orange Sunshine’ which was manufactured and distributed exclusively by a group known as
“The Brotherhood of Eternal Love” where one of the dealers Ronald Stark, had known connections to the CIA.
Now, let’s talk about the trial. On November 18, 1969, the District Attorney and his staff selected Vincent Bugliosi to be the chief prosecutor in the Tate-LaBianca case. Vincent Bugliosi headed up the entire INVESTIGATION,
PROSECUTION, and PUBLICATION of the Manson saga. That’s ONE man in control of everything. Bugliosi
joined in a search of the Spahn Movie Ranch, where police gathered .22 caliber bullets and shell casings from a
canyon used by Family members for target practice. The next day, the search party moved on to isolated Barker
Ranch, the most recent home of the Family, on the edge of Death Valley. In October, Inyo County officers raided
Barker Ranch. Twenty-four members of the Manson Family were arrested on charges of arson and grand theft.
Cult leader Charles Manson (dressed entirely in buckskins) and Susan Atkins were among those arrested. In the
small house at Barker Ranch, Bugliosi saw the small cabinet under the sink where Manson was found hiding
during the October raid.
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