Manson’s accomplices: Altamont, LSD, Kent State
Did the series of murders end the ’60s or the ’50s dreams?
LOS ANGELES – Five decades later, the Manson murders continue to hold sway in Southern California, prompting competing theories as to why.
The crimes did not single-handedly end the 1960s, no matter what Joan Didion says in “The White Album,” her seminal book of essays published in 1979. (“Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969,” Didion wrote.)
Yes, Manson, with his family doing the heavy lifting, was responsible for nine grisly deaths — the Tate-labianca victims, stuntman Shea and musician Hinman, a friend but
not a full-fledged family member.
But the cult leader had ample help putting a bayonet – his weapon of choice – through the heart of a much more innocent time. Depending on who you ask, his accomplice was Altamont, LSD or the May 4, 1970, massacre of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University.
Jonathan Taplin, emeritus director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California, fingers Altamont as Manson’s chief accessory in killing the 1960s. In 1969, Taplin was tour manager for Bob Dylan and the Band.
The Tate-labianca murders happened about a week before Woodstock, but they barely dented the euphoria of the music festival at a muddy dairy farm 2,800 miles away in rural New York, Taplin says. “It was just a killing, you know, a robbery or whatever,” he recalls. Then, on Dec. 6, Altamont happened. Three days later, Manson was charged with murder.
“And then it was over,” Taplin says. “All that optimism was just deflated and drained out. And then, obviously things got worse. Kent State. … All of a sudden we saw this dark side of this thing that was so light.”
Jeff Mcdonald, cofounder of the alt-rock band Redd Kross, doesn’t buy it. Mcdonald was just turning 6 when the murders happened, grew up seeing Bugliosi’s “Helter Skelter” on every parent’s coffee table. If Manson and the family killed anything, Mcdonald argues, it’s the 1950s.
“The postwar people had this idea of their newfound middle class, and especially white middle class,” says guitarist Mcdonald, who included a cover of Manson’s song “Cease to Exist” on the group’s 1982 debut album “Born Innocent.” But then, their kids were “radicalized” and some “did these horrible things.”
“It just destroyed that dream,” he said.
To Mcdonald, “Manson was kind of like an act of rebellion. There was never any kind of worship of the philosophy of Charles Manson. … It was like the second phase of punk rock for us.”
Manson’s impact is not the only thing that continues to be debated. As the years pass, books publish and movies come out, the facts of the case have become a little hazier.
Gibbons eventually left City News Service for the Los Angeles Daily News. She joined the district attorney’s office in 1989 as public information officer. Now, 50 years after the murders, she says she does not believe Bugliosi’s theory
of the case, that Manson heard instructions to start a race war in the lyrics of the Beatles’ “White Album.”
Her view? That Manson sent his minions out to “put the fear of death into Terry Melcher.” And that he wanted to create a copycat murder to confuse authorities about who may have killed Hinman and, therefore, free family member Bobby Beausoleil, who was eventually convicted of the murder.
She is not the only doubter of the official story line. Nikolas Schreck, a Berlin-based musician, author and filmmaker, is one of the many Manson contrarians. He described Manson as a “talented, poetic musician with wisdom and with a strong, powerful philosophy who got caught up in these tragic crimes. But he was not the
sole instigator and responsible for the crimes.”
Schreck made the film “Charles Manson Superstar” in 1989 and will screen the movie at Zebulon near Silver Lake on
EAug. 10. It is one of many Manson-related events in the works.
By the time the next big Manson anniversary rolls around – the 75th in 2044 – most of those directly
touched by the murders will be gone. The big question is whether Manson will have legs or fade away, just another criminal in a world full of them.
The cult leader had his
own answer, compliments of a lengthy interview in Schreck’s movie.
“I’m gonna survive,” he said. “If you do or not, that’s up to you.
“You dig?”