The 1960s

Summer of 1969; Summer of Love, Peace, Brotherhood/Sisterhood and Love once again. Years and years of such a particular lifestyle of Western America during the 1960s had infiltrated the world all around, introducing the real paradise of the era;

Sunny California with its breathtaking “upscale Los Angeles neighbourhoods” where the celebrities live; Crowded streets flooded with youngsters spreading peace & love during hot and beautiful days; Wandering musicians presenting their wannabe flair for beat for a few bucks; Gleaming cars driving around the town; Shops, cafés, clubs, pubs and bars; Cinema & theatre buildings with their signs and banners blazing with colour, cutting into the darkness of descending night; Warm nights inviting folks to hang out, get wasted, get high, sing out loud and dance; to be free.

Hippie era of the 1960s had spread its influence over the world, although Californian cities endured its biggest onslaught. Thousands of young people had striven for a new, better life. They marched out on the streets, carried banners saying ‘LOVE, NOT WAR’ or ‘PEACE&LOVE&MUSIC.’ They were screaming at the top of their lungs, either with rage or laughter, in order to be heard, to be listened to. They wanted their young years of life to last forever. Alongside this significant ‘hippie’ movement, it were also the years of flourishing culture, music and film industry. Western culture was on the increase, giving a lead to other parts of the world. It was a great boom within the industry field which could have not remained without repercussions.

Flawless; nothing as such exists. In addition to the great development within any area, there must be a defect hidden, somewhere. Throughout the era mentioned above, plenty of flaws or errors may be found, as anywhere else after all. However, I intend to concentrate on one of them; namely the “semi-religious hippie drug-and-murder cult,” “the cult led by Charles Manson that would become, for many, the ultimate symbol of the dark side of the 1960s.”

Charles Manson; Great Disruption of the 1960s’ American Dream Land

“Charles Manson, a cult leader whose crimes loom large in the American psyche,” embodied rather an infamous figure of American history during the 1960s. Manson’s odiously copious history has been terrifying several generations since the inception of ‘Manson’s Family’ up to the present. Drugs, hallucination, seclusion, conspiracies and unsuccessful vision of the future; these might have been probable impulses for the Manson Family to kick up a row.

Charles Manson was born in 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio. His early life lacked any signs of stability or security as he was left at the mercy of ruined family background. As a kid, he was being handed over between his single mother and other family relatives. His mother was an alcoholic and a prostitute, which caused her son to spend a lot of the nights out on the streets. As a young man, he refused to make any efforts to direct his future life in a better, more respectable way. During his young years, he was imprisoned so many times that had even got used to the environment behind the bars; he was not eager to get out. Released in 1967, he was subsequently moved over to San Francisco, California.

Throughout those years spent in prison, he had discovered a music talent within himself. He learnt how to play the guitar and also wrote several songs of his own. Californian streets were packed with young people who were fighting for a new way of life. Manson was chatting with them, listening patiently to what they were striving for and smothered them with a beat of his music. Manson was not a dull man; he knew exactly how to win those youngsters’ affection. Shortly after coming to California, Manson had masses of young people, female mainly, following him. He embodied their master, father, brother; they sought love and sympathy in his embrace. He had made them blind, stone deaf to the outside world. These were the origins of the Manson Family.

Manson Gets Inspired by The Beatles’ White Album

The Beatles’ White Album was recorded in 1968. For all those years since its release, it has represented one great mystery. The album consisted of 30 records of which some referred to the political and social events of the era. One of such was a track called Piggies, which represented “a light-hearted satire on consumerism and class distinction.” The Beatles intended to create something epic, something which had never been here before. They were aware of the political instability; feminism protests, the hippie movement and also the industrial growth of the States; and so they were aiming to connect and encourage people in a different way. “If you felt that things were falling apart and the centre could not hold, then, boy, did The Beatles have the perfect record for you.”

“There’s something about The White Album that invites listeners to mess around with it.” Manson had become obsessed with the album, although he misinterpreted its original intention. Due to the album’s resourcefulness, Manson had been provided with a great space to originate his own thoughts and conspiracy theories about its meaning. He claimed The Beatles foresaw a world race war; the White Album served as a warning. He was certain that white people would have been annihilated by the black race. For Manson, the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April of 1968 signified a clear signal the war had begun. However, it did not happen. The track which Manson clung the most to was called Helter-Skelter. In other words, it meant ‘chaos.’ Manson pictured this chaos as the world war he believed in. He himself then used the term when he sent a bunch of his followers to do some ‘helter-skelter’ at “10050 Cielo Drive, on the night of August 8, 1969.”

“Tate-LaBianca murders,” which both took place in August 1969, have been recognized as the beginning of the world war; in Manson’ mind. Since the assassination in 1968, Manson was waiting for the war to begin, watching out for any possible signals. However, nothing was happening; no race war came into action. Thus the Manson Family had assumed power.

Spahn Ranch; Forsaken Place as a Cult’s Hideaway

When Manson had come to California, he befriended one of the Beach Boys’ band members, the drummer Dennis Wilson. Manson had revealed his music talent to Dennis and intended to become part of the band. Wilson grew fond of Manson and appreciated his fancy for music. For some time, Manson and his Family were even living at Wilson’s residence. Those were rather boisterous days and nights; drugs, alcohol, prostitutes and music of course. Staying at Wilson had welded the Manson Family together. Via Wilson, Manson had “met other music bigwigs like producer Terry Melcher who rented the now-infamous 10050 Cielo Drive before Sharon Tate and husband Roman Polanski moved in.” Nevertheless, this carefree, paradise life could not have lasted forever. Manson loved music. He practised playing the guitar and also wrote some more songs. Despite the fact that Manson’s endowment for music was not one of the greatest, Wilson wanted to pull strings to get him to the band. However, Melcher held a different opinion. In addition, Manson was stubborn; he would not listen nor cooperate. He would not change even the slightest detail about himself in order to match the band’s requirements. Eventually, Wilson had got cross with Manson which encouraged him to kick him and his Family out of his life. Wilson had sworn to himself not to see Manson’s face ever again.

After being evicted from the Beach Boys’ companionship, “Manson and the Family bounced around Los Angeles, eventually settling at Spahn Ranch, an old film-an-television set in the western San Fernando Valley.” Although, it took them quite a while to find a shelter; they “moved onto the ranch gradually, first staying at a nearby church, then squatting in the empty shacks along the riding trails from time to time.” The ranch was an abandoned place; a few desolated wooden cabins buried deep down in the valley. Although the owner was still living there, in one of those cabins at the far edge of the ranch. His name was George Spahn, a blind old man in his eighties. George came to like Manson. They made an agreement. Manson and his people would take care of the place and George himself, who enjoyed the female’s company especially, in exchange for the shelter. So this ‘semi-religious hippie drug-and-murder cult’ moved in. Here, in such a deserted, isolated place, had Manson far greater chances to seize control of his followers’ minds.

10050 Cielo Drive, the night of August 8, 1969

It was a hot Californian summer night. Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian were driving among the ‘upscale Los Angeles neighbourhoods,’ towards 10050 Cielo Drive. Manson had sent Watson as the driver and the lead figure of the ‘helter-skelter’ operation, together with three other girls. Before entering the estate, Kasabian ran scared and made off. There were three of them now, walking up the road armed with knives and firearms. They must have been drugged, each and everyone, since “what transpired in 10050 Cielo Drive that night shook the nation.”

Sharon Tate and her husband Roman Polanski had moved into the house in February 1969. They took the house after Melcher and his girlfriend Candice Bergen, who had lived there since 1966. The house was beautiful. As Bergen herself said, “It was a fairy-tale place, that house on the hill, a Never-Never Land far from the real world where nothing could go wrong."

It was a lively night. Polanski was away, working on a film project in London. Tate had invited some of her friends over to keep her a company since she was heavily pregnant at that time. Her ex-boyfriend Jay Sebring, a friend Abigail Folger and Polanski’s friend Wojciech Frykowski were in the house with Sharon Tate; on that fatal night of August 8, 1969. Also, a teenage boy, a house caretaker’s friend Steven Parent was there, in the guest house. He was killed in his car while leaving home. He was the first victim; before the Manson family even entered the house. It all happened quickly, the victims had no chance to resist.

“Tate, eight months pregnant with Polanski's child, was stabbed 16 times by Atkins. A rope was slung around her neck and she was hung from the rafters. The other end of the rope was tied around her friend Jay Sebring's neck. He had also been stabbed as well as shot to death. Atkins wrote "PIG" in Tate's blood on the house's front door. Heiress Abigail Folger was stabbed 28 times. Her boyfriend and friend of Roman Polanski's, Wojciech Frykowski, was shot twice, bludgeoned 13 times, and stabbed 51 times. In the driveway, 18-year-old Steven Parent, a friend of the home's caretaker, had been cut and shot to death.”

There were some speculations whether Manson’s target was Melcher or the house itself. Since Melcher had refused to “significantly advance his music career,..., Manson became increasingly focused on violence.” However, this turned out not to be a determinant for Manson. He had visited 10050 Cielo Drive in March 1969, looking for Melcher. He was told Melcher had moved out in January that year. Also, Manson saw Tate around the house, as well as she saw him.

In January 1971, Manson and some of the Family members were convicted for several crimes they had committed. In 1972, Tex Watson was convicted for murders at 10050 Cielo Drive. They would all be sentenced to death, “but those sentences were changed to life in prison after California temporarily banned the death penalty in 1972.” According to an investigative journalist Jeff Guin, Manson was described as “the wrong man in the right place at the right time.” Manson himself mostly remained as the leading figure, giving orders to his puppets from the background. He physically was not present at most of the crimes assigned to the Manson Family. But how James Buddy Day, an author of a book Hippie Cult Leader: The Last Words of Charles Manson claimed, “the murders would not have happened without him.”

Charles Manson died on November 19, 2017. After more than 40 years in prison, Manson died of natural causes in a hospital in Bakersfield, California. His physical presence had disappeared from people's lives, “but the trail of blood he left in his wake remains a stain on American history.”