If you are even a casual fan of the JRE podcast, then you will certainly know that Joe Rogan is a serious lover of conspiracies---especially those around the JFK assassination, Operation Northwoods, and other 1960s era government shenanigans.
That’s why this book has been mentioned on almost every one of his podcasts over the last several months, ever since he had the author on the podcast.
And if you caught that podcast with Tom O’Neill, then you will know how interesting the premise of this book is. It is even more interesting if you recently watched “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” as it takes place during the same time as a lot of the timeline in Chaos and ties-in to the plot very well.
If you are interested in the CIA and their covert operations, and like a good crime drama, then you were certainly like the mix of these two: Charles Manson’s notoriety is potentially the result of a CIA operation to use LSD to alter human behavior!
Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties
From the Flap:
Over two grim nights in Los Angeles, the young followers of Charles Manson murdered seven people, including the actress Sharon Tate, then eight months pregnant. With no mercy and seemingly no motive, the Manson Family followed their leader's every order -- their crimes lit a flame of paranoia across the nation, spelling the end of the sixties. Manson became one of history's most infamous criminals, his name forever attached to an era when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia -- or dystopia -- was just an acid trip away.
Twenty years ago, when journalist Tom O'Neill was reporting a magazine piece about the murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Then he unearthed shocking evidence of a cover-up behind the "official" story, including police carelessness, legal misconduct, and potential surveillance by intelligence agents. When a tense interview with Vincent Bugliosi -- prosecutor of the Manson Family and author of Helter Skelter -- turned a friendly source into a nemesis, O'Neill knew he was onto something. But every discovery brought more questions:
• Who were Manson's real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties?
• Why didn't law enforcement, including Manson's own parole officer, act on their many chances to stop him?
• And how did Manson -- an illiterate ex-con -- turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers?
O'Neill's quest for the truth led him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from San Francisco's summer of love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with shady cover-ups and suspicious coincidences. The product of two decades of reporting, 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 Steven Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. This is a book that overturns our understanding of a pivotal time in American history.
Top Reader’s Comment:
Great journalistic effort by Tom O'Neill. Fascinating information regarding Charles Manson & "The Family," their time spent in Haight-Ashbury (coinciding with government-funded LSD experimentation there) & the circus of a trial that followed after the Tate-LaBianca murders. O'Neill offers proofs that Manson was a "protected" player for various reasons, one of them being the possibility that Manson would wage attacks on the Black Panthers, another the discrediting of the Hippie/Anti-War movement. The small time hustler that emerged from Haight-Ashbury a psychotic & violent chief of misrule was protected by judges & his parole officer to name a few. Hollywood royalty in his circle still keep their silence.
What other reader’s are saying: Mind-blowing documentation! Intuitively and from all we may have read, the official narrative doesn’t always make sense when it comes to high profile crimes. This book should cause murder cases to be reopened and Congressional hearings to be revisited. O’Neill takes us down the rabbit hole, with Chapter 11- Mind Control - validating many of our suspicions . As a journalist, I’d say this is very comprehensive reporting, with a personal touch... allowing the reader to experience the confusion and dread of the reporter’s findings. Yes, it all happened in the late sixties and early seventies. However, it also paves the road to ask new questions about what might be going on right now to instigate high profile incidents in American society and to shape public opinion.