Joe Rogan Experience #1459 — Tom O'Neill Transcript

Transcript

0:00 I'm ready. It's called Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the 60s. Let's fill people in. you're aware of. Just trust me on that. And I think that if you look into it, you'll find I mean, that's also a little bit of a complicated story, too. And long story, very long story short, after a month or two, when the story kind of started breaking open and I started finding holes in the official narrative and pursuing them,

3:36 I never heard that, you know, that was ever substantiated. So I didn't get entirely away with it for nothing. the story and get them as obsessed as I was. How would you do that? Like pretend I'm a guy You could get a murder sentence too, because of that. So there was about a dozen of those, in a very important way, they all could have been tried for that perjury and sentenced to the same

6:55 They knew that he was committing all these crimes. Roger Smith, yeah. He just showed up there. I'm sorry to interrupt, but who was Smith doing this for? And he actually recommended that Manson be allowed to go to Mexico and work in Mexico. I believe so, yeah. So why would his parole officer send him back to this place three months after he'd been released?

11:07 And why do you think they were doing this? you know, the monster, the embodiment of evil, as Vince Bugliosi called him, the guru who could Any command he issued towards them, they would follow. For people who don't understand, we're talking about two years. control people's behavior without their knowledge. Now, this all came out in Senate and congressional

14:28 military people that they could implant messages, Senators Ted Kennedy and Daniel Inouye held hearings. The CIA admitted that they had done at the same place that Manson was in the hate in the but when I did a little research, I found out that there had been these allegations looking for a needle in a haystack, And everything that he had been accused of and denied, he did.

18:58 Those were the safe houses in San Francisco. to be in the bathroom. And again, the problem is the records are so scant because Helms It was named John Marks. He wrote the first book about MK Alter that came out in the mid to late 70s called The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. So Marx became the authority. I knew he was in the same facility. I knew that

23:09 So they ran that for the summer of 67. Imagine doing that to graduate students, Well, they didn't know who they were doing it for. Right. he started at Lackland Air Force Base. He was running the psychiatry department Exactly, yeah. Now, her parents, it was a heat wave. They couldn't sleep. They went to the bar. They brought their He was an airman.

27:32 and what his objectives were at that same time, it raises huge questions about this was an talk about it. It was mostly his mother saying, well, all I knew was they wanted him to be involved as a child and he was trying to kill her. Her name was Beth Rainboat. All this stuff came out that they didn't want to admit that they had developed these technologies that were effective.

30:47 Well, this is speculation. I'll go there for this. his file, his name was Shaver, I think it was, It's completely circumstantial. So it wasn't a precise thing. where they actually were telling the truth, And by the time he was 10, 11, 12 years old, he was stealing cars, committing petty theft and stuff. It wasn't until 67 when he came out that all of a sudden it was hands off.

35:20 is I lay out circumstantial evidence for a case with proof of each circumstance, And after he was convicted, he was claiming that he believed that all of his violence was a product of what had happened to him in prison when he was experimented upon with LSD through these scientists. And he would talk about these doctors coming in to examine him. But you'll see that when you get through Chapter 11.

38:20 follower, Mary Bruner, and then two or three or four more. And then Roger was the one except for three days in 61, or excuse me, in 60 when he was brought from Mexico to Texas, process of it and was supervising him upon his release. So that's why every time Manson got students infiltrate, to get information. Yeah, this was in Oakland in the ghettos in like 65,

42:05 to be a lot more difficult, but it always wasn't. So Smith joined that program where he's supposed first baby with Manson in the group. And Roger Smith and his wife, Carol Carol went up to Mendocino and petitioned the court to take foster Susan Atkins, who, you know, stabbed Sharon Tate. Yeah. again. She'd go back and forth. But she was pretty brutal. And Mary Bruner and Susan Atkins were given probation instead of being sentenced,

45:25 prostitute themselves for him. And the other people that they interviewed, the probation Freaked out. Um, that's when they screwed up in that situation. arrested. describes two arrests that Manson got But he was there in 69 in the DA's office. And he goes, you're not going to be able to. Well, and again, an informant has many definitions. It's not just informing on

49:21 gonna regret it uh so it's been a while since I've done this. Yes, I understand. Same thing. which began in the early 60s in Berkeley, themselves with left-wing groups, African-Americans with the Panthers. COINTELPRO would pit rival The Panthers became really paranoid by 67, 68. And when COINTELPRO was exposed in the 70s and resulted in more hearings, investigations, they admitted to being responsible for instigating, I think, 20 or 30

54:16 the prosecutor, Vince Bugliosi, presented at trial, which was the famous Helterskelter motive. In a nutshell, Manson believed that there was going to be a race war, the blacks would be framed for murders, at the Spahn Ranch but just to kill everybody. And as Manson allegedly said, leave something witchy. He wanted it to look like blacks had killed these, all he knew was they were wealthy, beautiful

56:42 That's when he would come out with his followers of their hole in the desert and take over the planet. Now, Bugliosi said in interviews that I didn't have you know, upper middle-class couple, the LaBiancas, then, you know, what was the motive? Yeah. I thought I scored. Then we went back to the house and talked till sunset. And towards the end of the six hours, I did realize that even though he was talking nonstop and I'm recording everything, he hadn't given me anything new or different.

59:39 So I turned off the recorder. Right. told me was that famously a videotape was taken from the Tate house by the police, and he never even knew that they took it, allegedly. yeah he seemed like a terrible person he's pretty bad well what do you when you hear what he did files and found that Melcher, Doris Day's son, record producer, young boy wonder, who lived in the

1:04:11 I don't believe that that's the official narrative. But Melcher testified at the grand jury and then at the trial that he had three fleeting encounters with Manson. One music with the possibility of recording them. And he didn't think they were talented enough and told Charlie that in so many words. He said he never saw him again. Tate house. Bugliosi had to convict him of conspiracy, in other words, ordering people

1:06:00 Right. and that's why I think, well, I think you could But once I could prove that Melcher lied and then two or three more, then I knew that I had to question the entire narrative. Greg Jacobson was another important witness who lied throughout all of his testimony in the trial to fit a narrative that Vince needed. Vince said, someone told me, I heard that

1:08:32 I'll definitely swing back around to you before. that I went back to him with these questions. And I thought, hoped naively that I would get him to break down And then when I wouldn't agree to anything, then the lawsuit threats started happening. And Vince was not turning his. And then the recorders go back on, He goes, this isn't quid pro quo. I'm very selective.

1:11:18 And then he'd say, no, no, you know, look at what this is going to do to my family, my kids, all that. So a year later—not a year later. I told him who it was. He goes, we have a letter from Vince. day in the paper. I've read Helter Skelter. He was brilliant. He goes, I can't believe the person And I go, is it going to inhibit us? in the book. It was nuts. And unfortunately, he passed away in 2015 or 16. And I get a lot of

1:14:44 The reason I didn't publish No, I mean, they extended it. So when I got the call, it was devastating. So that was crushing and it held up the book because we couldn't take it out and try to resell it until it was resolved. No. Yes. He writes books, too. He goes, I've always, he goes, I was fat because he had got my proposal. He said, I was so fascinated by this story and I've always wanted to do something on both Manson and MKUltra. So it took

1:18:39 stage in the valley somewhere and recreated my apartment. But then he used all his magical tricks. Like he That became Wormwood, which I don't know if you saw. We're still friends. but I didn't like where it was going. And then as soon as it did, my agent took it out. he had done before, I'm like, this guy is perfect. And he was. So we turned it out in a year. Well,

1:21:56 After suing me and trying to, I mean, doing everything to ruin my life, they made the And then I said, screw you guys. Like a giant baby. But at some point I thought, have a perfect beginning, middle, and end. You've got so much important stuff that you've uncovered and then the hardcover, you know, I had hoped to go on with my life without ever having to think about this again.

1:25:35 I don't really need to do anything ever again. I want to, I don't know. I mean, the guy, Well, you're pretty good at what you do. If they're going to butcher And this was when I was really, really broke in 2017. they didn't you 20 years how am i gonna fit this into two hours he can't make a series well that's what Oh, yeah. have been like for them knowing that this is what they were doing to people. Oh, yeah. It's so that's

1:29:18 I'm not quoting directly here, but he was making the argument that their weird behavior wouldn't be noticed by anybody at the hospitals because they're psychiatric patients. He'd known him for, I think, 45 years when Wes died in 99. he was going to testify to the Warren Commission, he had never told, he had Well, this gets better. gets a sign through his connections

1:32:12 that part of his experiments were inducing insanity in a person without their awareness. Wes was alone with him in the cell and then treated him for with Gerald Ford, who was in Congress and on the commission, and Arlen Specter, the young Arlen Specter, who was an investigator for the Warren Commission, who eventually came up with the magic bullet theory.

1:34:26 Yes, anyone. Ruby denied being in it, but that he was working with these people who were suspected of being involved in the assassination if there was a conspiracy. conspiracy. Alan Dulles, the former head of the CIA who was fired by John F. Kennedy, was to prove that Oswald acted alone. They came up with that conclusion, but after the first That he had stalked him, premeditated the murder, and that the whole thing was part of keeping the secret.

1:38:26 But I wasn't going to put it in the book. Everyone saw it. Made no sense. My argument in my book is it's important. an interesting, I approached Arlen Specter, who was running for re-election, if you have these documents showing that this doctor who treated Ruby, Oh, shit. He says, I'm there on the weekend. I don't think I ever really got paranoid during

1:43:05 that he would know that once they were publicized and he had the opportunity to say, I am so sorry, but there's an emergency. get this meeting. It's embarrassing, but I have to go back. So I left my parents' place to go to the post office because I had been there for three months. I was actually writing the first version I go, what? know that's a very powerful man and if he thought that he was in danger yeah you could have fucking

1:45:37 Yeah. area i was going into so with the kennedy assassination i just did a superficial because the underpass. They had the bullet that was the headshot. When they fly the corpse to Bethesda, Maryland, they describe it as a trach hole. There's a great book called Best Evidence by David Lifton. everything. You go, where they dosed them up with acid and sent them out into this field.

1:48:47 They had been doing it for a while. So this is in, what did it say, 1962? And so they dose them up, and then they send these poor fuckers out in the field, and they're just freaking out. And it's all archived footage. Well, if we have films like that from our government, you're not going to see them. or deny stuff with her. And she said, They're not going to give me a neither confirm or deny.

1:51:56 I'm your friend. Look, I'll tell you the truth. Okay. It's a complicated world. We're out there trying to keep people safe. And sometimes we've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. But Oh, you haven't gotten to that chapter yet? Yeah. Yeah. and his dying regret was he could have prevented them but didn't. to try to figure out what was going on.

1:54:47 Reeve divorced his wife, who was a Swedish model. So he flew her to Los Angeles, introduced her to all of his friends. But, yeah, maybe or maybe not, you know. Yeah, when the sheriffs would go into the Spahn Ranch, clinic and it basically gave Jolly the one who ran the clinic, change. They would screen people that this was volunteer testing, allegedly, for personality traits. They were trying to find out whether people have

1:59:03 And that was the research that they were doing at the clinic at the time. And that's one of the reasons he told me he gave Jolly an office there was Jolly was well but it raises questions. And that's one of the biggest disappointments of the book is, you know, because I couldn't answer the question, the largest questions I could only present, you know, a case for why it sure looked like it might have happened this way,

2:01:07 you know, And they fired her, her legally appointed attorney. follow-up, just go to verify, confirm, or refute my allegations. The LA Times gave the book a What about Jack? Where are they? And they could argue that you diminished the value of Helter Skelter, which I hope I did. We're helping you right now, man. Thank you. Thank you. That's what I think. I mean, if I had a guess,

2:03:48 No one cares anymore. We're worried about quarantining and social distancing. I didn't know about it. For the record, best guy in the world fits. and no one did try to sue you or no one did come after you, over things and like try to piece it together and like yeah there's there's a lot going on and a lot You know, when you get to the, I mean, where I'm at, just beginning chapter 11, you're

2:06:41 Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, gosh, I mean, he has family out there, but they know about this. He was an up-and-coming deputy district attorney in Los Angeles. the job a month after his wife found out she was pregnant, Vince's wife. Vince, in his delirium, out. And I was so happy. I was five or six years old. I had all these gifts. And she goes, get into the house.

2:09:56 He sent them letters like they changed their phone number. he had been stalking them because he thought it was his wife. Los Angeles, the Tate-LaBianca trial. This is where we get speculative. You have a guy like Vince, Yeah. and said, you need to know this. This man cannot get this job. So they told the opponent, robbery is three years. Even if he found out that he had stolen the $3, they wouldn't have

2:13:55 She came out and said, excuse me, after Vince told the world that the milkman had stolen $300 for him, the milkman and his wife filed a civil suit against Vince and Gail, his wife, because Gail also publicly said with Vince in an interview that that's a truth. he doesn't want to tell. He lied under oath and deposition. So did his wife about the stalking.

2:15:37 and beat the hell out of her. And I've got all those depositions too. And she was trying to embarrass him because he wanted her to pay him $200 or $300. It's in the book at the end. filing a false report, which is a felony. Well, it's a misdemeanor, but it could go to a felony. But I can take care of And Vince was on the other line and she going, no, no, no.

2:18:34 The cop that went to see what was going on and to get her, a guy named Michael Landis, It was a false report. He lost the attorney general's race when she went public, and again, with the milkman and mistress. Bugliosi, you know, this prominent prosecutor author, well, I have to show that there's a I know. He had every book he wrote, he had collaborators. So the milkman's wife in her deposition said that when Gail, Vince's wife, came to her house and knocked on her door and said, please do this.

2:22:26 So, you know, I'm not saying that this is a reason some of this stuff might have happened. It completely makes sense. Now, to go back to the Manson killings, what was the motive to hit that house? Right. in and out of the courtrooms every day. These doctors were trying to learn why some people, do they have precipitating You mean sensory deprivation?

2:25:57 fascinating it would have been a fascinating chapter there was a group of people uh artists And they were beautiful little places. His objective was to try to learn a way to dive. personality changed even before he met manson which was the summer of 68 but i guess i'll save that for the next chapter so the whole so they the motive though The kind of outcome that these murders had was to make the hippies the boogeyman. I mean,

2:30:12 And the argument was, and what the reporters were reporting was they had gone crazy on and they were basically a support, Leonard Bernstein. They supported the Panthers. They It wasn't just the movie people. Because all the people in that community, in the Hollywood community, would then also be aware that that was a spot that they had been to. Yeah.

2:33:28 Yeah. Yeah. You know, the house on the other side is the former convent that Katy Perry's been fighting that had been turned into a convent, LaBianca house. Oh, wow. So the whole area is haunted. So did they target the LaBianca house for any reason? I mean, and the Sarhan assassination of Robert Kennedy, there you know it's torn down now they made it a public school i mean they built a public school

2:35:58 Oh, you're doing another book, Tom. Yeah. and sent Tex Watson and Patricia Crenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten in to kill them. Pig, yeah. You know, what Vince kept out of the book He went with his wife and their boat to a lake where their daughter was visiting a friend. The argument would be, well, who would ever hire Manson to kill someone? Well, Manson wasn't as

2:40:08 The police were wrong when they thought it was two separate killers, to try to determine He was in Jay Sebring's I don't know about the social circle, but he could have, you know, who knew? And he was a hairdresser to the stars. And I found this out too late to get in the book. It cost a lot of money. And they lost the cable. And he said, can you come over here? We're trying to watch a movie.

2:43:29 And Jay's like, OK, that's all right. he told this to the police and then he confirmed it to me 30, 40 years later when I found him and interviewed him. And he told the police that. know anything about electricity. The police didn't follow up on it, or if they did, I couldn't find a Nope. I'm happy that you did it. sheriff who was Tex's cousin and his parents and said he's wanted for questioning in these unsolved

2:47:34 how they happened. He said he spoke to me for 20 hours and he goes, I've got all those audio tapes in a her new attorney that the prosecution planted, they audiotaped her telling her version, which became the official version. I couldn't do that without Charles Watson, Charles' permission. I go, are you still in I'm going to write to Charles and tell him what he told me.

2:50:02 I go, well, are you going to get his permission? He goes, yeah, you now you can't do that i go well are you gonna you know oh my god i'll be thinking about you. And his firm went bankrupt. So I asked him. For about a year, it went from the local court to the state Supreme Court, where the judge finally ruled that the LAPD should have the tapes. to the state Supreme Court through other courts. They've locked them down. It's 20 hours, first

2:53:12 yeah, A lot of these people are dying. Yes, please. Chaos Charles Manson. It's a requirement for coming in this room. Thank you. ...