Coincidences and Conspiracies

"There's something happening here, what it is aint exactly clear"

             -Stephen Stills (For What It's Worth)

"Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together? Some things are too strange, and too strong to be coincidences."

            - Emery Allen

"At Stanford in 1959, Ken Kesey volunteered to take part in a CIA-financed study named Project MKULTRA at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital where he worked as a night aide. The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, AMT, and DMT on people. Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the Project MKULTRA study and in the years of private experimentation that followed.Kesey talked in detail to the patients in the hospital. Kesey did not believe that these patients were insane, rather that society had pushed them out because they did not fit the conventional ideas of how people were supposed to act and behave. Kesey's role as a medical guinea pig, as well as his stint working at a state veterans' hospital, inspired him to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1962"

( Ken Kesey was the founder of Merry Pranksters and an initial proponent of "The Acid Tests")  



 I just got finished re-reading one of my favorites, Inside The LC: The Strange but Mostly True Story of Laurel Canyon and the Birth of The Hippy Generation. Written by Dave McGowan, this is an incredibly interesting read. Especially if you are into conspiracies, as I know a few of us are lol. It is broken up into many (Almost 30 and ongoing) long chapters, and covers a whole bunch of areas. Charlie and the Family are covered quite thoroughly in many of the chapters. There is one segment about an old abandoned secret compound that was really funny to revisit. To get there, you have to walk down a long, old, stairway cut into the mountain. McGowan actually gives you the number of steps you have to go down. I realized, re-reading this, that I was at this place on the Last Manson Blog Tour with George while searching for the alleged "Gary Bus".  Really far out old dwellings, and scraps of vehicles, down at the bottom of Rustic Canyon in the middle of nowhere. I looked back at great pictures that George took down there while we were looking for the Gary Bus, and I realized, these are the same old gates, stone stairs, and abandoned buildings in the pics accompanying McGowan's chapter on that location. Total Stoner deja-vu moment lol Check out Chapter 10 of the Inside The LC series, and then go look at the pics George posted with his "Gary Hinman Bus- Not" post. Same place. A coincidence I guess.

McGowan calls a few of the old relics he shows pictures of " Mansonesque" artifacts implying it was just the type of place, and close enough to some of their known hangout spots, which the Family would have had to at least visited. Anyway before he gets too into Charlie or The Family, McGowan starts his series by pointing out some really freaky coincidences that were going on in that area during the time in regards to a couple of things. I am going to summarize for you, but here is the theme from the Author himself, before I go into the specifics:

" Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking, that it’s around 1967, and you have recently arrived in Laurel Canyon and now find yourself fronting a band that is on the verge of taking the country by storm. Just a mile or so down Laurel Canyon Boulevard from you lives another guy who also recently arrived in Laurel Canyon, and who also happens to front a band on the verge of stardom. He happens to be married to a girl that you attended kindergarten with, and her dad, like yours, was involved in atomic weapons research and testing, her husband’s dad, meanwhile, is involved in another type of WMD research: chemical warfare. 

This other guy’s business partner/manager is a spooky ex-Marine who just happens to have a cousin who, bizarrely enough, also fronts a rock band on the verge of superstardom. And this third rock-star-on-the-rise also happens to live in Laurel Canyon, just a mile or two from your house. Just down a couple of other streets, also within walking distance of your home, live two other kids who – wouldn’t you know it? – also happen to front a new rock band. These two kids happened to attend the same Alexandria, Virginia high school that you attended, and one of them also attended Annapolis, just like your dad did, and just like your kindergarten friend’s dad did. 

Though almost all of you hail from (or spent a substantial portion of your childhood in) the Washington, D.C. area, you now find yourselves on the opposite side of the country, in an isolated canyon high above the city of Los Angeles, where you are all clustered around a secret military installation. Given his background in research on atomic weapons, your father is probably familiar to some extent with the existence and operations of Lookout Mountain Laboratory, as is the father of your kindergarten friend, and probably the fathers of a few other Laurel Canyon figures as well.

My question here, I guess, is this: what do you suppose the odds are that all of that just came together purely by chance?"

So, let me fill in some blanks so that makes more sense. There was a secret base, it seems, called the "Lookout Mountain Laboratory" operating in the Laurel Canyon area back around that time. As well some kids, related to some Government or Military Intelligence Players, all moved into the area - simultaneously becoming famous at the same time. Is that connected? Who knows. But, it is interesting. Let me show you what I mean:

In the first week of August 1964 US Admiral George Stephen Morrison had alleged that US warships under his command had come under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. This, of course, is the "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" which led to the "Tonkin Resolution", which basically got us into the Vietnam War. McGowan starts the entire series going into some decent detail about this occurrence, and goes out of his way to point out the alleged attack on the US never actually happened. Then the Author points out that right around this exact time, musicians seem to start sprouting up and flourishing, in the area of Laurel Canyon, although there was no real music business in LA at the time yet. He mentions NY, Memphis, and Detroit as the places people went at that time to "Make-it" in the music business. McGowan argues that the players who made it happen did not go to LA because of the music business, but that the music business became big in LA due to them. He also insinuates that the military complex might have had something to do with it. He points out some interesting things. It is a very long series and each chapter is very thorough. So please go give it a shot if you are up to it. It is well worth the read. Mcgowan goes into all the mysterious deaths that occurred in the area, including TLB. Mcgowan also goes into great detail about legendary characters such as Carl Franzoni and Vito Paulekis, the original "Freaks", and the ones who got the Sunset Strip bars dancing. You can also read about legendary Laurel Canyon locations like the "Log-Cabin", and "Houdini House" with it's secret underground tunnels. For this post, I am sticking to famous people in Laurel Canyon connected to any type of government, or military presence, in Laurel Canyon in late 60's during Charlie's run around the area. Also I will talk about my idea of why he thinks they may have been there. Here are the examples McGowan used to make his point (Filling in the blanks for the riddle he asked in his above opening remarks)

He starts his list with the son of the aforementioned Admiral Morrison. He is the Lizard King- Jim Morrison.So as the dad is off fabricating a story to get our Country in a very costly war, his son is one of the earliest residents of Laurel Canyon's musician scene. One of the first hero's of the hippy movement. Jim had no prior musical experience or interest. He did go to film school though, as did Ray Manzarek, which is interesting because- as we will see- there is a secret military/film base very close. Jim never learned to read or write music, nor play an instrument. When he was asked later in life if he had ever been interested in learning, he replied "Not Really".  But, Jim was not alone in that regard either, as we will also see later.

 Frank Zappa - He made the Log Cabin infamous which was right at the intersection of Laurel Canyon Blvd, and Lookout Mountain Ave. McGowan points out the Frank was an anti-drug, pro-war, control freak which shouldn't surprise us- as his father Francis was a Chemical Warfare Specialist who was assigned to the Edgewood Arsenal. Edgewood was well known for Chemical warfare research, and rumored to be a location where Project MKUltra experiments took place...

**Quick explanation : Project MKUltra—sometimes referred to as the CIA's mind control program—was the code name given to an illegal program of experiments on human subjects, designed and undertaken by the United States CIA. Experiments on humans were intended to identify and develop drugs and procedures to be used in interrogations and torture, in order to weaken the individual to force confessions through mind control. MKUltra used numerous methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD).

Herb Cohen - Franks Zappa's Manager. Former US marine who had come to LA from the Bronx with his brother before the music and club scene took off. He had spent the few years prior traveling around to places like the Congo in 1961 at the exact time our CIA was killing their Prime Minister.

Gail Zappa- Franks wife. Comes from a long line of career Naval officers. Her dad spent his life working on classified nuclear weapons research for the US Navy. Gail herself once worked for the Office of Naval Research and Development. Gail also once went to a Naval Kindergarten with Jim Morrison, who then moved on to an Alexandria High School which had also been attended by John Phillips and Cass Elliot.

John Phillips- Mamas and Papas. "Flowers in your Hair". Son of  US Marine Corp Captain Claude Andrew Phillips. John went to a series of  elite military prep schools in the DC area and got an appointment to the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. McGowan points out that after leaving Annapolis Phillips married Susan Adams who is a direct descendant of Founding Father John Adams. Her Father did "Covert Operations" for the Air-force in Vienna, and Susan herself would work at the Pentagon along John Phillip's sister who worked there for 30 years. John Phillips apparently went to Cuba at one point to "Fight for Castro". He got out of Cuba in time for the missile crisis, and was staying in Jacksonville Florida, not far from the Mayport Naval Station.

Stephen Stills-  Buffalo Springfield and CSN/CSNY. Did you know the follow-up single to "For What It's Worth" was a song called "Bluebird"? Another coincidence I guess, but that was the original code-name assigned to The MK-Ultra program. Stills was the son of a career military family. he grew up in places like; El Salvador, Panama Canal, Costa Rica. Still was educated on Military bases, and elite military academies. He used to get high and make up stories about serving in Vietnam. I have read that myself in two different books that have noting to do with this subject matter. That is another weird coincidence. Stills use to tell stories bragging about being in the military when he got really wasted.

David Crosby-  The Byrds. CSN/CSNY.  "Almost Cut My Hair"- Hippy Anthem. Son of Annapolis Graduate and WWII Military Intelligence Officer Major Floyd Delafield Crosby. In addition, Crosby comes from a family tree that includes Senators, Mayors, Governors, Civil and Revolutionary War Generals. Crosby goes all the way back to Alexander Hamilton. David Van Courtland Crosby. Go take a close look at this cat's history. He is from The Most Elite of our society. They based Easy Rider on him. That movie defined an era. But we will get to the actors in a minute.

Jackson Browne - Helped write songs for Eagles, among others, in addition to his great solo career. Jackson was born in a Military Hospital in Heidelberg Germany where his dad was assigned doing "Post-War Reconstruction".  McGowan feels this was code for OSS work. The OSS were the precursor to the CIA.

Gerry Beckley/Dan Peek/Dewey Bunnell- America   "Horse With No Name", "Ventura Highway". all three products of military intelligence community. Beckley's dad was a commander of an Air-force Base, and the other two's dads were career officers serving under him. That is where the three boys met.

Corey Wells - 3 Dog Nite. Had been in Air-force.

Mike Nesmith -  The Monkees. Also had done time in Air-force and had inherited 25 million.

Gram Parsons - Byrds/Flying Burrito Brothers. Son of Major Cecil Ingram "Coon Dog" Conner II. a decorated Military Officer and Bomber pilot.

Now in another Chapter he points out how the "In-Crowd" of young actors on the scene have similar backgrounds, but before I go there lets look at another coincidence McGowan points out involving "The Family":

"Along with the victims, the alleged killers also lived in and/or were very much a part of the Laurel Canyon scene. Bobby "Cupid" Beausoleil, for example, lived in a Laurel Canyon apartment during the early months of 1969. Charles "Tex" Watson, who allegedly led the death-squad responsible for the carnage at Cielo Drive, lived for a time in a home on- guess where? Wonderland Avenue.

During that time, curiously enough, Watson co-owned and worked in a wig shop in Beverly Hills, Crown Wig Creations, Ltd., which was located near the mouth of Benedict Canyon. Meanwhile, one of Jay Sebring's primary claims to fame was his expertise in crafting men's hairpieces, which he did in his shop near the mouth of Laurel Canyon. A typical day then in the late 1960s would find Watson crafting hairpieces for an upscale Hollywood clientele near Benedict Canyon, and then returning home to Laurel Canyon, while Sebring crafted hairpieces for an upscale Hollywood clientele near Laurel Canyon, and then returned home to Benedict Canyon. And then one crazy day, as we all know, one of them became a killer and the other his victim. 

But there's nothing odd about that, I suppose, so let's move on." 
 

Then McGowan goes on to explain that the musicians were only partly responsible for the explosion of the LA music scene. The musicians provided the soundtrack. Vito and Carl provided "The Freaks", and the Dancing. But the "Vibe" was created by young Hollywood stars who flocked to the Sunset Strip bars to listen to them. It was the presence of this group, who had close ties to the musicians, which made it all "Happening". These actors also gave more credence and exposure to the Hollywood "Hippy Scene". Before I go through their connections, Allow me to let McGowan explain more about his "Young Turks" in his own words:

"From the symbiotic relationship between Laurel Canyon actors and Laurel Canyon musicians arose a series of feature films that are now considered counter-cultural classics. One such film was 1967’s The Trip, an unintentionally hilarious attempt to create a cinematic facsimile of an LSD trip. Written by, of all people, Jack Nicholson, the movie starred fellow Turks Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Bruce Dern. Seated in the director’s chair was Roger Corman, who, throughout his career, worked side-by-side with David Crosby’s dad on no less than twenty-three feature films. Recruited to supply the soundtrack for the film was Gram Parson’s International Submarine Band (Parson’s music, however, was ultimately not used, though the band does make a brief on-screen appearance). The house where most of the film was shot, at the top of Kirkwood Drive in Laurel Canyon, was the home of Love’s Arthur Lee.

Another ‘psychedelic’ cult film of the late 1960s with deep roots in Laurel Canyon was the Monkee’s 1968 big-screen offering, Head. Also scripted by Nicholson (with assistance from Bob Rafelson), the movie included cameo appearances by canyon dwellers Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and Frank Zappa. The music – performed, of course, by The Monkees – was a mix of songs written by the band and contributions from Canyon songwriters like Carol King and Harry Nilsson. And shockingly, some of that music is actually pretty good. Even more shockingly, the movie overall is arguably the most watchable of the 1960s cult films. It is certainly a vast improvement over, for example, 1968’s wretched Psych Out (starring Nicholson and Dern).

I do realize, by the way, that some of you out there in reader-land cringe every time that I mention The Monkees as though they were a ‘real’ band. The reality though is that they were every bit as ‘real’ as most of their contemporaries. And while the made-for-TV Beatles replicants were looked down upon by music critics and fans alike, they were fully accepted as members of the musical fraternity by the other Laurel Canyon bands. The homes of both Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork were popular canyon hangouts in the late ‘60s for a number of ‘real’ musicians. Also regularly dropping by Dolenz’ party house were Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.

The difference in perception between their peers and the public was attributable to the fact that the other bands knew something that the fans did not: the very same studio musicians who appeared without credit on The Monkee’s albums also appeared without credit on their albums. And then, of course, there was the fact that so many of Laurel Canyon’s ‘real’ musicians had taken a stab at being a part of The Monkees, including Steven Stills, Love’s Bryan MacLean, and Three Dog Night’s Danny Hutton – all of whom answered the Monkees’ casting call and were rejected.

There were undoubtedly other future stars who auditioned for the show as well, though most would probably prefer not to discuss such things. Despite persistent rumors, however, there was one local musician who we can safely conclude did not read for a part: Charles Manson. Given that the show was cast in 1965 and began its brief television run in 1966, while Charlie was still imprisoned at Terminal Island awaiting his release in March of 1967, there doesn’t appear to be any way that Manson could have been considered for a part on the show. And that’s kind of a shame when you think about it, because if he had been, we might today remember Charlie Manson not as one of America’s most notorious criminals, but rather as the guy who made Marcia Brady swoon."

That is another weird thing about these early "Stars" of the LA music scene. There is another coincidence to consider here. Most of them couldn't play instruments. These early music stars didn't necessarily even know that much about music. The first Laurel Canyon and American "Break- Through" rock act were The Byrds. In his first autobiography David Crosby basically said the only one who knew how to play an instrument was Roger McGuinn. When the Byrd's became a band, most of them, didn't even own instruments and Michael Clarke had never even tried the drums in his life. But they made it, and made it big. Here is who you are really listening to when you play records from many of the early Laurel Canyon rock bands:

 "The Wrecking Crew" (sometimes called "the Clique" and "the First Call Gang") was a loose-knit circle of top Los Angeles studio session musicians whose services were constantly in demand during their heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s. In varying configurations, often anonymously, they backed dozens of popular acts on numerous top-selling hits of the era. They are considered one of the most successful session recording units in music history. The group's ranks began to materialize in the late 1950s, but in the early 1960s they fully coalesced into what became their most recognizable form when they became the de facto house band for Phil Spector, sometimes credited as the Phil Spector Wall of Sound Orchestra, playing on many of the hits that he produced at the time, and contributing to the development of his Wall of Sound production methods. After the initial success of Spector's records, they became the most requested session musicians in Los Angeles, playing behind many popular recording artists such as Jan & Dean, Sonny and Cher, Barry McGuire, the Mamas & the Papas, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Sinatra. They were sometimes even used as "ghost players" on recordings credited to rock groups, such as the first two albums by the Monkees and the Byrds' cover version of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" (1965). The unit supplied the backing tracks on many of the Brian Wilson-produced Beach Boys' recordings of the 1960s, including the album Pet Sounds (1966).

 

Anyway, back to Mcgowan and the Actors:

"Returning then to the counter-cultural films of the 1960s, the most critically acclaimed of the lot, and the one with the deepest roots in Laurel Canyon, was Easy Rider. Directed (sort of) by Dennis Hopper, from a script co-written by he and Peter Fonda, the film starred Fonda and Hopper along with Jack Nicholson (the only one in the movie who did anything resembling actual acting). Hopper’s walrus-mustachioed character in the film was based on David Crosby, who was regularly seen racing his motorcycle up and down the winding streets of Laurel Canyon (that motorcycle, by the way, had been a gift from Crosby’s good buddy, Peter Fonda). Fonda’s absurd ‘Captain America’ character was inspired either by John Phillips’ riding partner, Gram Parsons, or by Crosby’s former bandmate in The Byrds, Roger McGuinn (depending upon who is telling the story.) That very same Roger McGuinn scored the original music for the film. His contributions were joined on the soundtrack by offerings from fellow Canyonite musicians The Byrds, Steppenwolf, Fraternity of Man and Jimi Hendrix. And the movie’s hippie commune was reportedly created and filmed in the canyons, near Mulholland Drive".

So then, let us take a look at the "Young Turks" in a little more detail:

Bruce Dern-  "Bruce Dern's Godparents were: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and future two-time Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson (he lost both times, in 1952 and 1956, to Eisenhower). Bruce’s paternal grandfather was a guy by the name of George Dern, who served as Secretary of War under President Franklin Roosevelt (for the youngsters in the crowd, ‘Secretary of War’ is what we used to call the ‘Secretary of Defense’ in a slightly less Orwellian era). George had also served as Governor of Utah and Chairman of the National Governors’ Association. Bruce’s mother was born Jean MacLeish, and she happened to be the sister of Archibald MacLeish, who also served under Franklin Roosevelt, as the Director of the War Department’s Office of Facts and Figures and as the Assistant Director of the Office of War Information. In other words, Archibald MacLeish was essentially America’s Minister of War Propaganda. He also served at various times as an Assistant Secretary of State and as the Librarian of Congress. By far the most impressive item on his résumé, however, was his membership in everyone’s favorite secret society, Skull and Bones (class of 1915, one year before Prescott Bush was tapped in 1916)"

Peter Fonda (Jane)- They are the children of Henry, or course. Henry served as a Naval intelligence Officer in WWII.  and McGowan points out that:

"Not too many years after the war, Hank’s wife, Francis Ford Seymour, was found with her throat slashed open with a straight razor. Peter was just ten years old at the time of his mother’s, uhmm, suicide on April 14, 1950. When Seymour had met and married Hank, she was the widow of George Brokaw, who had, curiously enough, previously been married to prominent CIA asset Claire Booth Luce."

Dennis Hopper-  About him McGowan states: "Most official biographies of Hopper would lead one to believe that he was the son of a simple farmer. Dennis recently acknowledged, however, that that was clearly not the case: “My mother’s father was a wheat farmer and I was raised on their farm. But my father was not a farmer.” To the contrary, Hopper’s dad was “a working person in intelligence” who during WWII “was in the OSS. He was in China, Burma, India.” Hopper has proudly proclaimed that his father “was one of the 100 guys that liberated General Wainright out of prison in Korea,” which might be a little more impressive were it not for the fact that it was actually the Red Army that freed Wainright and other prisoners; the US intel team just came to pick them up, debrief them and transport them home … but that, I suppose, isn’t really relevant"

Warren Beatty-   "Warren Beatty, whose father, Ira Owens Beaty, was ostensibly a professor of psychology. Young Warren, however, spent all of his early years living in various spooky suburbs of Washington, DC. He was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1937, after which his father moved the family to Norfolk, Virginia, which I think I may have mentioned is home to the world’s largest Naval facility (the reason for that, by the way, is that Norfolk is the gateway to the nation’s capital). The family later relocated to Arlington, Virginia, home of the Pentagon, where Warren attended high school and where he was known on the football field, as John Phillips (who attended a rival school) remembers it, as ‘Mad Dog’ Beaty.

Ira Beaty’s relatively frequent relocations, and the fact that those relocations always seemed to land the family in DC suburbs that are of considerable significance to the military/intelligence community, would tend to indicate that Warren’s dad was something other than what he appeared to be – though that is, of course, a speculative assessment. But if Ira Beatty was on the payroll of some government entity, working within the psychology departments of various DC-area universities, then it wouldn’t require a huge leap of faith to further speculate about what type of work he was doing, given the wholesale co-opting of the field of psychology by the MK-ULTRA program and affiliated projects."

McGowan seems to have been reaching at that point in my estimation, but he does bring up something every interesting about Jack Nicholson, and then he sums it up from there:

 
"It is said that Nicholson was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City, but there is no record of such a birth at the hospital or in the city’s archives. As it turns out, Jack Nicholson has no birth certificate. Until 1954, by which time he was nearly an adult, he did not officially exist. Even today, the closest thing he has to a birth certificate is a ‘Certificate of a Delayed Report of Birth’ that was filed on May 24, 1954. The document lists John and Ethel Nicholson as the parents and identifies the location of the birth as the Nicholson’s home address in Neptune, New Jersey. It appears then that there is no way to determine who Jack Nicholson really is. He has told journalists that he has no interest in identifying who his father was, nor, it would appear, in verifying his mother’s identity.

 What we do know is that the nucleus of the 1960s clique known as the Young Turks (and Turkettes) was composed of the following individuals: the nephew of a Bonesman; the son of an OSS officer; the son of a Naval intelligence officer; the daughter of that same Naval intelligence officer; the daughter of an Army intelligence officer; the daughter of a guy who openly associated with prominent gangsters throughout his life; the son of a probable spychologist; and a guy whose early years are so shrouded in mystery that he may or may not actually exist..."

The one "Daughter of an Army Intelligence officer" he mentions, in his above summary, who I did not give a definition for was another young actress who occasionally ran with this crowd you will have heard of:

Sharon Tate.

I would encourage all of you to go read all of this entire series yourself if this sort of thing is interesting to you. It does raise some interesting questions. Why would all these people from military backgrounds be drawn to this area at the same time and wind up in the entertainment business?

Well, maybe because it was an intersection of the budding Hollywood music/entertainment industry and the Military Industrial Complex? McGowan seems to keep hinting that the military has something to do with this. And it is also teased that this secret lab was somehow involved with the migration to the Laurel Canyon area. He sort of teases that the Government somehow "created" the counter culture themselves to serve its own purposes. Then, it seems, he attempts to show how they caused the same movements demise. But why? That never seems to get answered. McGowan just floats questions, and theories:

"Why did Jim Morrison never denounce, or even mention, his father’s key role in escalating one of America’s bloodiest illegal wars?"

"Why did Frank Zappa never pen a song exploring the horrors of chemical warfare"

"CoIntelPro. Entire books, for example, have been written examining how presumably virtuous musical artists were subjected to FBI harassment and/or whacked by the CIA."

“What if the musicians themselves (and various other leaders and founders of the ‘movement’) were every bit as much a part of the intelligence community as the people who were supposedly harassing them?”

"Cynical exercise in discrediting and marginalizing the budding anti-war movement and creating a fake opposition that could be easily controlled and led astray?

"The harassment these folks were subjected to was largely a stage-managed show designed to give the leaders of the counterculture some much-needed ‘street cred’? What if, in reality, they were pretty much all playing on the same team?

“Some on the left even theorized that the hippies were the end result of a plot by the CIA to neutralize the anti-war movement with LSD, turning potential protestors into self-absorbed naval-gazers.” An exasperated Abbie Hoffman once described the scene as he remembered it thusly: “There were all these activists, you know, Berkeley radicals, White Panthers … all trying to stop the war and change things for the better. Then we got flooded with all these ‘flower children’ who were into drugs and sex. Where the hell did the hippies come from?!”

"Jerry Brown was a long time resident of a little place called Laurel Canyon"

What does Jerry Brown Have to do with any of this I wondered? So I poked around a bit and found this:

  

(Excerpts Taken From EIR Volume 5, number 47 December 5,1978)

That operation was di­rected primarily through the MK-Ultra experiment in the use of hallucinogenic drugs in mind-control and brainwashing. The final phase of that operation was the creation of mass countercultural movement of LSD cults of rock music and ritualistic death. described in recent FOIA documents as the "testing of MK-Ultra materials on unwitting subjects in normal life settings."  By the late1960s, spread by the infamous "Merry Pranksters" operations of Ken Kesey and others, it had destroyed thousands and thousands of America's youth. With the establishment of Jerry Brown as the governor of California. MK-Ultra became the govern­ment of California. Brown's leading advisers are the leaders of the Kennedy-linked support operations for the development of the counterculture, and his govern­ment and personal friends include top operatives of MK-Ultra and associated networks.

One such would be STEWART BRAND: an original Merry Prankster, re­cruited by Bateson, publisher and editor of The Whole Earth Catalogue and its successor CoEvolution Quar­terly. Brand is an official "special consultant" to Brown. Who Brand recently described in print as "in effect a contributing editor for CoEvolution Quar­terly, at no pay." 

  

"Charlie Manson, of course, was using our tools and techniques from the Merry Prankster days." These are not the ramblings of some spaced-out zombie in the backwoods of California. They are the comments of Stewart Brand, a top adviser to Cali­fornia Governor Jerry Brown.

 Another would be Ken Kesey. Kesey was the leader of the Merry Pranksters and orchestrator of the so-called "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Tests." Kesey, a former jailbird, was invited by Brown in October 1977 to address the Governor's staff on the subject of police practices.

Yet another is Gregory Batesman: controller of the initiating MK-Ultra experiments at the Palo Alto. California Veterans Administration Hospital from 1950-1962. Bateson is a Cambridge University-trained "Anthropologist," friend of Huxley's from the 1920s, for 15 years was husband of the late Margaret Mead, and a regional Ethnology specialist in the Office of Strategic Services from 1944 to 1947. Bateson was the personal psychiatrist of Alan Watts, Buddhist guru and foun­der, with Huxley, of the Esalen Institute. In the 1950s, Bateson became spiritual leader and drug supplier for a group of young artists gathered through Stanford University. the Palo Alto VA Hospital, and California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. This group became the original Merry Pranksters. Bateson addressed Jerry Brown's State Prayer Breakfast in 1976 on the subject of peyote. He is currently a Brown appointee to the California State Board of Regents and a Scholar in Residence at the Esalen Institute.

Then there is Sim Van Der Ryn: key provocateur of Berkeley's "People's Park" riots; technical adviser to Brand's CO; protégé of Buckminster Fuller. Founder of the Farralones Institute. a West Coast think tank special­izing in solar energy research. Van der Ryn met Brown at the San Francisco Zen Center; he was appointed the California State Architect and head of the Brown-created State Department of Appropriate Technologies. 

Jerry Brown was picked up as a perfect combina­tion - a 1960s counterculture neo-cultist with a big name and a thoroughly amoral, moldable public profile. Brown's cultism is indicated in his early Jesuit training, in 1956-60, and represents a key to his psycho­logical makeup. The training he underwent in a Jesuit seminary in California was overtly expressive of the (sadistic) military discipline and mind control around which the elitist Jesuit intelligence apparatus is built. 

Brown is a totally synthetic politician, a combina­tion of the brainwashing apparatus of MK-Ultra with the heavily entrenched Hollywood-based Kennedy machine in California which together put him into power. Brown's entire career (even given his position as the son of a popular former governor) is inexpli­cable except as a totally controlled media project of these two apparats. By the time of San Francisco's 1968 "Summer of Love." the number of "freaks" in California had reached major proportions. Haight-Asbury was run by the so-called "Diggers," which included key figures previously involved in the founding of the Los Angeles Free Press. one of the earliest models for the underground press, which would later be instrumental in the success of Jerry Brown's first electoral cam­paign. Haight leaders held their power on the basis of their known connections to MK-Ultra drug sources. Their control of San Francisco's LSD culture was institutionalized in the creation of the Haight-Asbury Free Clinic. Which was founded by an MK-Ultra con­nected psychiatrist, Ernest Dernberg, and Roger Smith, a street-gang organizer and parole officer of later mass murderer Charles Manson.

Well, I am not sure quite what to make of that. As for the secret Lab back in Laurel Canyon. What was going on there? Here is some information I looked up elsewhere about the secret "Lookout Mountain Lab":

  
"Lookout Mountain Laboratory was originally envisioned as an air defense center. Built in 1941 and nestled in two-and-a-half secluded acres off what is now Wonderland Park Avenue, the installation was hidden from view and surrounded by an electrified fence. By 1947, the facility featured a fully operational movie studio. In fact, it is claimed that it was perhaps the world’s only completely self-contained movie studio. With 100,000 square feet of floor space, the covert studio included sound stages, screening rooms, film processing labs, editing facilities, an animation department, and seventeen climate-controlled film vaults. It also had underground parking, a helicopter pad and a bomb shelter"

"Located in the hills of Hollywood, California, this secret film studio produced as many films as those of the Hollywood majors, yet most of those films were of a highly classified nature and unseen by all but a few. The mission of Lookout Mountain, also known as the 1352d Motion Picture Squadron under the command of the Air Force, was "to provide in-service production of Classified motion picture and still photographs for the Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Dept. of Energy) between 1947 and 1969 when the studio was deactivated."

"The facility retained as many as 250 producers, directors, technicians, editors, animators, etc., both civilian and military, all with top security clearances – and all reporting to work in a secluded corner of Laurel Canyon. the secret bunker had been up and running for more than twenty years before Laurel Canyon’s rebellious teen years, and it remained operational for the most turbulent of those years The existence of the facility remained unknown to the general public until the early 90's. Svali, an Illuminati Defector, stated that the Cult had a location in California which made all of the training films for "Trauma-based mind control". No other place has been identified besides this one. These training films were undoubtedly also a part of the MK-Ultra program."

So the Government was doing secret mind control experiments, in part, using acid. And, McGowan is sort of implying that this would be tied to both the Lookout Lab and potentially Charlie. But, this whole series is built on one conspiracy after another. I would need to see more to believe what we have, so far, is more than a bunch of coincidences. But, I am willing to take a look. So, is there anything out there anywhere else which talks about Charlie being tied to anything like this?

Well I have read elsewhere, but never took too seriously, stuff like:

"It appears that part of Manson's own supply of LSD may have come directly from the CIA. A new type of LSD known as "Orange Sunshine" was being used by the Manson Family immediately prior to the Tate-LaBianca murders according to Family member Charles "Tex" Watson, who wrote in his memoir that it was the use of Orange Sunshine LSD that finally convinced him that Manson's violent, apocalyptic vision was real. Orange Sunshine LSD was manufactured and distributed exclusively by a group known as "The Brotherhood of Eternal Love" who operated out of a beach resort near Los Angeles. The Brotherhood had among it's drug manufacturers and dealers, one Ronald Stark, who is believed to have manufactured 50 million doses of LSD, and had known connections to the CIA." "It was this very same batch of acid that was available in abundance four months later during the fateful free concert held at Altamont Speedway. Four people died at that concert, one of them after being brutally stabbed to death by a group of Hell's Angels who had been given access to multiple tabs of Orange Sunshine. Many people who attended that concert noted that the LSD seemed to be "contaminated" and that the general vibe one got from using it was that of extreme negativity, violence, and death. Additionally, Orange Sunshine was in use among American ground forces during the Vietnam War. It was smuggled into that country from the California coast..."

"In the book, Helter Skelter, Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi discussed Manson's programming techniques in depth, likening much of Manson's programming abilities to those used by the U.S. military. Manson was in prison during the time that the CIA was known to be using inmates at Vacaville prison in the MKULTRA experiments, a fact that leaves one to speculate that perhaps Manson was some sort of mind-controlled guru created by the CIA and set loose against the "subversive" left-wing elements in order to discredit them."

Then I re-listened to an old Mae Brussell (whom I also never took seriously) live interview. Mae claims:

"California was where the flower children were." "California was an important state to affect National Policy and part of the Military Industrial Complex".  

" The Murder of Sharon Tate the others in the home was a Political Massacre."

"The fact that the same lawyers, planners, the same teams originated this particular massacre and what affect it would have on our society." "It was planned well in advance"

" All of these people involved were "Agent Provocateurs". 

"Charles Manson is a Patsy, Identical to Lee Harvey Oswald." ( She names a couple more) "Identical to James Ray. Charles Manson was used by News Media to slam down on the Hippy's."

" Very interesting in my research.The very first man to publish an article on the Sharon Tate murders in my collection, before they had a suspect, the murder was in August and they found the suspects in December, was a man named Ed Butler. In October 69 he wrote an article. the man who publishes the newspaper he works for is Patrick Frawley of Schick Razor, Technicolor who is one of the third largest supporters of Richard Nixon. Far right wing person, and he hires Ed Butler to write articles for him. Ed Butler is an Agent Provocateur who worked with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. When Oswald had the cover story that he was a communist, he wanted to get into Cuba if he could, he said Ed Butler made a record for him where Oswald said he was a member of The Fair Play for Cuba. Ed Butler worked with Lee Harvey Oswald. So, its interesting that in 1969 the first person who has an opinion on who murdered these 7 people was Ed Butler. Now what is this article called? "Did Hate Kill Tate" And he goes into the fact that the Black Panthers did this murder, because they were tied into communism...    Now this is what we call Agent Provocateur clandestine government where somebody is the first one in and he is tied in to with all these other people"

"A Prominent attorney by the name of  George Shibley(SP?) who works with groups in the Middle East, and Beverly Hills, has powerful connections, Met with Charles Manson just before he got out of jail, Terminal Island. And no one will know what conversations transpired between Mr. Shibley, or why he was up there. Or why Charles Manson, its unknown. This illegitimate child from a 16 year old girl, no family or kin. Nobody would know how Charlie Manson would get such a famous Beverly Hills attorney to visit him before he made parole. No one will ever know the conversation that transpired between those two men, but what we do know is that when Charlie Manson got out of Terminal Island in 1967, at the height of the Haight-Ashbury Scene he had a bus, a large bus. And he did not buy it, he did not have a job. And he had credit cards for gasoline. Now in the trial some story was made up that one of the girls stole a credit card from their parents to buy Charlie Gasoline. I am sure the parents would have had him arrested before too long, you cant go two years with a stolen credit card. Charlie was never arrested. Where was this money coming from from the day he left that jail to the day of the Sharon Tate Murders?" 

Ya know- Mae Brussell is sort of the text book definition of a raving lunatic, but she has one fair point. Charlie never did seem to get arrested. I didn't re-type the entire hour long interview, but she brings up several times how little Charlie, or any of them, ever got arrested. Mae also makes a big deal about money, and repeatedly questioned how Charlie financed all of them for two years. Brussell felt like they couldn't have stolen it all. Especially the guns and field radio type of equipment. Brussell called it "Warfare" possessions. But, I can account for most of that stuff based on several explanations of how they got by from multiple actual family members who recount where the money and drugs came from. However, Charlie staying out of jail for so long while on parole/probation, and continually getting arrested is something that I always ask myself about. It makes no sense. It reminds me about some of the things Preston Guillory said:

“We had been advised to put anything relating to Manson on a memo submitted to the station, because they were supposedly gathering information for the raid we were going to make. Deputies at the station of course started asking, "Why aren't we going to make the raid sooner?" I mean, Manson's a parole violator, machine-guns have been heard, we know there's narcotics and we know there's booze. He's living at the Spahn Ranch with a bunch of minor girls in complete violation of his parole.”

“The raid was a week after the Sharon Tate thing, and the intelligence information was coming in for about three weeks prior to the raid. They just didn't want any arrests made. It was obvious they wanted the intelligence information we were gathering for some other reason. Three days after they were arrested, 72 hours later, they were all released for lack of evidence, right after this mammoth raid. This raid involved two helicopters, 102 deputies and about 25 radio cars, and all the charges were dropped against everyone”

“It appeared to me that the raid was more or less staged as an afterthought. It was like a scenario that we were going through. There was some kind of a grand plan that we were participating in, but I never had the feeling the raid was necessary or that it required so many personnel. Now, if you were a police official and you were planning a raid on the Spahn Ranch, utilizing 102 deputies and helicopters and all that, one would think that with all the information coming out a month prior to the raid, wouldn't you have them under fairly close surveillance? If you did have them under fairly close surveillance, wouldn't you see them leave the Spahn Ranch to go over and kill seven people and then come back?”

“You have to remember that Charlie was on federal parole all this time from '67 to '69. Do you realize all the shit he was getting away with while he was on parole? Now here's the kicker. Before the Tate killings, he had been arrested at Malibu twice for statutory rape. Never got imprisoned for parole violation. Somebody was watching every move he made, somebody was controlling from behind the scenes. Somebody saw that no parole hold was placed.”

These types of things always bothered me too. It is so very strange. But, Back to Mae Brussell for a minute- just to make sure that maniac is not on to something as far as expensive lawyers. She had another example of that....

"We dont know much because its never brought out these trials about the background of Charles Watson, except he did appear with a beard and become part of the Charles Manson family. But when Charles Manson was arrested, a law firm sent two lawyers went to Texas to see this particular boy Charles Watson. And Judge Brown, Judge David Brown, said to these lawyers from Beverly Hills California- you take the next plane back to California. That I will put you in jail for 72 hours or fine you if you dont get back to California. And the lawyers said well wait a minute - that's our client, we want to see him. The lawyer who wanted to see Charles Watson was named Mr. Deloach. He called a press conference at a Dallas Hotel. And Deloach said this at the press conference- I came to see my client. That Charles Watson had been in his office in Los Angeles California 30 or 40 times prior to the killing of Sharon Tate, and the other 6 people in Los Angeles. Deloach said his own background was that he was a Republican candidate for State Assembly in 1964 and he was Chairman of the Young Republicans. He belonged to a law firm on Santa Monica Blvd. in Los Angeles. At the jail to keep Mr. Deloach from seeing Charles Watson were 20 Texas highway patrolman, sheriffs deputies guarding him and they fought his extradition for 8 months. 

I have seen no records publicly that Mr. Watson had a traffic violation or any kind of problem that this 20 year old boy needed an attorney from the Republican National Committee 40 times. I know what the expenses are to meet with any attorney even for one hour. People use attorneys or public defenders if they have small altercations. But to go to a prominent law office of a man named Mr. Deloach 30 to 40 times prior to the time you are going to kill 7 people is worth investigating."

Actually, Mae Brussell is probably not on to anything at all. lol If you read "Will You Die for Me", then you know that Tex does have an answer for this:

"As 1968 began, my life started quietly disintegrating, so quietly I wasn't even aware of it at the time. It began with a car accident one rainy morning on the way to work with Rich, who'd been working at the shop with me for a month or so. Laurel Canyon is tricky, especially when wet, and the friend who was driving us skidded into a head-on collision that messed up my knee badly enough to put me in the Hospital for an operation. Although the whole thing didn't seem all that important at the time, the accident and the lawsuit that followed had a number of consequences later, keeping me out of the army, involving me with two lawyers (who would later come to Texas and fight for the right to represent me in order to obtain the publicity such a trial could bring them), and creating an insurance claim that would later be the excuse for a bizarre odyssey back to Death Valley and Charlie after I had run away from him. 

So, then I just stop. It starts to make my head spin. None of it can be real. This is all just crazy talk combined with a bunch of coincidences. I mean all these internet articles/stories, and Mae Brussell Radio interviews, are not hard facts. I would need to deeply research all of these claims to verify them before we could believe any of them. There is no real proof that, for example, MKUtlra experiments were going on at Vacaville in the mid 60's while Charlie was in a California prison...

Right?

MEMORANDUM

TO:  Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments

FROM: Advisory Committee Staff

DATE: February 8, 1995   

RE: CIA Documents Describing Human Radiation Experiments The CIA has located three additional documents that describe on their face CIA support for human experiments involving radiation as part of project MKULTRA.1 [The CIA apparently failed to notice these documents when it previously searched the MKULTRA files. See Interim Report, at E-1.2 for a description of MKULTRA.]  The CIA has informed staff orally that the radiation research described in one of the documents (Attachment 3) was the cover story for the underlying psychological research that the CIA was really interested in, and that it did not fund the radiation work. 

The attached documents are redacted copies that were publicly released by the CIA in the 1970s.  The Committee has requested that the CIA declassify the documents in full as soon as possible.

Document 3 is a letter dated March 30, 1965, from Dr. James A. Hamilton concerning research under MKULTRA Subproject 140 (at that time renamed MKSEARCH # 3). The letter is requesting a grant to continue research on the "Measurement of Thyroid Function in the Puerperium." 2 [The "puerperium" is defined as the state of a woman while bearing a child or the period immediately thereafter- the post-partum period.] The letter notes that the funding will also support "a new series of experiments on 100 prisoner-subjects, in which radio-active iodine uptake of the thyroid and T-4 uptake of red-cells, and several other measures which we have developed, are being related to previously studied variables." 

The CIA has told staff that the radiation research described in this letter concerns the cover activity relating to independent work of Dr. Hamilton, and that the CIA was interested only in non-radiation research activities involving the testing and effects of drugs.  Dr. Hamilton has informed staff that the CIA provided him funds to set up and operate a laboratory, whereby he could do his own research but also do research for the CIA at their request.  Dr. Hamilton stated that he therefore set up a lab in the Vacaville California Prison Medical Facility and did radioisotope studies to measure thyroid uptake in male prisoners as part of his own research in understanding the effects of the thyroid on post-partum depression. The stated that the prisoners were paid and were informed about what he was doing. [Dr. Hamilton said he would send the Committee a bibliography of his publications on this research.] He stated further that the CIA never utilized the lab before his relationship with CIA was made public and the lab was shut down. He states that he did, however, provide information to the CIA on the effects of LSD and other drugs based on his clinical experience as a psychiatrist.  Dr. Hamilton also stated that he did experiments concerning covert markers using flourescents, but not radiation, on himself and his assistants.

OK, Yes- some strange things were going on. But, do I believe that Charlie Manson was...

• A product of MKUtlra?
• A member of The Process Church of Final Judgement?
• A Scientologist?
• A member of the Mafia?
• A member of the Church of Satan?
• A  Significant player to the inner circle of the Laurel Canyon music scene?
• An Agent Provocateur or Asset of the CIA? 

Nope to all of the above. But, I believe he was close to, or gained more than the usual information about, most of them at some point. I believe that made Charlie a guy who know a little bit, about an awful lot, that mattered to the children of the counter-culture in the late 60's. And, I also believe that listening to someone speak who had some exposure to, and understanding of, all of this, must have sounded pretty impressive to a bunch of young stoned, tripping kids who were hanging out by the fire in the woods at night.

One of the most fascinating elements of the, latter years, parole hearing transcripts is listening to a mid-50's Leslie Van Houten telling the board about searching for the Hole in the desert they were going to go through. You can hear the frustration and humiliation, over being so stupid, in her explanations. That is why until I have more proof of something else, I can't rule out a "crazy" motive like Helter Skelter. Some in The Family bought what Charlie was selling. All of it. Besides, is the idea of a Helter Skelter motive any more "crazy" than the idea that Charlie was a CIA mind-controlled asset who was pre-programmed by the Government to help them kill the Hippy Movement? Some seem to be buying into that.

Sometimes things can look really weird in hindsight, but we can't always assume that everything is connected. Take the case of Mrs. Mia Farrow.

In 1968 Mia Farrow had just completed the movie Rosemary's Baby Directed By Roman Polanski. This movie used the Dakota Building in NYC to film most of its exterior shots. Mia then went on a retreat to see the Maharishi Yogi with her Sister Prudence and a couple of celebrities. Also on this trip was John Lennon who wrote about 18 of the songs for the White Album on the retreat, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. At about this time, half way around the world, Mike's cousin- Dennis Wilson- was housing Charlie and the Family....

Which says to me that:

Mia Farrow was hanging out with one guy while he was writing a record which would inspire the house guests, of the cousin of another guy she was also with, to murder 5 people in the home of the Director of the movie she had just made- which was filmed in a location where the the guy writing the record that inspired the first 5 murders- would eventually be murdered himself.

Strange Days Indeed...

                                                              - Your Favorite Saint