DId PJ Tate suspect Blowback?

 wikipedia:
 "Blowback is a term originating from within the American Intelligence community, denoting the unintended consequences, unwanted side-effects, or suffered repercussions of a covert operation that fall back on those responsible for the aforementioned operations. To the civilians suffering the blowback of covert operations, the effect typically manifests itself as "random" acts of political violence without a discernible, direct cause... "

LtCol Paul James Tate, Sharon's father, was stationed at Ft. Baker, just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco at the time of the murders.  His military specialty was counter-intelligence  So was he working on behalf of the US effort in Vietnam?  But if so, shouldn't he have been stationed a little bit closer to the scene of the action?  Or if he was  working on behalf of US Operations for NATO, shouldn't he have been stationed in Europe?  What was going on in San Francisco that was of such importance to the US Army?

Well of course the Bay Area was still the capital of the Counterculture at that time, two years after the Summer of Love kicked it into high gear amongst the youth all across the country.  And it is known that the US Army was lending it's intel officers to an all-out effort to fight that social movement.

 Watergate by Fred Emery c.1994
"...the Johnson Administration.... had initiated a program of infiltrating protest groups with U.S. Army intelligence agents."

 Jane Fonda, Heroine For Our Time by Thomas Kiernan, c.1982  pg197
The FBI*, the CIA*, the Army Counterintelligence Corps and other agencies had been turned into a massive combined political police force that infiltrated, spied on and sometimes actually engineered the activities of the "subversives who sought to undermine the American way."
 
*[Referring to the FBI's "Cointelpro" operations and the CIA's "Operation Chaos."]


Their primary tactic was to place informants and 'agents provacateurs' within the anti-war movement and other radical groups of the time.  The undercovers would try to get people involved in these groups to commit crimes, which would then cause them to lose public support. It also enabled the police to go in and crack heads, putting the radicals out of action.  Or they would try to raise tensions between different groups or within one group, to get the activists to expend their energy by fighting each other, instead of fighting The Man.  They even went so far as to target Rock 'n Rollers, merely for being symbols of the movement.

Was PJ Tate involved in this effort?  You have to consider the possibility. Patti Tate has stated that the family would move around every three years as they followed PJ from duty station to duty station.  If so,  PJ would have been in San Francisco during the Summer of Love, at the beginning.  Of course the Bay Area from '67 onwards was a 'target-rich' environment, in terms of counter-cultural elements.   These included the Black Panther Party, the United Prisoner's Union, the Students for a Democratic Society, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, the Diggers, the Merry Pranksters, the Black Muslims, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Church of Satan, and the Process Church of the Final Judgement, among others.

In previous threads I have explored the idea that covert forces--in local, state, and federal law enforcement--were working to manipulate and maneuver the Family into committing the murders, resulting in the demonization of hippies and the counterculture generally.


                                The Hippies  --  Menace to society!

After Charlie was named as a suspect, did Col. Tate remember the Manson name from the files in his office?  Did he hear rumors from his colleagues that Manson was a product of this hidden war against the hippies?  Certainly PJ had a lot of connections and friends from other Federal agencies:

Restless Souls by Alisa Statman and Brie Tate c.2012

pg40
Patti: "Earlier that morning he'd (PJ) gone to Holy Cross with five of his friends from the FBI to set up a protection perimeter for our arrival. Along with providing protection, their other purpose was to look for suspects."

pg73
PJ to Helder: "...I'm confident that my network of connections can accomplish in one day what will take your men a week."

pg74
PJ: " I turned off the television. There were three other men in the family room, all friends from the US Department of Defense, all skilled investigators. After the murders, Guy was the first to offer his assistance. As an FBI agent, he'd spent twenty of his forty-nine years traveling the globe... "

Why did PJ have all these friends from the FBI?  Because he was working with them.  And that work had little to do with Vietnam.

Some people even give PJ credit for breaking the case:

Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones by Quincy Jones, c.2001
"....No one knew who did it until Sharon Tate's father, who was in military intelligence, led investigators to a guy named Charles Manson who had dispatched his followers to the Cielo Drive house with orders to "kill the pigs on the hill." "

But if PJ had some bigger role in solving the murders than has been acknowledged, could this be because PJ was just more diligent in his own investigation, or was it that he had inside information on the Mansonoids?

According to PJ, he may have discovered the Manson/Spahn Ranch link on his own, even before the detectives:

Restless Souls by Alisa Statman and Brie Tate c.2012  pg94
PJ surveils Cielo Dr. late at night (Sept./Oct?). Notices two choppers drive up to Cielo and the bikers try to jump the gate before guard dogs chase them off. PJ follows them in his car--they end up at... Spahn Ranch!

I think it's interesting that PJ allegedly went undercover as a hippie in the weeks and months after the crime as part of his own effort to find the killers of his daughter.  But few at the time suspected hippies.  They suspected black militants, dopers, doper dealers, the Hollywood crowd, S & M freaks, even Satanists.  Did PJ know something others didn't?

Sharon Tate and the Manson Murders,  by  Greg King,  c. 2000
 pg262
"...Paul Tate had left his career in military intelligence and devoted himself to a personal search for her killers. He let his army crew cut grow long, grew a beard and submerged himself in the anti-establishment world from which he thought his daughter's killers had come. He had regularly spent long nights wandering through the Haight-Ashbury District and along the Sunset Strip* in Los Angeles in search of clues."

*Two places where Charlie and crew used to hang out at.



-----------

 http://www.mansonblog.com/2016/02/charles-manson.html
Robert Hendrickson:
"I would like to add: It is entirely possible that the Manson Family was infiltrated by the F.B.I.
AND that Helter Skelter was influenced by same. ..  It might also explain WHY Col Tate's hands were TIED."



ADDITION OF LA TIMES ARTICLE PROVIDED BY CIELODRIVE.COM

-------------------------------------------------------

Whatever Happened to the Youngest Polanski?

Of course we all know that Sharon's unborn baby--named Paul Richard Polanski--was removed during the autopsy and subsequently buried with Sharon in her casket.  We all know this because everybody says so. Like this account:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Sharon-Tate-buried-with-her-baby-Why-or-why-not
Colonel Paul Tate spent the night before the funeral, beside his daughter’s casket. He had had them open the casket so he could have one last look at Sharon, who lay peacefully in her favourite Pucini dress Roman had picked out, and his grandson who was swaddled and tucked under his mother’s arm. Then he closed the lid and said good-bye.

Yet LtCol Tate(aka PJ), the only non-funeral home person who viewed Sharon in the casket, himself doesn't mention the baby  in his only known statement on the subject:

Restless Souls by Brie Tate
PJ:  "Now my eyes scrutinized, searching for more signs of violence, settling on her noticeably smaller belly.  My jaw tightened over Noguchi's pointless decision to separate child from mother."

--Why didn't he even note the presence of his first and only grandchild, who he is now viewing for the first and last time, in the coffin?  I find that odd.  Maybe because the baby wasn't in the coffin?

Another account had the baby being put in it's own casket:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Sharon-Tate-buried-with-her-baby-Why-or-why-not
Roman Polanski insisted that the baby be placed in a separate coffin.

The funeral home--Cunningham and O'Connor--made no statement on the subject.


But that wasn't the only oddity about the least known TLB victim.

--Why did the coroner(Thomas Noguchi) 'separate child from mother?'  All of the stab wounds to Sharon's body were in her neck and upper chest, with none to the belly, and thus could not have wounded the baby.  It would have been no mystery as what killed him (asphyxiation due to the mother's death).

Interestingly, at least one source claims the fetus was autopsied:

 http://www.lamag.com/longform/manson-an-oral-history1/
published in 2009
McGANN The next day, which was Sunday, we started the autopsies. The L.A. County coroner’s office was in the basement of the old Hall of Justice. It was like a dungeon—an awful place to be, like Frankenstein’s lab. But when you have a homicide, you always go to your autopsies. So I was there as Tom Noguchi did Sharon’s autopsy, then her baby’s.


--Why is there is no mention of her pregnancy in the autopsy report?

If the fetus was removed AS PART OF the autopsy, shouldn't that have been noted on the paperwork?


--What happened to the missing sections of the Coroner's statements to the Grand Jury?  Is there something in there they don't want us to see regarding Sharon's pregnancy or the disposition of the fetus?

http://murdersofaugust69.freeforums.net/thread/652/coroner-noguchi-grand-jury-testimony
Thomas T. Noguchi, the Grand Jury
Q. And did you find any significant condition about this woman with respect to pregnancy?
A. Yes.
Q. What did you find in that connection?
A. The examination revealed that decedent was 8 months in pregnancy stage and the male fetus was found. However, there was no injury to abdominal area nor the unborn baby.
Q. Did it appear that the baby was in a normal state of embryo - rather, fetus state at that time?
***Missing Q and A


--Why was no death certificate issued for Paul Richard Polanski, as was required by law?

https://www.scribd.com/document/260188252/Paul-Polanski-Sharon-Tate-s-baby
Gina Watkins Judd:
"When a fetus is born lifeless at 20 weeks or more gestation period, it is governed under the same laws of any death. It is required that the death be registered with the department of health vital statistics in the state it died in. In the state of California when a person dies as a result of homicide the medical examiner fills out the cause of death section on the death certificate and signs it. He then sends it to the funeral director who has the responsibility of confirming that the person who he has the responsibility of processing the remains for burial, cremation or entombment is in fact the person the medical examiner identified and the cause of death stated (homicide) in this case. He then signs it and he has the responsibility of filing it with the Department of Health BEFORE burial.
I noticed while researching vital records on Ancestry.com that there was no records of him being born or dying...."

(Though I can't say for certain if that law was in effect back in '69.)


--What was the reason for the curious delay by the Morgue in releasing the body of Sharon Tate?  Were there any more medical procedures done on the body after the autopsy was completed?

Restless Souls by Brie Tate
Patti Tate:  "The medical examiner, Thomas Noguchi, had completed Sharon's autopsy days ago; nevertheless, late Tuesday afternoon(Aug 12), his office refused to release Sharon's remains to the mortuary.  Dad spent hours speaking with one county coroner employee after another; none had an explanation for the delay.  When reasoning didn't work he resorted to threats, until finally, at 5:00pm, Noguchi signed the release papers."

Perhaps not coincidentally, there were immediate macabre rumors after the murders became known that the baby had been taken from the womb:

Helter Skelter,  by Vince Bugliosi
 In the days that followed a monumental amount of false information was published. It was widely reported, for example, that Sharon Tate’s unborn child had been ripped from her womb; that one or both of her breasts had been slashed off; that several of the victims had been sexually mutilated.


Susan Atkins even admitted she contemplated cutting the baby out of the womb:

http://www.cielodrive.com/archive/susan-atkins-story-of-2-nights-of-murder/
Susan Atkins’ Story of 2 Nights of Murder
"I wanted to, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut her open and take the baby."


I can't claim that the baby WASN'T in the coffin, but merely that evidence that he WAS, is very scant.


----------------------------------

 " The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
    --Ezekial 25:17  (as interpreted by Quentin Tarantino)

Tour 2017: NorCal Facts About The Victims

We began the tour in earnest on Thursday morning.  Our first stop was in the Marin County town of Sausalito where Jay Sebring had a houseboat that he rented with a friend.  Jay had opened a new hair cutting salon on Commercial Street in San Francisco in May of 1969.  He stayed at the houseboat while setting up his new shop and on visits to the shop after it was opened.

The houseboat was in what is now called Waldo Point Harbor, it is a large community of docked and seemingly permanently tied up boats often with whimsical additions or bizarre shapes.

We were told that one houseboat, which was for sale, was previously owned by Shel Silverstein, poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist and author who moved to the floating community in 1967.  The one bedroom, one bath houseboat built on a WWII balloon barge is yours for the ridiculously cheap price of $390,000.  Silverstein named his floating home Evil Eye.

Back in 1969 the community was just called Waldo Point and wasn't as organized and legal as today.  We spoke to the folks in the office who were not sure if the same houseboat that Jay had lived on was still there and possibly rebuilt.  However they were interested in making a copy of the following  article we took with us from the August 11, 1969 edition of the San Rafael Daily Independent Journal which tells about Jay and his houseboat.  They did know that Jay had lived there but not the particulars about the boat.

Colonel Paul Tate, Sharon's father, as the article says, often visited Jay on his houseboat because he lived and worked nearby.  Col. Tate was stationed at Fort Baker, a five minute drive from Waldo Point.  It was where Tate was when Doris Tate called him with the news about Sharon's murder.

Fort Baker today is a National Recreation Area  with an absolutely stunning view of the San Francisco Bay and Golden Gate Bridge.

Above are the buildings where Paul Tate would have worked.

We also made the trip to Colma and Holy Cross Cemetery where Abigail Folger is interred. 'Gibby' and her mother are next to each other in the mausoleum at the cemetery.  Going to visit the resting places of the victims is always a very humbling experience.

The San Francisco Bay Area has a surprising number of connections to the murders, we wanted to be sure to include the victims when doing our Northern California tour.

ADDED FOR LYNN: