42 pages • 1 hour read
Vincent Bugliosi, Curt GentryHelter Skelter
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Manson as a White Supremacist
Whatever larger issues are evoked by the legal and cultural aspects of the Manson case, there can be no doubt about the shocking nature of the murders, or of the sadistic qualities of the people who committed them. Manson was a white supremacist, a person with abhorrent ideas about race and civil rights. According to Bugliosi and to the testimony of those who knew him, he was obsessed with Nazism (the appendix to the book features no fewer than nine references to Adolf Hitler). His purpose in commanding his followers to write on any available flat surface in the blood of his victims did not originate from the random sadism of a sick mind.
Manson imagined that it was something that the Black Panthers would do: “The plan was to ‘push the blame on to the Black Panthers,’” according to Danny DeCarlo, by using paw prints and words in vogue among Black nationalists, such as “pig” (148). Manson’s vision of Helter Skelter was racially motivated, according to Gregg Jakobson: “he said that those were the people who would die in Helter Skelter...one third of mankind...the white race” (321). The difference between Manson and the terrorists who killed demonstrators and citizens in the south during the civil rights era is not as clear cut as it first appears. He reflected a dark image back to the white establishment, who had its own fears and fantasies about the political power of African-Americans.
Drug Panic
The members of the Family took prodigious amounts of LSD, which certainly could not have endeared them to the “straight” audience of peers sitting in the jury box. For his part, however, Bugliosi took pains to provide expert testimony that such drugs did not lead to murderous insanity; such a “temporary insanity” claim might have reduced the sentences of the defendants. In testimony, Bugliosi brought forth Dr. Joel Fort to say, for instance, that “a drug by itself does not perform a magical transformation—there are many other factors” in leading a middle-class teenage girl to go on a multiple murder spree (573). Worse still, the casual use of drugs by the victims at 10050 Cielo Drive—investigators found evidence of marijuana and other controlled substances at the site—led them on a fruitless, multi-week wild goose chase to find evidence of a drug deal gone wrong. Lack of understanding of drug culture, of its usage and effects, would stymie and interrupt the case against Manson at every turn.
The Aliases of the Manson Family
In the criminal underworld, an alias provides anonymity and connotes respect, fear, or admiration as the situation arises, such as the motorcycle gang “The Straight Satans” and Bernard “Lotsapoppa” Crowe. Manson handed down many aliases to members of the Family: Lynette Fromme was dubbed “Squeaky.” Atkins, also known as “Sadie Mae Glutz” or “Sexy Sadie,” allowed her child (later released into the care of a foster home) to be named Zezozose Zadfrack Glutz. Manson renamed every person who came under his control, and Manson glorified in taking on names for himself, most significantly “Jesus Christ” and “The Devil.” This did serve a criminal purpose, as mass arrests of the Family led to weeks of confusion as police had to sort through a host of separate arrest records. Control was the final purpose of Manson’s “rechristening” of his children: In taking away their old names, he prepared them for a new and strange world where the past didn’t matter.
