Taming the Beast: Charles Manson's Life Behind Bars

by Edward George

  “You have the power and authority to do anything you want,” he railed, fuming over his upgraded status. “Just look them straight in the eye and tell them what you want them to do. Speak with such terror in your voice and eyes that no one will dare to defy you! And if they do, they’ll fear for their life. Believe me, they’ll obey you.

  “You need to have the power now because I’ve lost some of mine,” he continued. “I’m not into killing no more. I can’t be that snake going around biting people. You know why? The Lord told me to stop! And I asked the Lord, I said, ‘What else can I do? I’ve got no arms. No legs.’ And the Lord told me, ‘I didn’t say you couldn’t show your fangs and rattle your tail.’ So that’s all I do now. But I still scare the hell out of people. This is what you have to learn, to show your fangs and rattle your tail!”

  As Charlie spoke, his voice became deeper, louder, and more intense. The sound waves rattled off the office door, alerting an officer in the foyer. I waved him away, allowing Charlie to continue his masterful performance. Encouraged, Charlie stood, his pint-sized body trembling with defiance. His voice remained strong and unwavering, the words streaming out with such energy that it propelled him backward like an Everglades skiff. “Those who stand in my way get killed. They die horrible deaths with the bloody writing on the wall. The writing people still don’t understand. Doesn’t anybody realize that by now?” Leaning forward, his hand swooshed across the front of my desk, launching several books and papers into the air. A few hit the wall, falling to the floor with a crash. “Power is not there or in the brain! Book heads don’t rule. It’s here! Here’s your power!” he shouted, grabbing his genitals with his right hand.

  By now, all the officers on the foyer raced to the office to see if I was still alive. They arrived to find Charlie standing there, eyes inflamed, clutching his nuts in a frozen pose. It was some sight. I waved them off again, but their stampede broke the spell. Charlie was finished. Bravo, I thought. It had been one of his best shows ever. I lamented that it hadn’t been captured on film.

  Trying to capture Charlie’s act for posterity was becoming an increasing problem. The caged cult leader’s ever-changing emotions were playing havoc with the media, especially the foreign press. Rubacher wasn’t the only one who got burned. When the BBC called from London, I explained that if Manson gave the word, they could fly all the way here and set up; then, if he was on the rag that day, the whole deal would collapse. They were willing to take the chance and begged me to add them to the list. “You’re on,” I said, laughing.

  When Mike Wallace and 60 Minutes’s turn came, they played turnabout and cooled, never responding to my “come on down” letter. They obviously had wanted an exclusive, and Manson’s local television and Enquirer rehearsals had nixed the idea. Regardless, there were always enough names on the list to keep Charlie performing every ninety days for as long as he wanted. Even his goofy buddy Rubacher finally had his cherished session in March 1977.

  The day before the fateful interview, the staff held a routine classification hearing on Manson. The unit lieutenant, the unit psychiatrist, a psychologist, and two counselors joined me in attending. Charlie walked into the hearing room, leaped upon the eight-foot-long, highly polished conference table, lay down flat on his back, and closed his eyes. We waited him out, playing along by tolerating his unique positioning. Minutes passed. He didn’t move. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Charlie, are you dead?” I inquired.

  “I might as well be by the way you’re keeping me down,” he answered, rising slowly like Dracula from his tomb. Charlie hopped down and proceeded to lecture us on how terribly we treated him. Specifically, how we mercilessly abused him by not allowing him to take immediate possession of everything his demented fans mailed in. “You jack me off, but never let me come!” he charged, repeating a standard accusation. “You can’t make paper clip decisions!”

  “We’ll look into it,” I promised, rewarding him for another stellar performance.

  Rubacher arrived the next day wearing a heavy English-style full-length wool overcoat with a wide, rounded collar, epaulets on the shoulders, and a tightly buckled, dark brown matching belt. He was a thin, frail, handsome man with rich, black, curly hair. He was so excited that he pranced around, speaking in a high, anxious voice. He reminded me of a schoolgirl who had won a radio station’s “dream date” contest with her favorite teenybopper rock star.

  I’d arranged to conduct the interview in a Willis Unit conference room to avoid the issue of Manson’s troublesome bracelets. By remaining inside the high-security area, Manson wouldn’t have to be cuffed, eliminating the need for another tantrum.

  Manson entered the room affecting a mean scowl. He brilliantly cloaked any initial surprise over his visitor’s foppish appearance. Despite Charlie’s unfriendly posture, Rubacher was so electrified by the moment I thought he was going to faint dead to the floor. His eyes sparkled and his hands trembled with nervous delight as I made the official introduction. Charlie sat staring at him for a few moments, his famous hypnotic gaze locked deep into Rubacher’s wanting eyes. “How are you, old buddy?” Manson opened in a soft, friendly voice that was in stark contrast to his menacing demeanor. Rubacher stilled his fluttering heart and began speaking in a businesslike manner, running down his plan for the story, the photos, and a subsequent book he was planning to write that was to be titled “Showdown with Charles Manson.” Charlie sat and sucked on a cigarette, taking it all in. It sounded wild and grandiose to me, but I kept my mouth shut, enthralled by the thoroughly bizarre moment.

  “If you’re gonna play the money game, I wanna play, too,” Manson said, displaying a sudden, unexpected interest in material things. “Treat me like a partner.”

  Rubacher readily agreed, explaining that he was to receive $2,500 from Stern for the story, a rather paltry sum from a rag known to pay hundreds of thousands for scoops. With that out of the way, Manson launched into a rather uninspired, C-level rap on the environment while the accompanying photographer snapped hundreds of photos. Rubacher sat and listened in a euphoric trance like he was receiving the wisdom of the ages. He didn’t appear to have a clue what questions to ask, attempting nothing even remotely controversial or stimulating. Manson quickly grew weary of the naked adulation and abruptly ended the session.

  Rubacher was so enamored with being in Manson’s presence that he didn’t protest. He remained enthralled by the experience and thanked me profusely when I led him through the gate. The oddest thing was, I never saw or heard from Rubacher again. Not a single letter came to the prison. I couldn’t determine how the article came out because it was printed in German twenty thousand miles away. As far as I could tell, his book was never published. Worried that something might have gone wrong, I pestered Charlie about it for years. “Hey, whatever happened to that Rubacher guy?” Charlie always shrugged and pretended not to know.

  On Thursday, June 30, 1977, Dr. Clara Livsey, a psychiatrist from Baltimore, Maryland, came to CMF to interview Manson through an arrangement made by the warden. Dr. Livsey was researching a book she was preparing, The Manson Women, which promised to be a tony study of what drove Charlie’s girls to kill. The lady shrink had already sat with Squeaky, Sandra, Leslie Van Houten, and Patty Krenwinkel among others, chronicling their backgrounds, families, and behavior up to the time they met Charlie. With that completed, she was ready to meet the master himself.

  I introduced them in the conference room and stayed to monitor the discussion and make sure Charlie didn’t try and strangle the “uppity” woman. Charlie, who always knew how to play to the proper audience, was in fine form. He threatened, cajoled, badgered, and did his usual thing, using every inch of the room to dart around, gesticulate, wave his arms, distort his face, and stoke the fires in his eyes. Basically, he was tossing out his whole bag of tricks to unnerve the calm, serene doctor who had obviously done her homework and knew what to expect. A hardy professional, she withstood the attacks, pursuing
him aggressively and unflinchingly with her barbed questions. Charlie, fueled by a worthy opponent, was impressed.

  Sensing that his usual tactics weren’t working, Charlie shifted into his vulgar mode, humping the walls and making “jerking off” motions with his hands. “All the world’s power is in a man’s cock!” he announced. “It’s man’s ability to mate and breed and build the population with force and power!” With that, he slammed his fist on the table directly in front of Dr. Livsey’s face. He then took her hand, put it on the spot where he’d just struck, and barked, “Keep it there, woman!”

  I was ready the lock him up, but Dr. Livsey said she was fine and wanted to continue. Far from being intimidated, she fired her questions, probing him on each of his female followers. Manson answered in short, clipped sentences, like he was responding to a word association test.

  “Susan Atkins?”

  “A crazy, unmanageable, loathsome girl from the start. She was like an anchor around my neck, always following me around.”

  “Leslie Van Houten?”

  “I didn’t know Leslie very well. She was a daddy’s girl.”

  “Mary Brunner?”

  “I told her she could come along if she brought her credit cards. I told her I could only screw her a few times because I was too busy.”

  “Patty Krenwinkel?”

  “I have lots on her.”

  “Lynette?”

  “She was the mother hen, faithful to me, just like Sandra.”

  Wandering, Charlie said he became interested in the ecology because of all the great sex he was having. The sex made him feel more alive, motivating him to be concerned about the welfare of children and the world they’d inherit.

  Despite the focus of Dr. Livsey’s book, Charlie mostly danced around the questions relating to the girls, instead giving his usual spiel on the water, air, trees, and animals. He made some obscure reference to playing dominoes and how the motion, movement, and action will someday cause the world to collapse (a garbled version of the domino theory perhaps). “If we have to kill to save the planet, then killing becomes necessary. I told the girls to find out who was causing the world’s problems, then I let them know that it was their responsibility to do something about it because it was their world, not mine. They couldn’t sit back and just fuck and suck and get high, they had to do something to stop the world’s death and their own deaths. Anytime the girls started talking about the past, I’d tell them to forget it and give them something to do to get their minds clear. I’d order them to obey, to stay in line, and if they did, nobody would get hurt. My main function was to rid them of their old ways and thoughts and hang-ups about sex and drugs.”

  He shifted again to world power, money, war, and the balance between religions, acting like he alone knew everything about everything. Name a subject, and Charlie had the answers.

  To me, the entire performance was carefully crafted to convince Dr. Livsey that he was too crazy for anyone to take seriously. Therefore, it was impossible for him to have programmed his girls to commit murder. Just in case she didn’t quite get the message, Charlie put on a final show. After leaving the interview, he refused to undergo a routine strip search. When the officers forced him, he lashed out, striking a guard with his fist. He was overpowered and dragged kicking and screaming into administrative segregation. Perfect. Dr. Livsey’s last impression would be of a violently out-of-control, half-naked madman being manhandled by a group of officers—a loon incapable of influencing a fly to land on a toilet seat.

  When I caught up with him a few minutes later, he was laughing and joking, the feigned rage of the previous moment completely forgotten.

  “Bravo,” I said, clapping my hands. “Another rabbit pulled from the hat. Another mind totally screwed.” Charlie just twisted his beard and smiled.

  I don’t know how much Dr. Livsey was swayed by the act, or if she’d been leaning in that direction all along, but her book supported Charlie’s position that his girls were each individually responsible for what they had done.

  At the disciplinary hearing for striking the officer, Manson explained that a lot of the cons had a beef with the guy and were planning to kill him, but that he, Charlie, actually intervened, saving the officer’s life! Beautiful.

  After gracing a few more prime-time and late-night television shows, including one interview that was turned into a syndicated television special, Manson went small again, summoning a female reporter from the local Vacaville newspaper. In her letter, she promised not to write anything derogatory about him. That was bad journalism, but good PR, as it earned her an audience. Charlie selected her over a pack of media superstars because he felt she was young and unsophisticated like his followers, and deep down, he liked the little people. They were underdogs like himself. Not surprisingly, this insignificant interview turned out to be his most memorable.

  The young woman, Chris Weinstein, arrived on July 6, 1978. She was smart, attractive, and probably not a day older than twenty-five, if that. She was escorted through numerous security gates, down a long corridor, and into the infamous Willis Unit, home of Juan Corona, Big Ed Kemper, and other less famous but equally dangerous felons. Before she was taken into the conference room where Manson would be brought, I took her aside.

  “Try to relax, and don’t be afraid or in awe of him,” I advised. “He’s very animated when he speaks and has a tendency to jump around and raise his voice in sudden outbursts. It can be very intimidating. He can be threatening, yelling and screaming at you to make a point. If you feel afraid or threatened at any time, just shake your head and I’ll terminate the interview. Otherwise, if you can handle it, just let him go. Let him put on his show. He’s scary, but he won’t hurt you.”

  “I think I can handle it,” she smiled, steeling herself. “Just let him do his thing. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Okay. It’s show time,” I said, swinging the door open. After a short wait, Manson entered. He was wearing his mean face, telegraphing that this was going to be a different ball game. Manson’s eyes shifted from Chris’s feet to her face as he circled around her, sizing her up, searching for a weakness. Hanging tough, she stared back, doing the same with him. I interrupted the dog-sniffing act to make the formal introductions. “Charlie, this is Miss Weinstein from the Vacaville Reporter. Chris, this is Charles Manson.” They didn’t shake hands. Instead, we took our positions at the table. Manson staked out a kinglike spot at the far end, forcing the young reporter to come to him. Undaunted, Chris marched forward and settled in on his right. I took the chair to his left.

  “Why don’t you tell me about prison life, Mr. Manson,” she opened in a firm but nervous voice.

  “You can call me Charlie. And don’t be so uptight, woman. I’m not going to kill you.” He grinned and winked at me. As he’d done with even the most seasoned reporters, Manson took complete control of the interview. His now familiar ideas exploded to the surface faster than Chris could take notes. She’d brought a recorder with her, so she didn’t bother trying to slow him down. I watched as her expression grew from fear to amazement as Charlie played big shot, acting as if he were on a first-name basis with everyone from the Pope to Prince Charles. He railed about hippie leader Jerry Rubin selling out the revolution to make money. He accused blacks of using runaway flower children for prostitution. Andrew Young betrayed the United Nations. President Carter was giving the country to the blacks. Greedy developers were destroying the children’s future by poisoning the air and water, tearing up the forests, and raping the land for money. Chris listened almost helplessly, trying to squeeze in a question here and there. Finally, she bullied one through. “What about the murders, Charlie?”

  “I didn’t murder anybody,” he shot back in full denial. “But they sent me to prison. I didn’t make them do it. I just told them what they had to do to live with their truth. They knew what they were doing. Even Tex Watson’s book puts me away from the murders.”

  When I heard this, I couldn’t r
esist butting in. “You know, Charlie, Leslie Van Houten was convicted of murder in her third trial yesterday. Do you think she deserved that? She testified that you ordered her to kill.”

  Manson was miffed by the intrusion, but didn’t blow. Not yet, anyway. “She knew what she was doing. She was a papa’s girl, and wanted to do her own thing. Now she blames me for helping her be herself.”

  Realizing that this was going nowhere, Chris shifted subjects. She asked how he was able to convince so many beautiful, intelligent women to drop everything and follow him.

  “I looked them in the eye and saw what they wanted. I told them what they had to do to stay with me. If they didn’t like it, they left. If they stayed, I had sex with them. I told them to forget their hang-ups and guilt trips. They had to become one with me and my truth. Their wills had to die to become one with me. Sex was their initiation. It was a celebration of life’s pleasures. Something to enjoy, not to be afraid of.”

  Charlie put on his dirty-old-man smile and added that Chris herself had receptive vibes, even though she was a Jew. The reporter ignored the crude come-on and pressed forward. “How did you control them?”

  In a flash, Charlie was up. He slipped behind the young woman, grabbed her hair, tilted her head, and peered menacingly into her eyes from inches away. He spoke in a ruthless, angry tone. “When a girl came to the ranch, I grabbed her tight around the shoulders and jerked her around. I grabbed her hair like this and pulled her head back. That’s how I controlled my women,” he spat, letting Chris go and promptly sitting back down. It happened so fast that neither of us had time to react. I’d become immune to most of Charlie’s antics, but this one scared me. He could have cracked the lady’s neck in a second! I stood, ready to jump the guy, but Chris held up her hand, signaling for me to stop.