Charles Manson and the New Left

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In his 1980s neo-Nazi terrorist newsletter SIEGE, James Mason promoted worshiping Charles Manson as the new Hitler—something that was important to the book’s original popularity (though not as important to Mason’s followers today). Michael Moynihan, who edited a book of the same title from James Mason’s original newsletters, was attracted to Mason specifically because of the Charlie angle. The book was first released in 1993, just as a huge revival of interest in Charlie was cresting, which culminated with Guns n’ Roses recording one of his songs, “Look at Your Game, Girl,” for their platinum (though far from their best) album The Spaghetti Incident?

While this is downplayed by many of those interested in Charlie, he was intensely racist and antisemitic, repeatedly stating this— not to mention that he carved a swastika on his forehead and praised Hitler! His deep misogyny, which he used to assemble and control the predominately female Family, is also overlooked. (Once he raped a young Family member while the others watched.) And all of these elements drew James Mason to him.

Nonetheless, Charlie has remained a kind of countercultural hero of sorts, and in particular the Manson Family murders had an influence on the New Left in the 1960s. At the same time as the Manson murders, internationally parts of the Left were going underground and embracing armed struggle. And these two things got mixed up together, before—at least to the more serious elements on the Left—Charlie’s reactionary views became more clear.

Nonetheless, James Mason said that “Charlie bridges the gap between Left and Right,” [1] and the neo-Nazi hoped to take advantage of his countercultural appeal to draw others to his vision of a rebellion against the system. At the time at least, he envisioned that this would be done simultaneously by both the Left and Right.

In addition to the counter-cultural newspaper the L.A. Free Press, Yippie leader Jerry Rubin took to Charlie—at least at first. Rubin said, “I fell in love with Charles Manson the first time I saw his cherub face and sparkling eyes on TV,” and that “His words and courage inspired us.” [2]

The most infamous embrace, however, was the Flint War Council, the last SDS meeting in December 1969. (The Students for a Democratic Society were the largest left-wing anti-Vietnam War student group in the 1960s.) It was here that the SDS leadership decided to go underground, eventually becoming known as the Weather Underground.

At the War Council, Bernardine Dohrn, one of the group’s leaders, gave a speech praising the Manson Family’s murder of pregnant actress Sharon Tate and four others in a wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood. “Dig it; first they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the room with them, then they even shoved a fork into pig Tate’s stomach. Wild!” One of the chants during the meeting was “Charles Manson Power!,” and members saluted each other by holding up four fingers to represent the fork. (Dohrn later called these goings-on an “ironic joke.”)[3]

The German anarchist armed group the June 2nd Movement also fetishized Charles Manson; the group’s founder, Michael “Bommi” Baumann, talked about these views in his autobiographical writings. In 2010, Baumann met Nikolas Schreck at a book launch in Berlin. (Schreck had been an associate of Mason and had edited the anthology The Manson File, which included some of Mason’s work in it.) Baumann expressed admiration for the book, and later Schreck interviewed the former underground fighter. Baumann explained why he and his comrades were attracted to Charlie—partly to separate themselves from “naïve hippie” thinking, but also to take advantage of his appeal in the counter-culture. [4]

Allegedly there was also interest from a third armed group, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). In The Manson File, Schreck claimed that “Manson devotees in Northern California formed a brief liaison with the Symbionese Liberation Army in the mid-70s, planning at one point to engineer Manson’s escape from prison.” [5] The SLA was also said to have trained at the Wellspring commune outside of San Francisco, which was run by the “Manson Family-linked” group Tribal Thumb. [6]

It was William Pierce, however, who was most savvy to Charlie’s politics and how they were received. (Pierce had been Mason’s mentor in the American Nazi Party, and went on to form the National Alliance —the largest neo-Nazi group of the 1990s—and write the famous race-war fantasy novel The Turner Diaries.) According to Mason, Pierce said that, “The Jewish/leftist Peanut gallery that had been cheering on Manson fell silent” after he carved a swastika into his head at his trial. [7] But this was not an endorsement, and Pierce fell out with Mason after his embrace of Charlie.

Despite his rank bigotry and connections with neo-Nazis, Charlie retains an appeal to counterculturalists—and others who don’t have reactionary politics but are interested in extremes—today.

ENDNOTES

[1] James Mason, Articles and Interviews (2003/2018), p.47

[2] Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter (1974)

[3] Harold Jacobs, ed., Weatherman (Ramparts Press, 1970), p.347, 481; “User Clip: Professor Bernardine Dohrn remarks on her Manson Family remarks,” CNN, June 7, 2009, http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4460430/professor-bernardine-dohrn-remarks-manson-family-remarks

[4] Nickolas Schreck, ed., The Manson File (New York: Amok Press, 1988), p.141; Schreck, “Farewell To The Nicest Terrorist I’ve Ever Known: Bommi Baumann 1947-2016,” July 21, 2016, https://web.archive.org/web/20161221095458/http://www.nikolasschreck.guru/2016/07/farewell-to-the-nicest-terrorist-ive-ever-known-bommi-baumann-1947-2016

[5] The Manson File, p.141

[6] Ellen Frankfort, Kathy Boudin and The Dance of Death (New York: Stein & Day, 1984), pp.124, 126

[7] Mason, Articles and Interviews, p.256