Chaos: Charles Manson, the Cia, and the Secret History of the Sixties Paperback – 23 Jun. 2020

Chaos by Tom O’Neill is an absolutely riveting read. What begins as a deep dive into the Manson murders unfolds into a shocking, meticulously researched investigation that challenges everything we thought we knew about one of the most infamous crimes in American history. O’Neill’s dedication is astounding—decades of relentless pursuit, countless interviews, and an almost obsessive commitment to uncovering hidden truths.What impressed me most is how the book goes far beyond the headlines. It raises profound questions about government secrecy, media complicity, and the tangled web of power operating behind the scenes in the 1960s and ’70s. O’Neill doesn’t sensationalise—he lets the facts, the documents, and the firsthand accounts speak for themselves.It reads like a true-crime thriller, but it also feels like investigative journalism of the highest order. Every chapter leaves you stunned, questioning, and eager to turn the page. If you’re a fan of true crime, history, or just powerful storytelling that rattles the foundations of “accepted truth,” this book is a must-read.

Great read

A mind-blowing deep dive that challenges the official story and explores wild conspiracy angles around the Manson murders. The author presents some jaw-dropping theories that make you question everything you thought you knew.Not for the faint-hearted, but a fascinating read if you love conspiracy and true crime.

This is simply a thrilling and illuminating book, its almost like reading a thriller, I honestly could not put it down. The author's dedication to this story is not only commendable but also the information that he has uncovered was stunning and at times stomach churning. He reveals a world and a host of sinister people that will horrify you. I never had any interest in Charles Manson or anything to do with him. But I am now seeing this entire story completely differently and how overall information is given to us by the media, the government and the legal system. What the author has uncovered is important and dangerous and well worth reading. This book is not only really interesting, and a page turner but its an important body of work in my opinion.

Like most people, I thought I was familiar with the cult of Charles Manson and the murder of Sharon Tate in 1969. It brought a gruesome end to the decade of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll and the utopian world embraced by the ‘love and peace’ movement of the Hippies.The narrative that emerged from the police was largely as the result of the Chief Prosecutor’s assertion at the trial of ‘The Family’; He argued that Manson exerted a hypnotic power over his acolytes and had instructed them to commit murder in accordance with a philosophy of ‘Helter Skelter’ that Manson had gleaned from the Beatles’ song of that name. This is the story that Tom O’Neill challenges in this book.Through years of painstaking research, the author has explored a number of avenues in an effort to get to the truth. Unfortunately, his many attempts to uncover what actually took place, by asking pertinent and inconvenient questions, has simply revealed a web of lies, counter-narratives and coverups that only seek to hide the truth. The author describes the frustration he has felt at various points, on entering the rabbit hole, as similar to Captain Ahab in his singular quest to defeat the white whale in Moby Dick.The book does paint a vivid picture of what the world of the flower power era was like, and its threat to the then-establishment. Tom O’Neill not only looks at the obvious cast of characters, but also explores issues of drug use, sexual promiscuity, brainwashing, culminating in the agendas of the intelligence agencies and the MKULTRA project. In many ways, the questions posed of the Manson group are similar to those surrounding the assassination of JFK. Whereas the author does not uncover the smoking gun, his conclusions reveal shadowy forces who work to preserve a ‘single shooter’ narrative, a convenient lie, so that everyone can sleep more soundly at night.

The author has put an incredible amount of research into this. 20 years! And for that alone should be commended. However, the style in which he has chosen to write this is so incredibly .. bitty. He tells the snippets of information in the order that he found them, and so it jumps from one place to the next. He also goes into incredible detail about inconsequential characters, making large portions of the book irrelevant. What threw me also was the way he would refer to some people by their surname for pages on end, only to then refer to them by their first name, leaving you wondering .. who? It does have interesting information, and previously unheard facts including about MK Ultra, however nothing is proven. There are no clear leads that explain exactly what happened or why. The last 30% of the book is taken up with acknowledgements, indexes and the like. All in all it has some interesting information but it is not an easy read, and not because of the content matter!