Charles Manson: An Academic Question

Charles Manson, who died recently, has become a symbol of murderous cults for nearly half a century for good reason: He ran one. Less well known is the admiration he engendered in an academic icon–Bernardine Dohrn.

She expressed admiration for his murderous rampage. “That surreal, cruel moment came at the appropriately titled ‘War Council’ held in Flint, Michigan on December 27, 1969, two days after Christmas,” Paul Kengor writes in The American Spectator. “It was attended by some 400 student radicals from the SDS-Weathermen cabal, who promoted this political-ideological-sexual gathering as a collective ‘Wargasm.’”

“For the lovely ’60s hippies, it would be (as usual) a night of radical politics, unrestrained sex, and violence.
Among the ringleaders was the late John Jacobs, who had coined a fitting slogan for the evening and for the entire movement: ‘We’re against everything that’s good and decent.’ That became obvious when the indecent Bernardine Dohrn grabbed the microphone. ‘We’re about being crazy motherf—ers,’ Dohrn shouted, ‘and scaring the sh-t out of honky America!’”

“It was like a radical revival meeting, with the Rev. Dohrn at the political pulpit. Inspired by the spirit — that is, some sort of spirit — Bernardine fired up her brothers and sisters with her hideous ruminations on the vicious Tate-LaBianca murders. The future professor of child education at Northwestern University School of Law — no less than founding director of the university’s Children and Family Justice Center — thrilled over the scene in the bloody Tate living room: ‘Dig it! First they killed those pigs. Then they ate dinner in the same room with them. Then they even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!'”

Kengor actually took the time and trouble to interview people who were there, as did David Horowitz.

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