Get informed straight from the sources unfiltered, unbiased, word for word from the Nations Capital to wherever you are. Cspan powered by cable. You opened your most recent book with this quote. The complexity devised your books the usually the way. Rick does a tremendous job itself and it is true. No historic event happens, it is tied to many things in research and writing. Want to read a quote from you from 2021 in the times review. A lot of people want to learn things, they want nonfiction oks to reflect what they already believe. They reinforce their opinion and what books that tell them everything they believe is right and the other side is worse than i thought. If you look at the bestseller list for the last several years, there are three categories represented. The first by political commentators associated with one side or another talking about how the nation is in danger of opposition. America is going to hell. And the third category is what i call the magic button here ten ways you can make your fortune, nine ways tog ensuring a happy marriage. There are fewerer and fewer tits represented on the bestseller list that are simply indepth, fact filled, objective look at certain aspects of American History. But there are still people who want to read those and its so important to get the history down. Thats what i try to do. Host d tell us vin jeff guinn, what do bonnie and clyde, wyatt earp, jim jones, david karesh, Charles Manson have in common, people that you written about . Is there a similar, is there a thread through that . Guest oddly enough there is. My goal is always been to write books that capture the suite of American History from the final assembly of the west to the present day. In each of the subjects are iconic. We remember them. People tend remember them in different ways, and a lot of the time they want myth rather than factor i always thought the facts are far more interesting than anything could be made of. When i pick a subject complex use manson as an example, what i wanted to do is write about the late 1960s in america, which in terms of a chaotic time makes today look peaceful when we are all living in unison. To write about that era you need someone or something from that era that will make readers want to pick up the book and open it. For better or worse, Charlie Manson represented a lot about the late 1960s, the culture at the time, the things people wanted to talk about, the things people got obsessed with. So ite wrote a book about manson but its really about the late 1960s. Everyone you name is representative of a certain area in america, what people were doing, thinking, believing at the time. Host regardless other topics can you tell me if im wrong about this, i find in your writing that you creature subjects and topics with respect, maybe respect isnt the right word but thats what struck me. Guest thank you for saying that. I think the worst thing you can do if you want to write a book about some aspect of history is to go into it thinking you already know everything you need to know about it and youve already formed opinions about everyone youre going to write about unshakable. People who take that approach are really only telling readers what happened, some dates, some names. I think its important to try to learn how things happen and why they happened and what things earlier might have precipitated the events that bring about bonnie and clydes short two year spate of crime. If you do that you may not agree with the people who are the subjects of the book, but you can at least demonstrate understanding of what made them become what they were here and if you can do that that i think readers not only get a better sense of their but a better sense of the time they lived in. If you can do that i think the book is succeeded. Host when it comes to bonnie and clyde i almost felt sorry for bonnie because most of that to you she was in pain from being shot and riding around in a ford through undeveloped america. Guest you see, that was what i need about mythology. There was a wonderful movie, 1967, 1968 about bonnie and clyde, was fascinating. He went to the movie, he watched it, you would were just gt and at least 5 of it was historically accurate. It was a fine movie but it was entertainment. I wanted to know what they were really like, and Bonnie Parker is a poor girl coming from a dreadful doll islam. Her dream is to be famous, to be a worldfamous poet or actress. People didnt come looking for pulitzer actresses where bonnie lived. Pu she was tiny. She was theli brightest pupil throughout her school years but girls in those days didnt matter how smart they were, she wanted fame. Shett wanted attention. And for reported, when she got to get desperate for a poor kid, when she got together with clyde barrow and the newspapers did somethingg to write about beside thee depression and foreign farm foreclosures, heres the romeo and juliet of, crime pulled off their daring robberies and highspeed escapes. And they were bumbling criminals. They didnt rob banks much because they werent sophisticated enough to do it. If youo look at them from the aspects of poor kids who when they have no other option in life, when they are ambitious, after turn to something illegal, that doesnt forgive the crimes they committed. People died. Its horrible. But at least it lets us understand why to them it was the obvious and the only way out of the poverty, povertystricken lives they were going to be living otherwise. Host in the same light, how did a movie and the mythology develop around the okay corral . Wasnt that big of a deal . Guest it was a big deal in a different way than it is remember dick lets first state the obvious. It was not issued out peer it was a police stop to take a couple weapons that went bad and it did not happen in the okay corral. But when western history became a thing in america around the turn of the 20th century, 1900s, Bat Masterson who we remember seeing on tv was entered with a bowler hat and they came to was actually a gambler in the buffalo hunter turned journalist, made his living writing these wonderful tales of authentic western heroes that still walk among us. Why he picked was wyatt earp who had a checkered past that best. And that five blue shootout at the o. K. Corral, thats what we remember, the guns drawn around all the horses and everything else, bodies flying, but with the o. K. Corral really meant was this was a time when the survivors, the brothers and doc holliday, were brought to trial for people dying at the hands using guns while they were acquitted, the case got great coverage and it really sent a message out to the frontier before you could always use the excuse if you pulled your gun and kill somebody, well, i thought he was going to kill me so i i went first. This meant law, the restrictions of law had come to the frontier and were going to there to stay. Thats what was important about the subsequent trial. The gunfight itself at the o. K. Corral was popular mythology that help Bat Masterson sell his stories to a lot of newspapers, formed form the basis of a bunch of moviesot that people still like watching to this day. But it wasnt really what happened. Host how is it that wyatt earp became the known herb over virgil who is actually the sheriff into stone . Wyatt earp in his Law Enforcement days was never as like to say in texas come the head honcho he was always one of the deputies who had to do all the work that the sheriff didnt want to. When wyatt was working for the town of wichita and Law Enforcement his job was scraping dead animals off the street and the sidewalks. But wyatt was friends with the notorious doc holliday, and you can give doc credit. He was notorious even in his own times. And he looked right, is tall striking handsome man who was greatly ambitious. He wanted to be rich. He wanted to be famous. He wanted to be wellknown. And in his later years after his name had become familiar to readers across the country through the newspaper articles, he worked to try to get his memoir out to take advantage of that. And so the marketing of wyatt earp is greatly responsible for we rememberat today. Again, the truth is so much more interesting about a multidimensional man who, like all of us, had his good points and bad points but he was ambitious to make something of himself or his only regret i think at the end of his life was he was about to really get famous but he didnt make any money out of it. Host sitting here in tucson or what, 45 minutes, an hour from tombstone arizona . The founding of tombstone, how did it become a town . Guest tombstone was one of those towns across the frontiers of america in that era where there were great Mineral Deposits discovered here in tombstones case, silver. The apaches had been moved out or at least partially moved out, and so l the minors came in, the prospectors and when they found a place that they settled in and actually begin producing large quantities of valuable minerals, again silver in tombstone mostly, thats when all the businessmen came roaring in. You needed restaurants for, you needed bars where they could drink. You needed ladies of the evening so they could have a little companionship. And the towns would spring up and mostly died out within a few years when the Mineral Deposits are all used up. Tombstone lasted a little longer than that, and its still there, and for a lot of people its the chance to gohe to where the old west stew really exist this is exactly what it looked like an the simulated shootout at the o. K. Corral is exactly how it happened. People love going to tombstone. Host what is elected as a touristis attraction . Guest i say this with respect for the people in the town who have managed to survive and even thrive by making use of the things that happened there. For wild west history buffs its the equivalent of disneyland. You can go there, you can meet largerthanlife characters. You can have a couple thrill rides, so to speak, and you can feel like youan are back there just like it was. Except theres nobody whos going to shoot you in the back. Theres no drunken minors staggering around and theres nn dead animals in the street from jeff guinn, one of the things about the last gunfight that struck me was that every western town thatt you charted and researched cap gun laws. At that point there were no handguns allowed in the city limits. Guest see now heres the wonderful thing about writing history and a hope about reading history. One of the things i firmly believe is that history is cyclical until we make a final effort during the time of the earps in tombstone things with the great debates of the day. Government, which did we need and how much of our lives should government stay the hell out of . Immigration, we cant have these people crossinge american bords and taking jobs away from real americans, andre gun control. This is my gun pick if i want to wear in town, who are you to say i cant . And yet the v pple today who sort of idolize the old west as they would think we could stroll around downtown with our sixx shooters scrap to both thighs with my trusty winchester or shotgun across my shoulder, they had gun laws. You werent allowed to bring your gun into town. You had to check it because they knew that a combination of liquor, module tendencies, people who want to prove how tough they are, if you have guns that things are going to happen. Said hewi wouldnt allow the gu. The nra would not last an hour in old tombstone when virgil or was in charge. I think the nra does not mention that in any other popular literature and yet its a fact. These issues that were splitting america part in the 1880s, weve we still got there. And the reason well do is we dot look back at history, see where all this began, and that gives us threads to decide okay, we now have to stop and get some common sense gun laws, laws regarding immigration, and we have to have some national assessment, some agreement how much government is necessary in our lives. We really dont have these debates. We have people lashing out and screaming at each other. Some 100 yearsmi from now our grandchildren may very well be say, can you believe and grandpas time in the 2020s they were talking about the same things we are now, immigration, gun laws come Government Intervention . If youre going to stop we have to go back to genesis and say okay, this is what we have to do or else were going to repeat this again trend within your next book manson what was your goal with that book so much has been written about him and this didnt come out until 2013 . Guest Charlie Manson in his lifetime was always the wrong man in the right place at the right time. Ifth he had committed the crimes he was rigidly jailed for i think he was a most incompetent parent in history of american prostitution. He was a small town veteran smalltime car theater if charlie had been jailed in nebraska, lets say, and he suddenly had reappeared in downtown omaha claiming to be a prophet and handingbe out drugs to kids were looking for somebody to tell them what to do, locals wouldve stuck would have stuck him on a pitchfork and put them out in the field al a scarecrow. But just in the time in American Life where california was where anybody young in america was looking for inspiration. I was in college in austin, texas, and all i could think of, why cant i be in San Francisco or los angeles where the culture is great, the music is wonderful, the philosophy is there . Manson gets out t of prison. And ends up in berkeley, california, hotbed of protests, and vinegars across the bay to San Francisco. These are places where young kids flocked. They were looking for gurus like the beatles had. And i found people who knew manson at this time, and they would describe how manson would go to Golden Gate Park where every day they would be dozens of selfappointed goobers who would preach to the kids gathered around them. All the kids hoping they were going to hear some great wisdom. Charlie would call two or three things that seem to t be very effective, i think he would go to the free clinic in haightashbury where sick kids were just jammed in the lobby and he would preach to them very giving their patter down at that he would go back to golden gate and he would proclaim himself as a prophet. It worked enough with some ragtag kids that they decided charlie was some great profit, maybe even some religious figure. He made sure they had all the drugs divided, and he pursued history of musical superstardom. Happen. Dnt have you ever heard any manson tapes that he made at the time . I had this on to thea musician and at 12 he and some other sixthgraders formed a garage band before our neighbors asked us to close it down or move. That was Charlie Mansons level of music sophistication. It was never going to happen. But only in that place and at that time could he have gained the followers he did, and been able to talk them into committing a couple horrific crimes that just at that moment caught the attention of the country. Theres a newspaper war in l. A. And the papers were vying who could have the most lurid story about the tate lobby altimeters today. That rings in the national media. Hence, the Charlie Manson mythology springs up this evil Little Hippie man with great powers. It was agrees astronomy little fog. But would remember them differently and we remember them differently because the times hw lived in it thats why i wrote the book. Host theres an image stuck in my head from 1969 aiken 1970 Charlie Manson with susan atkins, leslie quinn michael, patricia van helton, three women who were part of his day, and its stuck there in time. Guest o course the desperate its very dramatic. I spent a lot of time with leslie van helton and Patricia QuinnMichael Winkle ree book fair in corona california womens prison, for life they will never get out because no california governor wants to be the one to let any of the manson family out on the world. But they remember the whole trial, vince is the prosecutor and he writes that type of his true crime book helterskelter which has sold over 9 million copies in thes years since the four charlie it is what he dreamed of. Hes a center of International Attention and every day before the trial opened and immediately came in, charlie, his lawyers and the three women who are untried with him conne for strategy sessions and charlie would say im going to do this outrageous thing today, and when they do i want you three women to jump up and say this. He orchestrated every step of it if you got into selling vacuum cleaners instead of crying, he mightve been a multimillionaire. But he hadma image and he told them, he told these women he was going to play crazy charlie, then that case until it became so obvious that he was too crazy to be incarcerated for the crimes that let him out. But they didnt see the crazy charlie, they saw the calculating Charlie Addington to attest to that gives us this whole different insight. And again, why write books about history that dont bring something new that gives us a greater understanding . I did know much about Charlie Mitchell before i started. When hens finished the book i se didnt like him or admire him that you had to shake your head at some of the talent this man had. He knew how to sell himself and he sold himself in blood. Host jeff guinn, what was it like sitting across the table from Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel, knowing what they had done . Guest you are not allowed in that prison if youre visiting them to bring in a pad eand pen or a recording device. So i would spend the day interviewing one or the other. They are not friends at this point anymore, were not going to sit at the same table and talk to him at the same time trend when. Host at their old ladies basically. Guest thats one of theanan shots to remember them frozen in time and in the way they still are Leslie Van Houten the lar pretty girl in high school, you got remember shes 20 when all this happened and she still has a little girl gestures. When shes talking to you she plays with her hair. She giggles beer she reacho pat her