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SANDRA GOOD RADIO INTERVIEW
W.G.R., Buffalo, NY
August 30, 1990
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Q = Interviewer
A = Sandy "Blue" Good
C = Callers who phoned in
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Q: What are your recollections of the Family, and how did you join
their number, and what were the sort of things in your own family
environment that may have prompted you to leave and take up with
others and come to consider them your family. Do you remember
those days in the 60's?
A: Of course. I still live there at the ranch. First of all, you're
misinformed, as is everyone misinformed, about the so called
"The Family." There was no organization called "The Family." The
Family was a term given by the media to an amorphous group of
people, some of whom went to prison in 1969. We lived on a ranch
in the Santa Susanna mountains, called the Spahn Ranch and later
we lived in Death Valley. We didn't call ourselves anything, but
we made a lot of music and somebody said "Well, what do you call
your group?" And somebody said, "Well, we're the Family Jams."
So, over a period of time, because the media usually need to put
labels on situations, we got the name "The Family." But there
were literally hundreds of people who came and went. Later on,
you might say, there was a core of people who were very close
together and who stayed true to the thought that we had for
stopping the war in Vietnam and for protecting our air, our water,
our trees and our animals. We were so committed to those causes
that the murders more or less evolved out of our desire to change
the system.
Q: Remember the book by Ed Sanders? He wrote a book called "The
Family."
A: Oh yes. Ed wrote that book for money and it has nothing to do
with truth or the reality of what happened. He knows what would
sell. He knows that certain subjects; sex, violence, occultism,
etc. sell. And he lied. I'd say that maybe one percent of that
book has truth in it. The other 99 percent is lies.
Q: Charles Manson himself never referred to his group as a family?
A: No.
Q: In the 60's, you were in a rebellious state of mind, weren't you?
Did you come from a family environment that was somehow intoller-
able?
A: No. No more than any other person that came from my kind of
environment. I came from an upper-middle class family. I had
been to college off and on for a total of seven years. I never
got a degree because I switched majors from English literature to
marine biology. I had a lot of ideals. I had concepts of honor
and nobility and things that I got from reading Shakespeare and
literature. So, I was a very idealistic person. And I looked
around at the world I lived in, and at the government, and my
parents and their friends, and I saw no honor. I saw no truth.
I saw no joy of living. I saw no purpose. And I didn't believe
I fit. I was looking for something beyond what I saw. When I met
Manson, I saw a man who was sure of himself, who was all the way
alive, who didn't have doubt, who didn't need to ask a woman or a
boss or somebody what to do. He was lively. He sang. He danced.
He never lied. He was very truthful. And that attracted me as it
attracted a lot of people. He didn't direct things. He more or
less reflected us back at ourselves. He saw more in us than we
saw in ourselves. He saw that we were locked by our parents'
doubts and our parents' programming. In my case, the need to
achieve, the need to get a doctorate degree. I felt if I didn't
get a Ph.D., I was a failure. I was programmed by that type of
programming. Each of us sort of represented a different level of
American society.
Q: This lively, dancing man; where did you meet him?
A: I was living in San Francisco and I had dropped out of college
and I met an artist who had a friend who had an airplane. He
wanted to fly to L.A. to sell some of his paintings and so I flew
with him. He had been talking about Manson. He kept talking on
and on about Manson. He was very impressed by him. And I could
could care less. I wanted to go surfing. So we rented a car in
L.A. and drove to Topanga Canyon and that's where I met Manson.
Maybe there were ten to fifteen other people who were living in
the house in Topanga Canyon at that time. I was very impressed
by the people there and I never went back to San Francisco. I
called and told my roommates that they could have all my posses-
sions and I never went back.
Q: Did you ever have any contact with your biological family in
those rebellious years?
A: I wasn't rebellious. I didn't take drugs. I was searching and I
was never really close to my parents. I was 24 years old at the
time and I wasn't really beholden to them in any way. I wasn't
close. I kept contact with my father, my dad. I would check in
now and then with him. I never really had much contact with my
mother, even when I was growing up. She was a social climber and
involved in money and images and that I saw as a very empty -
It's sort of the way Nancy Reagan and those people are - it's a
very empty, superficial, hollow - it's really a cruel way of
living - When they put money over the well-being of the planet and
of their own children. They care more about their social image
and their status than they care about whether there is going to be
air and water to sustain their own children's lives.
Q: But your own parents bestowed some of this wealth you criticize
on you, to your advantage.
A: Yeah, but they didn't spoil me. It was the tradition to send your
kids to college. I lived modestly. I didn't have a car. I
wasn't a spoiled child at all, especially emotionally. There were
really no ties or obligations to them. I worked. I didn't ask
them for much. I didn't rebel. I didn't cause them any grief
and when I became acquainted with what's called the Manson Family,
I felt more akin to these people than I ever did to my own family.
They were lively people. They weren't neurotic. In the so-called
Family, we shed a lot of doubts, a lot of inhibitions about what
we could or couldn't do. We became younger. We kind of got back
to the state of being that you have as a child, where your mind
isn't full of doubt and inadequacy and you have faith in yourself.
So, basically what happened was, we re-established the faith in
ourselves that we had as children before parents and teachers and
schools, and all that, took the faith away from us.
Q: In August, 1969, you were still at the ranch when they, Watson,
et. al., went out on the hunt?
A: I was there.
Q: Why didn't you chose to accompany them?
A: I was eight months pregnant and it wasn't my destiny to do that,
anyway. And those murders were not at the direction of Charles
Manson. Those people that went out did so of their own free will
and of their own volition. There was reason in each person's mind
for what they did. It had nothing to do with Manson's will or his
direction. He had nothing to do with those murders. The kids
that did those killings were primarily middle-class people who
were raised in similar ways that I was raised and did not like
what was going on in this country. They wanted to stop the war in
Vietnam. They wanted to stop the pollution. They wanted to get
one of their brothers out of jail who was arrested for something.
There were different reasons for those killings which haven't been
fully explained. It could be explained but it would take a lot of
time...
What happened is that the prosecution, the D.A. and all those
people didn't want to face the fact that kids that could have been
their own kids did these things. So, they had a person who was
raised on the bottom of society, very poor, little education, who
had been raised in jail since he was nine years old - that's
Manson - and they said that he was the driving force behind what
happened. Then the D.A. saw that a lot of money could be made
through the trial, through books, through movie rights, T.V.,
Helter Skelter shows, and he covered up the truth because he was
selling something.
What happens when a prosecution doesn't have a case is they'll
take people, for example, they took a biker who was a pretty
sleazy guy. He had charges against him and they made a deal with
this guy that in return for false testimony they would drop all
his charges. It happens a lot. They (government) cut deals.
They get people to lie and then they give the person the false
identity and money and relocate them to another state. They
dragged up people from all kinds of places, made all kinds of
deals and they created a case that would serve the prosecution.
Of course, the jury looks to the judge as a father figure and the
judge is working for public opinion and for dollars and holding
hands with the D.A., etc. So, it's really unfortunate these days
that the court room is not a place where the truth comes out.
It's a very tragic situation because what this country was founded
on was the rights - what people died for were for people's rights
in the courtroom and Charles Manson did not get his rights in the
courtroom. All his rights have been taken from him.
Q: Is that another motive for prosecuting Charles Manson, because he,
the D.A., "doesn't have any friends" and he was jealous because
Manson had so many friends?
A: Well, people that don't have substance within themselves and don't
have a center in love and faith and truth, they look to money.
They bust their rear-ends on the freeway going back and forth to
jobs they hate to get money, to get approval, to get attention.
This is a motive in millions of people. It's not just the D.A.
that's been selling lies. It's the media, all the thousands of
media people that have been feeding off of what they call the
Family. The D.A. was a very competitive fellow and he did want to
make a big name for himself and be a big somebody. He was a very
jealous person. I had several encounters with him. It was eating
him up that there were so many people that were loyal to Manson.
He didn't have anybody that would stand by him. So, that eats up
a lot of people when they don't have any loyalty or love that they
can count on from somebody. Manson didn't need friends, didn't
need love, because he's self-contained. But most people aren't
self-contained, so they look to money and outside approval.
C1: Caller talks about agreeing with most all of what Good is saying.
He says he was in California during the 60's, but thinks Good was
"sucked into a bunch of lies." He says Good fails to call things
a cult and to call things as they really were and he tends to see
Good as "blind."
A: You use the word "cult." Well, what is a cult? Isn't the
Catholic church a cult?
C1: Well, yes. I happen to be a member of a Christian church. I
happen to believe in Jesus Christ and the truth he proclaims...
A: So do I.
C1: Pardon me?
A: So do I. We all do.
C1: I'm really proud. I'm glad to hear you say that, but what I'm
trying to say is that it sounds like Manson sucked a bunch of
people in.
A: No, we sucked him in, if anything. We brought our problems to
him.
C1: Tell me what the murders proved, what they really accomplished.
A: Well, there's a lot of different levels to answering that
question. I can touch on a few. I remember in the penalty phase
of the trial, one of the women that was convicted of murder said,
"We are your children. We are reflections of your society. We
have done what you raised us up to do. We've watched your
violence on T.V. You've judged a reflection of yourselves." The
murders were pretty much a good reflection of what this country
teaches its young people to do. Now, you have mass murderers
everyday. There were actual motives, which is complicated to get
into. One was to show where the country was headed. The Tate and
LaBianca houses were sort of a portent of where the country was
going if we don't stop pollution and if we don't start showing our
children models of real morality. In other words, if you've got a
government that lies and cheats the public out of their money and
squanders the resources that we need to live, like our air and
water and wildlife and trees, and they wheel and deal and play
crook and they murder people in other countries to get their
resources so we can have more oil, and misuse the resources. When
the children grow up seeing that there is no truth and no trust
and no faith and no honor in the people that are running this
country, what do you expect? So, we wanted to stop the war...
C1: I agree with all that, but weren't we anti-war in the 60's?
Weren't we anti-killing? You're saying one thing and doing
another.
A: Well, in order for there to be change, in order for any major
change to occur in any society or system, there is always
violence. Revolution implies radical change and people get
killed...
(There is a part missing here, as the tape had to be turned over.)
He is given less rights or he's given no rights. And I can't
think of any other prisoner who's been more mistreated than
Manson.
C1: Well, they're afraid for his safety. Is that a possibility?
A: No, that's an excuse.
C1: Someone threw flammable fluid on him and set him afire.
A: Manson can take care of himself. He's been doing time since he
was nine years old. He knows the ways of prison. That fellow,
the Hare Krishna person, was pretty much programmed to do that.
Charlie was very badly burned. He is used to sell fear, to sell
more crime and fear to the public, to justify more millions of
dollars for bigger prisons to house more people and run more fear.
The more they run fear and crime into the minds on the public, the
more they create crime. Prison is like a crime factory. They use
Manson to run fear into people's minds to justify bigger taxes for
more prisons. The Manson that the public has in their mind has
nothing to do with the real Manson. What people think in their
minds is not reality.
C1: ?
A: I'll tell you something. This Middle East situation, Manson has
been talking about this for as long as I've known him. I have
stacks of letters about the Middle East, the holy war that's
coming, and also the fact that the economy is running out, the
fact that the money is failing. As long as Manson is not given
his rights, as long as he is held down by little minds, the more
this country spins into hell. This country cannot afford another
war. We don't have the money to finance a war and the resources
of the world cannot sustain the burden of another war. This will
be the most hideous war that's ever happened.
Saddam Hussein wants a dialog with Bush. Manson wanted a dialog
with Nixon. Nixon got up in front of the public and proclaimed
Manson guilty. This was the president of the United States saying
this. This was before the trial had even begun. Nixon said that
Manson was guilty. Manson wanted to face Nixon in a courtroom and
have a dialog, but Nixon couldn't face him. When you got people
like Bush, like Nixon, who have no mind in the truth, all they
have their mind in is money. They can't face a human being who
does have truth. Bush won't dialog with Hussein, and a dialog
could show the world quite a bit. What we have in this country is
might and control, but this country has lost its power because
it's lost its foundation in any kind of truth.
C2: As far as "we have might and that's all that we use," it seems to
me that's what Hussein is using right now.
A: Why wouldn't they let Manson speak in the courtroom? They didn't
want to hear what he had to say. They were afraid of what he had
to say. They were afraid of what he had to say. Right now, we
are on the brink of war. Hussein wants to be heard. He wants to
dialog. In order to resolve conflict or any disagreement you have
to have communication. This is basic psychology. In any situa-
tion of conflict, you have to dialog. This man, Hussein is asking
for the most basic necessity and that is to have dialogue. The
truth about the history of the Middle East, why Kuwait was annexed
recently, I believe Kuwait was part of Iraq before the first World
War. It gets into a whole situation of Western domination of the
world for money many years prior to World War I. You have to look
at the historical context of situations. If the U.S. public is
continually kept misinformed about Manson, about the Middle East,
about major players in this particular crisis...
C2: I find it fascinating that you're apparently drawing a parallel
between Charles Manson and Saddam Hussein. Maybe it's deeper than
I've seen, but...
A: The parallel that I'm drawing is that Manson has, and has had,
something to say that is vital to the survival of this country.
C2: I don't think that just because (someone) has something to say,
that means we should follow them.
A: No, you let people judge. You've heard the expression "the truth
will set you free." How can you make a judgment on something if
you are misinformed about that. Now, we are on the verge of war.
If we are misinformed, and the media doesn't tell you the truth,
how can you have your own mind? I'm saying that 99 percent of the
people in this country don't have a mind because they have been
misinformed. They've been brainwashed to be consumers and you're
only fed what people want you to know so you'll continue in the
rat race of serving somebody's money interests. Your air and
water is running out and your economy is shot to hell.
C2: I agree with all the above. I just don't see... what was accom-
plished by the killings... and in a situation like the Middle
East, I really can't make the connection.
Q: It could be more easily explained by...
A: It was partly a revolution against pollution. Our main thought
has been to save our air, our water, our trees and our wildlife.
Q: And that's why Sharon Tate had a dinner fork stuck in her womb?
A: No, no, no. Sharon Tate's womb was not touched. The coroner's
report can verify that. Leno LaBianca had "War" written across
his chest and a fork put in this chest, and the woman that did it
said, "That's one man who won't be sending his son to war."
Q: Can't it be more easily explained, really in terms of benumbed
youth hideously mind controlled, high on drugs after years of drug
consumption?
A: Let me ask you both something. What are you going to do when your
air and your water runs out? In New York, I know what Cuomo and
big industry is doing to your water.
C2: I respect life to the utmost as you obviously claim to...
A: Will you fight to save your own life in the air and water and the
trees?
C2: I will do so, but not by taking another human life...
A: If it means your own survival?
Q: You might find it very useful to threaten other people. You
might, if it comes to that, if we lose our air and water, we
might, both of us, send off threatening letters to leading execu-
tives of business concerns...
A: I'd hope you'd do more than that. I'd hope you have the instinct
for your own life and for your children's to do whatever it takes.
Q: I'll let it go at threats to do them bodily harm.
A: So, you'll just lay down and let big industry destroy your child-
ren's future. Is that what you're saying?
C2: I would feel that I was giving in, if I were to succumb to the
pressures and take life in the name of, whatever.
A: Of air and water and trees and stopping an insane war to get more
oil to save a way of life that destroys life?
C2: Do you still believe that we can achieve our ideals using the
same means that the Manson Family used?
A: I'm saying that we're on the brink of a war to save, as Bush said,
"a way of life." This "way of life" that Americans are living is
destroying our air, our water, our land, and our wildlife. The
oil consumption must stop. In this particular case right now,
Hussein is saying, "Let's dialogue. Let's let the truth come out
and let the people hear." The same thing happened during the
Tate/LaBianca murders. If the truth of those murders had been
allowed to be explained, and Manson had been given his rights and
a voice in the courtroom, much of the calamity that this country's
facing right now could have been averted.
Q: Savior to us all.
A: He's a very wise man.
Q: Oh boy. The female Manson Family associates have shown a propen-
sity for violence, beyond the murders. Lynette Fromme tried to do
in President Ford and I am accurate in saying that you were
charged with, and convicted of, sending threatening letters to
executives of business organizations?
A: Lynette pointed a gun, a loaded gun, at the president, but she
failed to put a bullet in the chamber. She could've if she wanted
to, but she didn't. She could have killed the president, but she
chose not to. At the same time, I had 3000 letters to the heads
of corporations and industries throughout the United States and
some in Europe that are destroying the air, the water, the land,
the wildlife. They weren't personal threats. They were simply
saying what would happen if they continued to destroy what keeps
people, what sustains life. They weren't on a personal level
because there's no way that I could personally give these people
the justice that they're calling for. As people start dying, as
their air and water runs out, and their children are getting
cancer, and they're getting cancer and things become intolerable
in this country, people will awake to what has destroyed the
economy and who has destroyed the ecology. People will lose their
minds and do whatever they do. Madness is coming. I didn't
personally threaten anybody. One of the radio interviews that I
gave was to Hamilton, Ontario. I got five years for that inter-
view. I've got the interview right here and there is no threat-
ening words in this interview. I created fear in the corporate
world because they don't want to be exposed. I was naming names
and they don't want people to know how they're destroying life on
earth.
C3: I'd like to ask the young lady three questions. Do you believe
that God created human life?
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: I like to use the word intelligence.
C3: Answer the question, yes or no.
A: I'd say all life is intelligence and you can call it God, yes.
C3: Do you believe that God created humankind, yes or no?
A: I'd say that all life is part of God, or you can call it intel-
ligence, from the bugs to the trees to...
C3: You're beating around the bush. Yes or no?
A: Well, what is "God?" "God" is a word. Are you talking about an
anthropomorphic god, a big daddy in the sky?
C3: Okay, you won't answer the question. Second question, do you
believe that murderers should be executed? Yes or no? Should
convicted murderers be executed, yes or no?
A: I believe that if you're going to execute one murderer, you
should execute all of them. And that's from the president of the
United States, who sends millions of young men to kill and die in
wars for big money.
C3: Why is the Family alive in L.A. prisons?
A: Because the death penalty was overthrown. They didn't deserve to
die. Because if you're going to execute one person, you have to
have equal justice for all and in this country there is not equal
justice.
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