So Manson's sentence was committed to life in prison.
Now there's a book “Manson in His Own Words”
as told to Nuel Emmons.
Emmons is an ex-con who first met Manson
while serving a short term in prison for car theft and,
true to the unwritten code of the underworld,
Manson cooperated on the book
because he owed Emmons a favor.
Today correspondent Heidi Schulman went
to talk with Manson to find out,
after all these years, is there any remorse?
Is he sorry?
Does he feel guilty?
Well then we here on The Today Show staff
debated among ourselves whether to air his answers.
Half of our staff said “absolutely not even though
Manson doesn't make a cent off this book
let's not give them any publicity,”
but another half said “Yes, believing that some of you
are as curious as some of us are.”
Well at any rate here is what Manson had to say.
[Schulman] Charles Manson is serving his life sentence
for murder in San Quentin prison.
That is where we talked to him
and with Nuel Emmons author of
“Charles Manson: In his own words.”
Our conversation lasted an hour and a half
during which Manson was sometimes lucid,
sometimes incoherent, and frequently manipulative.
[Schulman] From your words as Mr. Emmons
quotes them in this book,
it's clear that you were guilty of murder,
and yet he says in all his conversations with you
he never heard you express remorse.
Have you never felt it?
[Manson] Remorse for what?
You people have done everything in the world to me.
Doesn't that give me equal right?
I can do anything I want to you people
at any time I want to because that's what
you've done to me.
If you spit in my face and smack me in the mouth
and throw me in solitary confinement for nothing
what do you think is gonna happen
when I get out of here?
Guilty, hmm I wouldn't do anything
that I felt guilty about.
[Schulman] You don't feel guilty at all?
[Manson] There is no need to feel guilty.
I haven't done anything I'm ashamed of.
Maybe I haven't done enough.
I might be ashamed of that;
for not doing enough,
for not giving enough,
for not being more perceptive,
for not being aware enough
for not understanding,
for being stupid.
Maybe I should've killed four, five hundred people,
then I would have felt better.
Then I would have felt like I really
offered society something.
You know, if I wanted to kill somebody
I’d take this book and beat you to death with it
and I wouldn't feel a thing.
It would be just like walking to the drugstore.
“Do you feel blame?
Are you mad?
Do you feel like”… (Unintelligible nonsense words) …
[Sculman] Nuel Emmons is an ex-convict
who first met Manson in prison in the 50s.
He claims he wrote the Manson book
after seven years of conversation with Manson
to show that he is no leader, no guru, but just a loser.
[Shulman] Why should anyone care to read this book?
[Emmons] My purpose when I first started
was virtually to destroy the myth.
I show that he is not as complex
or the occult leader or etcetera,
that he has been projected as being.
[Manson] I don't fit in society,
and I am incompetent.
I am definitely incompetent.
[Emmons] That’s not what I said.
[Manson] I say that. I say that.
I say that there's nothing wrong with being incompetent
because you don't have to do as much.
If you’re competent then you got a lot to do you see,
but there is another aspect of it too.
I've learned to reflect.
I just reflect back.
I know I don't know, I know I'm stupid.
I admit I'm a pity, whatever.
I've never been a success at anything.
I even got to the point where I didn't want
to be a success at anything.
What would being a success,
what does that mean, you know?
Money?
Oh, I've had all the money in the world three times
and had to give it back.
That’s a stupid little game, you know?
My awareness and my consciousness is not the same
as somebody that goes to school
and has a mom and dad.
See not having parents has left me
in another dimension so to say, you know?
I don't have no bad going for nothing.
I don't judge.
I hardly even think about too much.
It's hard for me to remember breakfast.
In fact, if I didn't have two, three girls to help me,
I would pretty much be lost
and I wouldn’t know what the hell I’m doing.
[Schulman] You write that in all your conversations
with Charles Manson he never expressed remorse.
[Emmons] Have you seen any today?
I mean, perhaps he believes totally
in his own mind that he is not guilty.
[Manson] You guys got the stuff in your head
that I've murdered somebody.
You’ve got it stuck in your brain
that I murdered somebody.
What do you want to call me a murderer for?
I've never killed anyone.
I don't need to kill anyone.
I think it.
I have it here.
[Schulman] Who is this man you’ve been talking to
for seven years?
[Emmons] Well, to me he’s a convict that was a failure.
I mean, he's the person that is not capable.
I mean and I still lay it to the way
the book reads it wasn't to start
cleaning the earth or anything.
I mean there was a drug burn
that initiated the first one and the black guy
the first tone of violence that surfaced anyway
and then the death of Gary Hinman.
There again, it was dope related,
and it just kept feeding from there,
and so it had no spiritual aspects at all.
It was just a bunch of guys out there,
kids out there that was living,
doing their own thing
and it used to be party time and play time
and then through drugs and the whole bit,
well, it started to get a little bit nasty,
a little bit meaner and the first thing
you know there's murders.
[Manson] In my whole life I burglarized a grocery store,
stole some nickels and dimes,
busted open a stamp machine,
stole a few automobiles, and cashed a couple checks.
I'm a petty car thief.
I've been with prostitutes and bums
and winos all my life.
The street is my world.
I don't, I don't pretend to go uptown and be anything fancy.
I can, but I find more real in the world that I'm in
than I do the tinsel.
And the real world is the one
I have to deal with everyday, ya know?
Believe me if I started murdering people…