On August 9, 1969, four assailants crept into a house on 10050 CLO Drive.

There, they slaughtered all five people currently spending the evening in the posh Los Angeles home,

including eight-month pregnant Sharon Tate. The murderers had been instructed by their leader,

Charles Manson, to totally destroy everyone inside the house and do it, quote,

as gruesome as you can. Manson's followers delivered. In their wake, they left dozens of

gunshot and knife wounds and a crime scene that would become one of the most famous on earth.

The following night, Manson's followers again bludied their hands, this time killing the La Bianca's in their

Los Angeles home. When the two crimes were finally connected, the extent of the Manson family's

acid-addled psychosis of murder and hippie living shocked the world. The Manson murders

were, in the eyes of many, the death knell of the 1960s, a decade that had been defined by

movements for racial justice, free love, and an end tos, a decade that had been defined by movements for racial justice,

free love, and an end to war, a decade which came to a brutal and bloody clothes.

But while the Manson murders may have shut the door once and for all on hippie visions,

they also underscored the violent current that had always driven the years of flower power.

The 1960s, despite our nostalgic view of them,

were a turbulent critical period. The fight for civil rights came with riots and police crackdowns.

Men and boys were killed in the jungles of Vietnam, and the United States watched as a beloved

president, was murdered in front of families and children in a gruesome display. It was a frightening

time, and the American government wanted to know where the violence was coming from.

How could a nation united through World War II and the dreams of baby boomers be descending into a state of violence and crime?

This was a perplexing question that troubled the government so much that they were willing to cross the line to answer it.

Today, we're investigating Operation Chaos, the secret government program that spied on Americans.

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