. >> 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

they believe david karesh is the lamb of the book of revelation. he and his followers about to bring about the end of times from the book of revelations. by battling the forces of babylon. they have come to the attention of atf, alcohol tobacco firearms for being an unlawful possession of semi automatic weapons that have been converted to automatic weapons. there is nothing illegal about doing that a and 1993 if you register each weapon and you pay a tax for doing so for the branch davidian had not donevi that. disgruntled former branch davidians had made claims to atf those who were left following david karesh were quite likely to take semblance their automatic weapons once they did not sell at gun shows and dissent until waco or some t otr place and slaughter innocent people as a means of bringing in the government, bringing about the end times of the bible. so atf thought it was not only acting to confiscate the legal automatic weapons, but in fact the public safety was involved. they thought it was going to be the easiest operation possible. th

from the manson family to david karesh and the branch davidians there are similarities and differences. but haven't written about the late 1960's i wanted to learn more. i am 18, 19, 20, growing up now. how do we segue from the chaos of the late 60's into, let's go with ronnie reagan and conservatism? that is sweeping the country in the 70's. what has to happen? five was going to write about the 70's i thought two teams would resonate with readers. one was watergate. i thought there was nothing new i could bring to watergate. whenever there is about that is there. the other was people's temple and what happened in jonestown in guyana. supposedly the prime example in our history of when some charlatan gets a bunch of sheepish followers to do his bidding up to and including killing themselves. don't drink the kool-aid is part of our lexicon. i thought, could there be something in that? i started poking around and learned two things. first, it was not kool-aid. it was a cheap knockoff called flavor aid and as many as one third of the people that died in jonestown did not voluntarily drink

. >> charles manson, jim jones, david karesh not very good childhoods. >> no but it's also true for children with much worse childhoods don't grow up to proclaim themselves profits and prophets andlead people to thei. manson didn't want my book to come out when he found i traced his sister and cousin and would be able to write about his somewhat pampered childhood. jim jones had in all the childhood but was always loved. vernon wayne howell was born to a 14-year-old girl and was raised with a lot of uncles and stepdad's but never wanted for food or attention. we can understand when people have problems why they wouldn't understand but it was also inevitable that they became what they became. >> how many children of david's survived and why so many? >> david's children, most of them died in the final fire. that was deliberate on his part. all told, he fathered 23 children by just about a dozen women. he said that the bible quoted that the lamb shall spread his seed. so the lamb of revelation can't be jesus because he didn't have children so vernon the lamb had to have children. obviously he c