LOS ANGELES, Feb. 6 – From his County Jail lodgings, Charles Manson still directs his loyal hippie “Family” with the verve of old, while plotting a courtroom coup which might have stunning repercussions.

It becomes clear now that, far from scattering in the wake of the butchery it is accused of, the Manson Family is more closely knit than ever.

Headquartered in two dusty residences in a quiet San Fernando Valley residential neighborhood – and the Spahn Ranch near Chatsworth – members bustle about doing the bidding of their jailed leader.

If Manson’s legal maneuver suceeds, it will complicate prosecution strategy in the Tate-LaBianca murder cases.

Until now, Manson has maintained he would act as his own attorney, come brimstone or flood.

Thursday, however, this appeared to have been a screen to disguise what he really wanted: an opportunity to rail at the Establishment in pretrial maneuvering and, more important, to buy time to gather himself and his five codefendants under a common legal shelter.

By so doing, Manson could actually get out from under murder and conspiracy charges against him.

At least that is the view of Denver attorney Francis Salazar, who disclosed he is the lawyer Manson has chosen to attempt to execute the legal coup.

Salazar, widely known in the Midwest for criminal cases he has handled, said he was first approached around the first of the year by a Los Angeles intermediary for Manson.

Several telephone conversations followed, but Salazar said he waited to visit Manson until mid-January and then saw him on two consecutive days in the County Jail.

“I wanted to give the matter some thought before I talked with him,” Salazar said. “The big question was whether there would be a conflict if were to represent more than one of the codefendants. And if there would be, which ones I should represent.”

After considerable investigation, Salazar said he arrived at a determination that “may surprise some people”: That even if he represents all the codefendants, there will be no conflict

The issue of “conflict” in Manson’s strategy is critical.

When it appears one codefendant’s testimony, or defense, can damage another’s, legal conflict arises and courts will not allow the attorney; or an associate, to represent more than one client in a combined case – usually.

However, there is an exception.

If a private lawyer is handling two or more defendants in a case, the judge is required to warn the accused of the possible damage that might be done one’s own defense by the testimony of a co-suspect.

If the codefendants say they understand the possibility, and still want the same lawyer, the judge has no choice but to permit this.

On the surface, it seems hard to believe that any of the codefendants in the Tate-LaBianca case would want to risk joining their defenses with any of the others.

“This especially would appear true of Susan (Sadie Glutz) Atkins, whose testimony before the grand jury implicated Manson and the others in the seven slayings.

But the codefendants in this case are unique, as are the legal machinations now going on. Manson’s strange hold over his nomadic tribe — both those in and out of jail — is one reason.

If he can arrange to have the same attorney — or cooperating attorneys— represent all the codefendants, there is reason to believe he can block one from testifying against the other.

Should that happen, the case against all — particularly Manson — is sorely weakened; the prosecution needs verbal testimony to support its physical evidence.

Otherwise, the district attorney’s office must make its charges stick largely through circumstantial evidence.

It can’t use Miss Atkins’ story to the grand jury as trial evidence, damning though it was, unless she chooses to repeat it before a trial jury. Manson appears certain she will elect not to repeat it.

The clan leader has told more than one person in recent weeks that Miss Atkins had “changed her story.” One account quoted him as saying:

“She sent word to me that if I’d get her a good attorney, she’d shut up.”

This is where Salazar appears to fit in.

He claims that all the Tate-LaBianca codefendants legally are “acting in concert,” even though he said he has not yet received direct or indirect contact from Patricia Krenwinkel, still fighting extradition in Alabama.

He said that “a person who has the full confidence” of Charles (Tex) Watson had advised him Watson wanted him (Salazar) as counsel. Watson also is resisting extradition from Texas.

Salazar said he probably will not represent Miss Atkins personally, but that “she will be represented, by a lawyer I am associated with.” Which would indicate that Salazar will be calling the shots on whether she will take the stand.

Salazar said that, at present, he anticipates personally defending “one or more” of the accused, one of whom, he added, may be Manson himself.

He said he has an investigator in Los Angeles working on the case, and that from what he has learned he is convinced Manson cannot be convicted. He supported this by saying: “Nobody knows as much about the case as I do. It’s extremely complicated.”

Whether Manson’s strategy works or not, he is able to indulge in the legal gymnastics because his arrest, rather than weakening his influence among his followers, appears to have strengthened it.

“The Family is more cohesive than ever,” Salazar said.

From the after-shock of the arrests and the indictments, one might logically have assumed the Manson tribe would have been blown to the four winds and that Susan Atkins’ grisly story would set back the whole hippie movement.

The latter probably is true, but not the former.

Manson’s followers not only are as faithful as ever, but appear to have grown in number; the tribe appears to have attracted new members through its notoriety.

The courtroom appearances of Manson attract between 20 and 30 of his loyalists — mostly young women — during every session.

Manson not only receives succor from Family members still on the outside, but avails himself of their nimbleness and glibness to control those in jail, it now appears.

They serve as his legal runners and go-betweens with others of the accused, persons offering legal counsel and potential financial benefactors. Some are wheeling and dealing to seek a rich contract for recordings that Manson, a self-styled musician and singer, has made.

Salazar said he has counseled frequently with Manson’s followers on the outside.

The two who appear to be Manson’s chief lieutenants are Lynn (Squeaky) Fromme, 21, and Sandra Pugh, 26, both of whom were arrested with him in last October’s Death Valley raids on a stolen car ring. Miss Fromme had been with Manson since he began his wanderings from Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco aboard a converted school bus more than two years ago.

Headquarters for the Family today are two rambling homes, set far back from the street, in a respectable neighborhood in Van Nuys. Strangers are not welcome there, but neighbors have not complained to police about the occupants of the dwellings.

The Family appears to have gone Establishment in at least one respect to guard its privacy.

A sign on a gate reads: “No Trespassing.” Another: “Beware of Dog.”

Authorities say some of the clan also are setting up a fresh encampment at the Spahn Ranch near Chatsworth, which Miss Atkins claims was the staging point for the raids on the Tate and LaBianca residences last August.

The number of persons, all Manson cultists, living at both sites is unknown, but it is believed to be large.

The telephone at one of the Van Nuys homes is listed in the name of Harold True — who between July, 1967, and July, 1968, rented a hippie “pad” next door to the LaBianca home in the Los Feliz District. Manson and some of his minions attended at least one party there, possibly more.

The thrall in which Manson still holds Family members defies the imagination, but sheer force of personality appears to have a great deal to do with it.

To illustrate:

The parents of Robert Beausoleil, 22, awaiting trial for the Topanga Canyon murder of fellow musician Gary Hinman in July, visited Manson in jail on Jan. 8.

Manson, Miss Atkins and other Family members also have been implicated in the – Hinman murder. In fact, evidence has been presented that the slaying was carried out at Manson’s direction, as Miss Atkins has said the Tate and LaBianca killings were.

Thus, it would appear, the elder Beausoleils, a quiet, hard-working Santa Barbara couple, would hold Manson accountable for the trouble their son is in.

Instead, Mrs. Beausoleil said she had found Manson “kind and sympathetic,” and added:

“Those pictures in the newspapers don’t show him the way he really is. It’s not fair what they’ve written about him.”

By JERRY COHEN