LOS ANGELES, Feb. 24 – Prosecutor Vincent T. Bugliosi was called as a witness in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial Tuesday and questioned by the defense about a district attorney’s office deal for Susan Atkins’ testimony.

The arrangement, Bugliosi explained, was that the prosecution would not seek the death penalty for her if she told the complete truth about the Tate-LaBianca killings to the Los Angeles County Grand Jury.

However, he said, the prosecution now will seek the death penalty for the 22-year-old defendant. He said she admitted in a Superior Court declaration that she lied to the grand jury.

Bugliosi was called to testify by Miss Atkins’ attorney, Daye Shinn. The lawyer asked Bugliosi for details of the arrangement.

The prosecutor said he, Dep. Dist. Atty. Aaron Stovitz and then-Dist. Atty. Evelle J. Younger met Dec. 4, with Miss Atkins’ court-appointed attorney, Richard Caballero, and attorney Paul Caruso.

Bugliosi said an oral agreement was reached on terms of Miss Atkins’ testimony to the grand jury the next day. Later that day, Bugliosi said, he went to Caballero’s office to talk to the defendant.

Bugliosi said Caballero initiated the arrangement on behalf of his client and had recorded a statement Miss Atkins had made about the seven murders. He said he listened to a tape recording of that statement before questioning “Sadie.”

Bugliosi said to his knowledge “complete immunity” had never been offered in exchange for Miss Atkins’ testimony, as she testified in the current trial.

And, he said, the prosecution never promised not to seek death sentences for any of the four defendants if Sadie testified before the grand jury.

Bugliosi testified that he thought Miss Atkins had substantially told the truth to grand jurors but had lied about who killed Sharon Tate.

The young woman told fellow inmates at Sybil Brand Institute for Women that she killed Miss Tate, but before the grand jury she said the blonde actress was killed by Charles (Tex) Watson.

Bugliosi said at the time he did not know which version was correct since he was not at the scene of the murders.

Charles Manson’s attorney, Irving A. Kanarek, asked why, if Bugliosi was aware of the conflicting statements, he had not tried to “clear it up” for grand jurors.

The question was blocked by co-prosecutor Stephen Kay, who objected that it was “irrelevant” to the question of penalty for the four convicted defendants.

Superior Judge Charles H. Older cut off Kanarek’s examination of Bugliosi after Kay objected that the attorney’s questions about how many times the state’s key witness, Linda Kasabian, was removed from jail were time-consuming and irrelevant.

Before Bugliosi took the stand Tuesday, co-defendant Leslie Van Houten admitted on cross-examination that she once told her court-appointed attorney that Manson was involved in the Tate-LaBianca murders.

But, the tall, dark-haired young woman insisted she only had said what her lawyer, Marvin Part, told her to say so he could support a plea of insanity by having a psychiatrist listen to her recorded statements.

She said she later fired Part.

In a confession from the witness stand of the Tate-LaBianca trial Monday, Miss Van Houten, 21, admitted she helped kill Rosemary LaBianca but she said Manson was not along the evening the woman and her husband were murdered.

Bugliosi asked on cross-examination Tuesday whether she had told anyone outside the Manson “family” that the 36-year-old Manson had ordered the killings to start a black-white race war.

The witness refused to answer the question “yes” or “no” as the deputy district attorney asked and when Kanarek objected to the question, she angrily snapped:

“Mr. Kanarek, would you shut up so I can answer that question?”

She explained that it had been Part’s idea to have her affirm the story of the murders told by Miss Atkins and carried in The Times.

“You told Mr. Part that when you stopped in front of the LaBianca residence, Mr. Manson got out of the car alone and entered the LaBianca residence,” Bugliosi said. “Did you tell him that?”

“Sure, I told him that,” she said. But, she said she only answered in the way her attorney wanted her to when they made three tape recordings at Sybil Brand. She said she asked Part to destroy the tapes.

Switching to the evening of Aug. 9, 1969, Bugliosi asked why the defendant had gone along to Leno and Rosemary LaBianca’s Los Feliz district home.

She insisted she just wanted to “go for a ride” and then when Charles (Tex) Watson decided to stay at the LaBianca residence, she and co-defendant Patricia Krenwinkel, stayed with him.

She said she didn’t know why she went inside the LaBianca house or why she started stabbing Mrs. LaBianca when the woman started screaming, instead of just leaving the home.

“In other words,” Bugliosi said,’ “you can kill someone at any time for no reason whatsoever, is that correct?”

“Anybody can kill anything they can kill,” she said. “Anybody can.”

By JOHN KENDALL