Ol' Black-and-Blue Eyes

By Lewis Grossberger

As soon as the Federal Bureau of Insinuation let loose its lurid 1,300-page scandal sheet on Frank Sinatra last week, an anxious populace began asking itself the agonizing question: "Does this mean I have to reassess my position on the legendary swinging blue-eyed crooner from Hoboken, N.J., who embodied popular music and indeed pop culture in the latter half of the 20th century while swaggering about obnoxiously with his dissolute lackeys, or can I just bag it and catch a few hours of sleep and then go to work in the morning just as if nothing earthshaking had occurred?"

Well, don't panic, people. I'm here, I'm in charge, and I'm gonna handle this thing. Together we'll get to the bottom of it right now, or the martinis are on me.

I mean, surely you didn't expect a champion headlinemaker like Francis Albert (as he always insisted I call him--or would have, I'm sure, had we ever met) to stop making headlines just because of a minor matter like death. Being dead doesn't mean you can't go right on being controversial. Look at Tom Jefferson, 172 years without a twitch, but he's in hot water. And the FBI hasn't even released his file yet.

O.K., let's get right to these allegations. As you know, there are two kinds of FBI files: raw and refined. Raw files, which should be taken with a fresh acidic wine such as Muscadet or Sancerre, contain the most salacious and lewd rumors gleaned from the most untrustworthy and reprehensible scum on earth. Their original function was to provide amusing bedtime reading for J. Edgar Hoover (which is why he kept them in the bureau). Today they enable the FBI to keep U.S. crime statistics low by threatening to give the media the raw files of anyone even thinking about going bad.

Refined files I don't have the space to get into right now, but they mostly concern aesthetic offenses, and you're probably not cultivated or genteel enough to appreciate them anyway. Besides, the Sinatra files are all raw. Very raw.

Allegation 1: that Francis Albert dodged the draft. Ridiculous. Everyone knows he was in both the Army and the Navy during World War II. You've seen him singing and dancing in a sailor suit while on shore leave. And you saw the tragic fight he waged while trying to defend Pearl Harbor against Ernest Borgnine. Some may say, "But those were just movies," but that's the point! It was Frank's obligation as a celebrity to keep morale high on the home front. That is what we ask of our stars during wartime, not to become cannon fodder.

Allegation 2: that Frank was involved with the Mob. Now, I have been asked about this charge many times, and I always give the same response: Just because Frank posed for pictures with every leading capo, underboss and cement contractor of the day doesn't mean that he joined them in their nefarious underworld activities. Oh, occasionally he rode along on a hit or two, but that was just one of those social obligations a star of his stature is expected to discharge. He never really liked it.

Allegation 3: that in 1938 Frank was once arrested in Hackensack, N.J., for seduction, a charge later reduced to adultery. (Though these acts are no longer considered crimes in the U.S., you can be impeached for them.) As to whether he really committed such despicable offenses, just ask yourself: Does this really sound like Frank?

Allegation 4: that Frank offered to "snitch on lefties for the FBI," as an unsavory tabloid put it. Again, the baselessness of this charge can be quickly deduced from its failure to jibe with what we know of Francis Albert's character. Leaving aside for the moment the question of how the Rat Pack may have gotten its name, consider: If Frank Sinatra had been angry at communists, would he have sneakily tattled on them? Of course not. He and his pal Jilly Rizzo would have headed for the nearest saloon where the dirty reds hang out, picked out the smallest and beat the living daylights out of him!

Allegation 5: that to dodge the alleged draft, Frank told his draft board he was terrified of crowds and got really nervous around elevators, and was subsequently labeled psychoneurotic (a lay term for what psychiatrists call "cuckoo-nutso"). O.K., this one is completely true. And if you don't believe me, just ask any of his ex-wives.

What then do we conclude about Francis Albert? Two things. One, that he sinned frankly and naturally, which is why he was called Frank Sinatra. Two, our dead celebrities are too valuable a resource to be squandered. As currently constituted, the FBI is not up to the job. Louis Freeh must be replaced immediately--by Matt Drudge.