The Sinatra Files (10 page)

Not all journalists were treated well by the FBI. In this excerpt from a heavily censored memo dated September 17, 1963, the Los Angeles office reports to the director on information provided by a “sensationalist” journalist, whose name the FBI blotted out. The memo recounts threats the journalist received that invoked the name of the reputed mobster Sam Giancana, a Sinatra friend. The journalist also mentions an encounter he’d had with Sinatra at the restaurant the singer owned in Beverly Hills with the actor Peter Lawford, Jack Kennedy’s brother-in-law, and other investors
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said that SINATRA does not like him as he had written up some articles unfavorable to SINATRA several years ago at a time when SINATRA was a part owner of Puccini’s Restaurant.
stated he had a date one night and his girl friend insisted on going to Puccini’s and he finally agreed to reluctantly. While
was at the restaurant SINATRA came in and surveyed the customers and thereafter
was paged to the telephone. When he answered the telephone it was dead and as he hung it up SINATRA appeared and called him all kinds of dirty names.

told SINATRA in effect, “I am not going to hit you since I see you have a number of your hoodlum friends around you. Give me my check and I will get out of here.” SINATRA allegedly replied, “I don’t want your money … it is dirty money.”

    
Three years later, the same journalist contacted the FBI again, as recounted here in an excerpt from a heavily censored Teletype
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    TELETYPE

FBI LOS ANG.

7:07 PM PDST URGENT 5/9/66

TO: DIRECTOR

FROM: LOS ANGELES

INFORMATION CONCERNING

CAPTIONED INDIVIDUAL TELEPHONICALLY CONTACTED THE OFFICE AT ELEVEN THIRTY A.M. THIS DATE AND ADVISED THAT HE HAD BEEN BEATEN BY FOUR INDIVIDUALS WHOM HE SUSPECTS AS BEING FRANK SINATRA’S MOB. HE REQUESTED FBI ASSISTANCE IN IDENTIFYING THESE INDIVIDUALS.

RELATED TO SINATRA’S DIFFICULTIES WITH MEXICAN AUTHORITIES.
WENT ON TO STATE THAT ON
WHEN HE DROVE HIS CAR
HE WAS GRABBED BY FOUR THUGS AS HE LEFT THE CAR AND WAS SEVERELY BEATEN. HE SAID HE IMMEDIATELY NOTIFIED THE HOLLYWOOD DIVISION OF THE LOS ANGELES PD WHO IS INVESTIGATING.

HE SAID HE IS CERTAIN IN HIS OWN MIND THAT THE FOUR THUGS WHO COMMITTED THE BEATING WERE MEMBERS OF SINATRA’S GROUP. HE SAID HE BELIEVES THIS SINCE SINATRA THREATENED HIM IN THE PAST

IT IS NOTED IN LOS ANGELES FILES THAT BY LETTER DATED SEPTEMBER SEVENTEEN, NINETEEN SIXTY-THREE, THE BUREAU WAS ADVISED OF A CONTACT WITH
AT WHICH TIME HE SPOKE OF AN ALLEGED THREAT MADE BY
SINATRA WHILE
WAS DINING AT PUCCINI’S RESTAURANT, OF WHICH SINATRA IS REPORTEDLY PART OWNER.