His Way

by Kitty Kelley

  Frank accompanied Agnew on Air Force Two on many of his official trips and became so enamored of political life in Washington, D.C., that he and Mickey Rudin leased a house on Embassy Row with Peter Malatesta, where they entertained frequently when they were in town. But the growing friendship between Agnew and Sinatra soon became a matter of controversy within the White House.

  “We kept hearing that the Vice-President’s association with Frank was politically damaging, but Agnew did not agree,” said Agnew’s press secretary, Vic Gold. “Paul Harvey tore into him on the radio for befriending Frank, and William Loeb, publisher of the Manchester Union Leader in New Hampshire, wrote him a stinging letter about the relationship. Agnew responded, saying: ‘Dear Bill, I appreciate your comments, but I want to say that Frank Sinatra is a friend of mine. He’s been a good friend and never asked me for anything. I found this strange criticism coming from someone who has taken financial support from a convicted felon like Jimmy Hoffa. Sincerely, Ted Agnew.’ ”

  “Frank demonstrated the same kind of loyalty to Agnew when President Nixon wanted to replace Agnew on the ticket with former Texas governor John Connolly.

  “Frank said he wanted to make Spiro president in 1976 and the only way to do it was to keep him on the ticket in 1972,” said Malatesta, “so we started a huge write-in campaign about how great Agnew was, to make Nixon look foolish if he dropped him. We denied knowing anything about the write-in, of course, but we had it financed with private contributions,” Malatesta continued. “Then we staged a big fund-raiser in Baltimore at the Lyric Theater. Bob Hope [Malatesta’s uncle] was the master of ceremonies. Frank got everyone to perform, turned out a bunch of stars to attend, and then came out of retirement to sing a tribute to Agnew to the tune of ‘The Lady Is a Tramp.’ Frank’s rendition was ‘The Gentleman Is a Champ.’ He had Pat Henry there and Nelson Riddle’s orchestra. It was quite an evening and it kept Agnew on the ticket.”

  Standing outside the theater that night was a U.S. marshal waiting to deliver a subpoena to Frank from the House Select Committee on Crime, which was investigating the influence of organized crime on sports and horse racing and wanted to question Frank about his investment in Berkshire Downs in Hancock, Massachusetts. A last-minute telephone call from Senator John Tunney (D-Calif.) stopped the summons from being served.

  Having raised $160,000 for John Tunney’s election campaign the previous year, Frank was a valued constituent, and when Mickey Rudin asked the senator to call the committee chairman, he gladly did so, saying Frank would be perfectly willing to come and tell everything he knew if the committee would only “invite” him instead of issuing a formal subpoena.

  The year before, on the occasion of Frank’s retirement, John Tunney had stood on the floor of the United States Senate to proclaim his constituent “the greatest entertainer the country has ever had.” He was joined by other senators from both parties representing states where Sinatra’s appearances had raised a lot of money: Alan Cranston of California, Howard Cannon of Nevada, Jacob Javits of New York, Charles Percy of Illinois, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.

  “Senator Tunney didn’t want us to embarrass Mr. Sinatra when he was here to sing for the Vice-President,” said Claude Pepper (D-Fla), chairman of the House Select Committee on Crime. “He wanted us to accommodate him as much as possible and let Mr. Sinatra testify in closed executive session. I told him we wouldn’t treat a celebrity any differently from any other witness.”

  Mickey Rudin flew to Washington to talk to the committee about keeping Frank from an open congressional hearing that would be covered by the press.

  “He is psychotic about testifying before committees under oath,” said the lawyer, who seemed unconcerned about his client’s Mafia friendships. “Frank knows twenty of these guys.”

  “What do you mean ‘these guys’?” asked Chris Nolde, a committee staffer. “Do you mean organized crime figures?”

  “Yeah,” said Rudin, who talked openly about Frank’s friendship with Gaetano Lucchese, Sam Giancana, and Joe Fischetti.

  Nevertheless, the committee agreed to extend an “invitation” to Frank rather than a subpoena, and scheduled his appearance for June 4, 1972. But Sinatra flew to England that day and refused to return to testify. Incensed by the rebuff, the committee issued a second subpoena and ordered federal marshals to stand at every port of entry in the country awaiting Frank’s return. This brought calls from the Vice-President’s staff, several congressional friends, and Harold Gibbons of the Teamsters Union. As a result, Congressman Pepper withdrew the second subpoena and issued Frank another “invitation” to appear on July 18 while promising to limit the questions to his holdings in the mob-infiltrated racetrack.

  “The day before he was to testify,” said Peter Malatesta, “Frank scheduled a meeting with Mickey Rudin, Vic Gold, and myself at the Madison Hotel in Washington to discuss the approach he should take before the committee. We talked for three hours and counseled him to be firm but docile and very, very low-keyed. He even made notes. Later, when he had dinner with Agnew, he was steaming over the press and kept saying, ‘Why can’t they ever tell the good side? They’re just after me because my name ends in a vowel.’ The next day, he went up to the hill and gave the committee hell, promptly forgetting everything we had told him to do.”

  As soon as he was sworn in, Frank started berating the congressmen for not immediately refuting the testimony of Joseph “The Baron” Barboza, a self-described syndicate enforcer who had said that Frank was a business front for Raymond S. Patriarca, head of the New England Mafia family. Waving a newspaper clipping at the committee, he read the headline: WITNESS LINKS SINATRA WITH REPUTED MAFIA FIGURE.

  “That’s charming, isn’t it? That’s charming,” he said sarcastically. “That’s all hearsay evidence, isn’t it?”

  The committee counsel, Joseph Phillips, acknowledged that it was.

  “This bum went running off at the mouth, and I resent it,” said Frank. “I won’t have it. I am not a second-class citizen. Let’s get that straightened out.”

  Asked to rebut the allegation that he had knowingly bought into a Mafia-controlled venture when he invested $55,000 in Berkshire Downs, Frank snapped at the counsel. “I don’t have to refute it because there’s no truth to it.”

  “Tell us about the first contact you had with anyone in relation to Berkshire Downs?”

  “The first and only contact I had was with a man named Sal Rizzo.”

  “How did you know Mr. Rizzo?”

  “I met him.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t remember where or how, but I met him and we got to talking about it and I liked his idea about the investment.”

  “What did he tell you about the investment that you liked?”

  “I just liked the idea for five percent of the racetrack I might do well with it,” said Frank.

  “Well, could you tell us whether you were introduced to Mr. Rizzo by Mr. Lucchese?”

  “I was not.”

  “Did you know Mr. Lucchese?”

  “I met him.”

  “Could you tell me how well or how often you met Mr. Lucchese?”

  “Once or twice, a long time ago.”

  “Could you tell us under what circumstances you met Mr. Lucchese?”

  “I can’t remember that.”

  Exasperated by the evasive answers, the counsel said, “Well, I am trying to learn, Mr. Sinatra, how it is that Mr. Rizzo could make such a favorable impression on you in such a short period of time.” Frank didn’t say.

  Later, Charles Carson, the racetrack’s comptroller, testified that Frank and Rizzo were childhood friends. He said that Rizzo told him: “I have known Sinatra since New Jersey. I was a neighbor of his and knew the whole family. Now that he is in the money, I can talk with him just like I talked with him before.”

  The committee tried to resolve the conflicting testimonies the next day when Salvatore Rizzo appeared, but Rizzo invoked the Fifth Amendment on thirty-fo
ur of the forty-six questions asked. He refused to say whether he knew Frank, for how long, whether he sold him Berkshire Downs stock, or had lived in Frank’s old New Jersey neighborhood.

  But Rizzo had testified in 1968 to the Florida State Beverage Commission about Frank’s investment in Berkshire Downs, and that testimony was read into the House Crime Committee record:

  Q: Did Frank Sinatra receive money in your track up there?

  A: Yes.

  Q: How long have you known Mr. Sinatra?

  A: Fifteen or twenty years.

  Commenting on the earlier testimony, the House committee counsel said, “It appears, Mr. Chairman, that either Mr. Sinatra’s testimony before this committee was false, or the testimony of Mr. Rizzo before the Florida State Beverage Commission was false. In either case, one of the gentlemen has committed perjury.”

  New England Mafia boss Raymond Patriarca was brought before the committee from the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where he was serving ten years for murder conspiracy. Asked if he had ever met Frank, the mobster said, “I never met Frank Sinatra personally. I seen him on television and at the moving pictures.”

  “Did you ever have any business dealings with him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you ever purchase any stock from him?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Anybody on your behalf do it?”

  “I claim my Fifth Amendment privilege.”

  “Do you have any knowledge that anyone associated with you had any business dealings with Sinatra?”

  “I claim my Fifth Amendment privilege.”

  While Patriarca said he did no business with Frank directly, he would not deny that a front man did it for him, which left real questions about Sinatra’s testimony. But the committee members seemed so chastened by Frank’s outrage that they all but apologized for calling him to testify.

  “You’re still the chairman of the board,” said Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY).

  After ninety-five minutes, Frank swaggered out of the room, clearly the victor. He sent the committee an $18,750 bill for his expenses, which he said included chartering a jet at $1,200 an hour to fly back from Europe to testify. He was not reimbursed.

  Still steaming about the indignity he had been subjected to, he commissioned New York journalist Pete Hamill to write an essay in his name for The New York Times; it was printed on the op-ed page on July 24, 1972. Frank upbraided the committee for invading his privacy, trying to besmirch his good name, and he accused members of seeking publicity at his expense during an election year.

  The committee backed off and no further action was ever taken, prompting one congressional investigator to say with a sneer, “I call it the committee that was a crime!”

  One of the first people to congratulate Frank on his performance before the House Select Committee on Crime was President Nixon, who exulted in the committee’s public embarrassment. Frank was touched by the phone call, and despite his animus toward Nixon over the years, decided to support the President for reelection in 1972. He even contributed $53,000 to the cause.

  His action stirred outrage among those close to him, especially his outspoken daughter, Tina, who said she was horrified by her father’s support of the Republican Party. Mrs. Milton Rudin, the wife of Sinatra’s lawyer, wrote him a letter expressing herself on the “monstrosity” of his actions.

  “When Frank came out for Richard Nixon, I wrote him a letter and told him to take me off his Christmas list—no more big, fancy, showy presents—because with Nixon in office we were going to be in for hard times,” she said. “I said we’d probably never even see Christmas, let alone have money to spend what with all Nixon was spending to bomb Vietnam and Cambodia. … I was disgusted with Frank and told him so. I told him what I thought of him for endorsing such a man. I signed the letter and sent it.

  “His office called me three different times to make sure there wasn’t some mistake. I said the only mistake was Frank’s endorsement of Richard Nixon. Well, my husband must’ve gotten a call from Sinatra, because he came roaring home, screaming, ‘How dare you? How dare you?’ He wanted to throw something at me, and I knew then that my marriage was over.… Frank never spoke to me again, and no matter how many years go by, he will never forgive me. If I had a career to ruin, I’m sure he’d try to do it. He’s a vengeful man that way.… I’ve known Frank a long time. He was a patient of my brother, who was a psychiatrist—Dr. Ralph Greenson. And that was in the early 1950s. That’s how long I’ve known Frank Sinatra.

  “Rudin’s reaction was almost funny … but sad, too, because Frank is not a good friend to Mickey … even though Mickey has protected Sinatra, his family, and his children with his understanding and compassion.

  “Sure, Frank sent him a very expensive Oriental desk when he was traveling in the Far East and thousands of dollars’ worth of Dunhill fishing tackle for his new boat, but so what? He still treats him like dirt. … I remember when he called Rudin a foul name and they hung up on each other.… Mickey is Jewish and I am Jewish, and when people get mad they say things, and no matter how they try to retract them later, I still feel wounded. And Sinatra knows how to wound people.… When we were sitting down as a family to our Passover Seder, Frank called constantly and would not leave Mickey alone. Mickey said, ‘Enough is enough. I’m getting out.’ He wanted to get rid of him then, but he never did.

  “I don’t know if Frank is Mafia or not, but I do know that he has been involved with some very unethical people. Mickey always left the house to find a pay phone to talk to Frank about certain things. When we got divorced, I found out that Mickey had put everything in my name, including July’s restaurant and Frank’s house in Palm Springs. I had to sign about forty quit claims and that’s when I decided to take back my maiden name so Mickey couldn’t borrow against any of my property or use my name for whatever reason.”

  Despite Mrs. Rudin’s objection, Frank stood staunchly behind the Nixon-Agnew ticket and even campaigned with the Vice-President, oblivious to the Watergate scandal swirling around the White House. He helped Agnew court the Jewish vote by making him part of the program when he received the Medallion of Valor of the State of Israel. On election night, Frank flew to Washington to be with the Agnews and help them celebrate when the Republican ticket carried forty-nine states.

  Now Frank could look forward to four years of uninterrupted power and prestige as the best friend of the Vice-President of the United States. Despite his work for Kennedy in 1960 and for Humphrey in 1968, he had never flown on Air Force One, nor had he been invited to a White House state dinner or a weekend at Camp David. Now all that a grateful President and Vice-President could bestow would be his. They began by offering him the opportunity to stage another inaugural gala, but he declined, preferring to be viewed as a statesman. “He simply doesn’t want to be treated as a performer anymore,” said his publicist, Jim Mahoney. “He will be at the inaugural, but not to perform.”

  Frank flew to Washington in January 1973 with Barbara Marx, newly divorced, to throw a series of pre-inaugural parties with Peter Malatesta in the mansion they had leased on Embassy Row.

  “Everyone came to those parties,” said Peter Malatesta. “The Agnews, Henry Kissinger, Eva Gabor, Senator Barry Goldwater, Attorney General John Mitchell and his wife, Martha; astronauts including Alan Shepard, and all the ambassadors of Italy, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Morocco,” said Peter Malatesta. “The night before the inaugural, Louise Gore [Republican National Committeewoman from Maryland] was giving a bash for the Republican Finance Committee at the Jockey Club, so I told Frank he should really go. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, but I told him it was the most important party of the weekend and that if he wanted to meet the cream of the Republican crop, he’d be there. So he went and, oh, God, what a disaster that was!”

  Earlier in the evening, Frank had gone to the Kennedy Center to be master of ceremonies for the inaugural’s American Music Concert. He wanted his comic, Pat Henry, to be part of
the program as well, but the comedian had not been cleared beforehand and the Secret Service refused to let him participate. Frank protested, but the Secret Service remained firm, saying that without security clearance no one was allowed onstage to perform for the President. Refusing to emcee the evening without his comic, Frank stormed out, leaving Hugh O’Brian to fill in for him.

  When he reached the Fairfax Hotel for Mrs. Gore’s party, he had to cross a long line of photographers and reporters in the lobby. Among them was Maxine Cheshire, society columnist for The Washington Post. Frank had encountered her several months before, when he was getting out of Ronald Reagan’s limousine at the dinner Agnew was giving for all the governors at the State Department. Frank had never forgotten her because she had approached him with the most embarrassing question he had ever been asked in the company of dignitaries.

  “Mr. Sinatra, do you think that your alleged association with the Mafia will prove to be the same kind of embarrassment to Vice-President Agnew as it was to the Kennedy administration?”

  “Nah, I don’t worry about things like that,” Frank had said with great aplomb. “I look at people as friends and that’s all I worry about.” He moved quickly to join Governor Reagan without a word of rebuke to Mrs. Cheshire, but her question rankled him for months.

  Now as he saw her approaching Barbara Marx at the Fairfax Hotel, he exploded. “Get away from me, you scum,” he shouted. “Go home and take a bath. Print that, Miss Cheshire. Get away from me. I don’t want to talk to you. I’m getting out of here to get rid of your stench.”

  Turning to the people around him, he said, “You know Miss Cheshire, don’t you? That stench you smell is coming from her.” In full fury, he turned on her and screamed: “You’re nothing but a two-dollar cunt. C-u-n-t. You know what that means, don’t you? You’ve been laying down for two dollars all your life.”