His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [232]
Although grateful for Frank’s public support and his immense fund-raising ability, some people close to Humphrey worried about his friendship with the singer. Washington attorney Joseph L. Nellis, the former Kefauver committee counsel who had interrogated Frank in 1951 about carrying money to Lucky Luciano in Cuba, wrote the Vice-President a private memo warning him about Sinatra’s Mafia connections. He mentioned Frank’s Washington meeting in 1968 with Allen Dorfman, a Chicago mobster who was trying to get teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa out of prison. He also cited Frank’s 1967 chairmanship of the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League on whose letterhead was at least one man connected to organized crime. The group, which sought to improve the image of Italians in the United States, drew heated criticism from The New York Times for selecting Frank as their national leader.
“I concluded my memo by saying: ‘It’s true you need support from every segment of the population, but surely you would agree that you don’t need support from the underworld, and Frank Sinatra is unquestionably connected with the underworld,’ ” said Nellis. “Hubert later told me that he would be careful about the friendship, but he couldn’t set Sinatra aside because Frank was too powerful a supporter in Hollywood and the money he raised was just too great to discard him. ‘You just don’t turn your back on that,’ he said.”
Another Humphrey stalwart, Martin McNamara, former assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.G., was concerned enough about Frank’s involvement in the campaign to contact Henry Peterson, head of the organized crime section in the Justice Department. He sent a memo about this meeting to Bill Connell: “[Peterson] said that there is presently under way an investigation which has arisen out of IRS investigations into the relationship between the entertainment industry and the Cosa Nostra. That as far as Sinatra personally is concerned, there is a three months’ old investigation in their division which will probably extend for another two to three years. In other words, there is no likelihood of any criminal charge situation arising in the immediate future.
“For our own guidance,” McNamara continued, “we should be aware of the fact that Joe Fischetti and Ben Novak of the Fontainebleau are regarded as being fronts for substantial investments of hood money. The same is true of Paul D’Amato, who runs the 500 Club in Atlantic City. Another name mentioned was that of Sam Giancana, the head of the Chicago syndicate, now in Mexico City, who is one of the ten most important racketeers in the world. All these names are individuals with very close personal relationships with Sinatra and, in essence, Sinatra is their pawn and in their debt for having picked him out of the entertainment doldrums a few years back.”
In August 1968, a week before the Democratic National Convention, The Wall Street Journal ran a long front-page story entitled “Sinatra’s Pals—Gangster Friendships Cause Singer Trouble/But He Isn’t Fazed.” It said that for nearly thirty years some of Frank’s best friends had been mobsters. “Not just two-bit hoods, either; Mr. Sinatra hobnobs with the Mafia’s elite,” wrote Nicholas Gage, detailing Frank’s relationships with Willie Moretti, Lucky Luciano, Joe Fischetti, and Sam Giancana. Gage cited Frank’s ownership of an interest in the Berkshire Downs racetrack in Massachusetts, saying that Frank and Dean Martin were directors of the track in 1963 and that it was secretly owned by Raymond Patriarca, the New England Mafia boss, and Gaetano “Three-Finger Brown” Lucchese, the late head of one of New York’s five Mafia families.
“In recent months, gangsters have not appeared conspicuously in Mr. Sinatra’s entourage, but he is known to have seen them privately,” said Gage. “Last October, Mr. Sinatra came to New York to make a speech. According to police reports, he also drove up to Trumbull, Conn., to visit the home of Dave Iacovetti, a member of the Mafia