His Way_ The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra - Kitty Kelley [237]
The U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James, Walter H. Annenberg, and his wife, Lenore, sent formal invitations to an embassy party in his honor, where he was cheered by socialites and diplomats. Saluting the assembled lords and counts and dukes, Frank said, “Bless your distinguished little hearts.”
He returned to California in time to take part in the gubernatorial race between Governor Ronald Reagan and Jesse Unruh, former speaker of the California Assembly and once described as the century’s most important state legislator. Unruh, a disciple of Bobby Kennedy, had done nothing to help Hubert Humphrey in his race for the presidency in 1968, and now Frank was going to retaliate by announcing his support for Reagan.
“He [Unruh] hurt my man badly in Chicago,” said Frank. “In fact, he hurt the whole Democratic Party. Humphrey didn’t lose. His people lost for him. … If Reagan ran for president against Humphrey, I’d come out for Humphrey.”
Ronald Reagan did not seem quite so “boring and stupid” to Frank as he once had. On July 9, 1970, Frank announced his support for the Republican incumbent, proving the wisdom of the old Sicilian adage: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
On the same day, Governor Reagan, railing against “welfare cheats,” withdrew ten million dollars in aid for California’s aged, blind, and disabled, which shocked Frank.
“Did he do that? Did he really do that?” he asked, stunned by the news. “Well, I suppose you don’t withdraw your support for a candidate over one issue, but I’ll look into it. And you can bet I’ll speak to him about it.”
Upon reading of Sinatra’s defection, Democrats cringed. “I can’t believe it,” said former Governor Edmund “Pat” Brown. “Frank has always been a good Democrat and one of my strongest supporters. He knows the tragedy of the Reagan administration, and maybe we can get him to change his mind.”
The Democratic National Committeeman dismissed the endorsement as “one of the most insignificant occurrences in the annals of California politics.”
Joey Bishop said, “It’s a shock.”
“It figures,” Peter Lawford said.
Steve Allen wrote an open letter to Frank, saying he could not understand how a lifelong liberal could suddenly begin supporting a conservative like Ronald Reagan, who in 1962 had said of America’s blacks, “In their own country, they’re eating each other for lunch.” Allen listed the governor’s reactionary positions on prison reform, medical care for the aged, farm labor, hunger, the generation gap, taxes, campus unrest, political integrity, antiwar demonstrators, education, consumer interests, capital punishment, and mental health, begging Frank to set aside his “Sicilian vengeance” and return to the Democratic fold.
“They say your hatred of Senator Bob Kennedy was so great—because he kept you away from the confidence of his brother, the president—that you have waited a long time to get revenge and would not even be denied by the senator’s assassination. The word is, Frank, that all you can do now that Bobby is gone is ‘get even’ with his man, Jesse Unruh, and the Kennedy-McCarthy types who work for him,” wrote Allen. “Only a few thousand people may read this letter, Frank. I offer you access to a few million if you’d like to visit my TV show and explain your position.”
Frank did not respond, but he hastened to reassure the world of his political affiliation, saying, “I’m an Italian Democrat all the way. On that score, I could never change.”
To prove his point, he said that he was