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Thursday, December 10, 1998 By Brian O'Neill
In the classic Western, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," we're told that, given the choice between truth and legend, a newspaper should "print the legend."
That's no longer true. Heroes are made only to be broken. Be you a rock star, a running back or a randy president, your skeletons are no longer yours. They're ours. The media set you up only to knock you down.
Hence the headline, "King Rat," blaring across the front page of yesterday's New York Post. Hence the more restrained teaser, "Agent Blue Eyes?," at the bottom of our own front page.
The story is that the late Frank Sinatra volunteered in 1950 to work undercover for the FBI. The story's out because news organizations filed more than 30 Freedom of Information requests for Sinatra's file after he died in May.
If you read the stories, you were probably as disappointed as I was. The cache of confidential documents from Sinatra's FBI file is mostly a whole lot of nothing.
Sinatra's mob ties are hardly news. Nor is the fact the federal government might spend 40 years compiling a 1,300-page file on a private citizen and never charge him with anything.
As one who is a fan of The Voice but not the man, I found the FBI file about as thin as Sinatra in 1940. Mob meetings in South Florida are alleged to have occurred simultaneously with Sinatra concerts in Miami Beach? Who'd the FBI expect as a Mafia draw? Anita Bryant?
It's a measure of Sinatra's shady reputation that his unsavory friends are not news, but his offer to help a law enforcement agency is. Neo-swingers who romanticize the Rat Pack won't like hearing that the greatest singer of the century was ready to sing to the feds. But the file says Sinatra sent an intermediary to the FBI to offer help in ferreting out subversives in the entertainment world -- and was rebuffed.
This was when Sinatra's career was down and the Red Scare was heating up. We don't know much more than that. But we know Sinatra. We also know the allegations about FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Some biographers say he was a G-man in a G-string, a guy who liked to wear women's clothing occasionally, and that he himself was blackmailed by Mob figures.
So forget the fact that Sinatra never actually got his interview with Hoover in 1950. Print the legend.
J. Edgar: I understand you have some information for us, Frank.
Ol' Blue Eyes: Yes, and may I say, Mr. Hoover, that's a lovely dress you're wearing.
J. Edgar: Knock off that Eddie Haskell routine. "Leave It To Beaver" won't even air until 1957. What do you have?
Ol' Blue Eyes: Well, you know Joey Bishop. It turns out, he's not really funny.
J. Edgar: Yes, we know this.
Ol' Blue Eyes: Well, did you know Dean Martin is not really a drunk?
J. Edgar: What!
Ol' Blue Eyes: Plus, I know a store that has a bustier in your size.
J. Edgar: Frank, consider yourself a special agent. We just have to give you a code name. I'm thinking of Doobie Doobie Doo.
Ol' Blue Eyes: Say what?
J. Edgar: Doobie Doobie Doo. Look, I know it makes no sense, but just to signal us that you're with us, we'd like you to insert it into a song sometime.
Ol' Blue Eyes: But won't I sound ridiculous?
J. Edgar: Frank, you can make anything sound good.
Ol' Blue Eyes (under his breath): Maybe. But you're no Ava Gardner.
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