Nixon sought a 'personal relationship' with Sinatra

Washington, Jan.13 (ANI): Former US President Richard M. Nixon is reported to have sought a 'personal relationship' with famous American singer Frank Sinatra.

Nixon wanted to court Sinatra because he thought his connections with celebrities and public figures could lead to a rich source of political funds, The Telegraph quoted newly released tapes, as saying on Tuesday.

Sinatra was close to the American mafia and Democrats.

The then attorney general John Mitchell, however, blocked Nixon's initiative, because Sinatra had long been alleged to have personal and professional links with organised crime, including prominent figures such as Lucky Luciano.

The singer had been under watch by the FBI since the late 1940s. He was never prosecuted and documents released after his death revealed that he had been the target of death threats and extortion schemes.

Once a carouser with President Kennedy, Sinatra had also been a loyal Democrat, but with the rise of the counter-culture he had turned into a Republican supporter and backed Nixon's 1972 campaign, though their private one-to-one never happened.

Charles Colson, special counsel to the disgraced president, wrote a note in October 1971 to the chief of staff H R Haldeman recommending a private meeting between Nixon and Sinatra.

He wrote that political funds "could conceivably come our way based on the successful establishment of a personal relationship between the President and Frank Sinatra".

The documents made available by the Nixon Presidential Library revealed new depths of paranoia about not just political rivals, but the press and even the modern art scene in the Nixon White House in the years leading up to the Watergate scandal.

They show that Nixon wanted to catch Senator Edward Kennedy with other women and yearned for just a modicum of Winston Churchill's oratorical power, according to new archival material.

Memos to, and conversations with, White House advisers underlined how Nixon was engaged in dark political arts well before the 1972 break-in at the Democratic campaign headquarters that led to his resignation as US president. (ANI)