Sinatra on 1963 issues
Peter Fokes
***"Remember that leering, cursing lynch mob in Little Rock reviling a meek,
innocent 12-year-old Negro girl as she tried to enroll in public school?
Weren't they -- or most of them -- devout churchgoers? I detest the
two-faced who pretend liberality but are practiced bigots in their own mean
little spheres."
***"If the press reports world news as they report about me, we're in
trouble."
***"Anyway I asked Mike [Mike Romanoff] what would happen if a summit
meeting of all the leaders in every country in the world was called,
including Red China, at the U.N. Further suppose that each leader brings
with him his top aides: Kennedy brings Rusk, Krushchev brings Gromyko, Mao
brings Chou. All these cats are together in one room, then -- boom! Somebody
blows up the mother building. No more leaders. No more deputies. The
question I asked Mike, and the one I ask you, is: What would happen to the
world?
Playboy: You tell us?
Sinatra: I told Mike I thought it might be the only chance the world has for
survival. But Mike just shook his head and said, "Frank, you're very sick."
Maybe so. Until someone lights the fuse, however, I think that continuation
of the cold war prepararedness might be more effective to maintain the peace
than the dewey-eyed notion of total disarmament. I also wonder if 'total'
disarmament includes chemical and bacteriological weapons -- which, as you
know, can be just as lethal as nuclear weapons. Card players have a saying:
'It's all right to play if you keep your eyes on the deck' -- which is
another way of saying, 'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.' "
***"Our concern over a Sovietized Cuba 90 miles from Key West, for instance,
must be equated with Russian concern over our missile bases surrounding
them. It is proper that we should be deeply concerned, but we must be able
to see their side of the coin -- and not let this concern turn into fear on
either side."
***Playboy: On a practical level, how would you combat Communist expanion
into such areas as Cuba, Laos and the emerging African nations?
Sinatra: It strikes me as being so ridiculously simple: Stop worring about
communism: just get rid of the conditions that nurture it."
***"Attending rallies sponsored by 110-percent anti-Communist cultists or
donning white sheets and riding with the Klan -- the one that's spelled with
a "K" -- isn't the answer. All I know is that a nation with our standard of
living, with our Social Security system, TVA, farm parity, health plans and
unemployment insurance can afford to address itself to the cancers of
starvation, substandard housing, educational voids and second-class
citizenship that still exist in many backsliding areas of our own country.
When we've cleaned these blemishes, then we can go out with a clean
conscience to see where else in the world we can help. Hunger is inexcusable
in a world where grain rots in silos and butter turns rancid while being
held for favorable commodity indices."
Peter Fokes
http://www.toronto.hm/
Dave Reitzes
FWIW, Sinatra's 1963 PLAYBOY interview has long been rumored to have
actually been authored by Reprise Records advertising executive Mike Shore
(cf. Will Friedwald, SINATRA! THE SONG IS YOU [New York: Scribner, 1995],
p. 478).
Dave
Perpetual Starlight: Original fiction, music and more
http://www.reitzes.com
JFK Online: John F. Kennedy assassination
http://www.jfk-online.com
Peter Fokes
"Dave Reitzes" <drei...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20030616210904...@mb-m03.aol.com...
Thanks for that info Dave. One can be fairly certain that Sinatra edited
the final product and approved the final version. Of course the reputation
of Joe Hyams and William Read Woodfield might have been impacted if it was
known at the time that an ad exec had a hand in putting Sinatra's answers
together.
Peter Fokes
Peter Fokes
closely held secret.
Sinatra scores a bullseye when he says: "Our concern over a Sovietized Cuba
90 miles from Key West, for instance,
must be equated with Russian concern over our missile bases surrounding
them."
Makes one wonder if JFK did some talking to a very close acquaintance about
this agreement.
Then again, it may just be coincidence.
Peter
"Peter Fokes" <pfokess...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:3eee...@mcadams.posc.mu.edu...
Martin Shackelford
and described their context at the beginning of each interview.
Martin
Martin Shackelford
Martin
Jerry Shinley
Aug. 2, 1963
http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo/jfk9/hscv9g.htm
Aug. 2, 1963
[Jack] Ruby calls from the Ewing apartment; Los Angeles,
HO 6-8211, for 1 minute (Mike Shore Reprise Records);
There other references to calls to Shore.
FWIW,
Jerry Shinley
Peter Fokes
"Martin Shackelford" <msh...@concentric.net> wrote in message
news:3EEEA628...@concentric.net...
> Fortunately for rumor-mongering, Playboy tape-recorded their interviews,
> and described their context at the beginning of each interview.
>
> Martin
Playboy "might" have been snookered in another 1963 interview. In the
OCTOBER 1963 issue, there is a note regarding the interview with PM Nehru:
<quote>
Just before closing this section (the last to be printed) of the October
issue, after the rest of the magazine had gone to press, we received word
from the Indian Embassy in Washington that our interview with PM Nehru was
not, in fact, the result of an exclusive, personal conversation with the
head of the Indian state, but simply a gathering together of public
pronouncements made by the Prime Minister in various speeches, statements,
etc., over the past several years. The Nehru material was submitted to us by
a well-regarded journalist-publisher who has previously conducted numerous
similar interviews with famous personages all over the world: it was sold as
an actual interview, recorded on tape, and the covering letters that so
described the material also included photographs of the Prime Minister and
journalist together. There was no reason to doubt its validity and we
consequently published it in good faith as a personal interview. However, an
official refutation from the Indian government must be respected, and since
our attempts to reach the supposed interviewer for further clarification
have proved unsuccessful, editorial integrity requires that we print this
statement."
<quote off>
However the bonifides of the Sinatra interview seem solid. The following
prologue appears before the actual Sinatra interview in Playboy's Feb 1963
issue:
<quote>
"Rightly refusing to waste his time with predictable small talk, Sinatra
agreed to SIT DOWN with us only on the condition that we 'talk turkey, not
trivia', that we attempt to reach the man behind the image, to elicit his
deepest feelings and reflections on the things which move and motivate him
as a human being. Reassuring HIM that this very aim is the basic premise and
prerequisite of the Playboy interview we gladly agreed. We then spent an
entire week with Sinatra as he ambled through the breakneck business
schedule that has become his normal routine -- answering our questions
between takes on the set of Come Blow Your Horn ...; in his Dual-Ghia en
route home from the studio; during breaks at a Reprise recording session
with Count Basie; in corridors heading to and from the summit meetings on
upcoming movie-record night-club projects; even for an unexpected hour in
his Beverly Hills home following the abortive Liston-Patterson fight, which
Sinatra had arrnaged to pipe in on closed TV for a group of friends
(including Dean Martin, Billy Wilder and LA Mayor Samuel W. Yorty), invited
at $100 a seat earmarked for a favorite Sinatra charity."
<quote off>
Hard to believe all this was a lie.
Peter Fokes
Dave Reitzes
>> actually been authored by Reprise Records advertising executive Mike Shore
>> (cf. Will Friedwald, SINATRA! THE SONG IS YOU [New York: Scribner, 1995],
>> p. 478).
>>
>> Dave
>
>Aug. 2, 1963
>
>http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo/jfk9/hscv9g.htm
>
>Aug. 2, 1963
>
>[Jack] Ruby calls from the Ewing apartment; Los Angeles,
>HO 6-8211, for 1 minute (Mike Shore Reprise Records);
Uh oh.
> There other references to calls to Shore.
>
>FWIW,
>
>Jerry Shinley
Dave
Dave Reitzes
>Fortunately for rumor-mongering, Playboy tape-recorded their interviews,
>and described their context at the beginning of each interview.
>
>Martin
Unfortunately for Martin, at least one of PLAYBOY's interviewers of that
era, Alex Haley, has been shown to have plagiarized interview material
from other sources; cf. Miles Davis biographer Jack Chambers on Haley's
plagiarism in his September 1962 "Playboy Interview with Davis: Jack
Chambers, MILESTONES (New York: Quill, 1985), pp. ix-x.
Now if Martin would just clean up some of the rumors for which he himself
bears responsibility, such as his claim that a "new CIA document" links
Clay Shaw to a CIA project called ZR/CLIFF . . .
Peter Fokes
> >From: jpsh...@my-deja.com (Jerry Shinley)
> >
> >drei...@aol.com (Dave Reitzes) wrote in message
> >> FWIW, Sinatra's 1963 PLAYBOY interview has long been rumored to have
> >> actually been authored by Reprise Records advertising executive Mike
Shore
> >> (cf. Will Friedwald, SINATRA! THE SONG IS YOU [New York: Scribner,
1995],
> >> p. 478).
> >>
> >> Dave
> >
> >Aug. 2, 1963
> >
> >http://jfkassassination.net/russ/jfkinfo/jfk9/hscv9g.htm
> >
> >Aug. 2, 1963
> >
> >[Jack] Ruby calls from the Ewing apartment; Los Angeles,
> >HO 6-8211, for 1 minute (Mike Shore Reprise Records);
>
>
> Uh oh.
>
>
> > There other references to calls to Shore.
> >
> >FWIW,
> >
> >Jerry Shinley
Yes. He calls Mike Shore at the same number on Aug 22nd. "CR 4-0043, for 7
minutes from the Ewing apartment" (Aug 22); Beverly Hills BR >4-0043 for 7
minutes (Mike Shore, 109 Almont) (Aug 2).
What do the BR and CR signify?
Peter Fokes
Peter Fokes
> >From: Martin Shackelford msh...@concentric.net
> >
> >Fortunately for rumor-mongering, Playboy tape-recorded their interviews,
> >and described their context at the beginning of each interview.
> >
> >Martin
>
>
> Unfortunately for Martin, at least one of PLAYBOY's interviewers of that
> era, Alex Haley, has been shown to have plagiarized interview material
> from other sources; cf. Miles Davis biographer Jack Chambers on Haley's
> plagiarism in his September 1962 "Playboy Interview with Davis: Jack
> Chambers, MILESTONES (New York: Quill, 1985), pp. ix-x.
However, it seems highly unlikely that Playboy would publish so many lies
pertaining to the interview with Sinatra in the prologue.
The interviewers said the interview was done over the course of a week in
various locations.
Peter F
<snip>