Sinatra

• Ties with organized crime
• File started with draft dodging rumor
• What isn't included
• Related stories and sites

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- History buffs and Frank Sinatra fans pored over the 1,275-page file on the late crooner released by the FBI on Tuesday, finding unfounded rumors and death threats, but few new nuggets of information.

The dossier that spans four decades includes vague allegations of mob ties, charges that the singer was involved with communists and an offer by Sinatra to work undercover for the bureau.

In 1950, the singer volunteered his services to the FBI in a confidential memo. Using an unidentified go-between, the Hoboken, New Jersey, native told FBI officials that he felt there was an opportunity to "do some good for his country under the direction of the FBI," the memo said.

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The singer, the memo continued, was "willing to do anything even if it affects his livelihood and costs him his job."

The FBI turned down his offer.

Ties with organized crime?

The files include extensive reports on Sinatra's relationship with reputed Chicago mob boss Sam Giancana and other organized crime figures.

The FBI also suggested that Sinatra had contact with mobster Lucky Luciano during a 1947 trip to Cuba, and alleged that his early singing career was backed by a New Jersey-based racketeer named Willie Moretti.

The files briefly mention a Sinatra meeting with alleged mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Seigel and a gift of a dozen shirts from a Chicago mob acquaintance of Al Capone. And the files cite a report from a federal informant that Sinatra once smuggled $1 million cash into Italy for Luciano.

The FBI released more than 1,200 pages it had gathered on Sinatra

Despite the many rumored associations with mob figures, the FBI never found evidence that Sinatra himself was involved in illegal activity. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover instructed the agency's Los Angeles office not to investigate the star, and the agency turned down a plan to bug his Palm Springs home.

File started with draft dodging rumor

The FBI started its Sinatra file in February 1944 after gossip columnist Walter Winchell passed along a tip that the breadstick-thin singer had paid a doctor $40,000 to give him a phony 4-F draft rating.

That charge proved baseless.

The FBI also collected allegations in news articles and tips from informants claiming Sinatra had ties to the Communist Party, but the agency found nothing more than sympathy for some left-leaning organizations in the late 1940s.

Sinatra's mug shot from his 1938 arrest on seduction charges

The files also include the mug shot from Sinatra's 1938 arrest in Bergen County, New Jersey, on seduction charges -- which were later dropped.

A woman who said she was single and of good repute complained that Sinatra had sex with her twice on a promise of marriage but reneged. When police learned the woman was married, they changed the charge against Sinatra to adultery, but later dropped the case.

The files also document several bizarre death threats against Sinatra, including a 1966 cable to the FBI's Miami office that promised "a hand grenade will be thrown at Frank Sinatra sometime tonight during the show."

There was also a handwritten note from a self-styled "psychic" who believed Sinatra was bent on dividing the United States "West against East, East against West."

Another letter threatened to kill Sinatra, blaming him for train and plane accidents and candy tampering at Halloween.

What isn't included

There are some reports of Sinatra's close relationship with John F. Kennedy, both when he was a senator and president. But there was no mention of Judith Exner, the Sinatra acquaintance who allegedly had affairs with both Kennedy and Giancana.

There were no wild Las Vegas tales of Sinatra's Rat Pack, which included Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Kennedy brother-in-law Peter Lawford.

And there is no information about the investigation into the 1963 kidnapping of Sinatra's son, Frank Jr. He was released after a ransom was paid, and three men were convicted.

Sinatra had access to most of the documents, since his lawyers obtained them in 1979 and 1980.

He always maintained that while he was friends with some people involved with organized crime, he was not involved himself, and the newly opened documents also include this assertion.

Correspondent Pierre Thomas, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.