If fans expected revelations about Frank Sinatra's alleged shady past with the release of his FBI files on Tuesday, they ended up feeling -- as Frank would put it -- like a bunch of Clydes. "There's no smoking-gun document," says Mark Sauter, who heads the crime-news website APB Online, which posted all of the Sinatra files. "There's plenty of unsubstantiated information in the files that is far more embarrassing to the FBI than to Frank Sinatra."

The FBI threw every bit of evidence against Sinatra into his file, whether it was grounded or not. J. Edgar Hoover tried to build a pro-Communist case against him, but he used Sinatra's support of his African-American bandmembers and a talk he gave on racial harmony as proof -- a theory that seems laughable today.

As for Sinatra's rumored Mob ties, there are bits of information, including evidence that he had closer relationships with mobsters like Sam Giancana than he admitted, but no direct proof of illegal actions. However, it is possible that the FBI is withholding more incriminating information: The Bureau did not release 25 of the 1,300 pages; it hasn't made public any Sinatra files from the field offices, which include New York, Chicago, Miami, and Las Vegas; and there are taped conversations with Sinatra that are still kept in certain gangsters' classified folders.

Sinatra enthusiasts may be able to find some hidden revelations in the files after careful study. But those who give it a quicker browse are more likely to get an inadvertant history lesson. "When you read about the FBI considering whether they should put a hidden microphone in Sinatra's home, and about his meeting with an alleged mobster, and what he did with Senator Kennedy, it's just fascinating reading on that level," says Sauter. "These documents provide an American history noir."