Fats Leonard: How One Man Bribed, Billed, and Induced the US Navy, by Craig Whitlock. Simon & Schuster, 480 pages.
When the feds lastly caught up with Leonard Francis in 2013, he admitted to defrauding the US Navy of $35 million. Everybody knew the true quantity was a lot larger. His prosecutors estimated $50 million, the Naval Legal Investigative Service estimated $100 million, and different high-ranking Navy officers, embarrassed to talk brazenly, privately set it someplace within the billions.
His story is nearly too absurd to be true. For greater than a decade, this semi-educated and dangerously chubby Malaysian protection contractor—everybody known as him “Fats Leonard”—was the Navy’s finest buddy and worst enemy. Finest buddy as a result of he organized probably the most thrilling intercourse events and consuming events within the Western Pacific, the place he disadvantaged virtually 700 officers amongst 90 admirals. Worst enemy as a result of, in trade for good occasions, he compelled the identical officers at hand over labeled paperwork and allowed him to shamelessly rip off the Navy for its port service.
How does Fats Leonard do it? There was nothing on paper that declared a felony mastermind. He was a highschool dropout and a divorced father. In individual, there was nothing significantly seductive about him. He attire impeccably, pairing designer fits with novelty ties. She additionally talks endlessly about her stomach-stapling operation, which, to her remorse, did not make her skinnier. And his enterprise was decidedly unsavory: he specialised in port upkeep for the US Seventh Fleet, docking and servicing ships as they island-hopped throughout the western fringe of the American Empire.
What made Francis a legend—one other of his nicknames—was the events, the place the champagne was at all times prime shelf and the hookers had been excessive class. These revelries are the topic of Craig Whitlock fats leonardwhich paperwork the extent to which Francis corrupted the Seventh Fleet, starting along with his rise throughout the International Warfare on Terror and ending along with his arrest, imprisonment, escape and restoration late final yr.
Whitlock is diligent in his reporting, together with tons of of interviews, in addition to 1000’s of emails, texts, receipts and different FOIA’d paperwork. Francis’s plan was easy. He showered commanders with liquor, hookahs and different presents, and in return they regarded the opposite manner when he despatched inflated payments for his work. By the early 2000s virtually each officer serving within the western Pacific knew Francis, and plenty of had been in his thrall, from the area’s naval commander to the chief of naval intelligence and down the ranks. On the time of his seize, no a part of the department was freed from his taint.
Whitlock wonders why so many commanders, educated and extremely educated males who, like everybody else within the armed forces, had sworn to not settle for extravagant presents from civilians – definitely not prostitutes – fell into Francis’ lap. He blamed 9/11. Francis “exploited the tradition of entitlement to contaminate elements of the U.S. navy throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Whitlock wrote. “Civilians used to putting them on a pedestal in gratitude for his or her service, some naval officers felt they had been owed one thing additional.”
That is definitely true, but it surely doesn’t go to the center of the matter. Fats Leonard was such successful with these Navy males as a result of beneath the rank and uniform they had been a lot like him – useless, attractive and egocentric. And, importantly, their style is vulgar. This final flaw is all too frequent amongst self-made males like Francis, afflicting even profitable contenders, simply the kind of people that graduate from Annapolis with the best honors after which rapidly rise by way of the ranks. The self-made man tends to be vulgar to cowl up his insecurities; The profitable striver is usually vulgar as a result of he by no means developed his style for preventing on the prime. In each instances the result’s cringe inducing. For Francis and his associates alike, the Ritz-Carlton was a prime of the road lodge, a Mercedes-Benz a luxurious automotive and lobster thermidor an actual culinary deal with. No considered one of discriminating style would make this judgment, and no civilized individual would get pleasure from associating with those that did.
The memoirs of the commanders whom Francis seduced reveal how unhealthy their appetites had been. One commented {that a} meal at a French restaurant in Hong Kong the place caviar, truffles, duck confit and baked Alaska was dipped desk after desk was a “type of, wow, very good occasion, world class occasion.” After one other dinner on the similar place, an officer marveled on the supposed splendor of pairing a special wine with every course (its salt worth in any French restaurant). In probably the most outrageous instance, Captain David Newland, who commanded the command flagship of the Seventh Fleet, Blue Ridge, bought a little bit too enthusiastic about champagne at a rooftop dinner in Singapore. He was sipping a glass of Dom Pérignon when a waiter got here out and introduced that he would now serve Cristal. Newland made a present of dropping the Dom Pérignon over the balcony, seventy tales to the road under, and holding his glass for refills.
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None of those are phrases or deeds of fine breeding; They betray the thought technique of human-children who’re used to being happy with little advantages, treats. This has lengthy been an issue within the American navy, even earlier than 9/11. And when federal prosecutors got here knocking on their door years later, alleging ethics violations and an entire host of different crimes, some accepted. “Actually?” cried Rear Admiral David Pimpo, who acquired all method of presents from Francis. “You are going to embarrass me thirty, twenty-eight years into my profession as a result of after I was a child I did not know the distinction between a $50 steak and a way more costly steak?”
Since Francis’s naval mates had been pigs when it got here to meals, it is no shock that they had been pigs when it got here to ladies. Fats Leonard’s dinner consisted largely of prostitutes, and for naval officers who went above and past the decision of responsibility—specifically, leaking the naval port schedule to him—Frances put the opposite ladies on velocity dial. Intercourse with out love is a boring, repetitive activity, and it will be tedious to catalog all of the methods through which the highest sailors of the USA destroyed the ladies of the East Indies. An anecdote will suffice. At a lodge in Manila, Francis and a number of other senior officers participated in an orgy, the place they used a duplicate of Douglas MacArthur’s corncob pipe as a intercourse toy. Francis slept with Captain Jesus Cantu, a Stanford graduate and promising officer. Blue Ridge. They each shared a prostitute till they left.
After his arrest, Francis stated with amusing that it was small incidents that allowed him to maintain such a decent grip on the navy. He knew one thing about it that its officers by no means admitted: the department’s claims of “honor, braveness and dedication” had been as fraudulent as Fats Leonard’s Invoice. These courageous males of the ocean, invested with the complete confidence and energy of the American authorities, of their immaculate uniforms as white as geese — none may ever be so clear beneath. “Are you able to think about?” Francis laughed throughout his deposition. “After they’re too good, that is what occurs.”
