Fat Leonard: How One Man Bribed, Bilked, and Seduced the U.S. Navy

The Fat Leonard scandal rocked the Navy. Mr. Whitlock spent a decade researching the scandal, and delivered. He presents a character essay on Leonard Francis, the flamboyant grifter. Mr Whitlock shows how Leonard, little by little, optimized his ability to extract money from the Seventh Fleet as they required services at ports in the Far East. City by city, Leonard traded 10s of thousands of dollars in sex and status experiences like expensive meals and booze, and in return the officers of the Seventh Fleet allowed excessive charges of $1 million or more for husbandry services. The character essay on the culture of the US Navy is developed little by little until the prosecutions begin, and then it is laid bare. This book could be redrafted into a great movie. This is Mr Whitlock’s finest writing since Grid PIcks.

Fat Leonard is an incredible criminal for sure. But once you read this, you’ll probably have more sympathy for him than the admirals and others at the top of the U.S. Navy for their scandalous behavior and their schemes to cover it up. Disgusting!

Just got done reading this. The book is long (over 400 pages), but I devoured it in 4 days. Lots of damning, saddening detail about the terrible, unethical, even treasonous behavior of Naval officers who absolutely should have known better. In a nutshell, MANY people were willing to sell out their country (literally) for bribes, expensive meals, flattery and sex with prostitutes. (And fancy purses for the wives! Let me not forget the fancy handbags!) I seriously hope the Navy has taken steps to ensure this doesn't happen in the future. I've subsequently listened to part of a series of interviews with "Fat" Leonard Francis and I'm not hearing why he was supposedly so charismatic. He sounds like a con.

Ongoing story of how an institution was thoroughly corrupted by a single man. We are fortunate that Leonard Francis was not conducting espionage given the degree to which he was able to turn naval officers into sources of classified information. The book is a good read, if incredulous in the scope and greed of its perpetraitors (sic).

This book, meticulously researched and breezily written, was not only entertaining, but absolutely eye-opening at the layers of corruption that toxic-entitlement, ego, and greed enable when combined with a bureaucracy designed to protect its own. Rank has its privileges and this book shows how ill-gotten so many of those privileges can be. Plus, it's a wildly good read!