Paula

July 7, 2022·35 min·3 clips

Paula Coughlin recounts being attacked by a gauntlet of Navy aviators who tried to remove her clothes as she fought back.

The episode opens with Paula Coughlin recalling a recent encounter with a neighbor who told her she was praying her husband could forgive Paula for ruining the Navy — 30 years after the Tailhook scandal. The host then rewinds to Las Vegas in 1991, where the annual Tailhook Association convention drew hundreds of naval aviators. Paula describes being forced through a gauntlet of men who groped her, tore at her clothes, and ignored her rank as an admiral's aide. The incident sparked a national scandal about sexual harassment in the Navy. Host Tom Wright frames Tailhook as a microcosm of a military culture that has not fundamentally changed in the decades since. The episode explains the historical context: 40,000 women had been deployed during the Gulf War but were legally barred from combat ships and jets. Paula argues that male officers perceive women's competence as a threat to their own elite status, fueling misogyny. Leonard Francis is introduced as a contractor who exploited this same culture, providing prostitutes and entertainment that reinforced women as commodities in the eyes of Navy officers. Leonard describes the USS Arcadia, the first mixed-sex Navy vessel deployed in wartime, pulling into Penang in 1992 — and his own interactions with female officers. His language about women is notably hostile, revealing deep-seated misogyny that the host says becomes more consequential later in the series. The episode details how GDMA routinely covered up sexual misconduct by US sailors in Asian ports, with Leonard admitting to paying off victims of rape and molestation to prevent cases from reaching court or the press. Don Christensen, former chief prosecutor of the US Air Force, explains that the military justice system gives commanders — not independent prosecutors — the power to decide whether cases go to trial, which has meant most sexual assault cases are buried. He resigned from the Air Force after a senior commander overturned a court-martial conviction for child molestation. Several Navy commanders connected to Leonard are named for alleged violence against sex workers, including one nicknamed Choke for strangling prostitutes. The episode closes by noting that the Navy, as during Tailhook, has again failed to hold senior admirals accountable in the Fat Leonard case.

As heard by us

A Navy scandal story that turns one witness's isolation into a clear view of institutional rot.

Fat Leonard: Paula follows Paula Coughlin from the start and uses her account to show the Navy scandal was never just one man's story. The real damage sits in the culture around it, where blame stayed pinned to a woman for years while the institution kept explaining itself away.

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Why you'd press play

Start here if you want Paula Coughlin's testimony to frame the scandal from the opening minutes.

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