The Seychelles Affair Mike Hoare

Hardcover with dust jacket in a good condition. 1986 edition. 207 pages.

In 1978, Seychelles exiles in South Africa, acting in behalf of ex-president James Mancham, discussed with South African Government officials launching a coup d'état against the new president France-Albert René. The military option was decided in Washington, D.C., due to United States' concerns over access to its new military base on Diego Garcia island, the necessity to move operations from the Seychelles to Diego Garcia, and the determination that René was not someone who would be in favour of the Americans.

Associates of Mancham contacted Hoare, then in South Africa as a civilian resident, to fight alongside fifty-three other mercenary soldiers, including South African special forces (Recces), former Rhodesian soldiers, and ex-Congo mercenaries.^[6]

Hoare got together a group of white, middle class mercenaries, and dubbed them "Ye Ancient Order of Froth-Blowers" (AOFB) after a posh English social club of the 1930s. In order for the plan to work, he disguised the mercenaries as a rugby club, and hid AK-47s in the bottom of his luggage, as he explained in his book The Seychelles Affair: