The Foreign Service Journal, January 2007

naries and rich expatriates in a for- gotten part of Africa. Thatcher went on trial in South Africa after the coup failed, then sounded out the U.S. embassy in Pretoria on how his subsequent con- viction would affect his visa. He was told that he could still enter the U.S., but this proved to be false. His American wife then divorced him. The fate of the other plotters was far worse, with many of them impris- oned and tortured. Simon Mann, in spite of attempts to bribe his way out, is still in prison. So why did the plotters scheme to destabilize such a small and obscure place, the only Spanish-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa? The answer is simple: wonga. Thanks to offshore oil reserves, EG already takes in $60 million a month in rev- enues, an amount expected to rise substantially as production increases. Yet despite having one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa, the population remains desperately poor and politically supine. Regrettably, Roberts’ coverage of the coup is overstuffed with minuti- ae, perhaps reflecting his training as a correspondent. The narrative is so cluttered with details and testimony that the reader has to keep referring to the list of characters in the front of the book just to recall who’s who. Though he spends little time on it, Roberts recounts an episode from 35 years ago that has become a Foreign Service legend. In 1971, not long after the United States briefly opened an embassy in Malabo, the chargé d’affaires murdered his code clerk by cornering him in the vault, tying him up, and then stabbing him 10 times with a 14-inch pair of gov- ernment-issued scissors. He was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and served 10 years. On a more positive note, Roberts suggests that the days of mercenary buccaneers are over. The attempt to seize and loot Equatorial Guinea may be remembered as the end of the era when a few rich Europeans could recruit ex-soldiers and create mayhem in Africa. A regular book reviewer for the Journal , David Casavis has worked for the Commerce and Homeland Security departments. He has just completed a book on visa fraud. 56 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 7 B O O K S