The AFL became involved in politics when seventeen soldiers launched a coup on April 12, 1980. The group was made up of Master Sergeant Samuel Doe, two staff sergeants, four sergeants, eight corporals, and two privates. They found President Tolbert sleeping in his office in the Executive Mansion and there they killed him. While then-Sergeant Thomas Quiwonkpa led the plotters, it was the group led by Samuel Doe that found Tolbert in his office, and it was Doe, as a master sergeant the highest ranking of the group, who went on the radio the next day to announce the overthrow of the long-entrenched True Whig Party government.