PANAMA: 15-Hour Coup

2 A. M. — Panama City was asleep last week, except for the little Chinese grocery stores which never close.

Panama has no Army, no Navy, only police.

Stealthily, while street lights winked, a group of men approached the Central Po lice Station. Their leader carried a large sabre without scabbard, wore a soiled white linen suit, no hat, brilliant yellow shoes. It was a revolution.

Some of the revolutionists had machetes, others had shotguns, rifles, pistols; one had a “riot gun.” In at the doors and windows of the Central Police Station they poked their weapons, blazed away bang, bang, BANG!

Startled policemen blazed back. But five were almost instantly killed, the rest surrendered. Grimly the man in the bright yellow shoes barked orders. Part of his men set off at the double, rang the door bells of prominent officials, rushed upstairs and routed them from bed, hustled them pajama-clad and barefoot to the Central Police Station.

3 A. M. — Simultaneously the third wave of the revolution was sweeping across President Florencio Harmodio Arosemena’s famed Moorish patio, disturbing the tortoise in his fountain pool, causing the tame white cranes and the egrets to wake up and squawk. Warned by these fowl, the guards of the Presidential Pal ace were alert. They raked the first group of advancing revolutionists with a volley, scattered them in headlong flight.

Other revolutionists soon entered the Presidential Palace from the rear and surprised guards posted there. After some further bang-banging, three guards and two Panamania revolutionists lay dead.

Wounded in the neck and abdomen a U. S. newspaperman, Hartwell F. Ayers, lay some time in agony before being taken to Gorgas Hospital.

Mr. Ayers had been trying to get an interview with President Arosemena at the height of the revolution. Had he not been shot, he would have been with Senor Arosemena as the President faced and quailed before the revolutionist who possessed the riot gun.

Menaced pointblank with Death, President Arosemena appointed as his Secretary of Government & Justice (Prime Minis ter”) the No. 1 revolutionist, Senor Harmodio Arias.

Who is he? A quiet man, softspoken, much esteemed, one of the leading lawyers in Panama, the highly remunerated counsel of the largest U. S. firms represented there.

4 A. M. or thereabouts. — Roy T. Davis, U. S. Minister to Panama, rushed upon the scene while a few stray bullets were still flying.

President Arosemena had just said to correspondents: “I have not resigned. I will not quit public office.” But after Minister Davis had seen him privately he began to reconsider and eventually he resigned.

8 A.M. — The Supreme Court of Panama met and conferred supreme authority to preserve order and defend the Republic upon Fire Chief Juan Antonio Guizado and his firemen, who in firefight ing regalia at once took up strategic posts in Panama City.

The Supreme Court next held that all three of Panama’s Designates (Vice Presidents), all of whom were in hiding, had been fraudulently elected and that their mandates were void. The Supreme Court next announced that according to the Constitution the Minister of Panama at Washington becomes President.

10 A.M. — Dr. Don Ricardo J. Alfaro, Minister of Panama in Washington, hur ried to the State Department, urged upon Assistant Secretary of State Francis White immediate recognition of the new Government of Panama.

Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson kept out of sight. But correspondents were told that Panama is an exception to the U. S. rule of not recognizing revolutionary governments in Central America (see p. 19). They jumped to the conclusion that Minister Alfaro would shortly win his point, be recognized by the U. S. as the true and legal President of Panama.

5 P. M. — In the Central Plaza of Pan ama City, Senor Harmodio Arias, No. 1 revolutionist and Prime Minister, was sworn in by the Supreme Court as “Pro visional President,” pending the arrival of President Alfaro from Washington.

Drawled the great Lawyer-Revolutionist, just 15 hours after his men fired their first shots:

“I feel deeply grateful for the tact, courteousness and great earnestness with which Mr. Davis [U. S. Minister] proceeded to cope with a very difficult situation, especially by coming here, to interview President Arosemena at the risk of his life, when the firing was still going on. I am sure the people of Panama deeply appreciate his disinterested action.

“We are going to have honesty and fair ness in the government and will abide by all contracts, whether held by Panamanians or foreigners.

“I did not want this place, but some body had to take the responsibility. I am only temporary.”

In Washington the State Department stated that Minister Davis had made no previous report of trouble brewing, that in short he was quite as surprised as anybody could possibly have been by what happened. Stock explanations for the revolution: 1) “hard times,” 2) “corruption of the Arosemena regime,” and 3) “unpopularity” incurred by Senor Arosemena’s recent, drastic program of balancing the budget, cutting civil service salaries, unpleasantly tightening Panama’s belt.

To “protect the life” of ex-President Arosemena the successful revolutionaries appointed four of themselves a “Tribunal of Honor,” to keep a keen eye on him lest he stage a countercoup.