Panama: U.N. Diplomat in Action

As an up-and-coming Panamanian politician, Aquilino Boyd liked to make his position witheringly clear. He led a band of hooligans in the 1959 Canal Zone riots—they tore down an American flag and urinated on it. At the U.N. during last January’s Panama crisis, he was all indignation, accusing the U.S. of “bloody aggression.” Last week he was back home, being more aggressive still.

In the recent elections for President and the National Assembly, Boyd was among the losers, failing to retain the Deputy’s seat that he had held in addition to his diplomat’s job. Panama’s daily La Hora ran an editorial taunting him on his poor showing, adding that even his effort to cheat his way in had flopped. When Boyd saw Escolastico Calvo, editor of La Hora, while driving along a Panama City street, he jammed on his brakes, cutting off Calvo’s car, hopped out, and pumped two bullets into his surprised victim before his gun jammed. Then he pistol-whipped away at Calvo’s head until he was finally subdued by bystanders.

The wounded editor, with .38-cal. holes in his left side and arm, drove himself to a hospital. U.N. Diplomat Boyd went home to lunch. Even as a lame-duck Deputy he had all sorts of immunity, and in Panama, where the macho approach clicks with voters, he might even have improved his flagging political popularity.