PANAMA: Under Control

One dark night nine men quietly picked their way through the blackness to the central police station in the city of Panama. They were confident. The bribes had been paid, police officers had promised them help in breaking in. If they could seize police control, the plotters might arrest president Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia, proclaim in his place Anibal Rios, former Minister to Peru, who was scheduled to return from that country in a day or two.

Anibal Rios, who had been third vice president under totalitarian-minded President Arnulfo Arias, had refused...

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