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On Feb. 19, 1945, a bomb exploded in the vehicle of two U.S. Army officers in Panama City, Panama. A subsequent Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) investigation of the attack stopped a series of terrorist acts across Panama.
The government of Panama was in the midst of a crisis. In 1941, President Arnulfo Arias was overthrown, and Government and Justice Minister Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia became acting president. He retained the position in 1943 when the National Assembly failed to select new presidential designates, and a new election was scheduled for January 1945. However, on Dec. 28, 1944, ten deputies resigned when de la Guardia suspended the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly, preventing them from submitting nominations for a new president. These deputies along with other political exiles who opposed de la Guardia took up residence in the Hotel Tivoli under American control in the Panama Canal Zone.
Throughout January 1945, telegrams between the U.S. embassy and Secretary of State Edward Stettinius Jr. indicated de la Guardia’s desire for the opposition parties to be ousted from the Tivoli. On Jan. 20, Secretary Stettinius reiterated the State Department’s decision to allow the exiled Panamanians to reside in the hotel and its belief “the opposition is losing ground with the simple passage of time, so that any attempt at legal action against them would only be counter-productive as far as the Government of Panama is concerned.”
A series of bombings in February challenged the State Department’s decision. American charge d’affaires Walter J. Donnelly reported several attacks targeting public officials had occurred in Panama, which de la Guardia alleged were caused by his political opponents in the Tivoli. Although the War Department supported expelling the diplomats from the Canal Zone entirely, the State Department was hesitant to do so without evidence of wrongdoing.
The situation did not officially become a concern for the U.S. Army until Feb. 19, 1945, when a dynamite bomb exploded in a car carrying two Army officers in Panama City. The injury of a member of the U.S. military allowed the 470th CIC Detachment, responsible for military intelligence and security operations in the Canal Zone, to investigate whether enemy sabotage was the motive for the attack. According to the History of the Counter Intelligence Corps, the CIC agent assigned to the case was ordered to investigate the bombings “without divulging any official American interest in Panamanian political unrest.”
The inquiry led the CIC agent to a Nicaraguan who had previously worked undercover at the hotel for the Panama police. Through interviewing the informant, the agent unraveled a terrorist plot orchestrated by several of the ex-deputies and opposition leaders residing in the Tivoli to incite unrest in Panama. The group’s planned activities included many more bombings of local businesses, gas plants, and residences of government officials; burning down the Juan Franco Racetrack; kidnapping the chief of the Panama National Police; and assassinating Enrique Jiménez, the Panamanian ambassador to the United States. As part of the bombing campaign, explosives had been placed indiscriminately in vehicles across Panama City. The car belonging to the Army officers had been picked at random, a costly mistake for the group.
The CIC provided this intelligence to the State Department, allowing the Americans to move ahead with plans to expel the former deputies from the Canal Zone and preventing them from further terrorizing Panama City. The exiled diplomats departed the Hotel Tivoli for Costa Rica in early March, and President de la Guardia relinquished the presidency to Ambassador Jiménez after his election in June 1945.
Article by Erin E. Thompson, USAICoE Staff Historian. New issues of This Week in MI History are published each week. To report story errors, ask questions, request previous articles, or be added to our distribution list, please contact: TR-ICoE-Command-Historian@army.mil.
| Date Taken: | 02.13.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 02.13.2026 12:14 |
| Story ID: | 558134 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 33 |
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