Harvest Explosion

One night last week the children of President Juan Bautista Sacasa of Nicaragua sauntered out to the Fiesta de Agosto ("Harvest Festival"), left him seated pensive at his desk.

Handsome Sons Carlos and Luis, home on vacation from Georgetown University, romped off with their lively sister Maria and a party of friends toward Santo Domingo Square. Weaving among spruce citizens and loutish peasants, whirling to the strains of native music, they had just begun to enjoy themselves when suddenly at 10 p. m. explosion after explosion tore the air, broke windows and set women screaming as flames leaped up into the night. "Mother of God it's the President's Palace!" cried husky voices. "A Revolution! They've blown up the President!" Pale but courageous, as the children of a Latin American president have need to be Sons Carlos & Luis and Daughter Maria rushed back the way they had come Though machine guns seemed to be firing though shouts of "Revolution! filled the air, they reached home to find that the Arsenal, not the Presidential Palace was afire. Safe and calm, President Sacasa was swiftly drafting two orders the first proclaimed a state ot siege in Managua the Capital, the second martial law throughout Nicaragua.

"A part of the Managua arsenal has exploded," the President told correspondents "The sound of the exploding ammunition was like machine gun fire but the entire country is peaceful. no cause for alarm."

No Nicaraguans were killed by the explosion, four were injured by stray bullets Political enemies of the President started rumors that "most of the Government's ammunition has been destroyed-- an obvious incitement to revolution. Announcing that it was "not ... a mere accident," President Sacasa grimly ordered in from outlying districts 500 Nicaraguan troops who brought with them plenty of ammunition.

Jumpy after the explosion, a sentry posted near the Presidential Palace fired several shots at a motor car which whizzed past in the night, not knowing that it contained Senor Rafael Huezo, acting manager of the National Bank of Nicaragua. Lifted from his car. Senor Huezo was carried into the palace where President Sacasa, for years a practicing physician, personally dressed a bullet wound on the banker's head, murmured, "not serious, dear friend, not serious."

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