Torrijos was never officially the president of Panama, but instead held self-imposed and all-encompassing titles including "Maximum Leader of the Panamanian Revolution".

[5] He was educated at the local Juan Demóstenes Arosemena School and, at eighteen, won a scholarship to the military academy in San Salvador.

[7] It was during this year however that his close friend in the Guardia, Major Boris Martínez and Colonel Jose Humberto Ramos (godfather of his son Omar) initiated a meditated and successful coup d'état against the recently elected president of Panama, Arnulfo Arias, after almost eleven days in office.

Having received news of the coup while in the Canal Zone, Torrijos and a few officers including Demetrio Lakas sought to re-establish some form of civilian rule, even attempting to install Arnulfo's vice-president, Raúl Arango, as the new president, much to Martínez's dismay.

[8] For him, the overthrown government "was a marriage between the armed forces, the oligarchy and the bad priests; the soldier carried his rifle to silence the people and forbid "the scoundrel" to disrespect the ruling class.

"Explaining that his revolution acts "for the poor, not for the owners", he had a new Constitution, an agrarian reform, and a Labour Code adopted and recognized the workers' and peasants' unions.

Torrijos introduced a populist policy, with the inauguration of schools and the creation of jobs, the redistribution of agricultural land (which was his government's most popular measure).

In February 1974, following OPEC's model for oil, he attempted to form the Union of Banana Exporting Countries with other Central American States to respond to the influence of these multinationals, but did not obtain their support.

He prosecuted the richest and most powerful families in the country, and in turn favored his political allies, which enabled them to amass their own fortunes at the expense of the Panamanian treasury.

He helped the Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua and other rebel forces in El Salvador, Guatemala, and renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba.

He also restored some civil liberties; U.S. President Jimmy Carter had told him that the Senate would never approve the Canal treaties unless Torrijos made some effort to liberalize his rule.

[11] An admirer of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito and inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal, he embarked on a fight against the United States to gain Panama's sovereignty.

[11][12] With pressure from the Carter administration as well as from economic depression, Torrijos sought to appease public distress and defuse opposition from labor unions as well as influential oligarchs.

His death in 1981, before the transition could be completed, caused a political crisis in the country which led to Manuel Noriega coming to power as military ruler.

[8] During a meeting with American Ambassador Brandon Grove in December 1969, Torrijos challenged him to a game of pinball and later said, “I’m not an intellectual but a man of horse sense, like a farmer”.

[13] Torrijos died at the age of 52 when his aircraft, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter of the Panamanian Air Force, crashed at Cerro Marta, in Coclesito, near Penonomé, Panama on July 31, 1981.