Brig. Gen. Omar Torrijos Herrara seized power in the tiny nation of Panama in a 1968 coup but the biggest battle he won was a political victory over the American right for control of the Canal Zone.

Torrijos, killed Friday in a plane crash, was a canny, ironhanded leader who managed to stay afloat in the violent political sea of Central America in the 1970's that rocked neighboring regimes unmercifully.

As ''supreme leader of the Panamanian revolution,'' Torrijos ruled over a comparatively peaceful nation after seizing power from the civilian government in l968.

Realizing the popular appeal of leftist rhetoric, Torrijos made Panamanian sovereignity over the Canal Zone a national issue. When the United States agreed in 1978 to gradually transfer control of the canal, Torrijos' support soared.

In another popular move, he backed the successful attempt of the leftist Sandinista rebels to overthrow the regime of President Anastasio Somoza in nearby Nicaragua.
Torrijos balanced his leftist style, however, with strong support of the private business sector, and he remained a loyal friend of the United States.

Torrijos once said his heroes were Cuban President Fidel Castro and former President Jimmy Carter, with whom he negotiated the canal treaty.

Survived by his wife, Raquel Pauzner de Torrijos, and five children, Torrijos was a pragmatist who promoted Panama's emergence as an international banking center with relaxed accounting laws and low taxing provisions.

''I am for Panama and nothing more,'' Torrijos once said of his seemingly hodge-podge policies. ''I have nothing to do neither with the communists nor with the ultra-rightists. I fight for Panama and for Panama I will die.''

Responding to a Carter administration request, he granted the Shah of Iran political asylum in late l979 when his presence in the United States helped to provoke the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran.
During the American debate over the canal treaty, Torrijos was regularly denounced as a ''tinhorn dictator'' by right-wing politicians who said the agreement represented the decline of U.S. power.
His opponents also fought him with allegations linking his brother to heroin smuggling, but a Justice Department investigation cleared the stocky leader of direct involvement.

Torrijos first came to power in a coup he led against the civilian government of President Arnulfo Arias in 1968.

A new constitution written in 1972 provided for an elected president but Torrijos continually ruled the country as the self-appointed ''supreme leader of the Panamanian revolution'' and National Guard commander-in-chief.

In 1978, Torrijos stepped down as head of state, but maintained his hold over the country as commander of the National Guard.

Born on February 13, 1929 in Santiago, Panama, Torrjos received his military training in El Salvador, Venezuela and the United States. He joined the National Guard in 1952 and rose through the ranks to commander-in-chief in 1968.