From Ally to Pariah

Like Marie Antoinette approaching the guillotine, Imelda Marcos confronted fate with her head high. Stepping from a stretch limo in lower Manhattan, the former Philippine First Lady stunned the waiting throng with her sheer, low- cut turquoise terno — the national costume in her homeland. Amid pushing photographers and chanting protesters, the elegant attire seemed inappropriate for the occasion: Imelda Marcos was being arraigned, fingerprinted and photographed in federal court.

In a crisp, clear voice, Mrs. Marcos, 59, pleaded not guilty to charges of embezzlement and bank fraud involving the purchase of four Manhattan buildings with $103 million in Philippine government funds. Imelda’s husband and alleged partner in crime, Ferdinand Marcos, did not appear. The deposed President, 71, said he was too ill to leave Honolulu, where the couple has lived since 1986. Eight other defendants accused in the scam, including Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, are abroad. If the Marcoses are found guilty of the main charges, they could face up to 20 years in prison.

The unusual dress, Imelda said later, was meant to show that she is a “Philippine patriot.” It was also an implicit suggestion that she and her husband, longtime friends of the U.S., are now being persecuted by the government that agreed to give them asylum. The message was underscored by tobacco heiress Doris Duke, who stepped forward to post Mrs. Marcos’ $5 million bail after Imelda’s lawyers contended that the Marcoses had been living on “borrowed funds” since the Reagan Administration persuaded them to leave the Philippines. Why, Duke asked, “should America spend millions and millions of dollars prosecuting two people who for a generation have been our closest allies?”

That question was debated in Washington last summer, when the Reagan Administration learned that U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani was seeking to indict the Marcoses. State Department legal adviser Abraham Sofaer argued that prosecuting the Marcoses would make it more difficult to offer protective deals to other foreign leaders who have been helpful to the U.S. Earlier this year, the Reagan Administration offered to drop two federal drug indictments brought against Manuel Noriega in Florida if he would leave Panama. Now, says a Noriega confidant, the drug-running general “is telling everybody that this shows he was smart not to go for it.”

Marcos might also have expected immunity under a diplomatic convention that normally protects a foreign head of state from prosecution in a U.S. court. The charges against him, however, are based not on actions he took in his official capacity but on steps he took to enhance his personal wealth. More important, the Justice Department argued, the Marcoses were being indicted because they plotted with Khashoggi and others to fraudulently conceal their illicit activities after they became U.S. residents. “There was no asylum agreement that Marcos could be just as big a crook in this country as he was in ((the Philippines)),” says Loye Miller, spokeswoman for Attorney General Richard Thornburgh. “If he had been a good boy after he got to the U.S., he would not have the problems he has today.”

On the eve of the indictment, Marcos sent an emotional letter to the President, asking him to call off the prosecutors. “Reagan has known Marcos personally,” said a White House aide. “There’s a lot of sentiment there. But he didn’t want to let personal feelings overrule in this case.” After an evening consultation with Thornburgh and other advisers, the President wrote back to Marcos to say he would not intervene.