Live and in Color, Another Would-Be Assassin

ASSASSINATION attempts used to acts of stealth, committed with as few witnesses as possible. But ubiquitous television cameras have helped to change all that. Last week, in a chilling echo of the attacks on George Wallace and Lee Harvey Oswald, a slim, thirtyish man in a dark suit tried to stab to death the beautiful, popular wife of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, and millions of people watched it live and in color or in replays. Television crews, assigned to cover Imelda Romualdez Marcos, 43, as she presented awards in a national beautification and cleanliness campaign, caught the entire action.

Imelda Marcos, a onetime beauty queen, saw the man lunging toward her with a foot-long bolo that he had pulled from his sleeve. She and others on the presentation platform, in a park near the Manila International Airport, grappled with the assailant. Mrs. Marcos was slashed on her arms and hands when she tried to ward off the blows; some tendons were damaged, and the wounds required more than 75 stitches. Several other people were also injured. Although Mrs. Marcos was reported in "safe" condition at week's end after being flown by helicopter to a hospital, President Richard Nixon dispatched a surgeon from California to assist local doctors.

During the scuffle, the attacker was shot in the back twice by a guard and killed. Filipino officials could not immediately identify him. Nonetheless, they tried to link him with a right-wing conspiracy that was purportedly aimed at killing both the First Lady and the President, who proclaimed martial law last September. Marcos, who was not with his wife at the awards ceremony, said later: "When we undertook our program of reform, we knew we would have to pay a price. I cannot forgive myself that it had to be she who had to pay such a price."

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