The Philippines document collection provides a documentary record of U.S. policy toward that country during the 20-year rule of Ferdinand E. Marcos. The bulk of the collection is composed of documents produced between the fall of 1965, when Mr. Marcos ran successfully for his first term as president of the Philippines, and the evening hours of February 25, 1986, when Marcos, his wife Imelda, and their 55-member entourage hurriedly fled the grounds of the presidential palace aboard three U.S. Air Force helicopters en route to exile in Hawaii. Major events in the period include the creation--with the covert support of the Johnson Administration--of a Philippine civic action group to support the U.S. war effort in Vietnam; state visits to the United States by President and Mrs. Marcos in 1966 and 1982; the imposition of martial law in September 1972; the assassination of opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. in August 1983 and the subsequent reshaping of U.S. policy toward the Philippines; the emergence of so-called "crony capitalism" during the 1970s; visits to the Philippines by Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Ford in 1966, 1969 and 1975, respectively; the rise of Communist and Muslim insurgencies during the 1970s and 1980s; the emergence following the imposition of martial law of a small, albeit vocal and influential, opposition movement in the United States; and a series of disputed elections culminating in the 1986 "snap" presidential election, which Mr. Marcos attempted to steal from the opposition but which, instead, led to his political demise.