Word: alie
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Ferdinand Marcos and his stylish wife Imelda. Dutifully diplomatic, they praised Autocrat Marcos for his leadership and vision. The President was flattered, and one of the guests continued to gush. "Looking at the way you chose your wife, I can see you're not so dumb," said Muhammad Ali. Joe Frazier flinched, but Marcos quickly counterpunched. "Looking at yours," he informed the heavyweight champ, "I can see you're not so far behind...
...Ali's reception in Manila was any indication, he may in fact be far ahead. Fully 5,000 Filipinos jammed the airport just after dawn one day last week to welcome him. As the door of the 707 opened, a solitary tenor launched into the opening verse of a ballad commissioned for the occasion. The warrior emerged from the jet, paused, then strutted down the steps to the strains of The Muhammad Ali March...
Ostensibly, Ali had come to defend his title against Frazier in an extravaganza he touts as the "Thrilla in Manila." In fact, the expedition resembles nothing so much as a royal tour. Ali has become one of the most readily recognized individuals in the world. Since he inaugurated his gaudy Third World road show with a knockout of George Foreman a year ago in Zaïre, he has parleyed with Presidents and sheiks. What's more, his pitchman's prattle and irrepressible posturing have never failed to captivate the common...
While not looking good wearing out his hands on Ali, Sheed raises but fails to provide adequate answers to a number of fairly basic questions. Is Ali really a bright fellow, though only semiliterate? What moves him? Is he a masochist? (This is not a basic question, but an idle one, suggested to Sheed by Ali's odd stratagem in Zaire of letting George Foreman punch him in the belly for several rounds.) If Ali really does receive his energy and impulses directly from the TV camera's red eye, as Sheed seems to believe, what will...
...this book does contain answers, they are in its spectacular array of photos. There must be 200 of these, mostly in color and mostly by Neil Leifer of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. They cover Ali from his middle teens to the present. They show him fighting, foaming, capering, preaching, blowing his mind at the press like a child blowing dandelion seeds. The pictures, at least, are a coherent record of an incoherent character, who has managed, for the moment, to scramble one of the country's most literate and sensible minds...