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Diary of a Dictator: Ferdinand and Imelda, The Last Days of Camelot
Philippine President and First Lady Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were once so popular they were likened to America’s beautiful and charismatic Jackie and JFK. Some called them “the Kennedys of Asia.” But Camelot in the Philippines didn’t last long, a victim of the Manila power couple’s towering egos and lust for wealth and glory.Under the Marcoses, the presidential palace became a breeding ground for deadly political intrigues, a notorious sex scandal, dueling spies, serial lies, and bribery on a scale that tipped the nation’s economy into recession.Diary of a Dictator is a colorful and dramatic account of that period, featuring romantic and political rivalries, vengeance, murder, and mayhem – history that reads like a soap opera. It stars a messianic Ferdinand who hears the voice of God calling him to dictatorship … a diva Imelda who finances her lavish tastes out of the national treasury … and a secret presidential diary with inadvertent revelations of treachery.The Marcos journal is an extraordinary piece of history, more than 2,500 pages that document the making of a dictator. It was found abandoned amidst crates of official records when Ferdinand and Imelda fled Manila for exile in Hawaii. It is handwritten in English on Malacanang Palace stationary, the penmanship usually neat, the prose often Olympian.At the same time, it is not reliably accurate. In fact, it is filled with lies and disinformation. But with veteran Los Angeles Times investigative reporter William C. Rempel as a guide, the diary reveals much more about Ferdinand and Imelda than they ever intended – his hypochondria and dark paranoia, her superstitions and obsessions, and their shared delusions of grandeur.The Philippines of the mid-1960s and early 1970s was strategically vital to the U.S. war efforts in Vietnam. That importance allowed the Marcoses to wring major concessions out of the White House. President Johnson felt blackmailed by Ferdinand. President Nixon was confronted by Imelda’s warning that he risked losing the Philippines to communism. Against this backdrop, Diary of a Dictator follows the fall of Philippine democracy.Through the Marcos diary we witness a democratically elected president plotting like a modern-day Machiavelli – secretly manipulating Supreme Court justices; sending agents provocateurs to foment violence he could blame on “the Communists;” drafting a Nixonian enemies list that branded as traitors his most popular political rivals.Journalist Rempel was the first person outside the Philippine government with access to most of the Marcos diary and to other confidential presidential papers. That was nearly 25 years ago. Today, the original documents remain officially classified and under seal.Diary of a Dictator is a revised and updated e-book version of the original hardcover edition published as Delusions of a Dictator (Little, Brown and Co., 1993).A Kirkus Review of the hardcover cited Rempel's "focused narrative" and the book's "intriguing perspective...that confirms history's verdict" against the Marcos regime.Philippines expert and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stanley Karnow called it a “fascinating book” that “penetrates the strange, tortured mind of a man who not only deceived his own people and the world, but deluded himself.”To advocates of democracy and students of political intrigue, the story of Ferdinand and Imelda is a timeless parable about greed and power…as well as a cautionary tale on the vulnerability of democracy.
Kindle Edition
First published March 7, 2013
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About the author
William C. Rempel
9 books30 followersBill Rempel’s long and eventful career at the Los Angeles Times, both as a writer and an editor, produced an impressive collection of high-profile projects and change-makers. His reporting triggered government investigations, exposed White House and Pentagon scandals, and prompted reforms of state courts and consumer protection laws.
Groundbreaking reports on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were published before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and his extensive coverage of supertanker safety flaws began years before the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.
The datelines on his overseas investigative reports range from Kiev to the Turks and Caicos Islands. He has co-authored exclusive reports detailing secret U.S. arms deals with Iran, tracking tons of explosives smuggled to terrorist camps in Libya, tracing embargoed nuclear technology out of South Africa and documenting sales and leases of Ukrainian cargo planes to Colombian drug lords.
In the 1990s, he broke a number of major political stories in the U.S. about Bill Clinton in Arkansas and subsequent financial controversies surrounding the 1996 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign. In 2000, his reporting in Texas documented how criminals and other unqualified applicants obtained permits to carry concealed handguns under a controversial weapons law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush.
Rempel’s work has been recognized with numerous journalistic honors, including an Overseas Press Club award and the Gerald Loeb Award. He was also a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
His examination of the corrupt regime of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos led to disclosure of the Marcos diaries and his first book, DELUSIONS OF A DICTATOR (Little, Brown and Company, 1993). It was updated and re-released in 2013 as the e-Book, DIARY OF A DICTATOR — Ferdinand & Imelda: The Last Days of Camelot.
He spent nearly a decade in secret contacts with a former high ranking Colombian drug figure under federal protection somewhere in the United States, patiently amassing material until he could write AT THE DEVIL'S TABLE: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel (Random House, 2011). The book has since been issued in Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Polish.
An 80-episode Spanish language television series based on his book was released in 2014 by Sony-Teleset under the title: En la Boca del Lobo (In the Jaws of the Wolf). It is available in much of the world on Netflix. Also in 2014, Warner Brothers studios bought feature film rights for At the Devil’s Table.
Rempel has appeared on numerous radio and television current affairs programs, including The Today Show, Nightline, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Reliable Sources and This American Life.
He was born in Palmer — in the Territory of Alaska — the grandson of Matanuska Valley homesteaders from Michigan and Russia. As a boy, he moved with his family to California where he later attended Pepperdine College on a journalism scholarship. His first newsroom after graduation was at the Copley chain’s South Bay Daily Breeze where he became assistant city editor.
Rempel joined the Los Angeles Times in 1973, covering suburban Los Angeles before taking over a metro beat covering the waterfront. He was later a roving state feature writer, business writer and a national correspondent based in Chicago for five winters. For the next 20-plus years Rempel led teams of investigative reporters both as a writer and editor. He left the Times in 2009 to complete work on his book, At the Devil’s Table.
His newest title THE GAMBLER, publishing with Harper Collins in November 2017 is a biography of self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian — daring aviator, gambler, and business tycoon — who bet billions based on gut instincts in a career spanning eight decades.
Groundbreaking reports on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were published before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and his extensive coverage of supertanker safety flaws began years before the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster.
The datelines on his overseas investigative reports range from Kiev to the Turks and Caicos Islands. He has co-authored exclusive reports detailing secret U.S. arms deals with Iran, tracking tons of explosives smuggled to terrorist camps in Libya, tracing embargoed nuclear technology out of South Africa and documenting sales and leases of Ukrainian cargo planes to Colombian drug lords.
In the 1990s, he broke a number of major political stories in the U.S. about Bill Clinton in Arkansas and subsequent financial controversies surrounding the 1996 Clinton-Gore presidential campaign. In 2000, his reporting in Texas documented how criminals and other unqualified applicants obtained permits to carry concealed handguns under a controversial weapons law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush.
Rempel’s work has been recognized with numerous journalistic honors, including an Overseas Press Club award and the Gerald Loeb Award. He was also a finalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting.
His examination of the corrupt regime of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos led to disclosure of the Marcos diaries and his first book, DELUSIONS OF A DICTATOR (Little, Brown and Company, 1993). It was updated and re-released in 2013 as the e-Book, DIARY OF A DICTATOR — Ferdinand & Imelda: The Last Days of Camelot.
He spent nearly a decade in secret contacts with a former high ranking Colombian drug figure under federal protection somewhere in the United States, patiently amassing material until he could write AT THE DEVIL'S TABLE: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel (Random House, 2011). The book has since been issued in Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and Polish.
An 80-episode Spanish language television series based on his book was released in 2014 by Sony-Teleset under the title: En la Boca del Lobo (In the Jaws of the Wolf). It is available in much of the world on Netflix. Also in 2014, Warner Brothers studios bought feature film rights for At the Devil’s Table.
Rempel has appeared on numerous radio and television current affairs programs, including The Today Show, Nightline, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Reliable Sources and This American Life.
He was born in Palmer — in the Territory of Alaska — the grandson of Matanuska Valley homesteaders from Michigan and Russia. As a boy, he moved with his family to California where he later attended Pepperdine College on a journalism scholarship. His first newsroom after graduation was at the Copley chain’s South Bay Daily Breeze where he became assistant city editor.
Rempel joined the Los Angeles Times in 1973, covering suburban Los Angeles before taking over a metro beat covering the waterfront. He was later a roving state feature writer, business writer and a national correspondent based in Chicago for five winters. For the next 20-plus years Rempel led teams of investigative reporters both as a writer and editor. He left the Times in 2009 to complete work on his book, At the Devil’s Table.
His newest title THE GAMBLER, publishing with Harper Collins in November 2017 is a biography of self-made billionaire Kirk Kerkorian — daring aviator, gambler, and business tycoon — who bet billions based on gut instincts in a career spanning eight decades.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 3, 2021
Fascinating peek into the possibly delusional mind of former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos through the only (as of 2021) analysis of his several thousand pages of personal diary entries while in office. He apparently got access to them several years ago through sources he couldn’t legally name, and it’s currently still locked up by Malacañang for reasons unknown. I imagine I’ll be exploring several contradictory accounts about this period in Philippine history over the next few months, so it was interesting to start with the point of view of the dictator himself. This book, however, only covers the start of his second term to the declaration of Martial Law.
It would have been much better if he just published the full entries he had access to, but for what it is, it’s definitely worth checking out.
Read with a grain of salt.
It would have been much better if he just published the full entries he had access to, but for what it is, it’s definitely worth checking out.
Read with a grain of salt.
July 29, 2019
When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.
—Mahatma Gandhi
—Mahatma Gandhi
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews