In 1978, despite her initial opposition, Aquino decided to run in the 1978 Batasang Pambansa elections. A reluctant speaker, Corazon Aquino campaigned on behalf of her husband, and for the first time in her life delivered a political speech. In 1980, upon the intervention of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Marcos allowed Senator Aquino and his family to leave for exile in the United States, where he sought medical treatment. The family settled in Boston, and Aquino would later call the next three years as the happiest days of her marriage and family life. On 21 August 1983, however, Ninoy ended his stay in the United States and returned without his family to the Philippines, only to be assassinated on a staircase leading to the tarmac of the Manila International Airport (now Ninoy Aquino International Airport or NAIA), which was later renamed in his honor (see Assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr.). Corazon Aquino returned to the Philippines a few days later and led her husband's funeral procession, in which more than two million people participated.