Thanks to suggestions from Vitaliy Margolen, Neil Skrypuch and Scott
Ritchie I downloaded and manually installed 32 bit libraries
ia32-libs_1.4ubuntu17_amd64.deb
libc6-dev-i386_2.3.6-0ubuntu17_amd64.deb
libicu34-dev_3.4.1a-1ubuntu1_i386.deb
libicu34_3.4.1a-1ubuntu1_i386.deb
libttf2_1.4pre.200304
CFLAGS="-Wall -g -O2" ./configure --host=x86_64-linux-gnu
--build=x86_64-linux-g nu --prefix=/usr --mandir=\${prefix}/share/man
--infodir=\${prefix}/share/info
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)...