ABSTRACT
In many ways, the present foreign aid program is an outgrowth of the model developed during World War II with Latin America. The US provided technical assistance loans and grants from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation “to speed up the production of raw materials” (Montgomery, 1967:38). The goal was some combination of Latin American socioeconomic development and support of US security interests, in particular successful Allied conduct of the war. Very early, foreign aid was caught in between two increasingly contradictory objectives: Latin American development which implies independence and sovereignty, and US regional security interests which implies dependence on US military technology to deal with internal (revolutionary) and external (border conflict) threats. Military aid through FMSC and MAP, for example, to Latin American military regimes have generally not led to socioeconomic development (however defined)—usually quite the reverse.
