ABSTRACT
Inevitably, as these bilateral development programmes began to sprout up, a new pattern of motives and constraints emerged, reducing in the process the impact of Cold War pressures on Western assistance. As McKinlay and Little (1977: 65) put it: 'the leverage potential of the US aid programme [and hence the salience of Cold War factors] has been substantially undermined by the expansion of French, FRG, Japanese and UK aid programmes that have become increasingly dominated by the politics of national self-interest'. This tendency for Cold War concerns to decline in importance was subsequently
Western Aid in a Cold War Context 43 confirmed when the US share of total aid to developing countries began steadily to decline (see Table 3.1) and when the US announced its intention to give assistance 'not to contain the spread of communism, not because other nations are doing it, but because it is right'.8
