Arming the Free World: The Origins of the United States Military Assistance Program, 1945-1950

In this important study, Chester Pach traces the emergence of military assistance as a major instrument of contemporary American foreign policy. During the early Cold War, arms aid grew from a few country and regional programs into a worldwide effort with an annual cost of more than $1 billion. Pach analyzes the Truman administration’s increasing reliance on arms aid — for Latin America, Greece and Turkey, China, and Western Europe — to contain Communist expansion during the late 1940s. He ...