U.S. Military Missions To Iran, 1943–1978: The Political Economy of Military Assistance

Abstract

“Aid to Iran is not recommended primarily because Iran needs economic aid, but because it offers the most effective means of forcing the Iranians in spite of themselves to put their house in order.” Mr. McGhee to the Secretary of State, UM D-97, April 21, 1950 in Foreign Relations of the United States: 1950, Volume V (Washington, D.C., 1978), p. 516.“The largest, most pervasive source of technical assistance, on manpower problems was the United States foreign aid program, both civilian and military. There was hardly an agency or program of the Iranian Government concerned with training or education that did not have its Point IV experts or U.S. contract group.” George Baldwin, Planning and Development in Iran (New York, 1967), p. 145.“Taken on balance, all U.S. foreign assistance is ultimately military or paramilitary in nature, even its ostensibly economic aid: it is designed primarily to enable foreign countries to support a military superstructure capable of saving the United States the cost of having to provide military service with its own armed forces.” Michael Hudson, “The Political Economy of Foreign Aid,” in The Myth of Aid, by Denis Goulet and Michael Hudson (New York, 1971), p. 80.