La guerra fría y los empresarios españoles: la articulación de los intereses económicos de Estados Unidos en España, 1950–1975

This article examines some effects of the political and military alliance between Spain and the United States on the Spanish business community in the 1950s and 1960s. The technical aid is taken to be the set of official programs and private contracts and investments that helped disseminate in Spain the techniques and ideas associated with the American model. The articulation process of the economic interests of the United States in Spain is quantitatively and qualitatively analysed. Our research reveals that technical aid and the pro-American circles formed around it, which were partially based on existing business relations, were essential to such process. The Spanish case shows therefore, first, that US foreign economic policy favoured, even if only indirectly, American business during the Cold War. Second, this work provides material and ideas to analyse the Spanish «miracle» as a rather exogenous growth process.