This book presents a comprehensive comparison of economic aid programs by the United States and the Soviet Union to less developed countries. It examines aid to many of the non-Communist nations of Asia, Africa, the Near East, Latin America. Robert S. Walters views aid programs in terms of their objectives, the size and structure of disbursements, and operational and administrative principles. In addition he examines the delicate balance between trade policy and general foreign policy, and the difficulties and results experienced by the U.S. and Soviet Union in their respective programs.

Following 20 years of research by Quintin Bach, during a career in diplomacy and intelligence that was focused on Russia and the USSR, this text is a history of the economic aid given to the less developed countries of the Third World by the former Soviet Union.