When recipients couldn't repay the loans, they would surrender such assets as oil and mineral rights, and the United States would take control of their economies, said Perkins, who worked in Ecuador, Panama, Iran and other places.
"I think this empire we've created is every bit the equivalent of the British Empire we fought more than 200 years ago if you are living in Ecuador or places like that," said Perkins, who lives in Florida and now runs a nonprofit company that he said works to protect nations he once exploited.
The man who hired Perkins at Charles T. Main - former TEP executive Greve - said his story is accurate.
"I would say that, allowing for some author discretion, basically his story is true," Greve said during a phone interview from his Santa Barbara, Calif., home. "What John's book says is, there was a conspiracy to put all these countries on the hook, and that happened. Whether or not it was some sinister plot or not is up to interpretation, but many of these countries are still over the barrel and have never been able to repay the loans."
Greve, who resigned as president of TEP in 1989 amid an insider stock-trading scandal, said he knew of many projects foisted upon developing nations in the name of foreign aid that were pure "boondoggles."
"I knew of projects that were financed by USAID and World Bank that should never have been built," he said. "There was nobody who believed some of these projects would help their economies, but the receiving countries just wanted money to build something. If it turned out to be a lemon, it really didn't deter them."
Binns, who was appointed as ambassador to Honduras by President Carter before Ronald Reagan replaced him with John Negroponte in 1981, disputed the allegations that foreign aid is routinely used to bankrupt struggling nations.
"I can say that his depiction of things is wildly exaggerated, at least in my experience," Binns said. "Some infrastructure projects in some countries have not produced the desired benefit, and I think the American taxpayers ought to look at all U.S. programs with skepticism and scrutiny, but I think he's all wet."
Perkins said he began working on his book two decades ago but succumbed to bribes and coercion to not reveal what he'd done for a living.
After the 9/11 attacks on America and the war in Iraq, he finished the project as a way to explain why both happened.
The attacks, he said, were the result of hatred the United States has fostered with its foreign policy. Iraq was invaded, and Saddam Hussein ousted because he refused to comply with U.S. wishes, as the Saudi Arabian royal family had three decades ago.
"The problem is that most people don't know what's going on. They think foreign aid is always altruistic," he said. "When Americans really understand what's going on in the world and what our tax dollars are for, they'll demand change, and they'll get change."
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