The Nation - News from Dec. 29, 1985

The United States has supplied more than $120 billion in military aid to 113 countries since 1950, about half of it in the form of grants, the General Accounting Office reported. The agency, which does research for Congress, said that as of Sept. 30, 43 countries owed this country a total of $60.7 billion for military aid, and that the U.S. government had guaranteed $58.7 billion of those debts. Since then, it noted, the government has switched from backing commercial loans to making more grants and direct, low-interest loans. The report said that since the mid-1970s, the United States has made almost $1.7 billion in payments to cover defaults on the guaranteed loans.