Constructing Aviation: The Pan American Technical Assistance Program in Asia, 1955–68

In the 1950s the United States initiated the most ambitious civil aviation assistance program ever undertaken. With ample funding, private and state sector organizations spanned out across Asia over the coming decades to construct aerial networks that would bolster civil aviation in friendly countries, expand US airline networks, and (it was hoped) strengthen US allies and assist the superpower in its conflict with the Soviet Union and Communism. Through financial aid and technical assistance the US hoped to create aerial networks that would serve US geopolitical, military, and logistical requirements. This paper explores one prominent aspect of this assistance: Pan American Airways’ Technical Assistance Program in Asia, which in the 1950s and 1960s consisted of aerial aid to Turkey, Afghanistan, Thailand, and Pakistan. With US government funding, Pan American restructured, managed, and in one case even took a stake in small national airlines in key allied states. In this paper I explore the broad outlines of these programs, and argue that although the aid was substantial, political, social, and infrastructural realities on the ground led to projects which only partially met US planners’ objectives.