| Summary: | What follows is not an academic article, but consists mostly of the edited transcription and amalgamation of the autobiographical narratives of the author’s mother, Afendoula Dokou, specifically as it concerns her being a first-hand witness (and beneficiary), as a child in rural northern Greece (Macedonia), of US “soft power” policies regarding Europe immediately following World War II. That was a time when the Greek Civil War and the dire economic conditions faced by the country after the devastating German Occupation were met with the determined attempts of a nation to build itself up from its ruins and join the larger European reconstruction project. In her narrative, the “soft” aspect of US aid took the form of basic food staples distributed to the starving populations of Greece, while even the “hard power” represented by the presence of the US Fleet in the Mediterranean took on the benign aspect of a theretofore-unencountered grand spectacle of American largesse and might. The expressions, wording and tone of her narrative have been maintained as much as possible in the translation, which is provided by the author.
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