A hand in salvation or cool calculation? The role of the US humanitarian aid in shaping the American policy towards Poland (1956 -1965)

Abstract:

The article will present the role of the humanitarian aid in the process of creating the US foreign policy. The study will examine two interesting case studies: the Polish Medical Aid Project and the creation of the American Research Hospital for Children in Poland.

The work will show the most important aspects of the planning and implementation of those initiatives. This approach will be aimed at answering the title question and will try to define the extent to which the humanitarian aid offered to Poland within a certain period was a political calculation. The final analysis of the congressional hearings conducted in 1962 presents and confirms the complexity of the process of helping the “Captive Nations” in Central Eastern Europe.