U.S. exercises were designed to keep Franco’s regime in power.

Evidence

In the case of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, for example, a 1969–70 U.S. Senate investigation discovered that annual U.S.-Spanish military exercises were designed to prepare a military response to an anti-Franco uprising and keep his regime in power despite its domestic repression and continuation of Spanish colonial rule. As the base expert Alexander Cooley puts it, “The U.S. basing presence may have diminished these host countries’ overall national sovereignty, but it also afforded their rulers significant private political benefits.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 309

Categorization

• XREF: The 1969-70 Senate investigation on Spain connects to patterns of U.S. support for Portugal, Greece, and other authoritarian NATO hosts during the Cold War.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 309