>> but I'm not sure even then, that America was involved for freedom or for financial gain.

Neither of those. When NATO was established immediately post-WWII it was more a matter of preventing Stalin from turning all of Europe into subunits of the Russian Empire as he had done with Poland and the Baltic states (done quite brutally: many residents in the Baltic states were deported to Siberia — I think all the countries leaders died there).

I looked at that Monthly Review Online article you linked - and elsewhere on the site. Interesting worldview.