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Franco encouraged the warming Spanish-American relations. In July 1947, he told a reporter that the United States could obtain the use of Spanish bases if it tried hard enough. The Pentagon pushed for bases, and President Truman didn't put up much resistance. “I don't like Franco and I never will,” he said. “But I won't let my personal feelings override the convictions of you military men.” In late 1950, Congress appropriated $62.5 million in aid for Spain. In 1951, Stanton Griffis — with Angie Duke in tow — arrived in Spain to fill the long-vacant post of ambassador. That summer, American military officials started talking to Franco about military bases in Spain as Great Britain watched in annoyance. “The strategic advantages which might accrue from associating Spain with western defense,” said the British foreign secretary in the summer of 1951, “would be outweighed by the political damage which such an association might inflict.” American military officials waved such protests aside. They wanted those bases.

On September 26, 1953, the United States signed three agreements with Spain that together became known as the Pact of Madrid. The United States would give Spain military aid—$226 million in the first year alone — in exchange for the use of three existing air bases at Morón, Torrejón, and Zaragosa. The United States would expand and update the bases, as well as build a new Navy base at Rota and other facilities. The United States and Spain would operate the bases jointly, but the Americans would run the show. The pact would remain in effect for ten years — until 1963—and then could be extended in five-year increments. Because the pact was an executive agreement, not a treaty, it did not require congressional approval. Military necessity had trumped the ideals of freedom and democracy. A New York Times editorial called the deal “a bitter pill.” “Let us hope,” it said, “that the medicine will not do more harm than good.”

By 1959, the base renovations were virtually complete and 20,000 American troops had moved in.

In December of that year, as a symbol of the two countries' new partnership, President Eisenhower visited Madrid. It was the first visit to Franco by any Western head of state since he took power.

Eager to advertise his new alliance with the United States, Franco ordered Spain to welcome the president with open arms.

When Eisenhower's plane landed at Torrejón, the president smiled, walked down the steps, and greeted Franco with a firm handshake. Traditionally, greeting a Latin leader requires an abrazo, or formal embrace. But the U.S. government had decided that Franco, a dictator, would receive only a handshake, and Eisenhower hewed to the policy. But the visit went exceptionally well. A crowd of 500,000 Spaniards crammed the president's motorcade route into Madrid, lining the sidewalks fifteen and twenty deep, waving flags and cheering “Ike! Ike!” as church bells pealed a welcome.

(Of course, they cheered the president's nickname in Spanish—“Eekay! Eekay!”—much to Eisenhower's amusement.) In deference to the president's grueling travel schedule, Franco arranged for dinner to be served at 8:45 p.m., unusually early for Spain. At dinner, the two generals offered warm toasts to each other's countries, commenting on the shared history and goals of the United States and Spain. When they parted the next day, the president and the generalissimo exchanged not one but two abrazos. Franco, rejected by most of the world, had been embraced by the world's greatest power.

Buoyed by American money and the stamp of American approval that encouraged foreign investors to move in, Spain slowly began to climb out of poverty. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Franco, now in his late sixties, allowed a handful of forward-thinking ministers in his cabinet to modernize the economy. They slashed the budget, devalued the peseta, and opened the country to foreign goods. At the same time, the standard of living in Western Europe surged. Europeans had money to burn, and suddenly foreign money and tourists began flowing into Spain. Construction gear and cranes popped up all over the country, and modern dams and skyscrapers stretched into the sky.

Between 1960 and 1965, the gross national product of Spain climbed by an astonishing 65 percent.

During that same time, 36 million tourists spent $3.5 billion in Spain, $1.1 billion in 1965 alone.