What are the short and long-term effects of clientelist disbursements on political behavior? We answer the research question in the fascinating early Cold War context of Marshall Plan reconstruction funding in Italy. While it is well-known that parties used clientelist practices in Italy's First Republic to remain in power, less understood is if and how international funding can be leveraged for these same ends, and for how long these effects last. We critically examine these dynamics by investigating how and why post-war Italian MPs channeled Marshall Plan funding to their hometowns. Our analysis implements an innovate close-election RDD design which models the complex post-war electoral system designed by American and Italian interlocutors. We find that not only did MPs successfully channel Marshall Plan financing to their hometowns, but that the effect is also stronger for constituencies of Christian Democratic MPs. We also determine that the Marshall Plan created legacies of towns and comunes which had enough funding to outpace investments in surrounding areas, thereby generating grievances and more support for the far-right in the long-run in towns which missed opportunities for US project financing after WWII. The paper's contributions are two-fold: first, we demonstrate that international Western financing is beneficial in creating clientelist ties with home constituencies in Western states. Second, we validate the long-term behavioral effects of foreign aid on political attitudes and preferences. Our paper has implications for the short and long-run political effects which policymakers can expect from other types of international transfers – like EU funds.