Carol, you got it in one.

The US view in the Wilson and Roosevelt days was supposed to be that clapped-out European imperialism was the cause of all the world's ills, and only the rule of international law, promloted by the youthfully innocent USA would change things for better. Unfortunately their successors have taken over the imperial role and no longer see anything wrong with it.

Read Philip Agee's "Inside the CIA". It's nothing too wild and cloak-and-dagger. On the contrary, it's a rather tedious read. But it shows "the Company's" modus operandi, repeated around the world, of corrupting and subverting governments, often legitimately elected, and of using lies and forgeries to influence the outcomes of elections (not to mention arming and paying for coups d'état, as happened in countries which Agee didn't personally experience), all in the name of fighting against "Communism" but in fact just advancing US interests. You put it down with the same sense of disgust as a work of pornography, but it's still worth reading to understand the last half-century.