While the circulation of Soldier of Fortune magazine vastly exceeded the number of American mercenaries who actually fought abroad, it calcified in American popular culture a politics only implied by US covert operations in foreign wars: a sense that international anti-communist revolution demanded a degree of US participation that defied both the Neutrality Acts and the Geneva Conventions.

In addition to stories from the front, Soldier of Fortune ran nearly 1,500 classified ads for mercenaries between 1975 and 1985.

September 1977