Both FDR and Churchill are on record as saying variants of "it is permissible to walk with the devil if it gets you to the other side of the bridge" about the alliance with Stalin.
The entire history of US foreign relations in South and Central America and the Middle East (at least!) is dominated with compromises similar to this.
It's difficult to know where to start a list!
If you’re swimming in a sea of US-standard media and patriotic narratives, I suppose it’s easier to believe the former rather than the latter.
I'm not sure how you'd get that from my comment (I'm not from the US, so I think you are reading an awful lot into what I said there!).
Either way, both those narratives fit the realpolitik the OP seemed to be calling for.
This is exactly why I'm so sceptical of the eagerness, even enthusiasm, of those who want to launch us straight into the next cold war, again to the mood music of ethical sounding objectives you cannot possibly oppose.
Perceived non-aligned folks were murdered if possible, often with CIA folks standing just behind the corner (Allende, Che etc.). You can't really say that putting into office fascist murderous dictator like Pinochet instead of Allende was a compromise in any way.
If you meant the support and establishment of dictatorships and banana republics there, those aren't compromises in the sense of "working with the devil they hate", like they had to do in WWII with Stalin.
These are working joyly with "our kind of guys".
The main difference being that Stalin was an opponent and against the US interests, whereas those guys like Pinochet were always about the US interests, even groomed and build up especially to support them.
How can you believe this when unsavoury compromise is the relationship of most of the world with the US?