Lend-Lease

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LEND-LEASE

LEND-LEASE, a program of providing U.S. military and economic assistance to nations fighting the Axis powers in World War II. After the fall of France in June 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt worried that if Great Britain were defeated by Nazi Germany, the United States would stand virtually alone against the fascist powers. Isolationist sentiment and unpreparedness for war discouraged American entry into the conflict directly, while U.S. law (the Johnson Debt-Default Act of 1934) required nations at war to pay cash for American military supplies. When Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned Roosevelt that Britain would not survive without further military assistance but was running out of funds, Roosevelt developed the idea of "lending" the British the necessary supplies. On 17 December 1940 he explained the

principle to newsmen using the famous analogy of lending one's garden hose to a neighbor whose house is on fire, before the fire should spread. On 29 December he sought to build public support by arguing in a national radio address that America should become "the great arsenal of democracy." Congress debated the Lend-Lease Act, named House Resolution 1776 to lend it a patriotic aura, and passed the measure on 11 March 1941.

The Lend-Lease Act greatly increased executive power by authorizing the president to "sell, transfer title to, or otherwise dispose of" military supplies to countries selected by the president. Roosevelt had sought such broad language in order to be able to extend the program to the Soviet Union, which his cabinet expected would soon be attacked by Germany. Repayment was to be in kind or in the form of any "indirect benefit" to the United States. By eliminating the need for cash payments, Lend-Lease made it possible to deliver large quantities of vital matériel for the fight against the Axis powers while avoiding the kind of recriminations over unpaid war debts that lingered after World War I.

Under the Lend-Lease program, from 1941 to 1945 the United States provided approximately $50 billion in military equipment, raw materials, and other goods to thirty-eight countries. About $30 billion of the total went to Britain, with most of the remainder delivered to the Soviet Union, China, and France. The program was administered by top Roosevelt aide Harry L. Hopkins until October 1941, then formalized under the Office of Lend-Lease Administration under Edward R. Stettinius. In September 1943, Lend-Lease was placed under the Foreign Economic Administration, headed by Leo T. Crowley. The program was terminated by President Harry S. Truman in August 1945 at the end of the war, an action resented by Soviet leaders, who believed the cutoff in aid was intended to gain diplomatic concessions.

The provision of large quantities of aid to Great Britain accelerated American involvement in the conflict with Germany because it constituted a declaration of economic warfare against Germany, and it led to the organization of naval convoys to deliver the aid, convoys that came into direct confrontation with German submarines. Whether this was Roosevelt's secret intention is a subject of debate. While Churchill gratefully described Lend-Lease as "the most unsordid act in the history of any nation," the program clearly served American interests by allowing other countries to do the actual fighting against the Axis while the United States improved its own military readiness.

The Lend-Lease program substantially bolstered the military efforts of both Britain and the Soviet Union, although in the Soviet case, the overall importance of Lend-Lease has been disputed. Soviet histories tend to play down the value of the American contribution, while some American histories have argued that the Soviet Union would have been defeated without Lend-Lease aid (even though the threat of collapse was greatest in 1941–1942, before the bulk of Lend-Lease aid arrived). Whether or not American assistance was indispensable to Soviet survival and success on the battlefield, it does seem to have improved Soviet offensive capabilities against the German military after 1942.

The United States negotiated on a bilateral basis with individual countries to determine the form of repayment, if any, for Lend-Lease aid. Approximately $10 billion in goods, in kind and in cash, was repaid to the United States, chiefly by Great Britain. The Roosevelt and Truman administrations considered the fighting carried out by their allies to have been sufficient "indirect" repayment for the bulk of the assistance, and the cost of other aid was simply written off. Lend-Lease assistance was provided to some countries for political ends, as in the case of those Latin American nations that were not directly involved in the war effort but received limited quantities of military equipment as an inducement to side with the Allies. With its conversion of loans to grants and the use of aid for diplomatic or political purposes, Lend-Lease helped create a precedent for U.S. foreign aid programs in the postwar era.