Doc of the Day: Lend-Lease Act
The Lend-Lease Act, passed in March 1941 after two months of vigorous public debate and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 11, 1941, provided new legal authority for the president to offer war supplies to the country’s allies, thereby pushing the United States closer to full participation in World War II. Its enactment marked a victory for the Roosevelt administration and a defeat for his opponents. These included isolationists and pacifists, who had succeeded during the 1930s in passing neutrality laws designed to keep America out of foreign wars. Between the beginnings of World War II in Asia and Europe in the late 1930s and the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the biggest step taken by the United States toward entry into the global conflict.
Lend-Lease, dubbed “the most unsordid act in the history of any nation” by the British prime minister Winston Churchill, was the mechanism by which the output of the vast American economy was channeled to the nation’s allies. Nine months before Pearl Harbor, the new statute launched a massive program of exports designed to help Britain, China, and other nations hold off attacks from Germany, Italy, and Japan. By the end of the war, it had supplied thirty-eight foreign nations with $50 billion worth of war goods. While its effects on particular military outcomes are difficult to determine, Lend-Lease was certainly an important part of the Allies’ successful effort to win World War II.
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