Roosevelt — destroyers for bases

In the summer of 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt watches a Britain standing alone against Germany, short of escorts to protect her Atlantic convoys. For weeks Churchill has been pleading for American destroyers. But the United States is neutral, opinion remains overwhelmingly isolationist, and the president is running in November for an unprecedented third term: any gesture perceived as a step toward war would be a weapon in the hands of his opponents.

Roosevelt is looking for an arrangement that helps London without colliding head-on with Congress or the electorate. An idea takes shape: hand over fifty old First World War destroyers in exchange for 99-year leases on British bases in the Atlantic (Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Caribbean), presented as a strengthening of American defense.

The procedure raises a constitutional difficulty: such an agreement would normally take the form of a treaty submitted to the Senate. Roosevelt must choose his path — go through Congress at the risk of a debate bogged down in mid-campaign, act by executive order on his sole presidential authority, or back away to avoid exposing himself. He still does not know how opinion will receive a weapons swap with a belligerent.