Roosevelt — signing Lend-Lease

After weeks of impassioned national debate, the U.S. Congress passed in early March 1941 the Lend-Lease Act, which authorised the president to supply war materiel to nations whose defence was deemed vital to the United States, without immediate payment. Roosevelt now held a powerful instrument, but had to define its concrete scope.

Great Britain, out of foreign currency, was awaiting massive and rapid aid. But other candidates were emerging: China at war with Japan, invaded Greece, and soon perhaps others. Roosevelt also knew that every dollar and every ship sent abroad meant resources withdrawn from a still-fledgling American rearmament, and that the isolationists were watching for any misstep.

The president had to decide on the first major allocation of credits — seven billion dollars — and on the scope of the scheme: concentrate the aid on Great Britain alone, the first bulwark; open it from the outset to all of the Axis's adversaries; or dose it prudently so as not to weaken America's own defence. The choice engaged the very nature of the American role in the war.