From: Everette (194cbteng@bellsouth.net)
Date: Tue Jan 10 2006 - 05:36:46 PST
January 10
1941 Lend-Lease introduced into Congress
On this day, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program is
brought before the U.S. Congress for consideration.
Roosevelt devised the Lend-Lease program as a means of aiding Great
Britain in its war effort against the Germans. The program gave the chief
executive the power to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or
otherwise dispose of" any military resources he deemed in the ultimate
interest of the defense of the United States. The idea was that if Britain
were better able to defend itself, the security of the U.S. would be
enhanced. The program also served to bolster British morale, as they would
no longer feel alone in their struggle against Hitler.
Congress authorized the program on March 11. By November, after much
heated debate, Congress extended the terms of Lend-Lease to the Soviet
Union, even though Stalin's USSR had already been the recipient of American
military weapons and had been promised $1 billion in financial aid.
By the end of the war, more than $50 billion in funds, weapons,
aircraft, and ships were distributed to 44 countries through the program.
After the war, the Lend-Lease program morphed into the Marshall Plan, which
allocated funds for the revitalization of "friendly" democratic nations.
Everette
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