ABSTRACT
Churchill described Lend-Lease as a ‘most unsordid act’. It was undoubtedly magnanimous in conception, though from time to time it was to prove less so in execution. Lend-Lease was unique in that it committed the US to supplying Britain before any price had been negotiated. Even Hull’s attempts to get Britain to pledge collateral prior to receiving aid had failed. The views of the US Treasury prevailed instead and they allowed the Lend-Lease Bill to become law on the basis of the President being given wide discretion when determining re-payment. The Secretary of the Treasury had been politically more adventurous than Secretary of State over the Lend-Lease Bill but once it was law and Congress had appropriated $7 billion for the aid programme matters changed. Attitudes in Britain were becoming increasingly defensive. The idea of abandoning economic controls without a clear picture of postwar conditions, and particularly of American postwar economic policy, was widely seen in London as highly dangerous.
