ABSTRACT
The most ominous aspect of the 1943 Reciprocal Aid Talks was the extent to which the US Treasury and the FEA repudiated the idea of pooling resources. These departments argued that Lend-Lease had been introduced to keep supplies going to Britain when she could no longer afford them, and that that criterion, often referred to as the marginal principle, should continue in effect. The British had tried to make Reciprocal Aid approximate to Lend-Lease as far as they could in the hope that unilateral restrictions on their economic activities would be replaced by rules which would create a symmetry in Anglo-American economic relations. The British exerted pressure on the Americans during October and November 1943 to expedite matters concerning their dollar balances, and the favourable reaction in the US to the announcement about the extension of Reciprocal Aid revived hopes that a satisfactory solution could be achieved.
