Lend-Lease and Pre-War Diplomacy
How FDR navigated isolationist America toward supporting the Allies against fascism, culminating in the Lend-Lease program that Churchill called 'the most unsordid act in history.'
A Nation Determined to Stay Out
Throughout the 1930s, American public opinion was overwhelmingly isolationist. The disillusionment with World War I ran deep — the Nye Committee hearings of 1934-36 had popularized the idea that America entered the war to serve arms manufacturers and bankers, the so-called 'merchants of death.' Congress passed a series of Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, 1937) designed to prevent the entanglements that had drawn America into the previous war.
Roosevelt privately recognized the danger of fascism earlier than most American politicians, but he was constrained by public sentiment. When Japan invaded China in 1937, Roosevelt delivered his 'Quarantine Speech,' suggesting that aggressor nations should be quarantined like a disease. The public backlash was swift and harsh. He retreated, and for the next two years moved cautiously, always testing the boundaries of what the public would accept.
The fall of France in June 1940 shocked Americans. Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany, and Roosevelt began to argue publicly that America's security depended on British survival. But the isolationist movement remained powerful. The America First Committee, with 800,000 members and the celebrity endorsement of Charles Lindbergh, fiercely opposed any involvement. Roosevelt had to outmaneuver them while appearing to respect their concerns.