In this account, Lend-Lease was a strategic choice that did not require hidden postwar control agreements. Franklin Roosevelt's hostility to dictatorship is placed within a longer American political tradition rather than explained as a covert economic project. A counterfactual comparison suggests Theodore Roosevelt would have entered the First World War earlier than Woodrow Wilson did. Theodore Roosevelt is also presented as a more pragmatic peacemaker than Wilson, showing how American internationalism could combine forceful intervention with negotiation.
Chapter · 0:22-2:21
Lend-Lease as an anti-dictator strategy
The introduction rejects secret-control explanations for Lend-Lease and places it in a longer American political opposition to dictatorship.