The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World

by A.J. Baime

The brainchild of FDR, the Lend-Lease bill was conceived in the winter of 1940–1941, before the United States entered the war, and Roosevelt signed it into law on March 11, 1941. It enabled Roosevelt, and now Truman, to send munitions and supplies to “the government of any country whose defense the president deems vital to the defense of the U.S.” All over the world, because of Lend-Lease, Soviet, Chinese, British, French, and other soldiers had fought with and, in some cases, were still fighting with tools of war built in American factories, and gaining sustenance from food grown on American farms, at the expense of the American taxpayer. (Over the course of the war, more than thirty countries would benefit from Lend-Lease, totaling some $50 billion in American assistance.)

A waste