An M3A1 Stuart tank and part of an A-20 bomber on the deck of a ship bound for the Soviet Union, c.1942.
18 May 2022
[Edit 20 May: corrected the speculation as to why the shift from lease-lend to lend-lease occurred.]
The following appeared in the New York Times on 9 May 2022:
President Biden on Monday signed an updated version of the Lend-Lease Act that supplied Britain and eventually other allies during World War II, summoning the spirit of the last century’s epic battle for democracy as he paved the way for further arms shipments to Ukrainians fighting to repel Russian invaders.
This present-day use of lend-lease to refer to U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine is an excellent example of how the framing of a news story influences its reception and audience. The use of lend-lease to refer to the present conflict frames it as akin to the fight against the Nazis, placing the Ukrainians, and the United States, on the side of the angels in the current conflict. Such articles, while having the pretense of objectivity, are biased as a result of this framing. One can agree with the bias and say that U.S. aid to Ukraine is the right policy, but it is bias, nevertheless. And it is, perhaps, more important to recognize bias when it comes from one’s own side. It’s easier to spot to the biases of one’s opponent’s propaganda than it is one’s own.
Lend-Lease was a World War II-era program under which the United States supplied arms and munitions to allied countries at essentially no cost, allowing the U.S. to become what President Franklin Roosevelt called “the arsenal of democracy” in a 29 December 1940 fireside chat radio broadcast. The pretext behind the policy was that those countries would return the equipment and munitions, or their equivalent, after the war. The total military aid supplied to other nations during the course of the war totaled over $50 billion (approximately $600 billion in today’s dollars), with the bulk of it going to Britain and the Commonwealth countries and to the Soviet Union.
But the phrase lend-lease was initially reversed, lease-lend. This reversed phrase starts appearing in U.S. newspapers in December 1940, in the lead-up to Roosevelt’s fireside chat. One Associated Press report printed in the Atlanta Journal on 18 December reads:
In Congress the first to endorse the “lease-lend” idea were Senator Minton (Indiana), the Democratic whip, and Chairman Bloom (Democrat, New York) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Minton announced he favored “anything to help Great Britain short of sending an army over there,” and Bloom asserted that “any way the administration can help Britain is all right with me.”
Another AP report appeared the same day in Jersey City’s Jersey Journal and outlines the program more fully:
Before giving an informal exposition of the tentative lease-and-lend plan, the Chief Executive declared that in the present world situation there was absolutely no doubt in the minds of a very overwhelming number of Americans that the best immediate defense of the United States was the success of Great Britain in defending herself.
The President used an illustration to describe the principle behind his plan.
Suppose, he said, that a neighbor’s house caught fire and the Roosevelts owned a long garden hose, which could be used to fight the fire. He would not ask the neighbor to pay him $15 because the hose cost that much, but would be satisfied to get it back after the fire was out. If the hose happened to be damaged, he would remind the neighbor to replace it.
Mr. Roosevelt then said that if this country should lend munitions to Britain, it would get either the munitions back or replacements for them, in the event they were damaged.
This statement made it appear that Mr. Roosevelt was talking in terms of ultimate repayment by Britain in military equipment. Some official sources, however, held that interpretation too narrow, point out that “in kind” repayment might be made just as acceptable in rubber, tin or other raw materials from parts of the British Empire.
But within a few days, the phrase had been reversed to the now familiar lend-lease. Why this shift happened is unknown; the transition from /s/ to /l/ in lease-lend is not a difficult one. Perhaps there was some bureaucratic standardization at play, but that’s speculation. Here is an example of lend-lease from the Albany, New York Times-Union of 22 December 1940:
Therein, these quarters predicted, the Executive will reaffirm his thesis that all aid to Britain is America’s best defense and ask the Congress to implement the policy by swift endorsement of the “lend-lease” method of help.
Lend-lease also became a verb, referring, often humorously, to the program. On 14 March 1941 the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran a headline over a photo that read “Navy ‘Lend-Leases’ a New Fleet.” The photo was in reference to a collection of accurate, scale-model ships that had been given to the U.S. Navy by a model-maker. And New York’s Socialist Call was critical of the program in a 26 July 1941 article with the headline “U.S. Lend-Leases But British Sell.”
A serious, non-headline use of the verb appeared in the Seattle Daily Times on 28 August 1941 in an article that claimed the U.S. Army’s training programs were antiquated and inadequate:
Since the bulk of our new equipment is being lend-leased to the British, with probable extensions in favor of the Russians and Chinese, it makes no sense whatever to have followed this desultory and immature policy of “Squads Right!” and kitchen-police duty.
There is ample excuse for not supplying our new Army with tanks, etc., needed to defend Suez, but there is no excuse for failure to give the new Army training in other appropriate fields of modern war.
How about anti-tank tactics?
Finally, there is this piece using the verb lend-leased that appeared in the British Columbia’s Vancouver Sun on 6 May 1941, another example of bias in framing. Although, I am not sure on which side it is biased. It could be an anti-feminist screed, or it could be poking fun at the patriarchy. From the distance of eighty-odd years, it is hard to tell:
The department for defending the rights of man has another case to protest, and it is in honor bound to keep on protesting until man is set back in his rightful position of authority in this feminist state of society. I recognize that such an ideal is like putting your shirt on a mud horse to win the Calcutta Derby, nevertheless cases of feminine injustice shall not pass while this column has breath left in its body.
The latest comes from Los Angeles, where the healthy old practice of trading your wife to your best friend for a consideration has been reversed. In this case (Brummel vs. Brummel) one Mrs. Lillian Brummel agreed to rent her husband on a year’s lease to one Norma in return for the sum of $10,000. Mrs. Brummel to obtain a Mexican divorce, Mr. Brummel to collect half the proceeds. The whole thing was put up to Mr. Brummel in a spirit of deceptive simplicity.”
“Remember, dear,” said Mrs. Brummel archly, “I am only loaning you for a year!”
Mr. Brummel was a gentleman and he believed her. He lend-leased himself without security, he did not even ask to be allowed to take an option on himself; he walked into the trap blindfold. Now Norma has turned round and divorced him on the hair-splitting pretext that Lillian’s Rio Grande divorce was not legal and Lillian refuses to come through with the 50 per cent.
Sources:
Associated Press. “Roosevelt’s Aid Plan to Get Early Action.” Atlanta Journal, 18 December 1940, 4. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
———. “U.S. Would ‘Lend’ Aid to Britain.” Jersey Journal (Jersey City, New Jersey), 18 December 1940. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Baird, Irene. “What Really Matters.” Vancouver Sun (British Columbia), 6 May 1941, 4. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Baker, Peter. “Biden Signs Bill to Allow Lending Arms to Ukraine.” New York Times, 9 May 2022.
Franklin, Jay. “Give the Army Boys Modern Equipment and There Will Be No Talk of Law Morale.” Seattle Daily Times, 28 August 1941, 6. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“More Aid to Britain, U.S. Answer to Nazi Threats.” Times-Union (Albany, New York), 22 December 1940, 8-A. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Navy ‘Lend-Leases’ a New Fleet.” Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 14 March 1941, 7. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. lend-lease, n., lease-lend, n.
“U.S. Lend-Leases but British Sell.” Socialist Call (New York), 26 July 1941, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Photo credit: Unknown photographer, U.S. government photo, National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives Identifier 197299. Public domain imag