The most Arctic route was the shortest and most direct route for loan and rental assistance to the USSR, although it was also the most dangerous, passing through German-occupied Norway. Approximately 3,964,000 tonnes of cargo were shipped on the Arctic route; 7% were lost, while 93% arrived safe and sound. [53] This represented about 23% of the total aid to the USSR during the war. Canada had its own version of Lend-Lease for the United Kingdom. [78] [79] Canada gave Britain $3.5 billion in grants during the war, plus an interest-free loan of $1 billion; Britain used this money to buy Canadian food and war supplies. [80] [81] [82] Canada lent Britain $1.2 billion on a long-term basis immediately after the war; these loans were repaid in full by the end of 2006. [83] It took nearly two years for America`s industrial potential to reach its peak, but Lend-Lease was a resounding success. Initially, this boosted the morale of America`s key allies, but it soon began to provide the supplies they needed to fight the war. War estimates, including the value of services and technology transfers, amounted to $43 billion to $50 billion (1945) in aid to America`s war allies. About $8 billion in “reverse” loan leases — mostly technology transfers and raw materials from the British and French empires — have returned to the United States. In selling the program to a skeptical and still somewhat isolationist American audience, Roosevelt compared it to lending a pipe to a neighbor whose house was on fire.
“What should I do in such a crisis?” the president asked the press. “I`m not saying that.” Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; You have to pay me $15 for it” – I don`t want $15 – I want my garden hose to be back after the fire is over. In April, he expanded the program by offering China lend-lease assistance for their war against the Japanese. The British quickly took advantage of the program and received more than $1 billion in aid in October 1941. Just as RAF operations against Germany and the invasion coasts in their current scope would not have been possible without the loan and lease agreements, so the day missions of the Eighth and Ninth United States Air Forces from Britain would not have been possible without the reverse loan and lease agreements. Our forts and liberators take off from huge air bases that are built, equipped and maintained under reverse loan and lease agreements, costing them hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of our pilots fly Spitfires built in England, many others fly American fighter jets powered by British Rolls Royce Merlin engines that were given to us by the British. And many of the supplies our Air Force needs are purchased from us for free through reverse rental. In fact, our armed forces in Britain, both on the ground and in the air, receive a third of all the supplies and equipment they currently need without payment from us in the form of reverse leases, Britain provides 90% of its medical care and, despite its food shortage, 20% of its food.
[76] The lend-lease program was originally developed to support the UK and China. The legislation also gave the president the power to extend aid to any nation whose defense he considered vital to that of the United States. By the end of the Second World War, 38 countries had received assistance under the lend-lease programme; among them were Britain, China and the Soviet Union. During the Lend-Lease debate, opponents tried to exclude the Soviet Union from the program. But American strategists knew that only the Red Army could defeat Hitler on the ground, and the loan and lease would help to do so. ==References=====External links===The aid was only about 7% of what the Soviet Union itself produced during the war, but it allowed the Soviets to concentrate their production in the most efficient way. Lend-Lease to Russia was much more than just a wartime aid program for Roosevelt. This could demonstrate the benefits of the American system and promote mutual trust, all key elements of Roosevelt`s postwar plans. So it was the president`s policy to give the Russians almost everything they demanded.
Misunderstandings and resentments arose when delivery requirements to other theaters made delivery impossible. The Cold War prevented a formal lend-lease agreement with the Russians until June 1990, when the Soviet system struck a repayment agreement (for non-military goods) on the verge of collapse. President Harry Truman ended the lend-lease program in 1945. The lend-lease policy, which was translated into legislation, stunned a Congress and a nation that were fully sympathetic to Britain`s cause. The emperor`s blank check to Austria-Hungary during World War I was a prickle compared to the Roosevelt white check from World War II. That justified my worst fears for America`s future, and it definitely calls the president belligerent. Repayment of assistance under the lend-lease program could be “in kind or in kind” as well as other measures agreed to by the US president. Part of the cost was offset by a reverse leasing program, in which allied countries gave about $8 billion in aid to U.S. troops abroad. Do we have freedom of expression and religion in this country? We have the freedom to say what everyone says and the freedom to worship if we don`t take our religion too seriously. But teachers who do not conform to the established canons of social thought lose their jobs. People called “radicals” have mysterious difficulties in renting rooms.
The workers` organizers are sometimes beaten and taken out of the city on a rail. Norman Thomas had some problems in Jersey City. And the girls of the American Revolution refused to let Marian Anderson sing in the nation`s capital in a building called Constitution Hall. In late 1941, the lend-lease policy was extended to other U.S. allies, including China and the Soviet Union. By the end of World War II, the United States would provide a total of about $50 billion in aid to more than 30 countries around the world, from the Free France Movement led by Charles de Gaulle and the governments-in-exile of Poland, the Netherlands and Norway to Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Paraguay and Peru. Larger-scale aid is expected to arrive soon. Roosevelt, who was re-elected president on November 5, almost immediately proposed plans to open up the “arsenal of democracy” to Britain. In March 1941, the cash-and-carry basis of british purchase was abolished in the United States and the principle of lend-lease was sanctioned by Congress. .