Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, episode

131, Third Times, The Charm.

In Churchill's first telegram, as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, to the American

President, he requested some of the U.S.'s older destroyers, about 40 or so, be handed

over for everything from convoy duty to guarding the home island. At the time, this was just

one more thing for the President to consider and try to help Britain. But after he knew

his own country well enough to know that giving anything away or even selling these older

ships in a time of danger from Europe would be looked upon unkindly by the American people.

The cash would be welcomed, but not the resulting perceived vulnerability. Yet the President

also knew the businessmen of his country. The men of means throughout the U.S., the

New World, were always looking for ways to best the businessmen from the old world. If

somehow the giving over of the destroyers was possible, the only way it could happen

was if he convinced the American financiers and the congressmen in their pockets that

they were getting over on their British counterparts. Yet a seed of an idea was planted.

If a trade was improbable and Britain only had so much money, the word lease, or something

like it, would have to be raised. In fact, it had been in a letter to the President from

the U.S. Ambassador to France William Bullitt, and very few people were for leasing anything.

So between May and September of 1940, the various pieces of some kind of trade were floating

around Washington and London. The British needed more ships and America in some parts

wanted to help, while keeping herself safe. The Caribbean bases under British control

could be leased to the United States to protect them, but they could only be leased. Thanks

to a new law that said, territory in the area could not be transferred. Some non-interventionists

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