Lend-Lease Act

Audience

While the text itself was addressed to a rather narrow audience of government officials in Washington, the actions it authorized were of great interest to millions of people in America and around the globe. Most of those who read the document will conclude that because of its dense, formal, technical language, the act was not written for the general public. In a narrow sense, the act as a law spoke mainly to officials in the executive branch. These included not only the president, whose powers and responsibilities under the law were described in some detail, but also the offices of the secretary of the navy, the secretary of war, the chief of staff of the army, and the chief of naval operations. Before it became law, however, the text was aimed mainly at members of Congress whose support wasrequired for its passage.

There was also a much wider group of “readers” of the document, many of whom never read the full text but understood its essentials from newspaper headlines and word of mouth. This audience included the American public, which had closely followed the progress of the bill and understood its significance, and the leaders and populations of foreign countries, who knew that the act dramatically changed the dynamics of the global conflict even if it did not include a formal declaration of war.