CHURCHILL, Winston S.

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Typed letter signed, to Lord Beaverbrook, regarding the American "cash and carry" policy. In the months before the Second World War, Churchill writes to the press magnate Lord Beaverbrook about renewing "cash and carry", essential for Britain's access to American supplies in wartime."Thank you for sending me the cuttings about Mr. Baruch, which I am keeping a little longer, as I am going to ask him about the subject". The American financier Bernard Baruch was a close friend of Churchill. Churchill writes, "He is the author of the 'cash and carry' idea. This amendment of the Neutrality Act would certainly be highly beneficial to us".The Neutrality Acts of the 1930s prohibited the United States from supplying belligerent nations with war material. The "cash and carry" provision, engineered by Baruch in 1937, allowed the sale of goods if buyers paid cash and transported the material themselves. It expired in May 1939, and Roosevelt and Baruch sought its renewal, especially after Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia in March.Beaverbrook was a formidable figure in British politics and a close ally of Churchill, providing him crucial press support throughout his career; Churchill appointed him Minister of Aircraft Production during the Second World War. Both he and Churchill were keen to ensure "cash and carry" remained in force, aware that in the coming war Britain's survival would depend heavily on access to American industrial power before the United States became a belligerent

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