Customer Reviews

Hard Bargain: How FDR Twisted Churchill's Arm, Evaded the Law, and Changed the Role of the American Presidency

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The very title "Hard Bargain" leads one to believe that the book is going to focus on the negotiations that took place between Roosevelt and Churchill to obtain the desired result. The subtitle of "How FDR Twisted Churchill's Arm, Evaded the Law, and Changed the Role of the American Presidency" begs for a somewhat different story.

In this book, Robert Shogan does a great job of explaining the deal that was struck between Roosevelt & Churchill to trade 50 aging US destroyers for leases on British posessions near the US. However, Shogan does not (in my opinion) do the subtitle of his book justice (with the exception of the "new" preface) until the very last chapter.

This book seems to paint FDR as an egocentric who was more concerned about his Presidency than the defense of Britain, and more concerned about keeping his nose clean in the eye of the public than consummating a deal that could greatly benefit the nation.

My recommendation is that anyone interested in the acts that brought about the idea of Lend-Lease read this book with a carefully inquisitive view about the author's treatment of FDR. Anyone interested in understanding how FDR really changed the Presidency to be the office held by Reagan, Bush, Clinton, or Bush, really should skip this book and find one more focused on politics than the history of a single deal between two nations.