I'm reading Brian Garfield's The Thousand Mile War, about WW2 in Alaska. He mentioned that there was a red scare in Washington because of the M-R Pact. Now I'm at the chapter about the ALSIB - Alaska Siberia Lend-Lease route.
"The lend-lease bill was signed into law on March 11, 1941; six weeks later, Hitler's troops had marched across the Russian border, and the United States suddenly had a new and hungry ally. Red scares were forgotten..."
So my question is multiple parts. How big was that first red scare between the signing of the Pact between Germany and Russia, and why did the US offer lend-lease so long before the the USSR got invaded?
That didn't happen. The Soviets didn't get any Lend-Lease aid prior to the German invasion.
The Lend-Lease Act was signed in March 1941. It gave Roosevelt enormous discretion as to what could be sold or given and who it could be sold or given to. The bill stated the president had the power to: "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government any defense article." Although he needed Congress to authorize more money for the program as it got larger.
In March 1941, that meant the British. FDR had waged a long public relations battle to get aid for Britain, so the public was generally supportive of Lend-Lease for Britian, gradual reversal from 1930s isolationism. Still, even Lend-Lease aid for Britain didn't have unanimous public support. Most Republicans in Congress voted against the bill. The GOP was generally isolationist at the era and opposed giving the Roosevelt administration even more unchecked authority. A month later, the Nationalist government of China was brought into Lend-Lease. Again, PR work by FDR and a very vocal pro-China lobby by prominent Chinese figures like T.V. Soong had helped pave the way for aid to China.
Getting Lend-Lease for the Russians didn't come until later and it was not as widely-supported. The Soviet Union didn't become part of Lend-Lease until after the German invasion of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941. After a massive and bitter debate, Congress approved giving aid to Russia on November 7.
To give you an idea of Congressional feelings about Russia at the time, here's what one senator said in 1941: "If we see that Germany is winning the war, we ought to help Russia; and if that Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany, and in that way let them kill as many as possible..." Who was the senator? Harry Truman.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-approves-lend-lease-aid-to-the-ussr http://movies2.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0508.html