On September 2, 1940, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the transfer of 50 World War I-era U.S. destroyers to Britain, in exchange for 99-year, rent-free leases of several British bases in the Western Hemisphere. In a message to Congress, the President hyperbolically described the agreement as an "epochal and far-reaching act of preparation for continental defense in the face of grave danger . . . the most important action in the reinforcement of our national defense that has been taken since the Louisiana Purchase."
In recent years, the work of Louis Pérez (Cuba between Empires; Cuba after the Platt Amendment) has dominated the historiography of the U.S.-Spanish-Cuban War. In Pérez's telling, the Cuban revolutionaries, committed to achieving comprehensive social and economic reform on the island, were on the verge of independence-before the United States sent troops to uphold U.S. economic and cultural influence in Cuba.