Excerpts from the Press Conference
05/21/1942
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu...
It is fruitless to try to place the blame for this situation on one particular Nation or on another.
This year we give as well in necessity—necessity for our own.
The Nazi war machine has stripped them of raw materials and machine tools and trucks and locomotives.
I hereby direct the Secretary of the Navy to terminate and relinquish, on or before the fifteenth day following the date...