To assure both a still isolationist America and an uneasy British Conservative electorate , the 1940 'destroyers for bases' deal had to be consummated at a place both parties felt equally at home in : Halifax, Nova Scotia.
To one party, the province was a summer vacationland filled with friendly rustic fishermen (all with relatives in the Boston States ) who followed American baseball as avidly as any American boy ever did .
To the other party , Nova Scotia was one of Britain's oldest former colonies and with its Halifax South End elite still so strongly pro-British that half of its daughters seem married to British admirals !
So we have many press pictures of American and British sailors talking technical shop about the guns on the four-stacker destroyers, set against a backdrop of still mostly wooded Dartmouth, Nova Scotia across from Halifax's Dockyard.
Hard to offend anyone's pride in such a harmless place ....
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