Antedating of "Bargaining Chip"

[Shapiro, Fred]

bargaining chip (OED 1965)

One memo on the admittedly "fantastic and complicated" problem warns that the United States must begin negotiations with London for such an agreement before Uncle Sam exhausts his Lend-Lease funds or enters the war more formally and actively.  Washington, it is pointed out, must overcome expected British opposition to this pooling arrangement while we have these "bargaining chips" in our hands.
     Albuquerque Journal, Nov. 26, 1941, p. 8

Fred Shapiro

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