had no oil, and if the Americans wanted to they could easily paralyze the Japanese economy with an oil embargo. Lothian then proposed that the United States together with Britain impose a total oil embargo on Japan, and that the British would blow up the oil wells in the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia) to prevent the Japanese from seizing them. Lothian finally dared his American guests to actually do what he had just suggested, saying here was a way to stop Japan. Morgenthau was much taken with the idea, through Lothian had only made this suggestion in a moment of anger, and the next day advised Roosevelt that the United States should impose an oil embargo on Japan. Through Roosevelt rejected the idea of an oil embargo for the time being following advice from the State Department that the Japanese might very well react to an oil embargo by invading the Netherlands East Indies to seize the oil wells, this was the origin of the oil embargo that the United States, the United Kingdom and the Dutch government-in-exile were to impose on Japan on 26 July 1941. In his report to London, Lothian mentioned he discussed the idea of an oil embargo on Japan, through he notably failed to mention it was he who brought up the idea, giving the highly misleading impression that it was Stimson and Morgenthau who first suggested an oil embargo. Churchill when he read the dispatch called the idea of an oil embargo on Japan "madness". Through Lothian tried to back away from an idea he himself had first floated, but his unwillingness to have British policy became too far removed from American policy made his resistance half-hearted. With regard to Japan, British policy was torn between a belief that being too confrontational would lead to the Japanese seizing the British colonies in Asia vs. a fear that being out of sync with American policy would cause tensions in Anglo-American relations at a time when Britain desperately needed the help of the United States against Germany. On 22 July 1940, Lothian advised the prime minister Winston Churchill that now was the best time to resume contacts with Roosevelt about the possibility of the United States supplying Britain with 50 destroyers. The American ambassador in London, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., had advised Churchill against making "emotional blackmail" against Roosevelt-a warning taken seriously given that Kennedy