the Allied cause. It was the sort of talk which earns Britain a reputation for fair dealing and open-minded thinking". In a speech to the graduating class at Yale University on 19 June 1940, Lothian stated: "The outcome of the grim struggle will affect you almost as much at it affects us. For if Hitler gets our fleet or destroys it, the whole foundation on which the security of both our countries has rested for 120 years will have disappeared". On 19 July 1940, Hitler in a speech put out peace feelers to Britain. Without seeking permission from the British government, Lothian asked Malcolm Lovell, an American Quaker in touch with the Germans, to inquire what terms were on offer to "a proud and unconquered nation". However, on 22 July, Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax delivered a speech rejecting the offer. Harold Nicolson wrote in his diary, "Lothian claims that he knows the peace terms and they are most satisfactory. I am glad to say that Halifax pays no attention to this". From 1937 onward, Britain had leaned in a pro-Chinese neutrality with regard to the Second Sino-Japanese War. In July 1940, when the Japanese submitted an ultimatum demanding that the British close the Burma Road under which arms were carried from India to China, Lothian supported accepting the Japanese demand. Churchill accepted the Japanese ultimatum and had the Burma road closed, through the British re-opened the Burma Road in October 1940. For a time, Lothian favored making an agreement with Japan under which Britain would recognize China as being within the Japanese sphere of influence and agree to supply Japan with oil in exchange for a Japanese promise not to align any more closer with Germany and Italy. Lothian had a reputation for being mercurial and changing his mind in accord with his mood. During a dinner party at the British embassy on 18 July 1940 with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. and the War Secretary Henry L. Stimson, Lothian became involved in a violent debate with the American guests criticising the British for closing the Burma road, leading Lothian to snap back that the Americans had offered Britain no support when the Japanese ultimatum arrived and that furthermore that 80% of all the oil used in Japan came from the United States, saying it was American oil companies who were supporting the Japanese war machine. Lothian stated that Japan