will still not have been reached.... War between the United States and Japan should be avoided...." Additionally, in a 21 November 1941 memo, Brigadier Leonard T. Gerow, head of Army War Plans, stated, "one of our present major objectives [is] the avoidance of war with Japan...[and to] insure continuance of material assistance to the British." He concluded, "[I]t is of grave importance to our war effort in Europe..." Furthermore, Churchill himself, in a 15 May 1940 telegram, said he hoped a U.S. commitment to aid Britain would "quiet" Japan, following with a 4 October message requesting a USN courtesy visit to Singapore aimed at "preventing the spreading of the war" And Stark's own Plan Dog expressly stated, "Any strength that we might send to the Far East would...reduce the force of our blows against Germany..." Roosevelt could scarcely have been ignorant of Stark's views, and war with Japan was clearly contrary to Roosevelt's express wish to aid Britain. Oliver Lyttelton, the British Minister of War Production, said, "... Japan was provoked into attacking the Americans at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history ever to say that America was forced into the war. Everyone knows where American sympathies were. It is incorrect to say that America was truly neutral even before America came into the war on an all-out basis." How this demonstrates anything with regard to Japan is unclear. Rather, it refers to other aid to Britain. Lend-Lease, enacted in March 1941, informally declared the end of American neutrality in favor of the Allies by agreeing to supply Allied nations with war materials. In addition, Roosevelt authorized a so-called Neutrality Patrol, which would protect the merchantmen of one nation, namely Britain, from attack by another, Germany. This made shipping legitimate target of attack by submarine. Furthermore, Roosevelt ordered U.S. destroyers to report U-boats, then later authorized them to "shoot on sight". This made the U.S. a de facto belligerent. None was the act of a disinterested neutral, while all are unquestionably of assistance to Britain. When considering information like this as a point for or against, the reader must keep in mind questions such as: was this official privy to information about the U.S. government? Did he have communications with high-level administration figures such as President Roosevelt or Ambassador Joseph Grew? Is this just a strongly held personal opinion? Or were there measures justifying this view? If Britain,