in which he claimed that Lamont had authored the infamous Japanese response to deceive the world about the Mukden incident, which was used as a pretext for Japan's invasion of Manchuria. That defied the expressed position of US government and the League of Nations that Japan, not China, was the aggressor. Mexico Lamont was the chairman of the International Committee of Bankers on Mexico for which he successfully negotiated the De la Huerta-Lamont Treaty. He continued to chair the committee into the 1940s by a series of renegotiations of Mexico's foreign debt. Italy In 1926, Lamont, self-described as "something like a missionary" for Italian fascism, secured a $100 million loan for Benito Mussolini. Despite his early support, Lamont believed the Second Italo-Abyssinian War begun in 1935 was outrageous. On September 20, 1940, the fascist police shocked Lamont by arresting Giovanni Fummi, J.P. Morgan & Co.'s leading representative in Italy. Lamont worked to secure Fummi's release. Fummi was released on October 1 and went to Switzerland. Wall Street crash On Black Thursday in 1929, Lamont was acting head of J.P. Morgan & Co. Five days prior to the Crash, President Herbert Hoover had contacted Lamont with concerns about the rampant market manipulation by Wall Street insiders, and the systemic risk it presented to the stock market. Lamont reassured the President that there was no cause for concern, and no need for government intervention, saying "The future appears brilliant!" The market crashed the following Thursday. In an attempt to stop the panic, Lamont organized Wall Street firms to inject confidence back into the stock market through massive purchases of blue chip stocks. The effort failed, and stocks ultimately lost a quarter of their value that week. After the crash unfolded, the Senate Banking Committee found that J.P. Morgan (headed by Lamont), had maintained a "preferential stock list", to allow for liquidation of stocks during the crash at prices premium to actual market value. Politicians, including Calvin Coolidge, and family members of prominent bankers, were on the list. As chairman Following the reorganization of J.P. Morgan & Co. in 1943, Lamont was elected chairman of the board of directors, after Morgan Jr. died, becoming the first non Morgan after George Peabody to chair the bank. Charitable work Lamont became a generous benefactor of Harvard and Exeter once he had amassed a fortune, notably by funding the building of Lamont Library. At the end