893.00/9065: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 8—10:04 a.m.]
627. 1. There was received from Wai Chiao Pu yesterday evening, what I construe to be a merely pro forma protest against reinforcement by marines of our forces at Tientsin11 grounded upon the contention that the Boxer protocol entitles us to maintain only such forces as are actually necessary to keep open communications with the sea.
2. I welcome this protest as reaffirming the validity of the protocol even while setting up wholly untenable and actually unmeant interpretation of it. And while avoiding comment that it has been estimated that 50,000 men would be necessary for the purpose, I am replying12 that in the judgment of the American military and naval authorities reinforcements in question are, under existing circumstances, required for carrying out of the purposes set forth in the protocol.