Press Release Issued by the Department of State on November 23, 194035
The American Consul at Hanoi, Charles S. Seed, 2d, has reported that Vice Consul Robert W. Rinden, acting under Mr. Reed’s instructions, on November 21 drove, in company with a correspondent of the [Page 704] United Press, Melville Jacoby, by a warehouse at Haiphong where it was reported that Japanese soldiers were encamped under an American flag. The newspaper correspondent, who was stated to possess a photographer’s permit issued by the appropriate authorities, took some pictures of the property in question. The car in which Vice Consul Rinden and Mr. Jacoby were riding was subsequently pursued and stopped by Japanese soldiers, who attempted to force them out of the car and to seize the correspondent’s camera. The Vice Consul identified himself to an English-speaking Japanese army officer, but the Vice Consul and Mr. Jacoby were taken into the center of Haiphong under a guard of Japanese soldiers, who prevented them from entering the Hotel Europe by stopping them on the sidewalk, forming a semicircle, and training their rifles upon them. Subsequently French officials arrived and, after discussion between those officials and the Japanese, the Japanese guard withdrew and the two Americans were taken, apparently by French authorities, to French military headquarters. Vice Consul Rinden and Mr. Jacoby returned to Hanoi on the night of November 21.
Consul Reed reported that he has lodged a protest in the matter with the Governor General of French Indochina and with the Japanese Consul General at Hanoi.
The Department is telegraphing appropriate American officials to make further representations in regard to this matter.
- Reprinted from Department of State, Bulletin, November 23, 1940 (vol. iii, No. 74), p. 453.↩