811.91251G/15
The American Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs (Matsuoka)
Excellency: Acting under instructions from my Government, I have the honor formally to protest against the actions of the Japanese military at Hanoi who recently took into custody Mr. Robert W. Rinden, American Vice Consul, and the United Press correspondent, Mr. Melville Jacoby.
My Government considers that the employment of force and the threat of arms against an American official and the individual accompanying him were especially flagrant. I am constrained to recall that it has been necessary for my Government to point out to Your Excellency’s Government, in connection with a deplorably large number of incidents involving American nationals and the Japanese military in China, that if the Japanese Government were to issue strict and effective instructions that American citizens should be treated with civility by the Japanese military, incidents of the character described above would not occur.
[Page 705]With reference to the incident which is the subject of the present note, I wish to invite the particular attention of Your Excellency to the fact that Mr. Rinden and his companion were threatened with rifles which were pointed at them, and were kept in custody by Japanese soldiers, and that the Japanese soldiers did not withdraw until the arrival of the French authorities, despite the fact that Mr. Rinden identified himself as an American Vice Consul to a Japanese officer who spoke and understood English.
My Government emphatically protests this unwarranted and illegal action by Japanese soldiers in taking into custody an official of the United States, who in connection with his official duties was engaged upon legitimate activities, and his companion who was also an American citizen.
I avail myself [etc.]