811.3361/12–3045: Telegram
The Consul General at Vladivostok (Clubb) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:39 p.m.]
139. The following telegram has been sent to Moscow as 272:
Upon arrival here last night of weather group from Khabarovsk comprising US Naval personnel on official mission, Soviet representatives [Page 937] NKVD insisted on inspection their baggage despite protests Assistant Naval Attaché Roullard.37
Embassy may consider that this exercise of local jurisdiction over an organized American military unit to be a breach of recognized international procedure meriting protest at Moscow. American position made the stronger by failure Soviet agents discover more than Russian books obtainable any bookstore and a few ruble notes.38
Roullard is reporting matter separately.
- Comdr. George D. Roullard, at Vladivostok. The naval vessel, U. S. S. Starr, had arrived in the port of Vladivostok on December 27, 1945, for the purpose of evacuating the personnel of the United States Navy Weather Central of Khabarovsk.↩
- In telegram 67, January 8, 1946, 3 p.m., from Moscow, Chargé Kennan reported that he had addressed a letter to the Chief of Protocol of the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, Fedor Fedorovich Molochkov, and added: “In this letter I have stated that I could not find this action consistent with ordinary requirements of international courtesy either with respect to personnel of weather group involved or to US Assistant Naval Attaché and that I was informing my Government in that sense.” (811.3361/1–846)↩