MURDER PLOT IN MOSCOW?

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3442, 12 March 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

MURDER PLOT IN MOSCOW?

UNNAMED DIPLOMAT ACCUSED

PROVOKING WAR WITH JAPAN

A sensation was caused by a communique published in Moscow on Christmas Eve, accusing an unnamed foreign, diplomat in Moscow, of endeavouring to persuade an unidentified Soviet citizen to undertake a murderous attack on the Japanese Ambassador, M. Hirota, for the purpose of provoking a Soviet-Japanese war. The publication has caused an animated, but so far fruitless, guessing competition among foreigners regarding the identity of the diplomat, whose recall, according to the communique has been decided. The communique furnished two general clues; that the diplomat had been acquainted with the Soviet citizen for three years, and was interested in things antiquarian. The Japanese apparently think, that the diplomat held a minor post in the Embassy of a power maintaining good relations with Japan. However, all these rather vague clues have not permitted any local Sherlock Holmes to identify the d.plomat positively. It does not, seem likely that the incident will lead to any representations on Japan’s, part to the country, whose diplomat is involved. Members of the Japanese Embassy do not seem to feel that their lives are endangered as a result of the affair.