800.00B Rubens, Adolph A./41: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union (Kirk)
40. Your despatch No. 2163 of March 9, 1939. Unless you perceive some reasons for not taking such action you are instructed to address a note along the following lines to the Commissar for Foreign Affairs.
“Acting under instructions received from my Government, I have the honor to state that according to such information as is available to my Government, an American citizen by the name of Mrs. Ruth Marie Rubens has been imprisoned in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the period of more than 15 months without having been accorded a trial. It may be added that for more than 12 months this Embassy has been unable to obtain any information regarding the health and general welfare of Mrs. Rubens although it has addressed numerous requests for such information to the Soviet authorities.
[Page 907]“In view of the foregoing I have been instructed by my Government to request that either Mrs. Rubens be released from prison and permitted to leave the Soviet Union or that she be granted without further delay a trial at which a diplomatic or consular representative of my Government may be present.
“My Government has instructed me further to request that the Soviet Government inform this Embassy without further delay regarding the present health and general welfare of Mrs. Rubens.”29
- The Chargé informed the Department in his telegram No. 189, April 17, 1939, that a note had been handed on that day to the Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Vladimir Petrovich Potemkin (800.00B Rubens, Adolph A./42)↩