Silent Kopp

Since his arrival in Tokyo, Bolshevik Ambassador Victor L. Kopp has been "kopping it" on all sides.

His speech at Harbin describing the Jappo-Russian treaty as a "scrap of paper" (TIME, May 4) was naturally not well received in Japan and the ensuing harsh criticism was not mitigated by the fact that the Bolshevik Ambassador maintained a seemingly studied silence.

In short he had declared, or so the Nippon Dempo News Service said, that he would work in Japan to further the Bolshevik cause of world revolution by all the means at his disposition and, paradoxically, to use Japan as a lever to force U. S. recognition of Russia.

Some Japanese asserted that the despatch was false, was an attempt on the part of the White Russians to embarrass Kopp; some said that the Ambassador made the speech as a sop to his Red audience and never expected it to go further; others declared that the Opposition had "framed" the whole incident in order to discredit the Kato Government which recognized Russia (TIME, Feb. 2) ; still others were convinced of the authority of the report.

The Bolshevik Embassy denied the truth of the statements credited to Kopp and a Russian news agency produced a copy of his speech which was extremely mild in tone; but Victor L. Kopp said not a word, refused to see anybody.