Navy, Post and Customs Ca-Operate in Drive San Francisco, Dec. 24.
Three letters, addressed to Japanese and bearing Japanese stamps instead Of American ones, were seized prior to the departure of the Tatsuta Maru on Thursday in connection with what was alleged by the "San Francisco Chronicle" to be an espionage plot.
Disclosure of the seizure of the letters was made by Mr. Frank J. Hennessy, United States Attorney, Who said that Customs officials had seized the mysterious letters. He said he had mo idea of their contents. He also declared that he had no knowledge of the "Chronicle" story hinting that the seizure' was "re-puredly linked with a coast-wide espionage plot."
The "Chronicle" alleged that the letters dealt with operations of the Bremerton Navy yard. It said that the information leading to the seizure originated in Seattle. The paper asserted that the letters were entrusted io an "unidentified person aboard the vessel." It was known, the paper claimed, that in recent weeks "Customs and Postal authorities had redoubled their vigilance in connection with efforts to intercept letters of a suspicious nature addressed to undisclosed Far Eastern destinations."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.