711.5112France/323
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Herrick)
Sir: The Department refers to your despatch No. 8494, dated April 3, 1928, in which is reported the existence of confusion with respect to the two Resolutions, approved at the Sixth International Conference of American States, relative to the condemnation of war as an instrument of national policy, and aggression. You request the Department’s instructions in the premises definitely clearing up this confusion.
In reply you are informed for such informal use as may seem necessary that the confusion to which you refer, and which is described in the clipping from the Journal des Debats that accompanied your [Page 72] despatch under acknowledgment, has arisen as a result of the action of the Cuban officials in altering the text of one of those Resolutions after the Final Act of the Conference in which it was contained had been signed.
The declarations that the American Republics desire to express that they condemn war as an instrument of national policy in their mutual relations and that they have the most fervent desire to contribute in every possible manner to the development of international means for the pacific settlement of conflicts between States, were contained in the two opening paragraphs of one of the Resolutions referred to when the Final Act was signed. A copy of the Final Act as signed was obtained at the time of signature by the American Delegation, and the Resolution in question appears in this copy with the two paragraphs included. The certified copies of the Final Act as distributed by the Cuban Government, however, show that the Resolution has been altered; and upon inquiry the Department has learned that the page containing this Resolution was removed from the Final Act after it was signed and a new page inserted containing a version wherein the two paragraphs are omitted. In explanation of this substitution the Cuban Government states that the two paragraphs mentioned are stylistically inadmissible inasmuch as they properly should be regarded as a preamble and not as a part of the Resolution itself.
This Government is unwilling to agree to this substitution, which was made without its knowledge and presumably without the knowledge of any of the signatory Governments, and is at present endeavoring to have the paragraphs reinstated.
Copies of translations of the two Resolutions are enclosed herewith for your information.69
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