500.A15A4 Steering Committee/128: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the American Delegate (Wilson)
232. Your 432, November 3, 10 p.m. The Department realizes that in the absence of recent instructions on this point you were entirely justified in your speech on October 6 in assuming that it was desired that you follow the lines laid down in previous instructions. The Department has, however, made sufficient further study of the constitutional question involved so that it no longer feels that we would be justified in maintaining before the Conference that the Federal Government for constitutional reasons would be unable to exercise supervision and control of the general character of that contemplated in Articles 3 and 4 of the draft convention of 1929. As in the case of the question of prohibition of the manufacture of prohibited weapons no positive assurance can be given in the absence of a court ruling on the specific point but we no longer feel justified in pressing the constitutional objection.
In view of our change of position on this point, it is hoped that there will still be time to request the rapporteur to delete from the report the section quoted in your telegram under reference.
Should some explanation of our change in position be necessary you might refer to the difficulty of constitutional interpretation in respect to questions on which the courts have not specifically ruled.
In future discussion of this and related questions, you should proceed entirely upon the ground of policy, avoiding any reference to constitutional questions. As to whether, as a matter of policy, we would be prepared to accept provisions for Federal supervision and [Page 364] control of the character contemplated in Articles 3 and 4 of the draft convention, we should prefer to postpone taking any definite position at the present time, and would be glad to receive a report from you on the development of opinion in the Committee.