NND Project Number: NND 63316. By: NWD Date: 2011
TOP SECRET
The interest of the Department of Defense in the legal conclusions summarized above would appear to be far less than that of the State end Justice Departments. So long as the action taken is broad enough in scope, to permit the Department of Defense to carry out the responsibilities which will be assigned to it, there would appear to be no rounds for objecting to the conclusions offered. This study concludes that the wartime power of the President may be exercised in e state of emergency and that the proposed Resolution provides a political solution of the constitutional question which is broad enough to cover a possible extension of hostilities. These are the principal points of concern to the Defense Department and since I agree with these conclusions and also, with the practical conclusion regarding the Red Cross, Prisoner-of-War, and related conventions, it seems to me that there is no reason for this Department to challenge the conclusions of the memorandum.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, I venture to offer two comments on the general problem presented. First, it seems to me that the term "intervention" might just as well be avoided altogether. It now appears prominently throughout the Department of Justice study, but not in the draft resolution. Tho political connotations of the word are, as you know, the subject of much anti-American comment in Central and South America. Moreover, apart from this, as a matter of technical international law the word implies a dictatorial[1] interference in tho affairs of another state. I understand there is no thought of going into Indochina except on tho basis of an invitation on the part of the lawful recognized government. Our action would not, therefore, be "intervention" in the strict sense of the term as used in international law.
I recognize that tho word "intervention" does not now appear in the text of the draft Joint Resolution and it seems to me, for the reasons sot forth above, that it should not appear, either there or in the public declarations of Administration spokesmen.
- ↑ Thus Professor Oppenheim states: "But it must be emphasized that intervention proper is always dictatorial interference, not interference pure and simple. Therefore intervention must neither be confused with good offices, nor with mediation, nor with intercession, nor with co-operation, because none of these imply a dictatorial interference. Thus, for example, in 1826, at the request of the Portuguese Government, Great Britain sent troops to Portugal in order to assist that Government against a threatening revolution on the part of followers of Don Miguel; ard in 1849, at the request of Austria, Russia sent troops into Hungary to assist Austria in suppressing tho Hungarian revolt." I. Oppenheim, International Law (1949) 273.
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