Mr. Snyder. No; there are none; no, sir. This sort of thing is down to the meat of the consular officer's job. That is, he is out on his own pretty much on something of this sort. He has got to use his judgment, and such experience as he has, and such commonsense as he has.
Mr. Dulles. He has got to know the law, too—he has to know the law and regulations.
Mr. Snyder. Oh, yes; if you don't know, the first thing you do is look up the regulation and the law and see what your basic requirement is.
In renunciation cases, it is a fairly simple matter—that is, for the consular officer, as far as the law is concerned. He doesn't have a large body of law. He has a specific law which tells him exactly what the conditions are for renouncing citizenship, and that is it.
Mr. Dulles. I differ from you a little bit, in the sense that I don't think if a young fellow 20 years old came in to me and wanted to renounce his citizenship, and if I were doing consular work, as I was at one time—I think I would feel that that was a pretty—rather a tough one to handle.
Mr. Snyder. I don't say it is not tough to handle. What I meant to say was that the legal basis under which the consul, or within which the consul has to operate——
Mr. Dulles. I will talk to Mr. Chayes about the problem of a minor doing that.
Mr. Snyder. From the consular's point of view it is a fairly simple one. It doesn't require a lot of legal research.
Mr. Chayes. Just to have that in the record at this point the statute provides very clearly on the age problem, section 351(b) of the act provides that below 18 years the act specified—the citizen shall not be deemed to have expatriated himself by the commission prior to his 18th birthday of any of the acts specified in paragraphs 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Mr. Dulles. That includes renunciation?