810.796/3a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Peru (Poindexter)78
4. Within a year certain American aeronautical interests are planning, with the encouragement and approval of the Government of the United States, to interest themselves in the transportation of passengers and mail along the western coast of South America. For the success of their endeavors, it is important that the Government of Peru grant no exclusive concessions to foreign aeronautical interests to operate in Peru, and it is highly desirable that the Government of Peru grant no concessions at all to foreign interests for air transport in Peru until the American companies above mentioned have had the opportunity to develop their projects, inasmuch as any concessions to operate air lines in Peru might serve in effect to prevent American companies from establishing a coastal air line. As you know, the Government of the United States has always felt very strongly that the policy of the “open door” in such matters is best calculated to benefit all concerned.
If, in your opinion it is timely to do so, discuss this matter confidentially and informally with the President of Peru, and intimate to him that the Government of the United States would be pleased to see American aeronautical interests and Peru eventually joined in the development of aviation on the west coast of South America, and that the Government of the United States would appreciate it if the field would be kept open pending maturing and presentation of these projects. The American interests contemplate some form of operation which as now planned would associate the Naval Air Service of Peru in the work.
[Page 801]A bill to authorize the Government of the United States to give financial assistance to air lines to Central and South America is now pending in Congress.
- The same, mutatis mutandis, on the same date to the Minister in Ecuador as telegram No. 3.↩