800.796/655
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
The Australian Minister55a came in by direction of his Government to say that Dr. Evatt56 had received reports that the United States proposed to have an air conference with Great Britain and Canada. He was surprised that Australia should be excluded from such a conference, particularly in view of the fact that Australia and New Zealand had already stated, publicly, their considered views on aviation. Dr. Evatt thought it obvious that if Canada were present, the Australians should likewise be present.
They were likewise disturbed about the leakages of news. I said that we, too, were disturbed about news leakages, the more so because they were generally not correct.
I told him that we were somewhat surprised that anyone had attributed to us, even by way of unofficial reports, any intent to “exclude” the Commonwealth of Australia. We were endeavoring to work out a procedure for the preparatory work for a United Nations conference on air matters. We had never thought of excluding Australia either from the United Nations conference or from the preparatory work. Obviously the preparatory work had to be started somewhere; we could not start everywhere at once. Actually, we had both hoped and planned as soon as arrangements could be worked out, to have exploratory talks with substantially all the people interested, of course including Australia.
I likewise said that I thought on consideration Dr. Evatt would realize that there was a special geographic relationship existing between Canada and the United States through the simple physical fact of proximity, and through her position as a great aerial corridor. I thought Dr. Evatt would recognize that it would be natural for us to try to understand the North American situation as a necessary part of discussion with anyone else.
I added that we had not felt aggrieved because the Commonwealth countries had recently held a conference on air matters in London to which the United States was not invited, since we recognized that they, too, had to start somewhere. Though the political relationships were quite different, geographic relationships existed for us.
I hoped, accordingly, that the Minister would succeed in allaying any worries which might exist in Dr. Evatt’s mind.
[Page 413]The Minister said that the Prime Minister57 was coming here on his way to London, leaving Australia about the tenth of April; he hoped to clear up here methods of procedure of protocol on dealing with United Nations matters; that Curtin was an eminently reasonable man and that he thought that the whole process of United Nations procedure might be helped by his visit. I said I was very sure this was so. The problem that we had—which was of course recurrent—was simply how to get the necessary preparatory work started so that everyone had a chance to be heard.
The Minister added that the Australian view was very strongly in favor of internationalized aviation service; and he thought that Australia’s real interest was to present that view as cogently as it could to the United States at an early date. I said I was entirely sure that they would have every opportunity to do so.