841.796/7–3044
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Over the weekend I had an opportunity to discuss the general situation on aviation with Mr. Richard Law and Lord Beaverbrook. I [Page 515] said that we were aware that the British airlines, and in particular the B.O.A.C., were making every effort to move out, to acquire landing rights, and to develop commercial intercourse. This was not the declared policy of the British Government, but the fact was that the B.O.A.C., under the guise of the Army Transport, had been doing just this. There was no dissent from this statement. I said that in view of the strong political feeling in England along this line, it seemed that the British Government might have difficulty in checking the process—indeed had not been able to do so thus far. Equally, our own commercial lines disliked the position in which they found themselves, that they could not move out; our Air Transport Command was a purely temporary matter and would vanish at the end of the war. We were therefore in danger of a bad situation arising which might create irritation. On the other hand, if we merely threw the situation wide open, there would be at once an unseemly scramble for considerations, etc., even before the war ended.
Accordingly I wondered whether the thing to do was not [sic] to have an understanding that both sides would move out in an orderly fashion, obtaining landing rights along the lines of the routes they wanted, but in no case attempting to exclude the other or prejudice the position of the other. The British already knew the routes we wanted, because the Civil Aeronautics Board had announced them some weeks ago and thus placed their cards on the table. We had a general idea but not a detailed idea of the British routes.
I said that if this plan were considered, each of us ought to keep the other informed of what they were doing and the friendliest basis ought to prevail. We knew that the British wanted landing rights in Brazil; and we did not propose to try to prevent them. They knew that we wanted landing rights in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and I assumed that they would not try to prevent us either.
Both gentlemen thought this was not a bad idea and I gathered they were wiring London on the point.
I then raised the question of the proposed British re-purchase of Taca—the now American-controlled group of local companies which runs from Central America around the Caribbean Sea. I said that in the prevailing state of American public opinion, the purchase of a collection of lines designed for local service would probably create a good deal of a furor. The President had indicated his hope that no country would undertake to dominate the internal air transport of another country (of course, except former Axis powers). Following his directive, we therefore were not encouraging our people to buy into European local systems, but were concentrating on the long, through lines which were really international in character. Even in South America our policy was to try to help the local countries build up their own international systems—though, of course, there were [Page 516] cases in which such arrangements were impossible because the country was unable to organize its own aviation.
Mr. Law, who obviously was giving the matter more concentrated thought, said he wanted to think this over likewise. I gathered the idea appealed to him.