810.79611 Pan American Airways, Inc./569: Telegram
The Ambassador in Chile (Culbertson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 28—5:30 p.m.]
122. My 120, July 25, and Department’s 85, July 26. The proposed meeting at Lima is a part of a plan for international air service collaboration by Faucett of Peru, Scadta of Colombia, the Bolivian Lloyd Aerial (German controlled), and the Chilean military air service. The combination is obviously directed against the Pan American Airways. Active support is being given to the plan by Curtiss Company through the Faucett Company. I have also reason to believe that the New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires Company and allied interests are working with the French Latécoère Company on an air service across the Andes and then northward so as to connect [Page 572] with the group which will try to elaborate program in Lima. Neither the German nor the French interests in this proposed combination acting alone or together could impair the efficiency of the international service of the Pan American operated under contract with the United States Post Office, but if aided by powerful American interests the program may succeed and the American line be destroyed to the profit of foreign aviation interests.
The Government of Chile is more liberally inclined toward a company like the Latécoère Company, which asks merely to deliver mail and passengers at particular points, than toward the Pan American which asks to carry and deliver mail within Chile. Therefore my recommendation for cooperation between the Pan American and Chilean national service. …