810.79611 Tri-Motors Safety Airways/154
The Assistant Secretary of State (White) to the Second Secretary of Embassy in France (Williamson)
Dear Harold: I have your letter of October first with regard to aviation matters. The situation seems to be about as follows:
The New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line asked the Department last April to help it get temporary permission to operate in the French West Indies and French Guiana and it was granted after a delay of about three months, during which time an unauthorized flight to Guadeloupe was made. In a letter of July 27,78 the New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line said that they thought they had the permission because of some direct negotiations they had been carrying on with the local officials.
The Pan American Airways asked the Department on August ninth to help them get permission to operate in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana, and on September sixth the French Embassy in Paris cabled that temporary permission was granted for an exploratory flight to the Islands but that the question with reference to French Guiana was further being studied. So far as we know there have been no direct negotiations between the Pan American Airways and local French officials. It is of course important for Pan American Airways to get into French Guiana because the company is actively pushing its plans to extend the line down the east coast and wishes to use Cayenne instead of Paramaribo in hopping off to Natal.
We learned from Mr. Trippe that the only conversations which he had in Paris were with the Embassy and the Air Ministry and that there was no “understanding” between him and the officials of the Aéropostale.
As for the New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line, we have, on one hand, a rather emphatic statement from Colonel Donovan that there is no connection between it and any foreign interests and, on the other hand a despatch of September fourth from the Consul at Trinidad78 reporting that when Colonel O’Neill, President of the New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line, was there he mentioned a working agreement between his company and the Compagnie Generale Aéropostale. The [Page 628] Embassy’s telegram No. 483 of October 19, 2 p.m. would make it seem evident that there is at present no agreement between the French Aéropostale and either the New York, Rio and Buenos Aires Line or the Pan American Airways. It is also evident that the French Government is proposing an impossible condition because neither line can do anything to bind the other and neither can say in advance that it will be able, within two months, to reach an accord of the kind mentioned.
I personally feel that the attitude of the French Government in this matter is most unfriendly and unjustifiable. Whenever French aviators have requested authorization to fly over American territory, the permission has been promptly accorded. A few months ago Count de Sibour landed from a steamer at a Pacific port and a local inspector of the Department of Commerce immediately gave him permission to fly across the United States. Similar permission was also given immediately to the crew of the French plane “Yellow Bird”. Neither of these requests came through the French Government but were made direct. The only case that I have been able to find on record of the French Government making a request was when Costes and Lebrix wished to fly over and land in the Panamá Canal Zone. The request was received by us on December 8, 1927 and, although Panamá is a military reservation of the highest importance and the regulations for non-military flying over the Canal Zone had not yet been drawn up and promulgated, the desired permission was granted on January 17, 1928. There has certainly been no undue delay in granting any French request such as American requests have met with from the French Government. Even the permissions for Americans to fly over French territory, which are now in force, are only temporary so there is no assurance what will happen when they expire or that future requests will get any better treatment.
On June 12 the Department transmitted a note to the French Embassy here proposing an agreement similar to the one under consideration with Canada. The French Embassy acknowledged the receipt of the note but has not yet answered the proposal. A copy of this note was sent to your Embassy with instruction No. 4245 of September 17.81 If the French Government will accept this arrangement, all will be well. It is purely obstruction and perhaps bad faith on the part of the French to make such a proposal as they transmitted in the Embassy’s telegram No. 483 of October 19, 2 p.m. No American company can make an agreement on behalf of its rival any more than the French Aéropostale can make such an agreement on behalf of one of its French rivals. The important thing is to have agreements between the Governments by which we will let the Aéropostale, or any [Page 629] other French companies, come into Panamá and the United States in return for permission for American companies to fly across French territory.
In any conversations officials of the Embassy may have with the Foreign Office they might press the proposal made in the note of June 12 to the French Embassy here. If it is accepted, the present difficulty will be removed, and if it is not going to be accepted, it will be well to know it so that when the next French aviator asks for permission to fly over American territory his application can be held up and he can be told exactly why it is being held up. In this connection, see the Department’s instruction to the American Diplomatic Missions concerned82 printed on page 29 of the Monthly Political Report for July, 1929.
With all good wishes [etc.]