811.0141 Phoenix Group/64: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Kennedy )
140. Your 286, April 6, 8 p.m. Lindsay called at the Department yesterday obviously perturbed about Interior’s license to Pan American Airways to use Canton Island as a base. We assured him that the license had not been issued as a means of asserting pressure but solely to enable Pan American to make use of the Island. The license was revocable. We saw ourselves confronted by two possible alternatives, either not to use the Island in any way during such period as discussions were in progress or for both the British and ourselves to feel free to use it, without prejudice to any ultimate agreement to be reached. Of the two alternatives we very much preferred the latter. We think we succeeded in allaying Lindsay’s preoccupations.
We have not been able as yet to consult the President regarding the British note of March 30th. We had assumed that the President’s proposal for a joint trust with equal facilities for each party related to all islands to which the two Governments had conflicting claims and not merely Canton and Enderbury, as was assumed in the British note. Furthermore, the British are now trying to tie up discussion of the administration of the Islands with a different question, namely, the establishment of non-competitive trans-Pacific air services possessing “joint terminal facilities”. Are we right in the assumption that this is a proposal for British aviation to get into Hawaii?
Thus, if our general understanding is correct it would seem as though the British were asking us to postpone making any use of the Islands until final agreement is reached regarding their administration, and that such agreement in turn could not be reached until the much broader and more difficult subject of trans-Pacific aviation (possibly including a proposal regarding Hawaii) was also settled. This would in effect delay any use of the Islands for many weeks, not to say months, which was certainly not within the spirit of our original suggestions for joint use.