811.0141 Phoenix Group/79½
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Moffat)
| Participants: | The President, |
| Counselor of the State Department, | |
| Admiral Leahy, | |
| Dr. Gruening, | |
| Mr. Pierrepont Moffat. |
Judge Moore gave a brief account to the President of developments regarding the Pacific Islands during the past six weeks. It had become clear that the British were anxious to join in concurrent discussions the different subjects of the status of the Pacific Islands and the question of trans-Pacific aviation. The goal for which they were playing was landing rights in Hawaii. Army, Navy, Interior and State Departments all concurred that it would be a mistake to let any foreign country have landing rights in Hawaii, partly for reasons of national defense and partly because we would thereby be destroying our present monopoly of trans-Pacific flights. We recognized that the New Zealanders would probably cancel the present Pan American contract, but even this seemed preferable to surrendering our present tremendous advantage without an adequate quid pro quo. We also pointed out that the Pan American were giving a great amount of thought to continuing their flight to New Caledonia. For this Canton Island was the necessary key. In fact, of all the islands it seemed to be the most useful for aviation purposes. In that case, the President suggested that we let matters lie, for the present, with the British.
[Page 97]Meanwhile, he suggested that we might wish to propose to the French to swap landing rights in the Marquesas for landing rights in Pago Pago. This would enable us to develop a trans-Pacific air service that would run far south of Hawaii, and would not involve a single hop of more than 2,800 miles. He thought such a proposition had better be made by Bill Bullitt87 in Paris rather than through the French Ambassador here. Meanwhile it should be kept very confidential, although the Geographer might look up the most useful islands in the Marquesas group for our purposes.
In response to a question from Judge Moore, the President said that he thought we should not be unduly definite with the British, though we might make it clear (a) that we did not desire to have concurrent discussions on the two points they raised; (b) that the question of landing rights in Hawaii presented serious difficulties; and (c) that the administrative arrangements we might come to with regard to Canton and Enderbury Islands were without prejudice to such claims as we might have to other islands in the Pacific which had not yet come under discussion.
- William C. Bullitt, Ambassador to France. At that time Mr. Bullitt was on leave in the United States.↩