Foreign Relations of the United States, Conferences at Washington and Quebec, 1943

Hull Papers

Prime Minister Churchill to President Roosevelt ¹

On the Train, Quebec, [September 13, 1943.]

Civil Aviation

Mr. President.

1. I have told our Government that you made no objection when I said that we intended to hold a preliminary Commonwealth meeting in London or in Canada, and that this would be only to focus our own British Commonwealth ideas for subsequent discussion with the United States Government.

2. I said that, about the proposed International Conference, you thought it might wait till the matter had been discussed at the forthcoming tripartite Anglo-Soviet-American meetings.

3. I mentioned that your preliminary view comprised the following:

(i) There should be private ownership.

(ii) Key points should be available for international use on a reciprocal basis.

(iii) Internal traffic should be reserved to internal companies.

(iv) Government support may be required on an international basis for certain non-paying routes.²

W[inston] S C[hurchill]

13.9.43

1. Roosevelt forwarded this paper to Hull on September 28, 1943.
2. Cf. Roosevelt’s discussion of aviation policy at his press conference, October 1, 1943, as reported in New York Times, October 2, 1943, reprinted in Leland M. Goodrich and Marie J. Carroll, eds., Documents on American Foreign Relations, vol. vi (July 1943–June 1944) (Boston, 1945), pp. 399–401. See Foreign Relations, The Conferences at Cairo and Tehran, 1943, pp. 177–179, for Roosevelt’s oral directives of November 10, 1943, on aviation policy, and for his reference to a discussion of this subject with Churchill at the First Quebec Conference.