800.796/716
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Mr. Wright came in to see me at my request. I told him that I had nothing very definite in mind but that preliminary reports from [Page 400] London seemed to indicate that our suggestion for bilateral conversations with a number of countries, following their suggestion to bring in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, had not been meeting with much favor in London, and that there was some sentiment for a fairly large conference to be held straight off the bat. I said that I hoped it was clear to the British Government that our suggestion in regard to the Canadians had been due to the plain functional necessity of having Canada in at the beginning, in view of the fact that she was the greatest single corridor through which American overseas aviation would have to fly. We had no other thought in mind in including her, than to deal on this common-sense basis. Since it seemed as though this had created some trouble in London, I wanted to explore whether there was any way of bringing this to a swift and successful result.
Mr. Wright said that he could only think alond on the subject. They had been worried about the fact that the minute a cabinet minister such as Lord Beaverbrook was displaced (by which he meant brought away from London) a number of other people wanted to joint the party. He felt that one of two possibilities might be explored—either the exchange of views through the diplomatic channel which raised no questions as to invitations or the like; or the alternative, someone from here might go on a quiet trip to London, possibly via Ottawa. He thought that as ideas ran we could get up a declaration which would embody a very large measure of agreement, and this could take matters quite a bit forward. I agreed that the matter was very much worth considering, saying that our interest was merely that of getting things started off on as favorable a basis as possible.