800.796/716
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Mr. Michael Wright came in to see me at his request. He expressed horror at the fact that the entire text of the British aviation agenda had appeared in this morning’s Aviation Daily, along with a note that the Canadian agenda would be published in the Aviation Daily in a day or so.
I told him in confidence that my distinct impression was that Wayne Parrish52 had a pipeline to Beaverbrook’s office, and that I was pretty clear that the leak was in London.
P.S.—This statement probably may deprive us of some information from London. But I should infinitely prefer to be less well informed about the mind of Lord Beaverbrook’s office than to have the confidential files going to Beaverbrook (including our own) tossed out into the newspapers without advance knowledge.
P.S. (by Mr. Hickerson)—Mr. Hickerson told me after Mr. Wright departed that Pearson, Minister Counselor of the Canadian Embassy, had told him last night that Parrish had all of this material and would publish it in the next few days. Pearson added that Parrish also had a 23-page text of the Canadian draft international aviation agreement, and that for the present he proposed to publish a summary of it, and perhaps publish the text later on. Mr. Pearson volunteered the information that since no copies of this draft agreement had been sent to the American Government, since Parrish had recently [Page 410] returned from London where they had copies of the draft, and since Parrish had not been in touch with any Canadian officials who had access to the draft, this clearly meant to the Canadian Government that Parrish had obtained all of these texts in London.
- Editor of Aviation Daily.↩