800.796/684
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of British Commonwealth Affairs (Hickerson)
I talked to Mr. Atherton70a at 5:30 last night on the telephone. He and Mr. Clark71 had just come from a conversation with Norman Robertson.72 Mr. Robertson had talked at some length about the civil aviation conversations Wednesday and Thursday73 in Montreal.
Robertson said that C. D. Howe, the Canadian Minister of Transport, had remarked that this was the first time that he had ever participated in such conversations where they “got anywhere”. It had been agreed that there would be no agreements and that nothing would be reduced to writing. The Canadians did not even desire to have agreed minutes which might be taken to London by Messrs. Berle and Warner. Mr. Robertson said that he was confident that progress had been made in the conversations in Montreal and that he was hopeful [Page 431] that an agreement might be reached. He said that he was hopeful despite the fact that Canada wants the maximum regulation of international aviation and the United States the minimum.
Mr. Robertson referred to the possibility of an arrangement on civil aviation to be agreed to in principle by a number of important countries and to be placed into de facto effect before the signature of an agreement. This would enable a number of countries to avoid to some extent domestic political difficulties.
Mr. Robertson was fulsome in his praise of Ed Warner and stated that in his opinion Mr. Warner would be an ideal head of an international organization to deal with civil aviation.