800.796/705
Memorandum of Conversation, by Mr. J. Graham Parsons, of the Division of British Commonwealth Affairs
Mr. Reid76a said that the Embassy had received a very full digest of the recent air talks at Montreal, prepared by John Baldwin. In reply to my query as to how he viewed the results of the talks, he evinced no little discouragement (Mr. Reid is probably the principal author of the Canadian draft convention).
Mr. Reid said that at least the talks had cleared the air and had removed some misconceptions as to the Canadian draft convention. He was disappointed to see so great a gulf between the Canadian and American position however, and characterized the American memorandum of views on civil aviation as “meager”. He said that our memorandum virtually went back to the 1929 position.77 The US apparently had little more to suggest than the adoption of the principle of freedom of air transit. As it seemed to him, this principle, tied to so little else in the way of an international frame-work, offered nothing to anyone else. He doubted if we would get more support now than the same position obtained in 1929. If for domestic reasons the US had to accept international air organization through evolutionary process, Canada, he felt, would have to throw up its hands and abandon hope. It was now or after the next war; a half-way decision on international air aviation organization would be no good.
Mr. Reid closed by saying that he hoped that the London talks developed something constructive.
- Escott Reid, First Secretary of the Canadian Embassy.↩
- For documentation on American participation in the extraordinary session of the International Commission for Air Navigation at Paris, June 10–15, 1929, to revise the convention of October 13, 1919, see Foreign Relations, 1929, vol. i, pp. 489 ff.↩