800.796/5–1344
The Counselor of the British Embassy (Wright) to the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Washington, 13 May,
1944.
Dear Mr. Berle: You may care to have the following
extracts, which have been telegraphed to us, from the statement on Civil
Aviation made by Lord Beaverbrook in the House of Lords on May 10th.
Yours sincerely,
[Enclosure]
Extract From Telegram Received From the Foreign
Office, London, on May 12, 1944
1. Anglo-American Talks.
“We have taken another step forward since my last account to the House.
We have had a conference with Mr. Berle and his colleagues representing
the Government of the United States. It was a most excellent meeting.
The deliberations have taken us very far along the road to agreement
between the two governments. The United States Delegation proposed that
we should go forward to an International Conference on the following
lines: There should be an International Authority to lay down standards
for technical requirements and for
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rights of air carriage and to interchange
information according to the American plan. The proposed authority would
start on a nonexecutive basis with no power or means of enforcing its
regulations at least during the interim period.
The United Kingdom Delegation presented for consideration the Canadian
Draft Convention. This Convention lays down a detailed plan for an
International Regulatory Authority with powers of
enforcement. Its provisions include the allocation of
frequencies of air services and national quotas for international air
traffic.
This Canadian proposal was considered by the Americans to be too rigid as
a basis for talks at the proposed International Conference. After
discussion it was agreed therefore that we should go forward to the
conference on the basis of proposals for international handling of Civil
Aviation agreed at the Commonwealth conversations. These proposals are
in some respects open to varying interpretations and were considered by
the Americans to be flexible enough to provide a more satisfactory basis
for an International Conference. The broad purpose would be to draw up
an International Convention on Air Navigation to be implemented by an
International Transport Organisation which would evolve standards, seek
to eliminate uneconomic competition, work out for each nation an
equitable participation in world air transport and maintain a broad
equilibrium between air transport capacity and traffic on these general
principles. The United States and Great Britain are in agreement that
the powers of enforcement of the provisions are open to further
discussion.”
2. Bases.
“Our government has no desire to exclude aircraft of other nations. We
demand no prescriptive right to the use of airfields for ourselves,
rather do we mean to use them for the purpose of steadily developing
Civil Aviation throughout the world. Here it must be said that the bases
are few in number at which any great volume of traffic can be collected.
Just the same, it will be necessary to have international agreement on
traffic regulations and arrangements. This is an essential condition of
future developments.”
3. Supply of Transport
Aircraft.
“Mr. Berle has assured us most generously as to the supply of transport
aircraft in the period immediately following the end of the war. You can
understand with what pleasure I heard from him that the United States
were prepared to make transport aircraft available to Britain on a
nondiscriminatory basis in the interim period before British production
of these types get going.”
