800.796/6–1744
Memorandum by the Chief of the Aviation Division (Morgan) to the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)34
Mr. Berle: While our British friends might not soon learn that we have submitted a draft commercial air transport agreement to the Russians, they might learn of it and feel somewhat aggrieved or at least suspect that we were trying to steal a march on them.
Since mutual frankness is supposed to be the rule as between the various participants in these bilateral talks, I would suggest that we immediately inform the British of our action and submit to them a similar draft with a statement that we would be very glad to enter into the same agreement with the British.
[Page 492]Now that publicity has been given to the proposed international routes and commercial ports of entry, we can fill out our annexes just as we did in the case of the Russians. It should, of course, be emphasized to the British that this is strictly a commercial air transport agreement and that the many problems relating to air navigation, which includes most of the items discussed at the bilateral conferences in London are being reserved for the multilateral agreement which we hope will be worked out at the proposed international conference.
It seems to me that at the present time we have the initiative with respect to these questions of post-war aviation policy and that we should try to keep it. In respect to the practical problems of the immediate future, we do not have the initiative.
- Marginal notation: “Agree: Please draft an aide-mémoire to be handed to British. A. A. B[erle]”↩