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Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Aviation Division (Morgan)
Mr. Wayne Parrish asked me to lunch to meet Commandant Lesieur who, he tells me, is charged by the Committee in Algiers with matters affecting French civil aviation and post-war international commercial air transport.
I asked Commandant Lesieur what if anything he could tell me about the French plans for the post-war period. He said that, while their plans have not taken form, his own ideas favored the operation of the necessary lines to link France with her colonies and outlying possessions and a few lines operated for purely commercial reasons.
In answer to further questions he said that he thought France should have a line to the Far East, Indo China, and China; a line across the Atlantic into the United States; and a line via Africa to [Page 520] South America, including Rio, Buenos Aires and Santiago. He did not think it necessary for French lines to touch the French islands in the South Pacific or, in the Western Hemisphere, to include French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
He made several references to trading of rights and routes between France and ourselves by which I gathered that he envisaged a sort of bargaining under which France would hold back giving anything until some satisfactory quid pro quo was offered. He was pretty vague, however, on this point.
He said that in the case of an international conference on aviation, which he hoped France would attend, France would be opposed to any international authority with broad powers and would probably adopt the same attitude towards such an authority that he understood the United States would probably take. He mentioned that this would probably be in opposition to the United Kingdom, the Dominions and the Dutch. He thought, however, the Belgians would line up with France and the United States. He said that he personally and a number of other people in France familiar with air transport problems would favor freedom of transit with right of technical stop but that there would be a strong opposition to this on the part of many people influential in politics …
He told me that he is now on his way back to Algiers and that any communications which we might make to the French Committee with respect to post-war aviation matters would be referred to him and his aim was to cooperate with this country in every possible way.
He very clearly conveyed the impression that he considered himself as both highly influential in French Government circles and as directly charged with matters affecting international aviation.