841.796/10–944
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State (Berle)
Mr. Michael Wright came in and we discussed civil aviation. I gave him the general draft of the plans we have had for civil aviation much as they have been given to others. I likewise inquired what the change in civil air authorities in England might mean. I said I had heard on the radio that Lord Swinton had become Minister of Aviation, leaving Beaverbrook out. Wright said that Beaverbrook had entered civil aviation believing that it could be triumphant[ly?] and quickly done; actually it had proved difficult and thorny, and he had been trying to drop it. He had now succeeded. He thought there was no change in policy. I said rather gingerly that I was a little worried about Lord Swinton’s appearance; that he had the reputation in some quarters here of being anti-American. (I did not indicate that that was substantiated by a good many reports from Africa.92) Wright said he thought that was not true, and I said that those reports were easily circulated and frequently were unjust. My real wonder was whether the British doctrine had now gone in for a closed sky and exclusive arrangements, or whether they were maintaining the general cooperative understanding reached between Churchill and myself.
Wright said that he thought there would be no change in policy.
- Lord Swinton was British Cabinet Member in West Africa, 1942–1944.↩