President Roosevelt to the British Prime Minister (Churchill)13
654. The aviation conference is at an impasse because of a square issue between our people and yours. We have met you on a number of points, notably an arrangement for regulation of rates and an arrangement by which the number of planes in the air shall be adjusted to the amount of traffic. This is as far as I can go. In addition, your people are now asking limitations on the number of planes between points regardless of the traffic offering. This seems to me a form of strangulation. It has been a cardinal point in American policy throughout that the ultimate judge should be the passenger and the shipper. The limitations now proposed would, I fear, place a dead hand on the use of the great air trade routes. You don’t want that any more than I do.
The issue will be debated tomorrow. I hope you can get into this yourself and give instructions, preferably by telephone, to your people in Chicago so that we can arrange, if possible, to agree. It would be unfortunate indeed if the conference broke down on this issue.
- Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩