811.7445/7–2544: Telegram

The Officer in Charge at New Delhi ( Merrell ) to the Secretary of State

542. I have just been advised informally by Sir Gurunath Bewoor, the Secretary of the Posts and Air Department that all of the suggestions contained in the enclosure to the Department’s air mail instruction No. 158 of May 12 have been accepted, that the Indian company is in direct communication with the two American companies and that August 15 is aimed at as the target for opening the circuits. Bewoor suggests the possible advisability of having the direct communication opened by an exchange of messages between Sir Mohammed Usman, the Honorable member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council for Posts and Air and a corresponding official of the American Government. He would appreciate the Department’s views on this suggestion.

Bewoor who has been most helpful in these negotiations plans to arrive in Washington, in company with Sir Frederick Tymms, Director of Civil Aviation, between the tenth and fifteenth of August to participate in the postwar civil air transport talks.17 During his visit to the United States, he would like very much to be put in touch with the officials of Mackay and RCA.

Merrell
  1. For correspondence regarding these talks at Washington between American officials and representatives of the Government of India, see pp. 291 ff.