890F.248/12–2645
Memorandum of Telephone Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
I called Lord Halifax and said that I wanted to continue our previous discussion of the Dhahran Airport63 and reminded him that I had promised at the end of our last conversation to find out what I could about the report he had given me that TWA was endeavoring to negotiate a contract with the Saudi Arabian Government which would give TWA a monopoly. I said that we now had a telegram from Jidda in which it was flatly denied that any such negotiations have been or will be undertaken by TWA or this Government. I said that TWA had, at the request of the Saudi Arabian Government, submitted a plan for organizing with that Government a Saudi flag line which would operate certain trips within the country and outside it but which would have no tinge of monopoly and whose facilities would be open to any and all air lines. Lord Halifax indicated that he was glad to know that there was evidently no reason to believe that TWA was now negotiating a contract contemplating a monopoly but he maintained that he had been shown documents very strongly supporting his previously stated information that such negotiations had been [Page 992] carried on although he was quite willing to believe that they were now stopped.
I told Lord Halifax that we had received information through Winant64 of a note from Under Secretary Sargent in which His Majesty’s Government stated their assumption that during the contemplated three-year operation at Dhahran airport by the United States other countries would be accorded the same facilities as the United States. I told Lord Halifax that in a cable to Winant we were telling him to reply that, of course, this was a correct assumption. The British note continued that with reference to the proposal that an American company should take over the operation of the airport at the end of the three-year Army control, the British Government would greatly prefer that the Saudi Arabian Government should be advised to sign the Chicago Interim Agreement and so be enabled to invoke Article 11 of that Agreement and under that Article ask for and obtain assistance of the International Civil Aviation Organization in maintaining and operating the air field until the Saudi Arabian Government felt able to take it over itself. I told the Ambassador that we were replying that we were sympathetically inclined toward this idea when this organization should be set up. I said that the British note expressed the opinion that as the Saudi Arabian Government knows of the differences of opinion between the United States Government and His Majesty’s Government on the question of the Fifth Freedom rights His Majesty’s Government thought that Ibn Saud should exercise his own discretion as to whether he should grant this freedom to United States commercial air lines. I told Lord Halifax that we were stressing in our telegram to Winant that it is not sufficient merely to say that Ibn Saud should exercise his own judgment but that it should be made clear beyond doubt to Ibn Saud by the Foreign Office that in exercising his own judgment he will not be looked upon with disfavor by the British Government if he grants such freedom to United States lines. I said that I should greatly appreciate anything that Lord Halifax could do to urge this upon his Government. Lord Halifax replied that while he would try to find some way of doing this he did not believe our anxieties on this point were well founded; that he had had a telegram from the Foreign Office stating the line they would take with Ibn Saud, which would be sincerely to urge him to make up his own mind. Lord Halifax said that if I thought it would be helpful he would send a telegram to London.
About an hour later Lord Halifax called me back to say that he had looked up the file and that he had also seen a telegram which [Page 993] had just come in from the Foreign Office reporting instructions given to Jidda on the subject. The instructions stated that the Foreign Office was anxious that the Saudi Arabian reply to the United States proposals should be sufficiently favorable to permit the United States Government to go ahead with their plans subject to such provisos as Ibn Saud judges advisable for his country; that the British representative at Jidda should have this in mind in what he said to the Saudi Arabian Government. Lord Halifax also referred to an earlier telegram to their representative in Jidda telling him very clearly that Ibn Saud should exercise his own judgment and that the British had no intention of pressing him one way or another.
Lord Halifax thought that in view of these two clear statements from the Foreign Office that office would not be able to understand any further anxiety on the part of this Government and that it would be much better for him not to go back again to the Foreign Office by telegraphing them for further assurances or action in this matter. I told Lord Halifax that I was willing to accept his judgment in this matter.