843.7962/3–2047
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State for Transportation and Communications (Norton) to the Under Secretary of State (Acheson)
Under the Bases Agreement of March 27, 1941,2 the United States has established naval and air bases for military purposes on leased areas in Newfoundland, Bermuda, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Antigua, Trinidad and British Guiana.
At the Bermuda Conference in February 1946, the United States and the United Kingdom drafted an agreement for opening the bases airfields to use by civil aircraft. The bases airfields in Newfoundland were not included because Newfoundland was not represented at the Conference. The United States reserved the right not to sign the agreement until a satisfactory agreement had also been reached with Newfoundland regarding the civil use of the fields in Newfoundland.
A US–Newfoundland agreement was drafted in July 1946. At your direction I have been insisting on the inclusion therein of a provision that American flag carriers may transfer their operations from Newfoundland’s international airport (Gander) to Harmon Field (a bases airfield) if and when they consider the fees at Gander to be unreasonable. Newfoundland has steadfastly refused to include the provision as irrelevant to the agreement and as incompatible with its concept of sovereignty.
[Page 95]The stalemate is preventing the conclusion of the US–UK agreement drafted at Bermuda as well as the Newfoundland agreement. Kindley Field in Bermuda therefore remains closed to the civil aircraft of third nations. Venezuela is refusing to conclude a bilateral air transport agreement with the United Kingdom until Kindley Field is open to her flag carrier. British bilaterals with a number of other Latin American countries are also in suspense owing to the inability of the British to guarantee the availability of the bases airfields. The United States will also be faced with the necessity of making these fields available before bilaterals can be concluded with Venezuela, Cuba and possibly other Latin American countries.
Because of the foregoing developments, I recommend that we insist no longer on the inclusion of the controversial provision in the Newfoundland agreement and that a compromise be developed in collaboration with the interested American flag carriers. In the past the carriers have opposed any compromise in this regard, but their position was taken without reference to more recent developments. They have considered the controversial provision as a necessary restraining influence over Newfoundland in the setting of fees at Gander Airport. It should be pointed out, however, that the United States has demanded no such control over the setting of fees at international airports in other foreign countries. The poor financial status of Newfoundland and the probable high cost of airport maintenance there does not justify the assumption that Newfoundland will charge unreasonable fees if not restrained. A right in the American carriers to remove their operations from Gander would place an undue burden on Newfoundland which has already incurred considerable expense at Gander on the theory that it would be the international airport.
- For text of the agreement and exchange of notes, see Department of State Executive Agreement Series No. 235, or 55 Stat. (pt. 2) 1560.↩