328. Editorial Note
From May 29 through June 30, 1961, Japanese and U.S. delegations met in Washington to negotiate a Japanese request that Japan Air Lines be allowed a route Japan/Honolulu/San Francisco/New York “and beyond.” After the United States refused to grant this request, Japan asked for a similar route via Seattle instead of San Francisco. The United States countered with the offer of a polar route from Japan to New York provided certain existing routes were modified. Japan was willing to negotiate on this basis provided the United States granted the polar route to New York “and beyond.” Upon U.S. refusal to concur with the request for the right to fly “beyond” New York, the delegations agreed to recess the talks “until an appropriate date in the near future.” (Summary of the Civil Aviation Consultations between Japan and the United States, June 30, 1961; Department of State, Central Files, 611.9494/6-3061)
When Secretary Rusk and Foreign Minister Kosaka discussed the matter in Washington on June 22, Rusk stated that no U.S. airline had “rights such as we are now discussing,” pointed out the President “had only recently refused trans-Pacific route applications from certain United States air lines because it would be disadvantageous to Japan,” and declined to be drawn into detailed discussion on the subject on the ground the formal negotiations were the proper channel. (Memorandum of conversation by Richard L. Sneider; ibid., Secretary’s Memoranda of Conversation: Lot 65 D 330)
On January 25, 1962, Edward A. Bolster, Director of the Office of Transport and Communications, told Hisaharu Kajita, First Secretary of the Japanese Embassy, that the United States did not wish to resume air route negotiations “next summer” because successful discussions were “highly improbable.” (Memorandum of conversation by Bolster; ibid., Central Files, 611.9494/1-2562) Additional documentation on the negotiations and the general question of expanded Japanese air routes is ibid., Central File 611.9494 for March through December 1961.