810.79611 Pan American Airways, Inc./186
The Assistant Secretary of State (White) to the Chargé in France (Armour)
Dear Norman: Mr. Juan E. Trippe, President of the Pan American Airways, Incorporated, 100 East 42d Street, New York City, is sailing early in October for Paris where he may take up negotiations with the Latécoère Company.
The Pan American Airways, Incorporated, is a one hundred per cent American company; all its officers and all its capital are American and so are its equipment and pilots. For nearly a year now it has been operating between Key West and Habana carrying mails and passengers and is about to open operations from Miami. Some two or three months ago the Post Office Department awarded this company a ten year contract for the carrying of mails to the Canal Zone via Cuba, Mexico and Central America, and another ten year contract for the carrying of mails to Porto Rico via Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The company is now working out in the countries it has to pass through the necessary formalities for the establishment of the service. Eventually, the company desires to extend its activities down the west coast of South America to Chile, thence across the Andes to Buenos Aires and perhaps from Porto Rico via Trinidad to Venezuela, and thence down the east coast of South America.
In any event, we consider of the utmost importance that American airlines should be established in this hemisphere and especially in the [Page 792] Caribbean region. The French are already very active, as you know, in running a service from Paris to Dakar by airplane; thence to the Brazilian coast by steamer, and thence to Rio and Buenos Aires by airplane, and the German so-called Scadta Company70 is very active in Colombia and the Germans are also active in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. Mr. Trippe will probably want to discuss matters with the Latecoere Company and try to make some arrangement with them and any assistance that the Embassy can render him will be most highly appreciated I assure you.
With kindest regards [etc.]
- Sociedad Colombo-Alemana de Transportes Aereos.↩