853.79681/94: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in the United Kingdom ( Winant )
4484. In April 1943 Pan American Airways submitted to Portuguese authorities a proposal for land plane service to United Kingdom through the Azores and Lisbon. A prerequisite for this service is the securing of land airport facilities in the Azores, a matter in which our Air Transport Command is greatly interested.
On the assumption that it will be necessary for our Legation at Lisbon to assist officially in obtaining use of these land facilities in the Azores, and because of the desirability of having British support at such time, the British Ambassador here61 was recently informed of the status of these unofficial negotiations. A short time later he requested that the matter be held in abeyance since our proposed action might interfere with certain current negotiations between the British and Portuguese Governments.
Since Pan American’s request presumably involves little more than a change in type of flight equipment, and incidentally has definite possibilities of aiding the prosecution of the war, it is not clear to the Department that the action contemplated by us would interfere with current British negotiations in Lisbon to which Lord Halifax referred. Unless the British Government has serious grounds for feeling that the impression given us by Halifax is correct and strongly desires us to hold in abeyance our own matter, we should prefer to proceed as planned.
Kindly take this up with the British authorities and report their reaction.
This message has been repeated to Lisbon as Depts no. 1275.
- Viscount Halifax.↩