Freedom of the Air

In Washington last week President Roosevelt reappointed Iowa farm-born Lloyd Welch Pogue chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board. Coming on the heels of the highly political CAB appointment of ex-Senator Josh Lee of Oklahoma, Pogue's reappointment was reassuring. For Pogue, a specialist in aviation law (Harvard), is no patronage-loving politician. He is a man who believes in a principle: that freedom of the air to competing air transport companies of all nations is just as important as freedom of the seas.

Even before the war such freedom did not exist. One big reason was sheer military necessity, which made nations anxious to control the air above them. But another reason was simply trade jealousy. Thus, U.S. service to Alaska is dependent upon Ottawa's permission to fly over Canadian soil. Early transatlantic services dickered with Portugal for landing rights at the Azores. In the South Pacific Australia-bound Pan American was blocked 1,300 miles away at New Zealand until after Pearl Harbor. So far the U.S. has failed to permit TACA and British West Indian Airways to make scheduled flights into Miami because their head, New Zealand-born Lowell Yerex, is a British subject.

More serious is the thorny problem of air bases in Africa. Pan American's pioneering of these war-compelled African routes so alarmed British Overseas Airways that the Army's Air Transport Command has taken over. The question that needs answering soon is: at war's end, what is to become of these U.S.-built air bases on foreign soil? They represent great future air-caravan routes to rich new territory, and they cost a fortune. Who shall dictate how many, how often, and on what terms U.S., Brazilian, British, Dutch or Chinese planes shall use them?

Pogue believes the answer is reasonable freedom of the air. For like many another air-minded expert he knows that the shortest route from Washington to Manila is not across the Pacific, but passes over the Great Lakes to Canada, on to Alaska, then down the coast of Siberia. He knows, too, that the air oceans are not bounded by ocean shorelines; that European planes will someday want to fly over U.S. territory direct to Chicago from London, just as U.S. air transports may want to take off from St. Louis for Cairo and way ports.

All this ought to be possible in the event of a United Nations victory and a realization of world security. But the State Department is yet to be convinced that now is the time to make plans. And London, when it thinks of air routes, should not forget that Singapore became rich and great not because it controlled a trade route, but because it was open to the roaming ships of all peaceful nations.

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