Sovereign Skies: The Origins of American Civil Aviation Policy by Richard R. John Series Editor

Author:Richard R. John, Series Editor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Just as the League of Nations shaped political discussions at Santiago, so too did the 1919 convention shape the aeronautical dialogue. At the suggestion of US delegate and future secretary of state senator Frank B. Kellogg, members of the Commerce Committee supported the establishment of an Inter-American Commercial Aviation Committee (IACAC) that would study and draft “laws and regulations” for air navigation in anticipation of the next conference scheduled for Havana in 1928. With the State Department effectively controlling the PAU’s operations, this would permit the creation of a separate hemispheric convention tailored to US economic and security desires. But Mr. Luis Barros Borgoño of Chile and other Latin American delegates—fully aware of their nations’ strong economic ties to Europe—insisted that the proposed IACAC “take into consideration . . . the Conventions already existing . . . so far as possible.”74 While Fletcher and the US delegation secured support for a new air convention, this unexpected amendment showed that Latin American members of the PAU expected any hemispheric agreement to conform to accepted aerial principles and norms already established in international treaties.

The extent of deviation from the 1919 convention that Latin American governments would accept became apparent when Spain, Portugal, and twenty American republics signed a second multilateral air convention in 1926.75 Generally dismissed as “practically [an] exact textual copy of the 1919 Convention,” the Ibero-American Aerial Navigation Treaty—popularly known as the Madrid Convention—retained both the 1919 convention’s universal applicability of prohibited zones and ban on international munitions transport.76 But it also diverged significantly from its predecessor. Member states could enter into air agreements with nonmembers, it contained no customs provisions or reference to the League of Nations, and it allowed non-nationals to register their aircraft in member states, a particular desire of Latin American nations that would enable European-supported carriers such as SCADTA to operate as fully national entities.77 In light of von Bauer’s desire to expand SCADTA and Spain’s increasing closeness to Germany, the Madrid Convention fed into the established narrative of German designs in the Western Hemisphere and accentuated the need for a US-led hemispheric agreement to uphold the Monroe Doctrine. Charles H. Cunningham, the US commercial attaché in Madrid, cautioned that German desires for an air service to South America could be “behind the whole movement,” while Leighton W. Rogers of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce had no doubt that Spain’s push for Latin American aerial dominance occurred “with German technical help and financing.”78 Because the Santiago amendment required the IACAC to take existing international air agreements into account, the Madrid Convention only further complicated US designs for a hemispheric air convention.

As Spain worked to consolidate the Madrid Convention over the summer of 1926, efforts began in Washington to create a draft agenda to serve as a foundation for the work of the IACAC approved in Santiago.79 Responsibility for the initial draft fell on PAU assistant director Esteban Gil Borges. A trained lawyer, former Venezuelan minister of foreign affairs, and firm believer in the

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