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International Aviation Rivalry in Latin America, 1919-1927

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Wesley Phillips Newton
Wesley Phillips Newton*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Auburn University, Alabama
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Extract

In Latin America, international rivalry over aviation followed World War I. In its early form, it consisted of a commercial scramble among several Western European nations and the United States to sell airplanes and aviation products and to establish airlines in Latin America. Somewhat later, expanding European aviation activities posed an implicit threat to the Panama Canal.

Before World War I, certain aerophiles had sought to advance the airplane as the panacea for the transportation problem in Latin America. The aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont of Brazil and the Aero Club of America, an influential private United States association, were in the van. In 1916, efforts by these enthusiasts led to the formation of the Pan American Aviation Federation, which they envisioned as the means of promoting and publicizing aviation throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , July 1965 , pp. 345 - 356
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1965

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References

1 Wesley Phillips Newton, “Aviation in the Relations of the United States and Latin America, 1916-1929,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Alabama, 1964, pp. 32-37, 64-67, 69-72.

2 Burden, William A. M., The Struggle for Airways in Latin America (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1943), p. 10 Google Scholar; Grey, C. G. (ed.), Jane's All the World's Aircraft, 1926 (London, 1926), p. 68a Google Scholar. Hereinafter referred to as Jane's.

3 Burden, The Struggle for Airways, pp. 10-11.

4 Ibid., p. 11; Brigadier-General Sir Osborne Manee, International Air Transport (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1944), pp. 64-65.

5 The New York Times, August 21, 1919.

6 Ibid., May 26, 1919.

7 Brown, James L., “Pan American Cooperation in Aeronautics,” Journal of Air Law, IX (July 1938), 469.Google Scholar

8 The New York Times, March 8, 1920.

9 Dispatch of W. Henry Robertson to Robert Lansing, August 12, 1919. File 835.796/2, Record Group 59, Foreign Affairs Branch, National Archives. Record Group hereinafter referred to as R/G. Foreign Affairs Branch hereinafter referred to as FAB-NA.

10 Letter of Newton D. Baker to Lansing, July 24, 1919. File 821.796/7, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

11 Charles E. Hughes to John W. Weeks, April 14, 1923. File 811.2335/-, R/G, FAB-NA. One factor behind Hughes' opinion probably was increasing Argentine resentment over the Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922, which had cost Argentina her American market. See Alfred B. Thomas, Latin America, a History (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1956), p. 297.

12 Luther K. Bell to Ira A. Rader, November 5, 1923. Foreign Aviation Reports, August 1934-January 1919. File 360.02, R/G 18, Army and Air Corps Section, Wat Records Branch, National Archives. Army and Air Corps Section hereinafter referred to as AAACS-WRB-NA.

13 Newton, unpubl. diss., pp. 167-168. Early in the 1920's, the United States Navy sent an aviator or so with official Naval Missions to Latin America. See Newton, pp. 98-100.

14 Dispatch of Robertson to Bainbridge Colby, June 4, 1920. File 835.796/8, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

15 Letter of Colonel Oscar Westover to Chief, Engineering Division, McCook Field, Ohio, December 6, 1919. Foreign and International Affairs and Relations, file 336, December 1919-April 1917, R/G 18, AAACS-WRB-NA. Hereinafter referred to ai Foreign and International Affairs and Relations.

16 Second endorsement of Major General Charles T. Menoher, May 24, 1920, to letter of Colby to Baker, May 22, 1920. Border Activities, file 370.2, R/G 18, AAACSWRB-NA.

17 Ibid.

18 Letter of J. Varela to Director of Air Service, December 15, 1919. Foreign and International Affairs and Relations.

19 Major W. H. Frank to C. M. Everitt, April 20, 1922. Exhibitions [Foreign], file 001, R/G 18, AAACS-WRB-NA; memorandum of Major H. A. Dargue to Chief of Training and War Plans Division, Air Service, January 31, 1923. Ibid.; Frank to Dargue, February 3, 1923. Ibid.

20 Letter of S. S. Bradley to Director of Air Service, December 20, 1919. Foreign and International Affairs and Relations.

21 “Aviation in South America,” Bulletin of the Pan American Union, XLVIII (April 1919), 440-441.

22 “Aviation in Chile and the Crossing of the Andes,” ibid., XLIX (September 1919), 299, 301.

23 “Argentine Aviation Feats,” ibid., LI (July 1920), 50-54.

24 “Aviation Development in Ecuador,” ibid., LII (May 1921), 475-478.

25 Newton, unpubl. diss., pp. 92-107.

26 Jane's, 1926, p. 77a.

27 Report of Charles L. Hoover to the State Department, January 27, 1920. File 832.796/7, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

28 Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce (comp.), Aircraft Year Book, 1922 (New York, 1922), p. 61; dispatch of Philander L. Cable to Frank B. Kellogg, January 26, 1927. File 165.359/15, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

29 Letter of Colby to Arthur Capper, September 7, 1920. File 824.796/4; report of conversation between Edward L. Reed and Enrique Olaya [Herrera], February 27, 1926. File 821.796/23, R/G 59, FAN-NA.

30 Dr. Peter Paul von Bauer, “Commercial Aviation in Colombia,” Bulletin of the Van American Union, LVIII (November 1924), 1130-1137; memorandum of William R. Manning to Francis White, April 5, 1926. File 821.796Sca2/95, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

31 Manning to White, April 5, 1926.

32 Telegram of Arthur T. Geissler to Hughes, December 16, 1922. File 813.796, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

33 Letter of Weeks to Hughes, January 12, 1923. Fue 813.796/5, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

34 Edwin Denby to Hughes, January 4, 1923. File 813.796/2; Herbert Hoover to Hughes, September 13, 1923. File 813.796/36, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

35 For the account of these developments, see Newton, unpubl. diss., Chapters III, IV, V, VII, VIII.

36 Letter of Carlton Jackson to Director, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Commerce Department, March 26, 1924. File Central American Flight, 373, Central Decimal Files (1917-38), AAACS-WRB-NA. Hereinafter referred to as Central American Flight.

37 “Panama Vulnerable to Air Attack,” Aviation, XVI (February 4, 1924), 131.

38 Major Raycroft Walsh, Report of the Central American Flight, pp. 2-3, 5-12. Central American Flight.

39 Preliminary report of J. V. Magee and C. V. Burke to Second Assistant Postmaster, Colonel Paul Henderson, November 19, 1924. Foreign Aviation Reports (by country)—Central America to Germany, file 360.02, R/G 18, AAACS-WRB-NA; third endorsement of H. H. Tebbetts, February 20, 1925, to memorandum of Major General Mason M. Patrick to Adjutant General, January 19, 1925, Central American Flight; Brigadier General William Mitchell, “Civil and Commercial Aviation,” Saturday Evening Post, CXCVII (February 7, 1925), 170, 183; “The Mitchell Trial,” Aviation, XIX (November 23, 1925), 747, 749.

40 Newton, unpubl. diss., pp. 149-156; memorandum of Major A. W. Lane to Assistant Chief of Staff, War Plans Division, War Department, January 9, 1926. Central American Flight; Report of conversation between L. H. and Vikter von Bauer, December 7, 1926. Fue 821.796Sca2/106, R/G 59, FAB-NA.

41 Official Report of the Pan American Flight, C71.6-Pan American Flight, December 21, 1926-May 2, 1927, Central Decimal Files (1917-38), AAACS-WRB-NA: Newton, op. cit., pp. 174-201.

42 Trippe, Juan Terry, “Commerce on Wings,” Journal of Air Law, IX (January 1938), 77 Google Scholar. Lindbergh soon became involved in the aviation rivalry with his flight in 1927-1928 to parts of Latin America for the State Department and subsequent activities on behalf of Pan American Airways. All of this is another aspect of the story.

43 Dispatch with enclosure of Samuel H. Piles to Kellogg, August 13. 1927. File 821.796Sca2/115, R/G 59, FAB-NA; Josephson, Matthew, Empire of the Air (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1944), p. 31.Google Scholar

44 Newton, unpubl. diss., pp. 90-91, 223-226.

45 Subsequent governmental backing of Pan American Airways included intense and exclusive diplomatic support; legislation that allowed the Post Office Department to award Pan American Airways a contract even when the company was not the lowest bidder; and liberal subsidies, which, however, had legal sanction. See Newton, op. cit., pp. 217, 228-229, 242-244; 266-272, 276-280.

46 Minutes of the First Meeting of the Interdepartmental Aviation Committee, November 23, 1927. File 813.796/127, R/G 59, FAB-NA. The representatives did not foresee the complete elimination of Scadta. They felt Pan American Airways would have to make some kind of connection with Scadta in order for Pan American to extend its operations down the west coast of South America.