Pan Am on the Record

Pan American Airways' handsome, bemedaled President Juan Terry Trippe smiled handsomely and modestly accepted another gold plaque for his "distinguished contribution to the advancement . . . etc." It was the 30th annual convention of the National Foreign Trade Council, and the sixth time the Captain Robert Dollar Memorial Award had been handed out. But when Juan Trippe thereupon started talking about "Foreign Trade in the Air Age," it was real news. After months of heavy silence from Pan Am and frantic speculation by everyone else concerned, Juan Trippe now, for the first time, put Pan Am's views on international aviation on the record.

In sum, Pan Am's policy was along predicted lines (TIME, Aug. 23). Trippe's thesis: Unless the U.S. decides to set up a single "chosen instrument" to compete with the Government-backed monopolies of the rest of the world, the world will outfly the U.S.* What broke new ground in his speech was a refinement of this attitude. The chosen instrument, he said, should be "a community company--owned and controlled, not by any one aviation interest, but by all American transportation interests able to contribute, under an organization plan approved by the Government." Further, it should "not consider the position of any one airline or any group of airlines."

Many U.S. airmen who regard any Pan Am postwar project as a plot to maintain, as far as possible, its prewar monopoly, pondered Juan Trippe's phrase about "all American transportation interests." The U.S. air is already thunderous with rumors that Pan Am has been trying to freeze out other airlines by making a separate postwar peace with the railroads--which are now barred by law from flying. But Trippe's second point seemed to undercut suspicions about his first, for he had now said that the chosen instrument should be much bigger than Pan Am.

* Ten possible competitors for the postwar air enumerated by Trippe: KLM (Dutch), BOAC (British), Soviet Air Trust, Air France, SILA (Swedish), Trans-Canada Air Lines, South African Airways, Lufthansa (German), LATI (Italian), Dai Nippon (Japan).

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