Dear Mr. Chairman:
Upon consideration of the Transatlantic Route Renewal Case (Docket 13577 et al.) I have decided to approve the Board's recommendations, with the following exceptions:
r. For reasons of foreign relations, I have determined that only one United States Flag carrier should be authorized to serve Dublin. Therefore, I am returning this phase of the case to the Board for its recommendation, on the basis of the present record, as to the carrier to be selected.
2. I am returning to the Board for further hearing Pan American's request to convert its East and West Coast terminals into coterminals. The reopened hearing should enable the Board to assess the impact of coterminal status on our balance of payments. In addition, it will afford the Board the opportunity to consider the desirability of placing Pan American on a comparable basis with foreign flag carriers such as Qantas and BOAC (and any Japanese Flag carrier which may hereafter be authorized to serve New York and beyond to Europe) carrying international traffic between points in the Pacific and points in Europe via California and New York. It is requested that this matter be processed on an expedited basis and that your decision be transmitted to me at the earliest practicable date.
Please submit for my approval a revised order in the Transatlantic Route Renewal Case, consistent with the comments expressed above.
With regard to air service in the Pacific, I believe the Board should proceed expeditiously to re-examine the route pattern of United States carriers in foreign and overseas air transportation in the Pacific. In view of the present operating rights of BOAC and Qantas, and the recently negotiated Bilateral Air Transport Agreement with the Government of Japan, embracing a route to New York and beyond to Europe, it is important that we proceed quickly to determine whether our transpacific route pattern should be altered so as to place our carriers in a satisfactory competitive position in the Pacific with foreign flag carriers operating into the East Coast.
Sincerely,
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
[Honorable Charles S. Murphy, Chairman, Civil Aeronautics Board, Washington, D.C. 20428]
Note: The recommendations of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the Transatlantic Route Renewal Case are contained in Docket 13577 et al. (208 pp., processed).
Lyndon B. Johnson, Letter to the Chairman, Civil Aeronautics Board, on Transoceanic Air Routes. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/238287