Coll 5/62 ‘India-Kabul Route: Question of establishment of an air service between India and Kabul’ [‎25r] (49/677)

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British L«g«tlon t Kabul.
29th Bay 1947.
- . * 3
0
British Legation 9 Kabul
29th Hay 1947.
Will you plaasa rafor to my Secret despatch No•46«>42/43/P of
^ ***• 29th l£ay 1947? I thought timt the information given to me by
Ali Muhammad on the F;u&aian Ambassador 9 s demarche about an American
aerodrome at Herat of sufficient Importance for me to communicate it
at once to Palmer* Incidentally, I more than suspected that he
already knew something about itl I therefore went to him yesterday
and gave hire a full account of what Ali Muhammad had said and told
him that I thought that this was a matter of sufficient importance
and interest to both our GovenUiOnta for us to consult together and
recommend to our Governments a Joint policy, especially if we consider*
ed thst the Hus si an demarche was sufficiently important to Justify
any consideration of e loan or credit on political as opposed to
purely economic grounds* Palmar somewhat shamefacedly admitted that
he had known all about this for acme time though he has not hitherto
seen fit to breathe a word of it to me* He did however promise that
after the Indian Air Mission bed left he would have another talk with
tf^Jibullah Khan on the aubject of air communications generally and
let me know the result* This is I think a typical instance of
American non-cooperation in Afghanistan and is made worse by the fact
that Palmer hiroaelf gave no hint of his knowledge even when we were
tfl sc u Be iiig the very question of Anglo-American cooperation on April
24th, vide ay despatch No*33 of April 25th 1947 *
It. On the aubject of the loan for which the Afghans were asking I
gathered from Palmer that he had sent the Afghans a 20 page question
naire which he thought they would find it very difficult to answer
and that he did not think it was likely that they would be able to
satisfy American bankers thet any considerable loan would be a
business proposition* He did not appear to take the Russian demarche
sufficiently seriously to warrant any departure from strict business \
principles in considering the loan and thought that the Afghans would
be wise to avoid giving unnecessary offence to Russia and to cut out
the aerodrome at Herat from their civil aviation programme*
I am sending a copy of this letter to Donaldson*
V J
C.W*Baxter Eeq*.C*M*G*,M*C* 9
Foreign Office 9
Foreign Offic
London.