Take a Trip to Berlin. . . .

The Civil Aeronautics Board, the smallest U.S. Government agency, last week took the biggest stride forward yet made in Federal postwar planning. The repercussions rattled the windows in airline offices all over the U.S. and shook those of every foreign embassy in Washington. Handsome, hard-working CABoss Lloyd Welch Pogue, 44, caused the sensation.

At a press conference the onetime Iowa farm boy quietly gave newsmen the facts. The U.S. wants to jump its peacetime foreign air operations from the 80,000 route miles already approved to 140,000. Already on hand were 100 applications from private systems--some of them still unformed--which want to get a piece of this postwar business. After consulting many Government agencies, and with the approval of Franklin Roosevelt, CAB had worked out 20 tentative routes. On a great map, CABoss Pogue traced some of the globe-girdling lines over which U.S. airlines plan to fly:

P: New York via Newfoundland or Labrador to Eire-London-Berlin-Prague-Vienna-Istanbul-Cairo.

P: New York via Newfoundland or Labrador, Greenland, Iceland to Oslo-Stocknolm-Helsinki-Leningrad-Moscow-Teheran-Basra.

P: San Francisco-Los Angeles to Honolulu-Canton Island-Suva-Noumea-Auckland.

After the scope of the project had sunk in, Pogue announced the really big news. He indicated that this was no phony warmup; this was the takeoff. He wanted to wait no longer for the U.S. to get its props into the postwar air. In short, he would open pre-hearing conferences, at which the applicants could show why they should get the best routes--within three weeks.

This brought stunned representatives of almost every foreign government in Washington streaming in to look at the big "orange-peel" map of U.S. plans. The British stared when they saw blue lines running through British territories. The Dutch came to worry about their KLM (Royal Dutch Airlines) interests. The enigmatic Russians came and went, enigmatically.

Even the applicants were caught off guard by CAB's sudden announcement. U.S. airmen scurried to get ready for the hearings. To save time, CAB will group hearings according to routes--e.g., if ten airlines have applied for the New York-Bermuda-Azores-Lisbon-London route, a joint hearing will be held for all. Sidetracking inevitable catfights, CAB will grant franchises on two basic points: 1) the "fitness, willingness and ability" of the applicant; 2) whether the traffic can bear the operation of more than one line to a route. Established domestic carriers will have good talking points in their war experience--all the big ones and many of the smaller have reaped much experience flying the world for the Air Transport Command.

The hearings meant that CABoss Pogue was getting the decks cleared so that U.S. lines will be ready to fly when & if the U.S. finally makes up its mind about air policy. But it was clear that Pogue, who favors plenty of competition, had Presidential approval to hand out enough franchises to assure competition on international routes. This was direct evidence that the Administration is steadily pushing into the background the so-called "chosen-instrument" policy, Juan Trippe's Pan-American program (TIME, Nov. 8). Eventually, of course, Congress, not CAB, must make the final decision on "chosen instrument" v. free-for-all competition. Pogue's action also meant that the U.S. will not lag in the coming international air fight.

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