New International Course

When the U.S. played host at the first International Civil Aviation Conference in Chicago almost two years ago, most aviation experts tabbed the whole affair a failure. But not the State Department. It stubbornly insisted that the International Air Transport Agreement (the "Five Freedoms") was a Magna Carta of air progress.

Last week, after almost two years of trying to make the pact work, the State Department reluctantly sided with the experts. It admitted that the Five Freedoms agreement should be junked as a failure.

The Five Freedoms agreement, which was to be a multilateral solution of the world's air transport problems, was too complicated to work. The problems of all of the 24 nations who signed the agreement could not be fitted to the pattern.

The U.S. was not abandoning international cooperation in the air. The day it announced its withdrawal (effective in one year), the Senate approved U.S. participation in the International Civil Aviation Organization. ICAO will concentrate on safety and navigation standards. On rates and frequencies, the U.S. will now bargain bilaterally, as it did with Great Britain at Bermuda six months ago. Said one State Department official: "IATA was a noble effort that didn't work. The alternative will." Few were willing to bet on it.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.