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Mr. H.B. Cox - 2                        September 16, 1948

would even become emotionally distressed if I were to leave the country at this time.

I am sure you will be able to realize why I must forego, with extreme regrets, my attendance at the Paris conference, which is something to which I have been looking forward for some time. There is nothing I would like to do better than to participate in this meeting, both because of its importance and because of my sincere desire to meet all of the people to whom I have been writing for a long time and who have organized themselves into associations similar to our Air Line Pilots Association, the organizing of which I was so closely associated with.

Please express these thoughts of regret to the delegates assembled.

We have done a great deal of preparatory work making ready for the Paris conference, all of which we have dispatched to you a number of days ago at the Grand Hotel in Paris. As a matter of fact, the preparation was far more extensive than was anticipated. By the time all the copies and everything else was completed, it resulted in a necessarily voluminous preparation.

I suggest that you set yourself up as best you can to carry out our part of the Paris conference in the most effective and expeditious manner. I further suggest that you enlist the aid of Mr. Follows, Secretary of the British Air Line Pilot Association, to assist you with the handling of the great amount of work that will fall on your shoulders as the representative of our Association and, at the same time, introduce many of the questions that are before the conference for action. Mr. Follows is a very capable and well-trained executive and I am sure that you and he together will be able to do a very efficient job of handling all the details in connection with this conference. First, I would begin by unpacking and placing in an orderly manner in one room everything we have sent you so you will then know what you have to work with and what there is to present, copies and all the rest of it. 

The key point to remember in a conference of this character is to make a very complete and accurate record of everything that is accomplished. This, of course, necessitates considerable work, some of which will probably have to be done by committees. In other words, working with the conferees as a whole sometimes becomes cumbersome and time consuming. After everyone is well acquainted and accustomed to working with one another, it might be well to divide the conference into committees and give them certain specific problems to study and prepare a recommendation or a suggested resolution for debate and action by the conference as a whole.

To begin with, I think it might be wise to elect a chairman. At the beginning, a pattern of recording and handling of the details of the conferences will have to be decided upon. Probably the first thing to do would be to set up a small committee that might be termed