ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the intersection of international politics in the early Cold War with the negotiations of bilateral aviation agreements across the East–West divide. Following the Chicago Convention of 1944 and the Bermuda Agreement of 1946, the principle of state sovereignty in the air was established internationally. As interest in air travel soared in the wake of the Second World War, states around the world negotiated a flurry of bilateral agreements facilitating international flights. The Soviet Union, however, harboured a deep mistrust of Western intentions and remained outside the expanding air networks until the mid-1950s when Norway, together with its Scandinavian neighbours Denmark and Sweden, secured bilateral agreements with the Soviet Union as the first Western states. This chapter analyses the history of the Soviet–Scandinavian negotiations and discusses the role of air mobility in Cold War politics.
