The RAF's first attempt, in the spring of 1938, was rebuffed by the U.S. Navy. Air Chief Marshal Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt, commanding RAF Bomber Command, demanded Air Ministry action. They wrote to George Pirie, the British air attaché in Washington, suggesting he approach the U.S. Army with an offer of an information exchange with their own SABS. Pirie replied that he had already looked into this, and was told that the U.S. Army had no licensing rights to the device as it was owned by the U.S. Navy. The matter was not helped by a minor diplomatic issue that flared up in July when a French air observer was found to be on board a crashed Douglas Aircraft Company bomber, forcing President Roosevelt to promise no further information exchanges with foreign powers.