Miss JAMES. Special Consular Affairs, I beg your pardon.
Mr. COLEMAN. After that letter was sent out, did you have occasion to
call INS, and ask them to find out what the status of the letter was?
Miss JAMES. To the best of my memory I never called INS on this case.
Mr. COLEMAN. My problem is I have a letter here which is from Robinson
to Michael Cieplinski, and it says at the bottom: "5-29-62 Miss James
SOV called to say she had received letter from Mr. Oswald's mother
saying he had written he had no money and was unable to travel."
Miss JAMES. I would have called the Visa Office on that. That doesn't
mean I called INS.
Mr. COLEMAN. Oh, I see. All your calls were to the Visa Office?
Miss JAMES. Yes; in fact, I think I am clear that in saying that there
is a policy that all approaches to INS are through the Visa Office.
Mr. COLEMAN. I will mark as James Exhibit No. 4 a copy of a letter from
Robert H. Robinson to Mr. Michael Cieplinski, dated May 9, 1962, and I
ask you whether you have seen a copy of that letter.
(The document referred to was marked James Exhibit No. 4 for
identification.)
Miss JAMES. I don't recall having seen it at the time. I do recall
reading it in the file prior to my coming to this meeting.
Mr. COLEMAN. Do you recall making the call that they at the bottom said
you made?
Miss JAMES. I am sure that I did if Mr. Crump put his initials on it. I
don't remember it. I do remember the letter from Mr. Oswald's mother.
In fact, I had some telephone calls from her, also.
Mr. COLEMAN. Do you recall receiving a copy of a telegram from the
Embassy at Moscow, which telegram is dated May 4, 1962, which I have
marked as James Exhibit No. 5?
(The document referred to was marked James Exhibit No. 5 for
identification.)
Mr. COLEMAN. Have you seen that telegram?
Miss JAMES. An information copy came to EUR, which is European Bureau,
and I am sure that that means that an information copy came on down to
the Office of Soviet Union Affairs, and I would have seen it, and that
is why I called to inquire about the case.
Mr. COLEMAN. And there is a note on there that on May 8, 1962, you
called to inquire about the case and apparently you were told that the
waiver had been granted.
Miss JAMES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. Do you know why you made the call?
Miss JAMES. Well, I would have considered, reading it today, that this
is an urgent telegram from the Embassy in Moscow wanting some action
from the Department, and I would have made the call to try to get done
what the Embassy was pleading for, action one way or the other on this
case.
Mr. COLEMAN. Did you clear this with anybody else within the office?
Miss JAMES. There is nothing to clear on this, only that I called to
find out--I might well have talked to Mr. Owen about this telegram. I
am sure he saw it. The general routing is for telegrams to go through
the officer in charge to the person who handles the specific subject,
but it has been a part of my duty to have called them to----
Mr. COLEMAN. And you say that as a result of getting the telegram from
Moscow, that you without consulting with anybody else in the office
would call and find out the status?
Miss JAMES. I wouldn't have to have any further instruction on that
telegram.
Mr. COLEMAN. I would then like to show you a document which has been
marked as Commission--James Exhibit No. 7 which is a telegram to the
American Embassy in Moscow, dated May 8, 1962, and ask you whether you
sent that telegram.
(The document referred to was marked James Exhibit No. 7 for
identification.)
Miss JAMES. That telegram was sent by the Visa Office of the
Department, and was apparently cleared by me telephonically and
initialed by Mr. Crump as having cleared with me over the telephone.
Mr. COLEMAN. Oh, I see, Mr. Crump is in the Visa Office?
Miss JAMES. Yes; now this gives me a lead to another paper back there,
where I said I had not seen it. It had Mr. Owen's initials or some
initials, which I couldn't identify.
I now identify those initials as Mr. Crump's initials, and, after that,
it said Miss James, in substance. I now realize that he had probably
telephoned to me, cleared it in substance, initialed it, sent it up to
SOV, and Mr. Owen put his initials on it, and I never had my initials
on it for that reason.
Mr. COLEMAN. In other words, you say that this telegram which I have
marked as James Exhibit No. 7, was actually drafted by Mr. Crump as
a result of Mr. Crump's office finding out that the waiver had been
granted?
Miss JAMES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. That they called you, told you what they were going to do,
and you said, "Fine," and that is how your name got on the telegram?
Miss JAMES. That is why my name is there and Mr. Crump's initials above
it show that he was the officer who cleared it with me.
Mr. COLEMAN. Now, I take it in the document that I have marked as James
Exhibit No. 8, which is a telegram dated March 20, 1962, in which the
Embassy at Moscow was instructed to "withhold action on Department's
OMV 61" because the sanction is being reconsidered. That telegram also
was not drafted by you, and the only reason why your name appears on it
is that it was cleared with you over the telephone.
(The document referred to was marked James Exhibit No. 8 for
identification.)
Miss JAMES. Yes; and, again, although that was cleared, those are my
initials, VHJ, that is my initials. It was apparently cleared over the
phone telephonically and also sent it up to us and Mr. Owen and I each
initialed it, VHJ, and O for Owen.
Mr. COLEMAN. But the fact that your name appeared on the telegrams
doesn't mean you wrote them?
Miss JAMES. No; you see, the way the telegrams are in the State
Department, that first line says drafted by, and then underneath is
clearances, and those offices are clearing offices.
Mr. COLEMAN. And could you identify for me a letter which I have marked
James Exhibit No. 6, which is a letter from Michael Cieplinski to Mr.
Farrell, dated March 27, 1962. I ask you whether that is a copy of the
letter which was sent forward to the Immigration Service asking them to
reconsider the waiver?
Miss JAMES. This exhibit is a photostatic copy of the file copy which
is in the file I am examining, and it is an exact copy. I did not clear
it.
Mr. COLEMAN. As far as you know, that is a copy of the letter?
Miss JAMES. An exact copy; yes. I see the initials are carried through.
Everything is exactly the way the file copy is, the Department's file
copy.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. COLEMAN. I would like to mark as James Exhibit No. 9 a transmittal
slip under date of March 16, 1962, and it bears the signature which
purports to be Virginia H. James, and I ask you whether that is your
signature that appears thereon.
Miss JAMES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. Now, what occasioned your sending this transmittal slip to
the American Embassy and the attachment?
Miss JAMES. We wanted the Embassy in Moscow to know what we were doing
on the despatches and telegrams that they sent in, and that we were
in agreement with their recommendation, that we were making these
recommendations to the Visa Office, and this would more or less give
them some assurance that their recommendations were in harmony with our
thinking. This is the way we work, very closely with the Embassy in
Moscow.
When we are in harmony with what they do, we write memos through the
Department. We frequently send memos to them so they say, "Well, we
have made the right recommendation. The Political Office is supporting
us and now we wait for the other offices in the Department."
Mr. COLEMAN. Were you aware, did you know, or did you have anything to
do with suggesting to the Embassy that they should try to send Mrs.
Marina Oswald into the country by her first going to Brussels?
Miss JAMES. No; except that is a regular procedure that we use, we call
it third country procedure. The immigrant can't come directly to the
United States. They do go to another country.
Mr. COLEMAN. But you were not the one to suggest it in the Oswald case?
Miss JAMES. No; it is established procedure, though. It would not be
unusual for any officer in the Visa Office to think of that.
Mr. COLEMAN. But you didn't suggest it?
Miss JAMES. No; I did not.
Mr. COLEMAN. Now, when Mr. Oswald came into the country--when Oswald
left Moscow, I take it you were informed the day he left or the day
after he left, and did you receive a copy of the telegram from Moscow
to the State Department, dated May 31?
Miss JAMES. Yes; our office received it, SOV.
Mr. COLEMAN. I have marked that as James Exhibit No. 10.
(The document referred to was marked James Exhibit No. 10, for
identification.)
Miss JAMES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. And you then, after he got back, drafted a letter to
Oswald's mother?
Miss JAMES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. I will mark that as James Exhibit No. 11.
(The document referred to was marked James Exhibit No. 11 for
identification.)
Mr. COLEMAN. This is in file IV, a copy of it. I show you a copy of a
letter from Robert I. Owen to Mrs. Oswald, under date of June 7, 1962,
and ask you whether that is the letter.
Miss JAMES. Yes; I drafted that letter. I recall it.
Mr. COLEMAN. Now, in connection with the Oswald case, was there any
instance where you wanted to do one thing but somebody told you no,
something else would have to be done?
Miss JAMES. In the Oswald case?
Mr. COLEMAN. Yes.
Miss JAMES. We worked in harmony on these cases. The Visa Office is
very well--harmonize with SOV policy on these cases. There is no
bickering or unpleasantness or somebody pulling one way or the other.
We seem to go along with them. Every time one comes up they go along in
the regular way based upon established policy.
Mr. COLEMAN. There was no instance where you said, "I think that this
ought to be done" and somebody said, "I don't care what you think, this
is the way it should be done."
Miss JAMES. No.
Mr. COLEMAN. In all these cases you discussed the problem with the Visa
Office and you reached a mutual agreement. You never had a dispute?
Miss JAMES. I recall no such feeling or reactions.
Mr. COLEMAN. You had indicated earlier, Miss James, that there was a
general policy in your office to see that husbands and wives were not
separated. Would you want to describe for the record just what that
policy was?
Miss JAMES. May I go back historically?
Mr. COLEMAN. Yes.
Miss JAMES. Since the time we first recognized the Soviet Union, we
have had these cases of separated families, spouses, husbands and
wives and children and other relatives who by some reason or another,
mostly because of the operation of Communist policy, have become
separated from their American citizen families. And from the time we
first recognized the Soviets, this has been a problem there. Files are
filled with notes to the Soviet Government asking them to please issue
exit visas to permit certain relatives to join families in the United
States. This has gone on, and I remember hearing an officer say that if
the result of recognizing the Soviet Union was for no other reason than
to assist these people this was a very powerful reason. During World
War II no visas were issued and nobody traveled and this died. Right
after the war we again had the problem of people trying to get their
relatives out, and the number was greatly increased by Russia taking
over those various countries, Lithuania, Estonia, parts of Poland,
parts of Czechoslovakia, Rumania went into the Soviet Union, and we had
the number greatly enlarged.
Then, in addition to that, because of war operations, American
citizens were stationed in the Soviet Union and they had married
Soviet women, and so we had pressing cases of correspondents. American
correspondents, a few people assigned to the Embassy in Moscow who
married Soviet wives, probably about 15 or 16 who were very, what we
would call, worthy cases of good marriages and good people who had made
a good marriage with women we thought were good people, and they have
since made good American citizens.
So in 1953, when Stalin died, we had the first break, and they issued
the visas on this group. And since then we have gone forward with
this. We saw we had a break and so we have been pressing the Soviet
Government to issue visas to clear this problem up.
In 1959 when Mr. Nixon went there, he was importuned by relatives to
help to get their relatives out, I mean American citizens, and he took
a list of about 80 people, and he agreed to take up these cases, and
we added a number of worthy cases, and Mr. Khrushchev said, "I want to
clear up this problem"--present it through channels.
Since then, we have presented it through channels and we have succeeded
in getting about 800 relatives of American citizens out. And the
defector's wife falls into that pattern, because while we are not
sympathetic with these people we know that if we refuse to grant U.S.
visas to a wife of an American citizen, the Soviet Government can
immediately say, "Well, we grant visas to these people, exit visas.
Then you don't allow them to go to the United States. What does this
mean?"
So that was the basis of our whole policy with Marina Oswald, that we
felt that we didn't want to put the Embassy in a position of fighting
for exit visas for relatives, and then when they issue you say, "Well,
this is not quite the kind we want."
Mr. COLEMAN. In other words, you say that once the Passport Office
made the decision that Oswald was still an American citizen, then your
policy that you don't want to separate husbands and wives came into
play, and if the Soviet Union is willing to let both of them out, that
we will let them come in?
Miss JAMES. That is the basic policy. That was the whole interest in
our Office, the Embassy in Moscow's primary interest there as far as
Marina Oswald was concerned, and her child.
Mr. COLEMAN. I have no further questions.
Thank you.