The CHAIRMAN. May he finish? He hadn't finished that statement.
Mr. CHAYES. I was going to say looking at it in retrospect and knowing
what we now know, it seems to me it would have been desirable to have
had some means for triggering off a further investigation of this kind,
of a passport applicant, or a passport holder, on the basis of that
kind of information. If the further investigation had turned nothing
else up, it seems to me clear that he was entitled to a passport on the
state of the file as it then existed.
The only issue is whether the state of the file showed enough to start
or to instigate a further investigation of the purpose and plans for
his travel abroad. What you could have done is hard to speculate about.
You might have called him in and asked him about his travel plans.
You might have made inquiries among friends and relatives about his
plans, and so on, and that might have turned up evidence that would
have suggested that his proposed travel abroad fell within one of these
categories and it would have warranted the withdrawal of his passport.
Because of our review of these procedures, in the light of what
happened, as we said yesterday, we now have established a defector
category in the lookout card file, and people of this kind who apply
for passports now won't get them routinely, even though the state of
the file as it then exists would warrant the issuance of a passport.
But there will be a review of the file and any necessary further or any
indicated further investigatory steps, if a defector does apply for a
passport. You say why didn't you have those procedures before?
Why did it take this kind of a thing to do it? To stimulate a new
procedure? The answer is simply that nothing in our past experience
at all suggested anything like this kind of trouble. Of course the
ultimate result, the ultimate assassination wasn't related in any way
to the passport decisions. But it has drawn our attention more closely
to the problem of defectors in this connection.
I should add one general point, and that is when we talk about
passports in this context, we tend to emphasize the very, very few
bad apples of one kind or another, and they are very few, who are
not entitled to passports. But the fact is that the function of the
Passport Office is not to deny passports to people. It is to get
passports to people. The Passport Office puts out 1 million passports
a year. The great overwhelming majority of those people are ordinary
American citizens who want to get abroad for business or pleasure,
and the ability of the Passport Office to furnish them with passport
facilities, in very short order, is of tremendous service, and
tremendous convenience to them.
That is the primary function of the Passport Office. It has of course
the duty of administering these denial and withdrawal statutes. But
that is not its primary function. Its primary function is to get
passport facilities to the great bulk of Americans who have legitimate
business abroad. It is dealing with a million or more applications a
year, and millions of bits of information, like this piece we have just
been talking about. I think when you see things in that perspective it
is perhaps easier to evaluate some of the decisions and some of the
actions taken here.
Representative FORD. But I think you have to turn the coin over. There
are millions of passport applications, or a million plus. But there are
only very few such as Mr. Oswald, or people in the defector category.
So the problem there I don't think is as serious an administrative one
as you would tend to imply.
Mr. CHAYES. No; I am not suggesting it is, and in fact I think we have
by a relatively simple administrative action taken the steps which will
assure that in the future applications from this kind of person will
receive a more elaborate review.
All I am saying is that if you ask why that wasn't done before, it is
because the experience didn't indicate that there was a problem, and
that is because that isn't the main business of the Passport Office.
Its main business is not the business of a security agency which goes
around focusing or is supposed to be focusing on security problems. Its
main business is that of a processing agency.
Representative FORD. But we have vast resources of people in the
Government who are, or who do have security as a main business, and it
seems to me that it is vitally important that those people and those
vast resources somehow tie into the administrative process of denying
or refusing passports under unique circumstances.
Mr. CHAYES. They do. That is any of those agencies can levy a request
on the Passport Office for notification when a passport is issued to
any person. If the FBI or the CIA or the Secret Service or any other
security or law enforcement agency is interested, or the U.S. court,
the Federal district court or the district attorney's office, any
agency of that kind which is interested in knowing whether a particular
person has applied for passport facilities may levy a request. That
request would be serviced by placing a lookout card in the file which
would then automatically involve notification of that agency when that
person applied for a passport.
Mr. DULLES. Isn't there a broader point than that though, because the
security agencies don't know in all cases what requirements to levy.
Now if in this case, for example, in the Oswald case, if there had been
this lookout card, and you had notified let's say the FBI and the CIA
that the former defector had applied for a passport and might be going
abroad, then they can put in a card, and then they can be helpful in
following that situation abroad. But they don't know, if they don't
know that Oswald is going to apply, they have no way of putting in
their requirements.
In certain cases they can. But in a great many cases they cannot.
Mr. CHAYES. Well, let me make two points. First, now under the new
memorandum as to defectors, the FBI and CIA and other security agencies
will automatically be notified whether they have made a request or not.
Second, as to most people who have lookout cards, the FBI and the other
security agencies couldn't care less about whether they apply for
passports. Most of the lookout cards relate to loss of nationality, not
security issues at all. So that there is a problem both ways. We can't,
the Department can't--it could notify the security agencies whenever a
lookout card, a person as to whom there was a lookout card applied for
a passport.
But in 9 out of 10 cases that would be so much waste paper for the
security agency. There has to be a reciprocal effort at cooperation.
There is a reciprocal effort at cooperation, and by and large it works
very well. By and large when the FBI is interested in somebody, it
tells the Passport Office it is interested in them and they want to
know if he comes for a passport.
By and large the Passport Office knows people whom the FBI is
interested in, and when they apply for a passport or something like
that, there is an exchange of information. It is interesting that this
CIA report got to the Passport Office. It is a matter of routine. All
security reports of this kind that originate in the security agencies,
copies go to the Passport Office and are put in the passport file. So
that there is a great deal of coordination. But in the nature of things
it can't be a perfect system when the two kinds of responsibilities are
differently allocated, the security responsibility in one case and the
other responsibility in another.
Representative FORD. When did the CIA report of the Mexican trip get
into the passport file?
Mr. CHAYES. It is not clear to me here. It is probably about 10-11-63
is what it looks like to me from the date, October 11, 1963. But on the
other hand, note that this report--we pay a great deal of attention
to the fact that it got into the passport file. But the report itself
originated in the CIA.
Copy of it went to the FBI. In other words, all the security agencies
themselves knew of this fact. As I say, myself, I think it did not
change the character of the file so as to warrant the withdrawal of a
passport from the passport administration point of view. But even if we
had taken steps to withdraw the passport, it is hard to see how it had
any impact on the result at all.
Representative FORD. Leave aside the tragic result. Under your
current procedures if such a situation developed, would there be an
administrative step taken to try and retrieve the passport?
Mr. CHAYES. Under current procedures what would have happened in
June, when he first made application, was that there would have
been a lookout card in the file, and before automatically issuing a
passport there would have been a review of the file and some further
investigative steps. Now that investigation would have inquired into
the purpose of travel abroad, and a determination would then have
been made whether the purpose of travel on the basis of the file--and
remember when we do deny a passport we are then subject to hearing,
administrative hearing and judicial review, and we have got to make
the denial and the evidence on which it is based stand up in those
circumstances--but if we determined that there was a basis then for
denial we would have denied it then. So the question wouldn't have
arisen later in October. If at the time in June we had determined after
investigation that there was no basis for denial, then the passport
would have been issued, and if a matter of this kind had come in, there
would have been, I suppose, an administrative determination to decide
whether, in the light of the earlier investigation, whether this new
information warranted any further action or further investigation.
Representative FORD. Would it be your judgment that the June
determination, using your new criteria, would have resulted in a
refusal of this passport?
Mr. CHAYES. Not on the basis of the file as then existed. It is hard
to answer your hypothetical question because under our new procedures
there would have been a further investigation that would either have
turned up some additional material, or would have left the file in
its present state. If there was no additional material suggesting the
evil purposes or improper purposes for travel, the decision to give a
passport would have been the same as it was on the file. On the basis
of the file, the decision was properly made.
Representative FORD. Would you in the June determination have had the
files from the Department of State which showed that on October 31
Oswald walked into the American Embassy.
Mr. CHAYES. Oh, yes.
Representative FORD. And said "I, Lee Harvey Oswald, do hereby request
that my present citizenship in the United States of America be revoked."
Mr. CHAYES. Oh, yes; the entire file.
Representative FORD. And would it also have had the one of November 3d
where he said "I, Lee Harvey Oswald, do hereby request that my present
United States citizenship be revoked"?
Mr. CHAYES. Yes; It would have had all of that.
Representative FORD. It would have had all of that?
Mr. CHAYES. Yes.