Mr. DULLES. Would that have covered Oswald? That is what I am
interested in.
Mr. CHAYES. Yes; well, it was in fact designed to cover Oswald, so
that----
Mr. DULLES. It probably would have.
Mr. CHAYES. It would, but defector is not a statutory term or one that
has real technical significance. I have said in my own discussions with
people who have asked for guidance in administering this memorandum and
others that it is not necessarily related to an attempted renunciation
of citizenship or anything else. It involves the kind of thing that if
there were a war on would be treason.
In other words, it involves something like aid and comfort to the enemy
or attempted aid and comfort to the enemy. The only thing is the enemy
isn't technically an enemy because we are not at war. But that requires
some judgment to decide which ones you put in and which ones you
wouldn't.
Mr. DULLES. There is a definition we could get though and put it in the
record.
Mr. CHAYES. No, no.
Mr. DULLES. There is no definition?
Mr. CHAYES. If you look at the Schwartz memorandum, it says that the
Oswald case highlights the necessity of maintaining up-to-date lookout
cards in the files of the Passport Office, "for persons who may have
defected to Communist countries or areas or redefected. Subsequent to
the Oswald incident, I requested the Department of Defense to furnish
this office with identifying information on military personnel in this
category. Information with respect to these military personnel has now
been received from all three services and copies are attached.
"On the basis of the attached information, please bring up to date the
lookout cards of the Passport Office."
And then it simply lists the names of the people that came over from
the military.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Chayes, is the document we have marked Exhibit No.
951, the standard operating notice as of February 28, 1962?
Mr. CHAYES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. In the attachment in category K you have "Known or
suspected Communists or subversives" as a category on which there
should be a lookout card.
Mr. CHAYES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. Wouldn't Mr. Oswald have fallen in that category, based
upon the passport file?
Mr. CHAYES. I don't think so. There is nothing to indicate that he
had ever been a member of the Communist Party. Maybe you would have
regarded his Fair Play for Cuba activities as falling within the notion
subversive. I have to say that I think K dates from an earlier period
before the Kent Case, in which we were denying passports very broadly
to a category of people who might be called subversive. Rockwell Kent
himself, Brehl, the other defendant, people as to whom there was no
real membership information, but who had generally, what had been
thought of as having subversive views or connections.
With the Kent and Brehl cases, it may well have been that that category
fell into some desuetude. I think it is worth inquiring of Miss Knight
whether that category was maintained after the Kent case, or whether we
simply took those out.
Mr. COLEMAN. In the Commission Exhibit No. 951 you also have another
category, category R, which reads: "Individual's actions do not reflect
to credit of U.S. abroad." Would you say that based upon the Oswald
file as it existed in the Passport Office as of June 1963, that he
would not fall in that category?
Mr. CHAYES. I don't think so when you are thinking about what this
means. I don't think one person in a billion abroad knew Oswald or
had any such experience with him or anything else. This isn't really
a reflection on the United States. I suppose if you construed it that
way, if somebody got drunk on the Champs Elysees he ought to be in that
category. I don't think you can really construe it that broadly. It has
to mean I am sure someone who has a really notorious course of conduct
like the kind of thing that I summarized for you on the three people in
the so-called other category when we were talking to earlier--my letter
of June 6.
Representative FORD. If you really are equating someone who is
intoxicated in Paris with Oswald----
Mr. CHAYES. No; I am not equating them in the quality of their conduct,
but for the purposes of this category "Do not reflect credit on the
United States abroad" I think what that must involve is some very
notorious course of conduct which a lot of people have had a chance
to see, which has somewhat serious consequences of the kind that I
summarized here "convicted for attempting to acquire knowledge of state
secrets in Germany, fraudulent schemes, convicted for fraud," that kind
of thing.
Here is a fellow who left a trail of bad checks, using his passport as
identification and claiming to be a U.S. employee. All I am saying is
that category R, although it is a catchall category, I would conceive
is construed or should be construed narrowly.
Let me say further, I probably should not be testifying to this so
much anyway because these categories are guidelines, are operational
guidelines. They don't have legal consequences. And I think you ought
to ask Miss Knight, who has the operational responsibility, whether the
way I conceive this is correct. I may misconceive it, but I think in
essence these categories are related to grounds of disqualification,
and unless the conduct specified comes within the range of being a
ground, a basis for disqualification, I don't think the lookout card
would be made up.
Mr. COLEMAN. Don't you have a category X, which is called "catch card,"
denotes limited lookout validity, not necessarily refusal situation?
Mr. CHAYES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. So perhaps Oswald could have been put in there, couldn't
he, in that category, based upon the file?
Mr. CHAYES. It is possible, and I suppose that is exactly what we are
now doing with defectors.