Mr. COLEMAN. This is the passport?
Representative FORD. Yes; in Moscow.
Mr. COLEMAN. He made it July 11, 1961. At that time Mr. Snyder returned
to him his existing passport. The new passport, namely the one he got
to travel back to the United States, was not issued until May 1962.
Mr. CHAYES. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. Though the instruction that it could be issued was
submitted, sent forward to the Embassy, certainly by the end of 1961.
Mr. CHAYES. Yes; they were submitted subject to the Embassy being
satisfied on certain points.
It ought to be stated also that, according to the record at least, the
passport was returned to him, in July, July 11. It was marked at that
time "good for travel only for direct return to the United States."
But the purpose of returning it to him was so that he could apply to
the Soviet authorities for an exit document, because he believed and
our people in Moscow concurred, that he couldn't get an exit document
unless he had a U.S. passport.
Representative FORD. An exit document for himself?
Mr. CHAYES. For himself.
Mr. DULLES. I note in this file, looking at your passport file which
is very complete, that in his passport application of June 1963 he
gives as his approximate date of departure, I assume departure from
the United States, as October-December 1963. Is it the practice of the
Department to issue passports for persons who are not leaving for 3 or
4 months?
Mr. CHAYES. Oh, yes.
Mr. DULLES. Anytime?
Mr. CHAYES. Anytime you want a passport, if you are entitled to one,
you get it. And you keep it even after you return. I mean if he had
used it, gone out of the country and returned, if it is still within
what is it, the 3-year period now, the passport is a valid passport and
he can depart again in the absence of some action taken looking towards
withdrawal. So that these are ambulatory documents, and there are many
people who just automatically--I don't say Oswald did this, obviously
he didn't, but there are many people who automatically renew their
passport when it runs out so that they always have travel documentation.
Representative FORD. Are there any other defector or attempted defector
cases where the person came back and tried to get his passport? How
long did it take in those cases to go through this process?
Mr. CHAYES. You mean comparable to the June application?
Representative FORD. No; I am talking of the Moscow application.
Mr. CHAYES. I think we did submit a report on that. Well, I am sorry,
we didn't. We did inquire whether there were any defectors who were in
the situation of the June application. We found that there was one,
and he was also issued a passport routinely. But I can supply for the
record the information as to the others.
Representative FORD. I think it would be helpful.
Mr. CHAYES. You would like to know the time from application to grant
of passport in the Soviet Union for defectors or attempted defectors
who were trying to get back then to the United States?
Representative FORD. Yes; if we could have that for the record.
Mr. CHAYES. We will be very glad to submit it.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Chayes, turning your attention to the question of
the admission of Marina Oswald to the United States as a nonquota
immigrant, I take it that since she was the wife of an American
citizen, she would be entitled to nonquota immigrant status unless she
was disqualified because she was a member of a Communist organization,
is that correct?
Mr. CHAYES. Yes; unless she was subject to one of those
disqualifications in 212(a)(28).
Mr. COLEMAN. Now the first decision that was made by the Embassy was
that her membership in the particular trade union was involuntary, and
therefore she was not disqualified?
Mr. CHAYES. That is correct.
Mr. COLEMAN. I take it you reviewed the record and you concur in that
judgment?
Mr. CHAYES. That is correct. It would also be made, and be made
automatically in the case of persons belonging to trade unions not in
leadership positions in the trade union, and where there is no external
evidence of active participation, because membership in the union is a
condition of employment in those places in the Soviet Union, and our
regulations cover the point precisely.
Mr. COLEMAN. Now the other decision that was made was that the
Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service would waive
the provisions of section 243(g) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act which provision says that a visa could not be issued from Moscow
because the Attorney General in 1953 had placed Russia among those
countries that refused to accept Russian citizens that we wanted to
send back to Russia.
Mr. CHAYES. Yes; 243(g) is a sanction which the act provides against
countries, not against people. It is not a disqualification for a
person. If 243(g) had not been waived, Mrs. Oswald would simply have
gone to Rotterdam and gotten the same visa from our consulate in
Rotterdam. It is a sanction against the country which is levied when,
as you say, the Attorney General determines that the country refuses to
accept people whom we deport who are their nationals. It gets back a
little to the point you were making yesterday about what obligation one
has to accept his own nationals back from another country.
Mr. DULLES. That is a general rule of international law, isn't it, you
are supposed to do it.
Mr. CHAYES. Yes; as a general rule of international law I suppose
one should accept his own nationals, but people who have expatriated
themselves wouldn't be nationals and therefore we wouldn't have to take
them back.
In any event--that is a little digression--but this sanction is a
sanction designed to penalize a country which has refused to receive
back its own nationals when they are deported from the United States.
That sanction was brought into play by the determination of the
Attorney General made on May 26, 1953.
Mr. DULLES. I wonder whether in addition to the information that Mr.
Ford has requested, you could give us information, oh, say covering the
last 5 or 10 years----
Mr. CHAYES. I think we have already.
Mr. DULLES. I haven't said what I want it on. With regard to the time
that has elapsed between the application of a Soviet woman married to
an American citizen, the time that is taken from her application to the
time that that application has been favorably acted upon by the Soviet
Union. In this case as far as I understand it, the Soviet Union gave
permission for Mrs. Oswald to come either in December 1961 or January
1962, and that because of this particular sanction you have just been
discussing, it wasn't really cleared up until May. And therefore that
the delay was in part a delay due to American regulations rather than
to Soviet regulations.
Mr. CHAYES. Well, her processing in the Soviet Union from the time she
first started to try to get back----
Mr. DULLES. That is it.
Mr. CHAYES. Until she got an exit visa was about 6 months. It was just
under 6 months.
Mr. DULLES. Yes.