Mr. DULLES. Is it conceivable that the lookout card could have been
removed in 1961 when his passport was extended to return to the United
States?
Under your procedure would that have been done?
Miss KNIGHT. Under our procedure when he was issued the passport that
card would have been removed; yes. So that in 1961 there would not have
been a card in the file.
Mr. COLEMAN. Even though the passport was issued specifically saying it
was only good for return to the United States and only good for 1 month.
Miss KNIGHT. That is right.
The passport was limited and could not be used beyond the time it was
limited for.
Mr. DULLES. Would that have caused the card to be removed?
Miss KNIGHT. Yes.
Mr. DULLES. Issuance of that passport, even a limited passport would
have resulted in the card being withdrawn?
Miss KNIGHT. The card would have been withdrawn at the time that his
citizenship was adjudicated, and when it was found that he had not
expatriated himself. The card which was put in the file related only to
his citizenship status.
Mr. DULLES. That is what--somewhat earlier, that is several months
before the passport was extended?
Miss KNIGHT. Oh, yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. That would mean when he came back into the United States
and he then reapplied 2 days later for another passport it would have
gone through routinely and you would not have picked up the fact that
it was Oswald the defector that was now going to go back out of the
United States?
Miss KNIGHT. Well, that would be possible, I think; yes.
The experienced citizenship attorneys in the Passport Office, as well
as the U.S. consul in Moscow determined individually that Oswald had
not expatriated himself. His passport was renewed in May 1962, and
limited for return to the United States.
In the adjudication of his citizenship, we can only deal with the
facts on record. The fact is that Oswald did not avail himself of the
prescribed procedure to renounce his U.S. nationality.
In applying for his passport renewal, he stated under oath that he had
not committed an expatriative act. He denied an earlier statement that
he had applied for Soviet citizenship, and produced some evidence that
he had never been declared a Soviet citizen.
Now, as far as the repatriation loan is concerned, the recording of
such a loan in the Passport office is a very routine procedure.
Apparently there is some question as to whether a lookout card was
inserted in the lookout file at the time that the repatriation loan
was made to Oswald. The Passport Office must depend on the Office of
Finance to inform it with regard to repatriation loans. We require
certain information such as the name of the individual, the place and
date of birth, and other information which will identify the individual
in our files.
It is very important that this information be complete and accurate
to guard against embarrassing situations which could develop from
misidentification.
The criteria for the procedure were developed over several years by the
Office of Finance in cooperation with the Passport Office. Memorandum
between the Passport Office and the Office of Finance have been
provided to the Commission.
The important one is dated January 16, 1962, and spells out the
criteria that we established by mutual consent. The Passport Office was
and is directly concerned with only two actions in repatriation cases.
The insertion of an accurate and identifiable card in the lookout file
and the prompt removal of such a card when the loan has been repaid.
Between August 1961 and December 1962 there was a purge of our lookout
file because the cards were so shoddy and unreadable that they had to
be refreshed.
We call them cards. But they actually were not cards, merely slips of
pink paper 3 by 5 inches which were very badly worn and torn.
More than 1 million applications are cleared over this file annually,
and it was imperative for us to find a system which would provide fast
and accurate clearances.
During the renovation of this lookout file we found over 3,000 cards
relating to repatriation loans which were unidentifiable. They had been
in the file for decades, and they were of no value. They failed to give
us any leads to either the passport or security files. The individuals
involved may long since have passed to their reward. We did not know
what had happened to them so we took these cards out of the files.
The record indicates that the Finance Office did not have Oswald's
place and date of birth, and did not advise the Passport Office of the
repatriation loan.
There may have been efforts to obtain the information necessary to
make up a lookout card and this may have been suspended because Oswald
started a series of payments within 10 weeks of the loan.
In any case, the Passport Office was notified when the loan was
fully paid about 6 months later, which was January 1963. Had a card
been placed in the lookout file it would have been removed upon such
notification.
In other words, there would have been no card in the files relating to
the repatriation loan at the time Oswald made his application for a
passport at the New Orleans Passport Agency on June 24, 1963.
Mr. COLEMAN. Miss Knight, when Oswald was issued the June 1963
passport, I take it that there was no reference made to his passport
file, is that correct?
Miss KNIGHT. No reference was made to his passport file. When he made
his application at the New Orleans agency it was handled in a routine
manner which I believe has been described to the Commission in some
documents we prepared for you. Oswald's name was included in a list
of applicants sent by teletype from New Orleans to Washington for
clearance over the lookout file.
It was cleared within a day. There was no card relating to the
repatriation loan because Oswald had made his final payment on the loan
6 months prior to his application for the passport.
There was no lookout card relating to loss of nationality because it
had been determined by that time he had committed no expatriative act
and therefore did not lose his citizenship. There was no lookout card
on Oswald indicating that he was under indictment or wanted by an
investigative agency or by the police. There was no fraud committed,
and there was no evidence that he was a member of the Communist Party
or active in it. In other words, there was nothing on record in our
files in June 1963 which would have given the Passport Office any
reason for delaying or denying Lee Harvey Oswald a passport.
Mr. COLEMAN. Is it your testimony that if when the teletype had come in
from New Orleans, and someone in your office had gone and looked at the
passport file, and found out that Oswald attempted to defect in 1959
and had made the statements that he made at the Embassy in 1959, that
nevertheless you feel that under the existing regulations you would
have to issue him a passport?
Miss KNIGHT. Yes; we would. We wouldn't have had a lookout card based
on that at the time of his application for a passport because all the
situations we mentioned were resolved by that time.
Mr. COLEMAN. I would like to show you a Commission document which has
already been marked as Exhibit No. 951, which is the standard operating
notice of the passport office, dated February 28, 1962, and ask you are
you familiar with this document?
Miss KNIGHT. Excuse me for a second, please. There is one subsequent to
this.
Mr. COLEMAN. Yes; but that is the one that was in effect as of June
1963, isn't it?
Miss KNIGHT. Yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. Attached thereto is a list which indicates the various
categories for the lookout card.
Miss KNIGHT. That is right.
Mr. COLEMAN. Would you look at category K, and I would like to ask you
whether the information which was in the file on Mr. Oswald, including
the FBI reports, which were in the file of June 1963, should have
caused Oswald to be put in category K?
Miss KNIGHT. No; I don't think so.
Mr. COLEMAN. How about category R?
Mr. DULLES. Could you read category K?
Miss KNIGHT. Yes; certainly. "K" is "Known or suspected Communist or
subversive". And "does not include those falling within categories O
and P".
Mr. COLEMAN. Would you tell me what "O" and "P" categories are?
Miss KNIGHT. "O" is a category of cards in which the FBI has special
interest. And "P" is also a project of the same sort.
Mr. COLEMAN. Has the FBI ever put defectors in that category?
Miss KNIGHT. Yes; we are given the names and we put a lookout card in
the file. But we are not told the reason why. We simply advise the
agency involved.
Mr. COLEMAN. In other words, if the FBI merely sends you a report on a
particular person, that wouldn't cause you to put someone in "O" and
"P"? It is only when the FBI says put the person in "O" or "P"?
Miss KNIGHT. Only when a request is specific.
Mr. COLEMAN. How about category "R", if you will put that in the record.
Representative FORD. May I ask a question first, what is the criteria
for the determination as to whether or not a person is a Communist?
Miss KNIGHT. Well, the criteria are based on the information that
we get from the investigative agencies regarding his activities and
membership in the Communist Party.
I think that it would help you very much if, for instance, I would
spell out what the lookout file actually is and how it operates in the
Passport Office and just what the categories mean to us. This would
only take a minute and I think this would clarify things.
Mr. COLEMAN. I have picked out the categories that I think you would
have to consider, and that is the reason I put the question to you.
Miss KNIGHT. The purpose of the file is rather important because it
is twofold. Its principal role is to identify the applications which
require other than routine adjudication in determining an applicant's
eligibility for passport services. The second role of the file is to
identify certain incoming applications and to insure expeditious action
on them.
As background, I think it is important to know, that prior to 1955 the
lookout file was part of a master index comprising 20 million 3 by 5
inch cards.
Mr. DULLES. 20 million?
Miss KNIGHT. 20 million. Within this voluminous file were 600,000 pink
slips. Now these were known in those days as "catch cards," and these
were withdrawn in 1958 to establish the nucleus of the present lookout
file.
The reason for doing so was quite obvious. It was impossible and
totally impracticable to clear every passport application across a 20
million card file which was expanding at the rate of 1 million cards a
year.
Cards at that time were being made for every applicant and his
relatives who were listed on the passport application. Every individual
whose name appeared in any investigative report which was sent to the
Passport Office, whether or not the individual applied for a passport;
every individual who appeared before an investigative committee of
Congress, whether or not he applied for a passport; as well as persons
whose names appeared in such situations as gambling raids, lottery
winners, and so forth. These were all in the passport file, and part of
the master index.
File experts from the General Services Administration estimated at that
time that 30 percent of this master index was misfiled.
By a program of refinement in 1959 and 1960, the lookout file
was reduced to 415,000 cards. We felt we were reasonably safe in
disregarding catch cards on persons who were a hundred years old or
over. So these were eliminated from the files.
From the standpoint of accuracy in identification, the cards that
remained still left much to be desired in the file.
Now again I would say these were not "cards" in any sense that they had
physical substance. They were 3 by 5 inch slips of tissue-thin pink
paper. They were very mutilated and many of them were totally illegible.
Many of them were of no significance since they contained no
identifying data, such as place or date of birth, no full names, no
reason for the inclusion in the file. As far as we could determine they
were not related to anything in the Passport Office.
So further culling and screening reduced this basic file to the present
size of 250,000 cards.