Well, is this the only time, to your knowledge, where the SOV had made a request in connection with a passport?
Miss WATERMAN. Oh, no; I would not say that. I don't think so; no. I think probably a great many of our communications went out as office memoranda, and they received copies of them in the Division anyhow.
But I think this was probably more to avoid confusion in having classified files be traveling around the different areas of the Department. We could send a copy of an "OM" without trouble. But handing the files around was another matter. And we didn't put them around any more than we had to.

Mr. Coleman.

The next document in the sheaf of papers I gave you is the Operations Memorandum dated August 18, 1961, prepared by you----
Miss WATERMAN. Yes.

Mr. Coleman.

And we have given it Commission Exhibit No. 979.
Miss WATERMAN. Yes.

Mr. Coleman.

In that you indicate that you concur in the conclusion of the Embassy that there is available no information and/or evidence to show that Mr. Oswald has expatriated himself under the pertinent laws of the United States.
Miss WATERMAN. That is right.

Mr. Coleman.

Did you review the entire files which you had in the Passport Office on Oswald before you wrote this memorandum?

Mrs. Waterman.

Yes; our file was all together.

Mr. Coleman.

And you also had the benefit of the various Embassy Despatches which were sent prior to August 18, 1961?
Miss WATERMAN. Oh, yes.
Well, the part that concerned his citizenship, certainly, was with our file.

Mr. Coleman.

And reviewing the whole file, you, as the adjudicator, determined on August 18, 1961, that there was nothing in the file which would show that Mr. Oswald had expatriated himself?
Miss WATERMAN. That is correct.

Representative Ford.

When you say "no information and/or evidence to show that Mr. Oswald"----
Miss WATERMAN. No information or evidence.
Well, that is the way I worded it, No information or evidence. We would have to have evidence to hold up any action on him. And, in addition to having no evidence, we also had no information.

Representative Ford.

Did you have the information that he had come in and presented a statement to Mr. Snyder that he wanted to renounce his citizenship?
Miss WATERMAN. Yes; but he hasn't done so. There was no place that he could have done so, except at the Embassy, under a specified form, and upon specified documents.

Representative Ford.

In other words, you were relying upon the need for this particular document?
Miss WATERMAN. Well, in the first place, when he came in--as I believe Mr. Snyder said, or whoever reported from the Embassy--and threw down his passport, he apparently was a disgruntled young man--and that is not the first time a passport has been thrown down on a consular officer's desk. And I think that we had--no--in other words, it looked as if he were already regretting his first action. He was weakening a little bit because he was not being accorded any kind of recognition in the Soviet Union. In other words, he was.

Representative Ford.

But the subsequent evidence, where you say he was changing his mind, came about 2 years later. On the other hand, there was some evidence, when he first went to the Soviet Union, October 31, 1959, that he at least had an intention to renounce his American citizenship. He simply had not signed the actual form that is prescribed by the regulations.
Miss WATERMAN. That is right. He had not.

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