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(Testimony of Richard Edward Snyder Resumed)
Mr. Coleman.
the hospital, that he was in the same ward with an elderly American. Do you have any idea who the elderly American could have been?
Mr. Snyder.
No; I am afraid not.
Mr. Coleman.
Would there be any record in the Embassy which would indicate what Americans were in Moscow at that time, and whether there was an elderly American who had been hospitalized?
Mr. Snyder.
We kept an informal file of all information relating to the presence of Americans any place in the Soviet Union.
In other words, any time we had a report of any kind, of any level of credibility, we kept some kind of a record. It was known that there were Americans in the Soviet Union under various circumstances against their own will, or persons who might be Americans, or might have had a claim to American citizenship, who might have been dual nationals--one doesn't know. But we would get reports occasionally from a state camp, a labor camp, of a sighting of an American, or a person who claimed to be an American. This sort of thing.
Mr. Coleman.
Would that information be in a special file in the Embassy, or would it be spread throughout various files?
Mr. Snyder.
No; it was in, as I recall, a separate informal listing. In other words, they were also reported to the Department of State. The chances are that the Department also maintained----
Mr. Coleman.
Have you any idea what that file might be called, if we were going to ask for it by name what name we would give so that the people in Moscow would know what we are trying to take a look at?
Mr. Snyder.
No; I don't. But it would most likely have been under "Welfare and Whereabouts." The files in Moscow, I might say, the classified files are not that extensive. I mean they were one-drawer files for the most part that we officers worked on ourselves, physically.
Mr. Coleman.
When Oswald came in to see you in 1959, did you have any feeling that somebody was coaching him, or had instructed him what to say or do?
Mr. Snyder.
Well, I think I am accurate in saying at that time I assumed he had been in contact with some level of Soviet representative or official and had discussed his intended actions, and perhaps had had some advice from them as to what to do or how to approach things--in the sense that his words were somebody else's, I don't think I could say, because he gave me the impression, the times I saw him, of an intelligent person who spoke in a manner, and on a level, which seemed to befit his apparent level of intelligence.
However, he did say in my first interview with him either "I have been told what you are going to tell me," or "I am very familiar with the arguments you are going to use on me," or words to this effect, which would be the most direct evidence, shall we say, that he had discussed what he intended to say, and how he intended to handle himself, before he came in to me.
But, in any event, I think it is a foregone conclusion, from what I know of the procedures and things like this, that he was in contact with a Soviet official, he was under somebody's charge in a sense during the time he was there. This was certainly the pattern in the Petrulli case. My whole knowledge of the system and the way it works, the whole internal consistency of it, would lead me to believe that this were the case, unless I had firm evidence to believe otherwise.
Mr. Coleman.
How about when he reappeared on July 8 and 10, 1961? Did you feel he was being coached at that time in connection with his attempt to get his passport returned to him?
Mr. Snyder.
No; I don't have any direct evidence that he was coached, I think, in the terms in which you mean. For one thing, his manner of speech and his general approach to the degree that I recall it was, well, less stiff, less formal, and certainly less haughty than it had been on the first occasion. He also didn't use with me the kind of Marxist sloganeering which I got from him on the first interview, which also, I think, is in a sense an evidence of his having been well briefed on his talk with me.
The second time around this was pretty much absent from his conversation.
Mr. Coleman.
You say you felt he was well briefed on his first conversation with you in 1969, but not in connection with his second?
Mr. Snyder.
Well, again, I cannot say that he was well briefed. I just don't
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