Mr. Chayes.

13. In particular the answer to question 13 shows the evaluation on which we reached the conclusion that it is probable that a lookout card was not prepared.

Mr. Coleman.

Was there any other occasion as a result of acts by Oswald that you felt that a lookout card should have been prepared?

Mr. Chayes.

Yes.

Mr. Coleman.

What were those?

Mr. Chayes.

Under the procedures of the Department, once Oswald was given a repatriation loan, as he was on his return to this country in, what was it, May of 1962, a lookout card should have been prepared and should have been maintained in the lookout file during the period when there was an unpaid balance on his repatriation loan, and in that case it appears pretty certainly that no card was prepared. We don't even have in that case a refusal slip indicating a direction to prepare a card.

Mr. Dulles.

Can you refuse issuance of a passport when there is an unpaid balance due?

Mr. Chayes.

I don't know what the courts would say, but a person who accepts a repatriation loan now signs an agreement that he will not apply for a passport until he has paid the loan.
At the time that Oswald got his loan, the form was a little different, but even then he signed a statement saying that he understood that passport facilities would not be furnished to him while an outstanding balance was----

Representative Ford.

Could we have in the record the form that was in existence before and that which is now the form?

Mr. Chayes.

I think you do have it in the report. Again it is in the answer to question 13, page 3 of that answer, if you see there it says, "In the promissory note"--it is about the middle of the page "which he signed for the loan he stated, section 423.6-5 that 'I further understand and agree that after my repatriation I will not be furnished a passport for travel abroad until my obligation to reimburse the Treasurer of the United States is liquidated.'"

Mr. Coleman.

You testified that you made a search of the records or you had a search made of the records of the Department, and you conclude that no lookout card was ever prepared.

Mr. Chayes.

Yes; we can't find any evidence that a lookout card might have been prepared.

Mr. Coleman.

Do you know why one was not prepared?

Mr. Chayes.

There could have been more than one reason. It could have been simply a bureaucratic oversight. It could have been that they didn't have date and place of birth information on Oswald.
Because of the possibility of identical names, the practice of the Passport Office is not to prepare a lookout card on any individual on the basis of his name alone. They need both name and date and place of birth. Now, it may have been either that the Finance Office failed to notify the Passport Office because it did not have date and place of birth information, or that it did notify the Passport Office, and because there was no date and place of birth information, the Passport Office did not make a card.

Mr. Dulles.

But the Passport Office had that information.

Mr. Chayes.

The Passport Office had the date and place of birth information on Lee Harvey Oswald; yes.

Mr. Dulles.

But not on Marina?

Mr. Chayes.

Marina wouldn't have gotten into the Passport Office at all. She is an alien. But they didn't know whether the Lee Harvey Oswald, or they might not have known that the Lee Harvey Oswald that came down from the Finance Office, if indeed it did come down, was the same Lee Harvey Oswald as to whom they had date and place of birth information.
That is the problem. The problem is avoiding the difficulties that would arise if duplicated names put you into the lookout card system.

Mr. Coleman.

Once the loan had been repaid, would the card have been taken out?

Mr. Chayes.

Yes.

Mr. Coleman.

So, therefore, by the time he applied for the passport in June 1963, the loan had been paid so there wouldn't have been a lookout card in any event.