Mr. Coleman.

examined Oswald's file to make a determination of whether he should have been issued a passport?

Mr. Chayes.

In 1963?

Mr. Coleman.

1963.

Mr. Chayes.

In 1963 the passport was issued on the basis of a simple check of the lookout file under the normal procedures of the Department.
What happens is that when a field office, in this case it was the New Orleans field office, get a series of passport applications, they Telex the names of the applicants and their place and date of birth to the Department, and the Department makes a name check through the lookout card file. That is all. And if there isn't a lookout card in the lookout card file, they authorize the issuance of the passport by the field agency. The field agency has to make a determination of citizenship, of course. But no further action is taken in Washington unless for some reason or other the field agency would wish to send a particular case forward.

Mr. Coleman.

Since there was no lookout card, I take it we can assume that the June 25, 1963, passport was issued without any----

Mr. Chayes.

Without any examination.

Mr. Coleman.

Without any consultation of the files on Oswald----

Mr. Chayes.

Exactly.

Mr. Coleman.

That were in the Department.

Mr. Chayes.

I am confident that that was the case.

Mr. Dulles.

May I ask whether there are any lookout cards to your knowledge that are filed under that third section there?

Mr. Chayes.

"Violate the laws or be prejudicial"?

Mr. Dulles.

That is it; yes.

Mr. Chayes.

Well, I don't know for a fact that there are, but if we would make such a determination with respect to some person or group, I suppose lookout cards would be prepared for such a group.
And I would go further and say that probably the authority, you don't need authority to do it, but the theory of preparing cards for defectors which we are now doing under the Schwartz to Knight memorandum, that we referred to a moment ago, is that it is possible that a defector, upon examination of his file, will be shown to fall within one of these categories.

Mr. Dulles.

Would Oswald now be considered a defector, or should he have been at that time if the regulations that you now have in effect were then in effect?

Mr. Chayes.

If we had the instruction in the Schwartz to Knight memorandum, yes; there would have been a lookout card on Oswald.

Mr. Coleman.

Mr. Chayes, assuming on June 25, 1963, a person in the Passport Office had examined all of the files that the State Department had on Oswald from 1959 through June 25, 1963, in your opinion could the Department have refused Oswald a passport based upon section 51.136 of the regulation?

Mr. Chayes.

In my opinion, they could not. They could not have refused a passport based on the information in the Oswald file.

Representative Ford.

If that is true, how could you have a lookout card now that would have resulted, that would result in a passport being refused?

Mr. Chayes.

I don't think we could. What the lookout card would do would be to refer you to the file. You would look into the file. You might then want some further investigation as to this fellow.
You might, having seen that you were dealing with this kind of a person, want to examine him more fully on his travel plans and so on and so on. That further investigation might turn up some information which would warrant a determination under one of these subsections. But if it turned up nothing but what was in the file, you would have to issue the passport, in my Judgment.

Mr. Dulles.

That is, lookout cards might well be put in in borderline cases, but when you came to consider the case on all the facts, you would decide in favor of issuance of the passport rather than refusal?

Mr. Chayes.

Yes; that is the same thing with the expatriation card which should have been made out for Oswald in 1960. It should have been made out because there was a possibility that he had expatriated himself. But then when he came to apply for the passport, all the lookout card would do is say, "Investigate this carefully and determine this issue."