(Testimony of Abram Chayes Resumed)
Mr. Chayes.
With the Kent and Brehl cases, it may well have been that that category fell into some desuetude. I think it is worth inquiring of Miss Knight whether that category was maintained after the Kent case, or whether we simply took those out.
Mr. Coleman.
In the Commission Exhibit No. 951 you also have another category, category R, which reads: "Individuals actions do not reflect to credit of abroad." Would you say that based upon the Oswald file as it existed in the Passport Office as of June 1963, that he would not fall in that category?
Mr. Chayes.
I don't think so when you are thinking about what this means. I don't think one parson in a billion abroad knew Oswald or had any such experience with him or anything else. This isn't really a reflection on the United States. I suppose if you construed it that way, if somebody got drunk on the Champs Elysees he ought to be in that category. I don't think you can really construe it that broadly. It has to mean I am sure someone who has a really notorious course of conduct like the kind of thing that I summarized for you on the three people in the so-called other category when we were talking to earlier--my letter of June 6.
Representative Ford.
If you really are equating someone who is intoxicated in Paris with Oswald----
Mr. Chayes.
No; I am not equating them in the quality of their conduct, but for the purposes of this category "Do not reflect credit on the United States abroad" I think what that must involve is some very notorious course of conduct which a lot of people have had a chance to see, which has somewhat serious consequences of the kind that I summarized here "convicted for attempting to acquire knowledge of state secrets in Germany, fraudulent schemes, convicted for fraud," that kind of thing.
Here is a fellow who left a trail of bad checks, using his passport as identification and claiming to be a U.S. employee. All I am saying is that category R, although it is a catchall category, I would conceive is construed or should be construed narrowly.
Let me say further, I probably should not be testifying to this so much anyway because these categories are guidelines, are operational guidelines. They have legal consequences. And I think you ought to ask Miss Knight, who has the operational responsibility, whether the way I conceive this is correct. I may misconceive it, but I think in essence these categories a.re related to grounds of disqualification, and unless the conduct specified comes within the range of being a ground, a basis for disqualification, I don't think the lookout card would be made up.
Mr. Coleman.
Don't you have a category X, which is called "catch card," denotes limited lookout validity, not necessarily refusal situation?
Mr. Chayes.
Yes.
Mr. Coleman.
So perhaps Oswald could have been put in there, couldn't he, in that category, based upon the file?
Mr. Chayes.
It is possible, and I suppose that is exactly what we are now doing with defectors.
Mr. Coleman.
Do you know what category----
Mr. Chayes.
I think you ought to inquire from Miss Knight about that.
Mr. Coleman.
I also take it you wouldn't know what goes in categories O and P, O being "orange card, includes recent master list" and P being "project Carry."
Mr. Chayes.
I don't personally know at all.
(Discussion off the record.)
Representative Ford.
Let me ask you this, Mr. Chayes. Were Oswald's various applications and various approvals ever handled as a special case as far as you know?
Mr. Chayes.
The only applications that were handled as a special case were the ones made in Russia for the return of his passport in the first instance, and then the renewal of his passport. Those were handled as a special case, both in the Embassy and in the Department.
Although I don't think very high ranking officers passed on them in the sense of Assistant Secretaries Or something like that, nonetheless they where handled at very responsible levels in the Department. The political desk was consulted
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