September 11, 1959.119 He went directly to Helsinki, Finland, by way of Le Havre, France, and London, England, arriving at Helsinki on Saturday, October 10, 1959.120 Oswald probably arrived in Helsinki too late in the evening to have applied for a visa at the Soviet Union consulate that night.121 In light of the rapidity with which he made connections throughout his entire trip,122 he probably applied for a visa early on Monday, October 12. On October 14, he was issued Soviet Tourist Visa No. 403339, good for one 6-day visit in the U.S.S.R. 128 He left Helsinki on a train destined for Moscow on October 15. 124

The Department of State has advised the Commission that it has some information that in 1959 it usually took an American tourist in Helsinki I to 2 weeks to obtain a visa,125 and that it has other information that the normal waiting period during the past 5 years has been a week or less.126 According to the Department's information, the waiting period has always varied frequently and widely, with one confirmed instance in 1963 of a visa routinely issued in less than 24 hours.127 The Central Intelligence Agency has indicated that visas during the 1964 tourist season were being granted in about 5 to 7 days.128

This information from the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency thus suggests that Oswald's wait for a visa may have been shorter than usual but not beyond the range of possible variation. The prompt issuance of Oswald's visa may have been merely the result of normal procedures, due in part to the fact that the summer rush had ended. It might also mean that Oswald was unusually urgent in his demands that his visa be issued promptly. Oswald himself told officials at the American Embassy in Moscow on October 31, when he appeared to renounce his citizenship, that he had said nothing to the Soviets about defecting until he arrived in Moscow.129 In any event, the Commission has found nothing in the circumstances of Oswald's entry into the Soviet Union which indicates that he was at the time an agent of the U.S.S.R.

Defection and admission to residence.--Two months and 22 days elapsed from Oswald's arrival in Moscow until he left that city to take up residence in Minsk. The Commission has considered the possibility that Oswald was accepted for residence in the Soviet Union and sent to Minsk unusually soon after he arrived, either because he had been expected or because during his first weeks in Moscow he developed an undercover relationship with the Soviet Government. In doing so, the Commission has attempted to reconstruct the events of those months, though it is, of course, impossible to account for Oswald's activities on every day of that period.

Oswald's "Historic Diary," 130 which commences on October 16, 1959, the date Oswald arrived in Moscow, and other writings he later prepared,131 have provided the Commission with one source of information about Oswald's activities throughout his stay in the Soviet Union. Even assuming the diary was intended to be a truthful record, it is not