his attempts to return to the United States. Snyder has testified that although he made a sincere effort to treat Oswald's application objectively, Oswald's attitude made this very difficult. 276

In order to leave Russia, it was also necessary for the Oswalds to obtain permission from the Soviet Government. The timing and circumstances under which the Oswalds obtained this permission have also been considered by the Commission. Marina Oswald, although her memory is not clear on the point, said that she and Oswald first made their intentions to go to the United States known to Soviet officials in Minsk in May, even before coming to Moscow in July for the conference at the American Embassy.277 The Oswalds' correspondence with the Embassy and the documents furnished the Commission by the Soviet Government show that the Oswalds made a series of formal applications to the Soviets from July 15 to August 21. 278 Presumably the most difficult question for the Soviet-authorities was whether to allow Marina Oswald to accompany her husband. She was called to the local passport office in Minsk on December 25, 1961, and told that authority had been received to issue exit visas to her and Oswald.279 Obtaining the permission of the Soviet Government to leave may have been aided by a conference which Marina Oswald had, at her own request, with a local MVD official, Colonel Aksenov, sometime in late 1961. She testified that she applied for the conference at her husband's urging, after he had tried unsuccessfully to arrange such a conference for himself.280 She believed that it may have been granted her because her uncle with whom she had lived in Minsk before her marriage was also an MVD official.281

The correspondence with the American Embassy at this time reflected that the Oswalds did not pick up their exit visas immediately.282 On January 11, 1962, Marina Oswald was issued her Soviet exit visa. It was marked valid until December 1, 1962.283 The Oswalds did not leave Russia until June 1962, but the additional delay was caused by problems with the U.S. Government and by the birth of a child in February.284 Permission of the Soviet authorities to leave, once given, was never revoked. Oswald told the FBI in July 1962, shortly after he returned to the United States, that he had been interviewed by the MVD twice, once when he first came to the Soviet Union and once just before he departed.285 His wife testified that the second interview did not occur in Moscow but that she and her husband dealt with the MVD visa officials frequently in Minsk.286

Investigation of the circumstances, including the timing, under which the Oswalds obtained permission from the Soviet Government to leave Russia for the United States show that they differed in no discernible manner from the normal. The Central Intelligence Agency has informed the Commission that normally a Soviet national would not be permitted to emigrate if he might endanger Soviet national security once he went abroad.287 Those persons in possession of confidential information, for example, would constitute an