to talk to him about his future.513 According to the diary, when Oswald appeared at the office he was asked whether he still wanted to become a Soviet citizen and he replied that he did; he provided his Marine Corps discharge papers for identification. He was told that he could not expect a decision soon, and was dismissed. During this interview, Oswald was apparently questioned about the interview which preceded his hospitalization, which led him to conclude that there had been no communication between the two sets of officials.514 That evening he met Rima, on whom he vented his frustration at being put off by the authorities.515

Oswald ate only once on the following day; he stayed near the telephone, fully dressed and ready to leave immediately if he were summoned. He remained in his room for 3 days, which seemed to him "like three years," 516 until October 31, when he decided to act. He met Rima Shirokova at noon and told her that he was impatient, but did not say what he planned to do; she cautioned him to stay in his room "and eat well." 517 She left him after a short while and, a few minutes later, he took a taxi to the American Embassy, where he asked to see the consul. (See Commission Exhibits Nos. 24, 912, 913, pp. 264, 263, 261.) When the receptionist asked him first to sign the tourist register, he laid his passport. on the desk and said that he had come to "dissolve his American citizenship." Richard E. Snyder, the Second Secretary and senior consular official,518 was summoned, and he invited Oswald into his office.519

Oswald's meeting with Snyder, at which Snyder's assistant, John A. McVickar, was also present, is more fully discussed in appendix w to the Commission's report. Oswald declared that he wanted to renounce his American citizenship; he denounced the United States and praised the Government of the Soviet Union. Over Oswald's objections, Snyder sought to learn something of Oswald's motives and background and to forestall immediate action. Oswald told him that he had already offered to tell a Soviet official what he had learned as a radar operator in the Marines. The interview ended when Snyder told Oswald that he could renounce his citizenship on the following Monday, 2 days later, if he would appear personally to do so. During the interview, Oswald handed to Snyder a note 520 which suggests that he had studied and sought to comply with section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which provides for loss of American citizenship.521 The note contains paragraphs which read like inartistic attempts to cast off citizenship in three of the ways specified by the statute. The attempts failed but there is no reason to doubt that they were sincere. Snyder has testified that he believed that Oswald would immediately have formally renounced his citizenship had he been permitted to do so.522

The interview lasted for less than an hour. Oswald returned to his hotel angry about. the delay but "elated" by the "showdown" and sure that he would be permitted to remain after his "sign of * * * faith" in the Russians.523 Soon after he returned to the hotel, he was