Twenty months of the realities of life in the Soviet Union have clearly had a maturing effect on Oswald. He stated frankly that he learned a hard lesson the hard way and that he had been completely relieved about his illusions about the Soviet Union * * * Much of the arrogance and bravado which characterized him on his first visit to the Embassy appears to have left him.99

Oswald told Snyder that despite the statement he had given him in October 1959, he had never applied for Soviet citizenship, but only for permission to reside in the Soviet Union. He presented his Soviet internal passport, which described him as without citizenship of any kind. Oswald said that he had been employed since January 13, 1960, as a metal worker in the research shop in the Byelorussian Radio and Television Factory in Minsk. He claimed that he had taken no oath of allegiance of any kind, and that he had not been required to sign any papers in connection with this employment. He added that he was not a member of the factory trade union organization. Oswald said that he was earning 90 rubles ($90) a month and that he had saved about 200 rubles ($200) toward travel expenses to the United States. He denied that he had made any derogatory statements concerning the United States to radio, press, or TV in the Soviet Union, and he denied that he had turned over any information to the Russians as he had threatened to do in the 1959 interview with Snyder.100

During the course of the interview Oswald filled out an application for renewal of his American passport.101 The renewal application was required since Oswald's existing passport. would expire on September 10, 1961,102 and it was extremely unlikely that he would be able to obtain the requisite Soviet departure documents before that time. The renewal application contained a printed statement which set forth, in the disjunctive, a series of acts which, if committed by the applicant, would either automatically disqualify him from receiving a passport on the ground that he had lost his American citizenship, or would raise a question whether he might be so disqualified. The printed statement was preceded by two phrases, "have," and, "have not," the first phrase being printed directly above the second. One carbon copy of the application indicates Oswald signed the document after the second phrase, "have not," had been typed over, thereby apparently admitting that he had committed one or more of the acts which would at least raise a question as to whether he had expatriated himself. Snyder was not able to remember with certainty to which of the acts listed on the statement Oswald's mark was intended to refer, but believed it may have been to "swearing allegiance to a foreign state." 103 He points out that the strikeout of "have not" may also have been a clerical error.104 On the actual signed copy of the application kept in the