Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

by United States. Warren Commission

ISSUANCE OF A PASSPORT IN JUNE 1963

On June 24, 1963, Oswald applied for a U.S. passport at the Passport Office in New Orleans, La.[A15-257] He said he was planning to visit England, France, Holland, U.S.S.R., Finland, Italy, and Poland, and that he intended to leave the country sometime during November or December 1963 by ship from New Orleans.[A15-258] He stated further that he was married to a person born in Russia who was not an American citizen. For occupation, the word “Photographer” was inserted on the application.[A15-259]

On the same day a teletype was sent to Washington containing the names of 25 of the persons who applied for passports on that date in New Orleans, Oswald’s name among them. On the right side of the Washington Passport Office copy of the teletype message, approximately parallel to his name, are the letters, “NO,” written in red pencil.[A15-260] Oswald was issued a passport on June 25, 1963.[A15-261]

Since there was no lookout card on Oswald, the passport was processed routinely. Twenty-four hours is the usual time for routinely granted passports to be issued.[A15-262] The handwritten notation, “NO,” which appeared beside Oswald’s name on the list of applicants from New Orleans, is a symbol for the New Orleans Passport Office that is routinely placed on incoming teletype messages by anyone of a group of persons in the teletype section of the Passport Office.[A15-263] No one looked at Oswald’s file previously established with the Department.[A15-264] The Department, however, has informed the Commission that at the time the passport was issued there was no information in its passport or security files which would have permitted it to deny a passport to Oswald.[A15-265] No lookout card should have been in the file based upon the Moscow Embassy’s memorandum of March 28, 1960, which drew attention to Oswald’s intention to expatriate himself, because the subsequent determination that Oswald had not expatriated himself would remove expatriation as a possible ground for denying him a passport.[A15-266] And by January 29, 1963, the repatriation loan had been repaid, so a lookout card should not have been in the file on that basis.[A15-267]

* * * * *

Oswald was entitled to receive a passport in 1963 unless he came within one of the two statutory provisions authorizing the Secretary of State to refuse to issue it.[A15-268] Section 6 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, which has recently been declared unconstitutional,[A15-269] then provided:

* * * it shall be unlawful for any member of [an organization required to register], with knowledge or notice that such organization is so registered and that such order has become final—(1) to make application for passport, or the renewal of a passport, to be issued or renewed by or under the authority of the United States; or (2) to use or attempt to use any such passport.[A15-270]

Pursuant to section 6, the State Department promulgated a regulation which denied passports to

* * * any individual who the issuing officer knows or has reason to believe is a member of a Communist Organization registered or required to be registered under Section 7 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 as amended.[A15-271]

Since there is no evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was a member of the American Communist Party or any other organization which had been required to register under section 7 of the Subversive Activities Control Act,[A15-272] a passport could not have been denied him under section 6.

Section 215 of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that, while a Presidential proclamation of national emergency is in force,

* * * it shall, except as otherwise provided by the President, * * * be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter * * * the United States unless he bears a valid passport.[A15-273]

Because a proclamation of national emergency issued by President Truman during the Korean war had not been revoked by 1963, the Government has taken the position that the statute remains in force.[A15-274] Pursuant to section 215, the State Department has issued regulations setting forth the circumstances under which it will refuse a passport:

In order to promote and safeguard the interests of the United States, passport facilities, except for direct and immediate return to the United States, shall be refused to a person when it appears to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that the person’s activity abroad would: (a) violate the laws of the United States; (b) be prejudicial to the orderly conduct of foreign relations; or (c) otherwise be prejudicial to the interests of the United States.[A15-275]

The State Department takes the position that its authority under this regulation is severely limited. In a report submitted to the Commission, the Department concluded that “there were no grounds consonant with the passport regulations to take adverse passport action against Oswald prior to November 22, 1963.”[A15-276] Although Oswald’s statement in 1959 that he would furnish the Russians with information he had obtained in the Marine Corps may have indicated that he would disclose classified information if he possessed any such information, there was no indication in 1963 that he had any valuable information.[A15-277] Moreover, Oswald’s 1959 statement had been brought to the attention of the Department of the Navy[A15-278] and the FBI[A15-279] and neither organization had initiated criminal proceedings. The Department therefore had no basis for concluding that Oswald’s 1959 statement was anything more than rash talk.[A15-280] And the State Department’s files contained no other information which might reasonably have led it to expect that Oswald would violate the laws of the United States when he went abroad.

The most likely ground for denying Oswald a passport in 1963, however, was provided by subsection (c) of the regulation quoted above, which requires the denial of a passport when the Secretary of State is satisfied that the applicant’s “activity abroad would * * * otherwise be prejudicial to the interests of the United States.” In 1957 the State Department described to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee one category of persons to whom it denied passports under this provision:

Persons whose previous conduct abroad has been such as to bring discredit on the United States and cause difficulty for other Americans (gave bad checks, left unpaid debts, had difficulties with police, etc.).[A15-281]

In light of the adverse publicity caused the United States by Oswald’s prior defection to the Soviet Union, he could have been considered a person “whose previous conduct abroad had been such as to bring discredit on the United States.” Indeed, the State Department itself had previously been of the opinion that Oswald’s continued presence in Russia was damaging to the prestige of the United States because of his unstable character and prior criticisms of the United States.[A15-282]

However, in 1958 the Supreme Court had decided two cases which restricted the Secretary of State’s authority to deny passports. In Kent v. Dulles[A15-283] and Dayton v. Dulles,[A15-284] the Supreme Court invalidated a State Department regulation permitting the denial of passports to Communists and to those “who are going abroad to engage in activities which will advance the Communist movement for the purpose, knowingly and willfully of advancing that movement,” on the ground that the regulation exceeded the authority Congress had granted the Secretary. The Kent opinion stressed the importance to be attached to an individual’s ability to travel beyond the borders of the United States:

The right to travel is a part of the “liberty” of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment * * * Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel abroad, like travel within the country, may be necessary for a livelihood. It may be as close to the heart of the individual as the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement is basic in our scheme of values.[A15-285]

The Kent opinion also suggested that grounds relating to citizenship and allegiance to illegal conduct might be the only two upon which the Department could validly deny a passport application.

The Department, though publicly declaring that these decisions had little effect upon its broadly worded regulation,[A15-286] in practice denied passports only in limited situations. In 1963 the Department denied passports only to those who violated the Department’s travel restrictions, to fugitives from justice, to those involved in using passports fraudulently, and to those engaged in illegal activity abroad or in conduct directly affecting our relations with a particular country.[A15-287] Passports were granted to people who the Department might have anticipated would go abroad to denounce the United States, and to a prior defector.[A15-288] State Department officials believed that in view of the Supreme Court decisions, the Department was not empowered to deny anyone a passport on grounds related to freedom of speech or to political association and beliefs.[A15-289]

Since Oswald’s citizenship was not in question and since there was no indication that he would be involved in illegal activity abroad, the only grounds upon which a passport might have been denied Oswald would have fallen within the area of speech or political belief and association. The Commission therefore concludes that the Department was justified in granting a passport to Oswald on June 25, 1963.