The Moscow Embassy on March 16, 1962, asked the Embassy at Brussels if Mrs. Oswald could obtain her visa in Brussels.[A15-186] The Brussels Embassy replied affirmatively and said a visa could be issued to Marina within 2 or 3 days of her arrival.[A15-187] The Marina Oswald file accordingly was sent to the Embassy at Brussels.[A15-188]
The plan to obtain the visa in Belgium was rendered unnecessary, however, when the Immigration and Naturalization Service reversed its position regarding the waiver of section 243(g). On March 16, the Soviet desk at the Department of State took initial action to attempt to secure such a change by sending a memorandum to the Visa Office within the Department, urging that the Immigration and Naturalization Service be asked to reconsider its decision.[A15-189] According to this memorandum:
SOV believes it is in the interest of the U.S. to get Lee Harvey Oswald and his family out of the Soviet Union and on their way to this country as soon as possible. An unstable character, whose actions are entirely unpredictable, Oswald may well refuse to leave the USSR or subsequently attempt to return there if we should make it impossible for him to be accompanied from Moscow by his wife and child.
Such action on our part also would permit the Soviet Government to argue that, although it had issued an exit visa to Mrs. Oswald to prevent the separation of a family, the United States Government had imposed a forced separation by refusing to issue her a visa. Obviously, this would weaken our Embassy’s position in encouraging positive Soviet action in other cases involving Soviet citizen relatives of U.S. citizens.[A15-190]
Soon thereafter, however, the Department of State notified its Moscow Embassy that the decision was under review and instructed it to withhold action pending the outcome of the reconsideration.[A15-191]
The Visa Office first contacted the Washington office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service informally, and was advised, according to a contemporaneous notation:
* * * that case had been carefully considered and decision made at Assistant or Deputy Associate Commissioner level. Therefore, although not wishing to comment on likelihood of reversal, [INS officer] felt that any letter requesting a review of the case should come from the Director or Acting Administrator.[A15-192]
On March 27, 1962, such a letter was written from an acting administrator in the Department of State to the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization. The letter read in part:
I appreciate the difficulty this case presents for your Service, because of Mr. Oswald’s background, and the fact that granting a waiver of the sanction makes it appear that this Government is assisting a person who is not altogether entitled to such assistance. However, if the Embassy at Moscow is unable to issue Mrs. Oswald a visa, it would appear that she and indirectly the Oswalds’ newborn child are being punished for Mr. Oswald’s earlier indiscretions. I might also point out that this Government has advanced Mr. Oswald a loan of $500.00 for repatriation.
More important, however, is the possibility that if Mrs. Oswald is not issued a visa by the Embassy, the Soviet Government will be in a position to claim that it has done all it can to prevent the separation of the family by issuing Mrs. Oswald the required exit permission, but that this Government has refused to issue her a visa, thus preventing her from accompanying her husband and child. This would weaken the Embassy’s attempts to encourage positive action by the Soviet authorities in other cases involving Soviet relatives of United States citizens.
Because of these considerations and because I believe it is in the best interests of the United States to have Mr. Oswald depart from the Soviet Union as soon as possible, I request that the section 243(g) sanction be waived in Mrs. Oswald’s case.[A15-193]
The Immigration and Naturalization Service ultimately reversed its original position and granted the waiver on May 9, 1962. The letter reversing its initial decision states that the matter has been “carefully reviewed in this office” and that “in view of the strong representations” made in the letter of March 27, the sanctions imposed pursuant to section 243(g) were thereby waived in behalf of Mrs. Oswald.[A15-194]
Actually, the Office of Soviet Affairs had informally learned on May 8 that the May 9 letter would be signed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.[A15-195] On the strength of the assurance that a written reversal would be forthcoming immediately, the State Department quickly telegraphed the Moscow Embassy reporting that the waiver had been granted.[A15-196] Marina Oswald completed her processing when she, her husband, and daughter came to Moscow in May 1962 on their way from Minsk to the United States.[A15-197]