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.
VISIT TO THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN MEXICO CITY
In October 1963, the Passport Office of the State Department received a report from the Central Intelligence Agency that Oswald had visited the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City.[A15-290] The report said nothing about Oswald’s having visited the Cuban Embassy in Mexico City, a fact which was not known until after the assassination. Upon receipt of the information the passport file on Lee Harvey Oswald was reviewed by the Passport Office.[A15-291] The CIA communication and the passport file were read by an attorney and a supervisory attorney in that office who found no basis for revoking Oswald’s passport or for notifying the FBI or CIA that Oswald had been issued a new passport in June 1963.[A15-292] The Department has informed the Commission that, “since the report indicated no grounds for determining Oswald was ineligible for a passport, a determination was made that no action by the passport office was required.”[A15-293] Travel to Russia was not proscribed in 1963. Moreover, the Soviet Union was one of the countries Oswald had listed on his passport application. Hence, the Commission agrees that Oswald’s taking steps to enter the Soviet Union in 1963 was not a sufficient reason to revoke his passport.
Later, on November 14, 1963, the FBI sent the Department a report on Oswald’s arrest in New Orleans, La. during August in connection with a fistfight in which he became engaged when passing out pamphlets entitled “Hands Off Cuba.” No action was taken on the basis of the Bureau’s report.[A15-294] The Commission agrees that this incident was not grounds for revoking Oswald’s passport.
CONCLUSION
Investigation of Oswald’s complete dealings with the Department of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service reveals no irregularity suggesting any illegal actions or impropriety on the part of government officials. The Commission believes, however, that in applying its own regulations the Department should in all cases exercise great care in the return to this country of defectors such as Oswald who have evidenced disloyalty or hostility to this country or who have expressed a desire to renounce their U.S. citizenship and that, when such persons are returned, procedures should be adopted for the better dissemination of information concerning them to the intelligence agencies of the Government. The operation of the “lookout card” system in the Department of State was obviously deficient, but since these deficiencies did not affect Oswald or reflect any favoritism or impropriety, the Commission considers them beyond the scope of its inquiry.
Especially while he was in the Soviet Union, Oswald’s manner to Government personnel was frequently insulting and offensive. As one 1962 communication between the Embassy and the Department of State observed, “It is not that our hearts are breaking for Oswald. His impertinence knows no bounds.”[A15-295] Nonetheless, the officials of the U.S. Government respected Oswald as a troubled American citizen and extended to him the services and assistance for which the agencies of government have been created. Though Oswald was known to be “an unstable character, whose actions are highly unpredictable,”[A15-296] there was no reasonable basis in 1961 and 1962 for suspecting that upon his readmittance to the country he would resort to violence against its public officials. The officers of the Department of State and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, acting within the proper limits of their discretion, concluded that Oswald’s return to the United States was in the best interests of the country; it is only from the vantage of the present that the tragic irony of their conclusion emerges.