Mr. Coleman. I have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 913 a photostatic copy of a handwritten letter which is signed by Lee H. Oswald, and ask you whether that is a copy of the letter that Oswald gave you on October 31, when he appeared at the Embassy?
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 913 for identification.)
Mr. Snyder. Yes; I would say it is, sir.
Mr. Coleman. After he gave you the letter and the passport, did he do anything else?
Mr. Snyder. No; after his initial statement of purpose and intent, and after giving me this statement, the interview was then pretty much in my hands. He was, I would say, a reluctant interviewee from there on.
He had announced initially his desire not to discuss the matter with me, but simply to get on with the business for which he had come and, therefore, anything else that was to be said was up to me to get said.
Mr. Coleman. Did you at that time go through whatever formalities are required for a person to renounce his citizenship?
Mr. Snyder. No; I did not.
Mr. Coleman. What does an American citizen have to do at the Embassy to renounce his citizenship?
Mr. Snyder. Well, the law requires, in general, that an American citizen, to renounce his citizenship, must appear before—I am not sure whether the law confines it to a consular officer—but at any rate must appear, in the case of the Foreign Service, appear before a consular officer, and swear to an affidavit in the proper form, something of this order. In practical terms, it means that the consul draws up a statement, the content of which—the exact wording of which is contained in our regulations, and has the person swear to it in his presence.