However, he did say in my first interview with him either "I have been told what you are going to tell me," or "I am very familiar with the arguments you are going to use on me," or words to this effect, which would be the most direct evidence, shall we say, that he had discussed what he intended to say, and how he intended to handle himself, before he came in to me.
But, in any event, I think it is a foregone conclusion, from what I know of the procedures and things like this, that he was in contact with a Soviet official, he was under somebody's charge in a sense during the time he was there. This was certainly the pattern in the Petrulli case. My whole knowledge of the system and the way it works, the whole internal consistency of it, would lead me to believe that this were the case, unless I had firm evidence to believe otherwise.
Mr. Coleman. How about when he reappeared on July 8 and 10, 1961? Did you feel he was being coached at that time in connection with his attempt to get his passport returned to him?
Mr. Snyder. No; I don't have any direct evidence that he was coached, I think, in the terms in which you mean. For one thing, his manner of speech and his general approach to the degree that I recall it was, well, less stiff, less formal, and certainly less haughty than it had been on the first occasion. He also didn't use with me the kind of Marxist sloganeering which I got from him on the first interview, which also, I think, is in a sense an evidence of his having been well briefed on his talk with me.
The second time around this was pretty much absent from his conversation.
Mr. Coleman. You say you felt he was well briefed on his first conversation with you in 1959, but not in connection with his second?
Mr. Snyder. Well, again, I cannot say that he was well briefed. I just don't know. But I say, it seemed to me evident at the time that he had discussed with, presumably, a Soviet person or persons what he intended to do at the Embassy, and perhaps the line he should take at the Embassy.
Mr. Coleman. Well, how do you feel or do you think there is any special significance to the way he entered the Soviet Union from Helsinki in October of 1959?
Mr. Snyder. Well, there is some significance perhaps, but not a great amount of significance. As most travelers, most tourist travelers come into the Soviet Union on a prearranged tour—many do come from Helsinki. Many of them do not come to Moscow. They go only to Leningrad, spend a day or two, and go back again across the border. It is the shortest entry onto Soviet territory from non-Communist territory.
It was at least one other case, when I was in Moscow, of a person—that is with possible defecting intent, who came into the Soviet Union through Helsinki, and who got his visa apparently directly at the Soviet Embassy, which I think is what Oswald did, although I cannot be sure. But it was my impression at the time that he did not have a prepared tourist tour sort of thing. But I cannot be sure on this point.