Mr. McVickar. No, no; it was my responsibility to look into the matter and make the recommendation and I did.
Mr. Coleman. And did you have any other facts in your possession or in your knowledge other than those which were set forth in the memorandum dated August 28, 1961, concerning whether Marina was eligible for admission as a nonquota immigrant?
Mr. McVickar. No; as far as I know the facts are as stated right there, and these facts were obtained from here on the basis of an interview with her, a personal interview.
Mr. Coleman. I have no other questions.
Representative Ford. Mr. McVickar, in your memorandum dated April 7, 1964, in the first paragraph you say: "Although I now regret that I made no notes on this even then unusual case, the following points seem to me to lend weight to my suggestion especially considering the youth and relative inexperience of the subject."
Was the Oswald case in October of 1959 a then unusual case?
Mr. McVickar. Yes; because we had had only a few people in the category of defectors, and at that point I think we might have had—this was the third one that had come up since I had been there, and the other two were much less aggressive, much less determined, and much less self-possessed people.
One of them turned out to be suffering from various mental diseases, and another one was a very weak individual who had been sort of lead astray by some Russian female agent, but this was a man who had, you know, he came directly and walked in, slammed his passport down. It was an unusual case from the very beginning.
Representative Ford. In the next paragraph you discuss in this memorandum the entry of Oswald into the Soviet Union through Helsinki. Is there any other port of entry into the Soviet Union that is comparable to Helsinki in the context you are using it here?
Mr. McVickar. Well, yes; there are a number of other ways to get into the Soviet Union. I would think by far the most used one is to arrive at the airport in Moscow. And then frequently used by people who have not very much means, would be to come by rail from Western Europe by way of Warsaw and the port of entry in that case is Brest. One could also come by sea into Odessa. It would not be unusual to arrive by air in Leningrad.