Mr. Chayes. No, no; I don't equate the two at all. But that kind of thing I think would have been the subject of investigation under our new procedures, and might have turned up something. I think if you could have found, for example, that he did in the past give information of this kind, you might be in a different position.
Representative Ford. Was any investigation of that aspect made at the time?
Mr. Chayes. Yes.
Representative Ford. When he came back and asked for the renewal of his passport?
Mr. Chayes. No; but what happened was when he returned to the United States—first of all the FBI was kept constantly informed, and as you know kept looking into the Oswald situation periodically from the time he came back.
Mr. Coleman. And those reports were in the passport file.
Mr. Chayes. They were in the passport file, and immediately after he came back, he was interviewed very fully by the FBI, and I think as I recall the file—I haven't reviewed it recently—I think he was questioned on this very point by the FBI, and he said he hadn't given any and they weren't very much interested in it. And the FBI apparently was satisfied with that. They made no further move against him on that basis.
So that we did have whatever information there was.
As I say, although this regulation looks to the purpose of the forthcoming travel and not to the past travel, nonetheless I think it is perfectly appropriate to make inferences on the basis of what he did before. We refused to issue a passport to Worthy when he would not give us assurances that he would observe the restrictions, because on the basis of his past conduct, we were prepared to infer that in the absence of such assurances, he might well disobey the restrictions.
Mr. Ehrlich points out to me that on May 16, 1962—this is one of several such memorandums—our security office sent to the FBI with copies to the other security agencies a memorandum on the subject of American defectors, and their status in the U.S.S.R., and there is a summary of that which covers Oswald. This was just before he came home, I guess.