Mr. Chayes. 1963.
Mr. Dulles. I mean 1963?
Mr. Chayes. It was not.
Mr. Dulles. It was not?
Mr. Chayes. It was not, because what happened then was that the Telex came in from New Orleans. The only thing that you do is go to the lookout card file. There was no lookout card. In the absence of a lookout card, routine approval goes out and the passport was issued from the New Orleans office. If there had been a lookout card, then the lookout card would have sent them back to the file. There was no lookout card because the file as it then stood didn't have anything in it that warranted the denial of a passport, and under our then procedures we didn't have a flag for people of this kind to stimulate a further inquiry or investigation.
Mr. Dulles. Isn't it usual in issuing a passport though to look, in addition to the lookout card, to look at the file you have on the individual?
Mr. Chayes. No, sir; unless there is a lookout card, the passport is issued automatically on the basis of the local agency's determination of citizenship. There has to be evidence of citizenship.
Now let me say there are different ways in which this can come up, because for example a man may apply for a passport before a clerk of the court and that application would be forwarded to the Department. But even then the Department adjudicator would first look at the lookout file. If there is no card in the lookout file, all he would do is determine whether the application was complete, and whether satisfactory evidence of citizenship was presented, and whether on the face of it, you know, the oath was properly taken or any supplementary questionnaire resolved doubts.
And then would issue the passport. If there were a supplemental questionnaire or something like that, then he would probably go to the file.
In our agency there are special passport issuing offices. New Orleans is one of the big ones, we have one in New York, we have some others, there the system is very routinized.