Mr. Lee. It is not in my hand, and it certainly doesn't look like—in fact I remember when I made copies of these things I was looking at both sides of the papers to make sure that I had a complete copy when I made the copy of these letters for my own personal file on the issue, and these things were not on. I am sure that these things were not on them when I turned them in.
Mr. Rankin. By "these things" you mean those pencil marks on the back?
Mr. Lee. The penciled digits on the back of the letters.
Mr. Rankin. Such as on Exhibit 7 that I just referred you to, the mark "62-109060-1845"?
Mr. Lee. Yes, those things must have been added after I turned them in.
Mr. Rankin. Mr. Lee, I asked you about the circling of the figure 50 and the notation "Sent 4/19/63" on Exhibit 1. As I recall, you said you were out traveling over the country at that time, and you knew you were not in the office so as to send that literature. Do you have any idea what 50 copies were sent?
Mr. Lee. Well, this is back in April of 1963, and he asks, I quote, "I now ask for 40 or 50," and the circle is around 50, and this, the normal procedure had always been to note it. When the circle was made around the 50, I just assume, and I very much believe, that it was 50 items that were sent. Now, we have printed various leaflets, and this is what was sent, these leaflets, such as, you know, calling for the end of hostile relations, and so forth, between the Government of the United States and the Government of Cuba, which we used for distribution at various public affairs and public places.
Mr. Rankin. We had information from the Bureau that you had said that notation was by you and that you sent the material. Is that incorrect?
Mr. Lee. Well, I can't see how it could possibly be when I wasn't in the area at the time. The 19th of April I was somewhere on the west coast, I was somewhere between Los Angeles and Seattle, Washington. I arrived on the west coast, I believe, on April the 1st or 2d of 1963, and I didn't return until the first week of May of 1963, and the last point of departure to New York was from, I believe, the City of Chicago. I was out on the west coast and the west and midwest during that period of time, and I wasn't there. Now, I assume that at some point along the line in my communications I had sent this gentleman some material, which we always had in stock. This was part of our activity, to print up leaflets and pamphlets and translations of various things and provide them to the general public.
But this particular item, assuming that all these dates are correct, I can't possibly have sent it. But the point is that I would authorize—to me it was a standard policy that if anybody asked for anything that we had, we would give it to them, and that is the best I can say. But as for myself, at that particular date, I was not in the New York area. I was very far away at that particular time. In fact I was definitely on the west coast of the United States at that time.