Mr. Slawson. Could you elaborate a little bit on that radar point. Had you been informed by the American Embassy at the time that he had told Richard Snyder that he had already volunteered to the Soviet officials that he had been a radar operator in the Marine Corps, and would give the Russian Government any secrets he had possessed?
Miss Johnson. I had no idea that he had told Snyder that, but he did tell me—I got the impression, I am not sure that it is in the notes or not, I certainly got the impression that he was using his radar training as a come-on to them, hoped that that would make him of some value to them, and I——
Mr. Slawson. This was something then that he must have volunteered to you, because you would not have known to ask about it?
Miss Johnson. Well, again I am not very military minded, and I couldn't have cared less, you know. But somehow along the line, if it is not in my notes then it is a memory, then it is one of the things I didn't write—well, one thing is you know I tend to write what I thought I might use in the story. But I wasn't going to write a particularly negative story about him. I wasn't going to write that he was using it as a come-on so I might not have transcribed it just simply for that reason, that it wasn't a part of my story.
But it definitely was an impression that he—and it was from him, certainly not from the Embassy, that he was using that as a come-on, and I sure didn't like that. But it didn't occur to me he might have military secrets. I just felt, well hell, he didn't have much as a radar operator that they need, although even there I didn't know.
Maybe there was some little twist in our radar technique that he might know. It showed a lack of integrity in his personality, and that I remembered. What he might or might not have to offer them I didn't know.
About the other point, police interest, I assumed the police would be the first people to be interested, and that whether he knew it or not, he had talked to somebody from the police, that he was getting a favorable room rate because of this interest. That is what I was after the whole time. But I was struck only by his secretiveness in answer to this, and I couldn't make out whether he had something to hide, whether he didn't know really what the situation was, or whether he was simply a very secretive person.
Mr. Slawson. Did he tell you that he had this information which he was, you might say, holding out as bait to the Soviets, or that he had already given to the Soviet Government whatever expertise or information he might have had as a radar operator?
Miss Johnson. I think he told me—could you repeat your question?
Mr. Slawson. Well, I will put it in a different way. I wonder whether your memory is that Oswald was telling you that he had this information which he had not yet given to the Soviet Government, and hoped to use it as a means of convincing them to take him, or whether he had already given it to them?