He liked to play cat and mouse with your curiosity.
Mr. Slawson. Can you go into and describe what kind of assurances Oswald said he had been given at that time about his ability to stay indefinitely in the Soviet Union, or lack of assurances?
Miss Johnson. This was a point on which his anxiety was patent, and he said almost at the beginning of the interview, "They have confirmed the fact that I will not have to leave the Soviet Union, be forced to leave even if the Supreme Soviet refuses my request for Soviet citizenship."
This came up repeatedly in the conversation, that he was anxious, that he had been very anxious that he would be forced to go—what was your question exactly again?
Mr. Slawson. I think you are already addressing yourself to it. I am interested in what Oswald told you about how sure he was at that time that he would be permitted to stay in the Soviet Union.
Miss Johnson. Well, he had by that time been told that he wouldn't have to leave, and as it had obviously been very recently that he had been told. It was obviously also an enormous relief to him but he hadn't quite recovered from the anxiety he had felt before the assurance, because it kept coming up again and again. In fact, he even——
Mr. Slawson. Could you state for the record what kept coming up again and again? I mean, what did he tell you he had been told?
Miss Johnson. The fact that he could stay in the Soviet Union as a resident alien even if he did not receive Soviet citizenship, that he wouldn't have to leave the country. It came up almost as a leit motif of this conversation, his anxiety about staying, and his recent reassurance by them that he could remain as a resident alien had not altogether quelled the anxiety which was still alive, even though the assurance was there.
He was holding on to it and repeating it, you know, reiterating it as though it gave him something to hold on to. In fact, he did give this as a reason for his talking to me, that he no longer was afraid that by talking to a foreigner he would be compromising his ability to stay. In other words, all the time I was also curious really as to just what he was. Was he a publicity seeker? Was he doing it for that reason? And so he said he wouldn't have talked, that he would have given no statement to the press, which was a rather pretentious way I guess of describing his utterances up to that time, if the Embassy hadn't already released it, and he wouldn't have said anything to anyone if they hadn't released it.
This was another reason for his being mad at the Embassy. Then he went on to say as another reason for talking—he was already inconsistent there—he would like to give his side of the story and give the people of the United States something to think about.