Miss Johnson. That is interesting: "until some solution." The way he put it to me was, and he put it more than once, it is in the notes, "even if they refuse that, I won't have to leave."
I imagine that his talking to me for so long, however, could be partly because he did feel the heat was off him in some way. That might be one reason. Another thing is that leads me to date my own interview the 17th, because for some reason I have the feeling that that information has been conveyed to him on the day before I talked to him.
Mr. Slawson. I don't think this is a basis for your dating your interview on the 17th, because I think he has everything moved up a day here. He puts the Mosby interview on the 15th which we know was on the 14th, so he probably puts the Russian officials coming to his room on the 16th when it probably occurred on the 15th.
Miss Johnson. That would be a Sunday. But Soviet officials do do things on Sundays. They definitely do. But even so, it is more likely that that happened on the 14th, Mosby on the 13th. That is possible, too.
Mr. Slawson. Yes.
Miss Johnson. So they had just simply said until—in other words, he is inexact for all his legalism. Either he is confused and inexact, or he was misleading purposely. He may have misunderstood the official, thought the official was promising more than he was.
Mr. Slawson. It could be, except that this of course is his diary entry, so he must have known what he was writing there, unless he wrote it down much later. In other words, it is possible that he made the entry in the diary at a much later time when he then realized that the promise had been qualified, and was under the impression when he spoke to you that he had received an unconditional promise. But the reason I brought this up was whether with the insight that he may have known when he spoke to you, that he had not quite received the unconditional promise he purported to have received, does this give you any further insight on him? I don't want you to just speculate here.
Miss Johnson. Well, whether he viewed publicity as actually perhaps helping his case, or whether enjoying the sense of importance that publicity gave him, he was rationalizing it by thinking that he was manipulating the situation to his advantage by having a little more publicity.
This is the only thing I wonder. Or possibly it was simply relief. He did use the word "safe," that he felt it would be safe.
Mr. Slawson. I think we have about got out all on that point we can. Could you elaborate a little more on Oswald's attitude toward the Embassy's reluctance to permit him to renounce his citizenship, on what he felt the Embassy was doing here, and what your impression was what the Embassy was doing?