Mr. Coleman. Do you recall Mr. Owen asking you to prepare it?
Miss James. This was my responsibility, this case, but I had long discussions with Mr. Owen on the case as to how we should proceed with it before I wrote the memorandum.
Mr. Coleman. And Mr. Owen told you, "Why don't you draft a memorandum for Mr. Crump explaining to him the situation?"
Miss James. We came to agreement in a talk as to how to handle the case, and I drafted the memorandum which would go to Mr. Crump because he was the officer in the Visa Office handling the case.
Mr. Coleman. In the third paragraph of the memorandum it is stated that: "SOV believes it is in the interest of the U.S. to get Lee Harvey Oswald and his family out of the Soviet Union and on their way to this country soon. An unstable character, whose actions are entirely unpredictable, Oswald may well refuse to leave the USSR or subsequently attempt to return there if we should make it impossible for him to be accompanied from Moscow by his wife and child."
Did you draft that?
Miss James. Yes.
Mr. Coleman. Was this language that Mr. Owen had discussed with you and told you to put in the memorandum?
Miss James. My way of working is to draft a memorandum in rough draft. I give it to Mr. Owen. He and I—he might well have put in some few words. I don't know just where he would have changed it or whether he did change it. I can't say. It is impossible to say at this time unless I had the original draft, but I know he was in agreement with this.
Mr. Coleman. Were you the one that brought up the point that Oswald was an unstable character, or was that something Mr. Owen contributed?