Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Timeline of Oswald’s Soviet Residency Application Approval

According to Oswald’s “Historic Diary” and documents furnished by the Soviet Government, Oswald was not told he had been accepted as a Soviet resident until about January 4, 1960. Although on November 13 and 16 he told journalists Aline Mosby and Priscilla Johnson that he had been granted permission to remain indefinitely, the diary indicates he had been told only that he could remain “until some solution is found with what to do with me.” The diary is more consistent with Oswald’s December 17 letter to his brother Robert saying he was about to leave his hotel more than a month after seeing Johnson and Mosby. A short note to his mother, received in Texas on January 5, and a returned money order suggest the timeline. Oswald’s conflicting statements to correspondents are reconcilable with his desire to appear important. As long as Oswald stayed in a Moscow hotel, the inference is that Soviet authorities had not yet decided to accept him—a view supported by CIA information on handling of other defectors. Thus Oswald likely waited until at least November 16, and probably until January 4, before his application was granted. When the Soviet Government finally acted, it did not grant him Soviet citizenship but only year-to-year residency.

CIA and State Department Findings on Residency Approval Timeline Reasonableness

Asked to comment on the 2-month-and-22-day period that likely passed before Oswald was granted the right to remain in the Soviet Union, the CIA advised that when compared to five other defector cases the procedure seemed unexceptional. Of the five, two defectors from U.S. Army intelligence units in West Germany with prior KGB connections received citizenship immediately; one was accepted within five weeks and given a stateless passport; another was immediately permitted to stay and granted citizenship three months later; and the third was allowed to stay but waited nearly two months for acceptance, with his documentation arriving five or six months after application. The only known case of an American requesting Soviet citizenship without taking up residence involved a defector who changed his mind and returned to the United States within three weeks. The Department of State similarly reported that a two-month waiting period is not unusual, citing one case in which the Supreme Soviet decided within two months to grant Soviet citizenship. The Department noted that the Soviet Government never publicizes the proceedings or reasons in such cases and that defection by American citizens is extremely unusual. Information about Oswald’s suicide attempt suggests his original application was probably rejected about six days after arrival, with the KGB likely making the initial rejection. Permission for him to remain after his hospital release suggests a different Soviet ministry intervened, possibly out of concern for publicity over rejecting a high-profile convert to the Communist cause.