Part 64

Mr. FAIN. Yes; I believe she volunteered that. She had said or I might have asked her if she had any word from Lee. I don't recall now just how the conversation came up, but she said she had received a postal card from him on or about May 15, and it had been dated April 10.

Mr. STERN. When did you finally learn that he had arrived in Fort Worth, Mr. Fain?

Mr. FAIN. Let's see, that was on, it must have been, the morning of the 26th, June 26.

Mr. STERN. How did you learn this information?

Mr. FAIN. They hadn't let me know, and I began to think it was time for checking on this thing.

Mr. STERN. And by "they" you mean----

Mr. FAIN. Robert had not let me know, and Mrs. Oswald had not let me know, so I thought I had better make an independent check, and so I inquired of them, and she told me that he and his wife and child had arrived in Fort Worth on June 14, and I asked her, "Why hadn't you let me know about it?" And she said, "Well, actually the whole family had been so harassed and that he just didn't feel like letting his face be shown outside of the house." In other words, he was afraid that the newspapers would come and harass him again, I guess.

Mr. STERN. Were there newspaper stories about his arrival, do you recall?

Mr. FAIN. There were some that appeared in the paper which I have set out on page 8 and page 9. Yes; I refer to them on page 8 where they report his having gone to Russia.

Mr. STERN. Had these come to your attention before June 26?

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir; yes, sir. I kept up with these and was careful to clip them and put them in the file.

Mr. STERN. So that is it true that you knew before June 26 that he had returned?

Mr. FAIN. No; I didn't know until that morning. I had no way of knowing that. There were some verifying communications which I set out on page 10 showing when he actually came in; page 10, you will notice, shows a check of records again back here showing when he actually left over there and when he arrived here. He arrived in New York City June 13 and then took a plane to Dallas, where he arrived on the 14th.

Mr. STERN. Yes; I thought I had understood you to say that the newspapers reflected his arrival in Fort Worth.

Mr. FAIN. No; they were over there on pages 8 and 9. June 8, 1962, in the Fort Worth Star Telegram, daily newspaper of Fort Worth, there appeared a photograph of the subject, Lee Oswald, and the headline "Ex-Marine Reported On Way Back From Russia."

Mr. STERN. But there was no news story actually reporting his arrival?

Mr. FAIN. No; he was staying in, apparently that was the reason, I guess he didn't want to get out because he was afraid he would be harassed by the neighbors or somebody and, at least, that is what Mrs. Oswald said. He just----

Mr. STERN. The harassment by newspaper reporters you referred to, probably did not mean reporters at the time of his arrival in Fort Worth.

Mr. FAIN. Well, she was--I suppose she indicated or she said that he just hadn't gotten out of the house. In other words, he came in there on the 14th and apparently, according to her story, he didn't show his face outside that house.

Mr. STERN. Then what did you do when you learned he had arrived?

Mr. FAIN. Well, I told her I would like to talk to him, he was there, and I made arrangements for him to come to the office and he said he could make it by 1 o'clock. I requested B. Tom Carter, my senior agent, to assist if he would me in interviewing Oswald, who came in about 10 minutes before 1. He came in the office like he said he would, and we talked to him on June 26, 1962.

Mr. STERN. Before you interview any subject, Mr. Fain, do you have a practice of giving him any cautionary statement, any warning?

Mr. FAIN. It was always my policy, and I am sure I did in this case, to tell them this substantially, that, "You don't have to furnish us any information. Any information you furnish can be used against you in court, and you have a right to consult with an attorney before giving us any information or statements."

Mr. STERN. Can you actually recall that you said this to Oswald?

Mr. FAIN. I don't recall specifically, but I know it was my religious practice to do it because we are always instructed to do that.

Mr. STERN. Fine.

Was the interview with Mr. Oswald recorded mechanically in any way?

Mr. FAIN. It was not.

Mr. STERN. How did you record what he was telling you, in your usual fashion?

Mr. FAIN. I was sitting behind the desk. He came up and sat down in front of the desk, and Mr. Carter was sitting to my left. We explained to him, we wanted to talk to him. I took the notes, and from my notes I dictated this, which we call an FD-302.

Mr. STERN. This is your memorandum and not Agent Carter's?

Mr. FAIN. That is right; I was more familiar with the case. I took the notes and did the dictation.

Mr. STERN. And the dictation was when?

Mr. FAIN. July 2, 1962; transcribed July 6, 1962.

Mr. STERN. These dates appear where?

Mr. FAIN. The date of dictation is shown on the lower right-hand corner; date of interview at the left, and date of transcription or typing was on July 6, upper right-hand corner.

Mr. STERN. What was Lee Harvey Oswald's demeanor in the course of this interview?

Mr. FAIN. He was tense, kind of drawn up, and rigid. He is a wiry little fellow, kind of waspy.

Mr. STERN. Did he answer all of your questions?

Mr. FAIN. No; he didn't. As indicated there in the fourth paragraph, he was a little insolent in his answers. He was the type of individual who apparently doesn't want to give out information about himself, and we asked him why he had made this trip to Russia, and he looked like it got under his skin, and I noticed he got white around the lips and tensed up, and I understood it to be a show of a temper, and in a show of temper he stated he did not care to relive the past. He didn't want to go into that at all.

We asked him, I think I asked him, in various ways, three or four times, trying to ascertain just what the situation was, and he finally stated, that Soviet officials had asked him upon his arrival why he had come to Russia, and he told us, "I came because I wanted to." That is what he said he told the Soviet People, "I came because I wanted to," and he said, he told them, "I came over here to see the country." That is the kind of answers he gave.

Mr. STERN. Do you remember any other details of this interview that you haven't set forth here? I can't stress too greatly that we are interested in any detail, any fragment of this interview that you recall that isn't set forth here, any elaboration you want to make.

Mr. FAIN. No----

Mr. STERN. Why don't you read it through carefully now and, as you go through, add to it in any way that you wish to, tell us anything else that you remember, any small detail that occurs to you. I don't mean read it out loud, read it to yourself.

Mr. FAIN. I see.

Our primary objective at this time was to ascertain whether or not the Soviets had demanded anything of him in letting him get out of the country and permitting his wife to come along with him, and you will notice down there in paragraph 12----

Mr. STERN. Page 12.

Mr. FAIN. Excuse me, page 12, paragraph 4 of page 12, he stated that the Soviets made it very difficult for him to obtain permission for his wife to leave Russia, and that the process of obtaining permission for her to leave was a long, difficult course requiring much paper work. But he was just referring there to the length of time, and he denied that they had attempted to get anything from him or demand anything from him; and he denied that they had ever sought information from him of detriment to our country.

I don't recall anything, anything in addition to what is set out here.

Mr. McCLOY. No suggestion that he was a secret agent?

Mr. FAIN. No, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. He had made no such suggestion to you as to that?

Mr. FAIN. No, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you ever have any suspicion that he might have been?

Mr. FAIN. That he may have been rewarded by the Russians and asked to do something or certain things about him? Well, an FBI agent is naturally suspicious, of course, of anything like that. Of course, he denied it. He denied that they demanded anything of him.

Mr. McCLOY. And you never had any indication that he was a secret agent of any other country?

Mr. FAIN. No, no.

Mr. McCLOY. Including the United States?

Mr. FAIN. You mean that he might have gone over there and seek out information for us?

Mr. McCLOY. Yes.

Mr. FAIN. No, sir; no, sir; nothing like that.

Representative FORD. At the time you had this interview with Oswald, did you have the information, for example, that appears on the first page of Commission No. 823 under the heading "Details"?

Mr. FAIN. This information there was furnished by the Office of Naval Intelligence. I didn't check the records on that. That came in by communication. Does that answer the question, Mr. Ford?

Representative FORD. What I was inquiring about was did you have this information available to you at the time you interviewed him on July 13 or 14----

Mr. STERN. June 26.

Representative FORD. June 26?

Mr. FAIN. June 26; yes, sir. I am sure I did, because that is on March 20. I read they had sent it.

Representative FORD. In other words, you undoubtedly had----

Mr. FAIN. I had access to anything in our files there pertaining to this case.

Representative FORD. You had information. For example, you were familiar with the statement in a report that, and I quote, "Subject allegedly told the embassy he had advised unnamed Soviet officials that as a former Marine radar operator he would make available to them information about his Marine Corps specialty when he became a Soviet citizen."

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir; that was an allegation that was made over there. As I recall that was obtained in a check at the embassy, United States Embassy.

(At this point in the proceedings, Mr. Dulles enters the hearing room.)

Representative FORD. Did you make any inquiry as to whether or not that was an accurate statement alleged to have been made by him to an embassy official?

Mr. FAIN. Mr. Carter and I asked him, all about those things. Of course, he denied it.

Representative FORD. Did he make any specific denial of that, as you recall?

Mr. FAIN. Yes; we asked him if he had been asked about anything concerning his specialty while in the Marine Corps and I think he said no, that he had not.

Representative FORD. What confuses me is, one, that he denied this to you, but then he apparently at some prior time had told the Embassy that he had advised unnamed Soviet officials that as a former Marine radar operator he would make available to them information about his Marine Corps specialty when he became a Soviet citizen.

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir; we were aware of that, that statement. He denied it, and he also denied that he had ever denounced his United States citizenship, and he denied to Mr. Carter and me that he had ever applied for Soviet citizenship specifically.

Mr. STERN. Was it your practice, Mr. Fain, to review the files on a subject before you interviewed him?

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. Can you recall whether you did that in this case?

Mr. FAIN. I certainly did, yes, sir; there were so many details and so many allegations you had to study it long hours to get the thing further in mind.

Mr. STERN. But you think you did that before you interviewed Oswald?

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. In view of the purpose of the investigation, the interest that you had, what was your overall evaluation of Oswald as a result of this interview?

Mr. FAIN. Well, that was--of course, that would be calling for my opinion, and we are interested only in getting facts on this case, facts, and all I could say is that he seemed tense.

Mr. DULLES. He seemed tense?

Mr. FAIN. Tense, yes, sir; and drawn up. I don't know whether he was just scared or what his situation was, but he was--he exhibited an arrogant attitude, arrogant, cold, and inclined to be just a little insolent.

Mr. STERN. When he did tell you something would you tend to believe that he was telling you the truth or not? Did you form an impression of his veracity?

Mr. FAIN. Well the information we had was that he had applied to renounce his citizenship, and he had applied for Soviet citizenship, and yet he denied that. It was just a flat denial and I had no way of knowing whether he was telling the truth or not. It is a thing that you cannot always tell. We got answers from him as set out here. He would give you some kind of answer.

Mr. STERN. Who was your immediate superior on a case like this, not his name, but describe his function.

Mr. FAIN. He was on the desk in Dallas, and all of these investigations, all of my work, went across his desk. He would make the assignments also.

Mr. STERN. Tell the Commission what you mean by "the desk," please.

Mr. FAIN. The supervisory desk in the Dallas office that handled security-type matters, and this report would go across his desk, and the assignments that would come to me would be made by him.

Mr. STERN. Did you discuss the Oswald case with your desk supervisor at this time, upon the completion of this interview?

Mr. FAIN. I don't recall specifically talking to him at this time. If I had been over there in the next few days I imagine I would have talked to him or did talk to him. You see, I was in Fort Worth.

Mr. STERN. Yes.

Mr. FAIN. And normally I would dictate my reports, and they would go by mail to Dallas and, of course, we were in telephonic contact, any time anything came up of any problem nature.

Mr. STERN. Would you have discussed the case with your supervisor if you thought that there was a particular and immediate problem?

Mr. FAIN. Oh, certainly; yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. Did you think that there was a particular and immediate problem following your interview?

Mr. FAIN. Well, I didn't feel satisfied because of his answers there as to why he went to Russia. He was evasive, and that was the reason I set out a lead to have him reinterviewed.

Mr. STERN. What do you mean by that, Mr. Fain?

Mr. FAIN. To talk to him again. You see, at this time he had just come to town and he was out there at his brother's place. He had a wife and a little 4-month-old baby that he had brought from Russia, and he didn't have any established place to live, and I can see how the newspapers may have harrassed him, and it might have been, very likely was, that he didn't want to show himself out of the house, but I felt under the circumstances he ought to be talked to again, he ought to be interviewed in detail about these same things and, consequently, I did set out a lead.

Mr. STERN. What does that mean in terms of your procedures?

Mr. FAIN. In my report I just suggested that he be reinterviewed.

Mr. STERN. Is that in this report?

Mr. FAIN. That might have been my transmittal--no, it doesn't show here. It is probably on the transmittal to the chief of the Dallas office.

Mr. STERN. A recommendation that he be----

Mr. FAIN. A recommendation, yes, that he be reinterviewed because I wasn't thoroughly satisfied with some of the answers he gave.

Mr. DULLES. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, whether we should not have that transmittal letter; it seems to be pertinent to the case.

Representative FORD. I think it would be helpful in light of the testimony, Mr. Fain.

Mr. FAIN. It was a lead sheet, what we call a lead, and I recall that on that I suggested that the records of Immigration and Naturalization Service be checked and incorporated, and also that he be reinterviewed. Those were the two things I remember specifically having put in the report.

Representative FORD. That would be a cover to Commission No. 823?

Mr. FAIN. A lead sheet; yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. We are going to have the testimony, gentlemen, of Mr. Alan Belmont, the third-ranking official of the Bureau, who can testify from an overall Bureau viewpoint on the way this case was handled and be able to respond to questions of that sort, what was in the internal memoranda, transmittal documents, and things of that sort.

Mr. DULLES. That is satisfactory.

Mr. STERN. Anything else at all, Mr. Fain, that you can tell us about this interview that we haven't covered already?

Mr. FAIN. No, sir; I put it all on this 302.

Mr. STERN. Mr. Chairman, may we have admitted Commission Exhibit 823 for identification?

Representative FORD. It will be so admitted.

(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 823 for identification and received in evidence.)

Mr. STERN. Mr. Fain, I show you a report marked Commission No. 824 for identification, an eight-page report dated August 30, 1962. Can you identify this report?

Mr. DULLES. Off the record.

(Discussion off the record.)

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir; this is my report of August 30, 1962. It is a closing report, a report that records the result of an investigation pursuant to the lead I set out in this other report, referring to the reinterviewing.

Mr. STERN. This followed your other report by some 7 weeks?

Mr. FAIN. Yes. I talked to him the last time June 26, 1962, and this interview was conducted August 16, 1962.

Mr. STERN. And the early report was dated July 10, 1962.

Mr. McCLOY. July 10, 1962.

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir; and this report August 30.

Mr. STERN. August 30.

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. Have you reviewed this report recently, Mr. Fain?

Mr. FAIN. I have.

Mr. STERN. In preparation for your testimony today?

Mr. FAIN. I have.

Mr. STERN. Is there any statement in it you would like to correct?

Mr. FAIN. No, sir.

Mr. STERN. Any information you would like to add to the data that are set forth?

Mr. FAIN. No, sir.

Mr. STERN. What was the occasion for the investigative work reported in this document, Mr. Fain?

Mr. FAIN. You will recall that I had set out a lead to reinterview him. I felt that he had just gotten back, from Russia on the previous interview, and that he might have been upset naturally, and a reinterview might be more productive. He might feel now settled down, so I set about to locate him and to talk to him again.

Mr. STERN. How did you locate him, Mr. Fain?

Mr. FAIN. On August 14 I contacted Robert again, Robert L. Oswald, the older brother, at 7313 Davenport, and he told me that Lee Harvey had moved, that he didn't have his house number, but he was on Mercedes Street, west of Montgomery Ward & Co., just off Seventh Street.

Mr. STERN. In Fort Worth?

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir; in Fort Worth. And then I went there. He gave me the name of the street, and I went there and made some inquiries, and finally ascertained from an adjoining neighbor, just east of Lee's house--these were little duplex apartments--and she told me, yes, there is a Mr. Oswald who just moved in next door a few days ago.

Then on August----

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask, did she seem to know him at all well?

Mr. FAIN. No; she didn't, she hadn't met them, but she just said some people had moved in, and that was enough for me. Robert had told me, had indicated pretty much where it was, and the fact is he gave me pretty good directions as to where to go. As a matter of fact, he had been down there himself in the apartment apparently, but he just didn't have the house number.

Mr. STERN. What did you do after you located the house, Mr. Fain?

Mr. FAIN. After I located the house on the 15th, and I made arrangements to have another agent and I go out there and reinterview him. I didn't want to go to his house. I didn't want to contact his wife. I knew from the background we had conducted that she could not speak English. She could speak Russian only, and I didn't know any Russian, so it wouldn't have been any point in my contacting her and upsetting her.

So this agent and I in an automobile took up a surveillance at the end of the street out of sight of the house and away from the house, and waited until he came from work.

We observed him toward the end of the day, and I suppose it must have been around 5:30, something like that, in the late afternoon, walking down the street, and we then moved up in front of his house.

Of course, I knew him and he knew me from a previous interview, and I spoke to him, "Hi, Lee. How are you?" I said, "Would you mind talking with us just a few minutes?" So he got in the back seat. I remained in the front seat. Arnold J. Brown, the other agent, was in the back seat with him, and we talked with him there, and the results of the interview are set out here on page 4.

Mr. STERN. Was it your normal practice to conduct an interview in teams?

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. This interview you conducted with Agent Brown, and your previous interview you conducted with Agent Carter, I believe?

Mr. FAIN. Yes, sir; Agent Carter was with me on the first one, and Arnold Brown was on the second one.

Mr. STERN. Why is that, Mr. Fain?

Mr. FAIN. Well, in case something comes up in these important interview cases which might have some evidentiary value, we like to have two agents present.

Mr. STERN. Is your general rule always to have two agents when you interview any subject?

Mr. FAIN. Subject, particularly if it is something other than routine; yes, sir.

Mr. STERN. This, as far as you were concerned, was something other than routine?

Mr. FAIN. In internal security cases, in a case of this magnitude and this importance, we would always have two agents present.

Mr. STERN. When you say a case of this magnitude and a case of this importance, what do you have in mind?

Mr. FAIN. Well, this man had been to Russia, and we wanted to try to find out whether he had been recruited by the Russians to do a job against the United states.

Mr. STERN. So this, in relation to your other cases, was an important case?

Mr. FAIN. It was important.

Mr. DULLES. Do you often conduct interviews in a car or was this rather unusual?

Mr. FAIN. We felt that in this case we could get his cooperation better if we could show to him that we weren't trying to embarrass him. I explained to him that afternoon, "We didn't contact you at your place of employment; we didn't want to embarrass you before your employer," and didn't want to upset his wife and, therefore, I hadn't bothered his wife, and we just felt if we talked to him there in the car informally, he would better cooperate with us.

Mr. DULLES. It wasn't because he showed reluctance to have you go in the house or didn't invite you or anything of that kind?

Mr. FAIN. Oh, no; no. Actually he invited us in when we stopped him. He said, "Won't you come in the house?" And I said, "Well, we will just talk here. We will be alone to ourselves and we will be informal, and just fine." So he got in the car with Agent Brown.

Mr. McCLOY. Was he actually less truculent than he had been before?

Mr. FAIN. Yes; he had actually settled down. He had gotten a job at Leslie Machine Shop, and he wasn't as tense. He seemed to talk more freely with us.

Mr. McCLOY. He indicated that he had been or his wife had been in constant communication with the Soviet Embassy here?

Mr. FAIN. Well, he told me on the previous interview that he would have to get in touch with the Russian Embassy and let them know that his wife was in this country, and to let them know his address, and I asked him if he had done that, and he said he had in this second interview. He said he would have to contact them. The way he termed it, his phraseology was, that the Soviet law was that a person in her position coming over here, a citizen from Russia, must notify the Soviet Embassy of her current address, and he said that should be done periodically.

Mr. STERN. Did you discuss his discharge from the Marine Corps?

Mr. FAIN. We actually went over substantially everything we had asked him before.

Mr. STERN. Did he seem concerned about that?