Agency: HSCA
Originator: HSCA
From: SNYDER, RICHARD E.
Document date: 04/14/1978
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

## Page 1

180-10074-10330-

JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

9/23/201

AGENCY :

RECORD NUMBER :

RECORD SERIES :

AGENCY FILE NUMBER :

HSCA

180-10074-10330

NUMBERED FILES

007488

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: HSCA

FROM: SNYDER, RICHARD E.

TO :

TITLE:

DATE:

PAGES:

SUBJECTS:

04/14/1978

8

DOCUMENT TYPE :

CLASSIFICATION :

RESTRICTIONS:

CURRENT STATUS :

DATE OF LAST REVIEW:

OPENING CRITERIA:

COMMENTS:

OSWALD, LEE; RUSSIAN PERIOD; RETURN TO U.S.

OSWALD, LEE HARVEY; RUSSIAN PERIOD; DEFECTION TO

RUSSIA

SUMMARY

Unclassified

3

Redact

10/16/1996

Box 143.

v9.1

NH 50955

DocId: 32246272

Page 1

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## Page 2

JFK Routing Slip

007488

NO. ..

DATE

4.26-28

Jocument I.D. INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

Lenzmar/Diereerfla

INDEX

Зтухн...

Bechard

Utto

Miteckess, Ookr

Robert Blakey

Gary Cornwell

Kenneth Klein

Charlie Mathews

Jin Wolf

Tiny Hutton

Jackie Hess

Cliff Fenton

MMecan, Prixella tdaf iving

Korengoea, Bud

Team #2

Team #3

Team #4

Team#5

878)

pecial Instructions:

ForIn #2

HTHT

50955

DocTd: 32246272

Page 2

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## Page 3

KENNEDY

00848

INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

:1. Identifying Information:

Name Richard E. Snyder

Address 7919 Bolling Drive

City/StateAlexandria, Va.

Date of Birth 12-10-19

Social Security 153-03-2996

Date

4-14-78

Place SCA Office

Telephone

M or S

Spouse

Children

2. Physical Description:

Height

Weight

Ethnic Group

Color Eyes_

Hair

Special Characteristics •

i3.

4.

Personal History:

a.

Present Employment: Worked for CIA 1949-1950. Entered State Dept.

Foreign Service in 1950, retired in 1970. In Military

Address

Intelligence and Military Intelligence Reserve since 1946.

Telephone

b. Criminal Record

1. Arrests

2.

Convictions

Additional Personal Information:

a. Relative (s) : Name

Address_

b. Area frequented:

c. Remarks:

Investigator Robert Genzman, Harold Leap and 'Beth Lichtenfels

Date 4-14-78

FOrm #4-B

NW 50955 DocId: 32246272 Page 3

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## Page 4

KENNED

SELECT COMMITTEE ON ASSASSINATIONS

Name

Richard E. Snyder

Date

4-14-78

Time

11 an

Address

7919 Bolling Drive

Place

SCA OffICe

Alexandria, Virginia

Interview: Robert Genzman, Harold Leap, and Beth Lichtenfels

interviewed Richard E. Snyder, retired Foreign Service Officer,

on April 14, 1978, at the Committee offices.

The interview

yielded the following information:

Snyder was born on December 10, 1919. He served in the

Army from 1940 to 1946, and then attended Yale University, where

he received a degree and completed a year of graduate work. He

took the Foreign Service exam during his senior year of college,

passed the exam, and was placed on the waiting list for Foreign

Service assignments. He did not know anyone who took the Foreign

Service exam when he did, and he did not know anyone else on the

Foreign Service waiting list.

In October 1949, Snyder was contacted by the Central In-

telligence Agency and was asked whether he desired employment

with the Agency. He was told that the State Department had cir-

culated its Foreign Service waiting list to the CIA. Although

he thought he would be called for State Department employment

within a year or so, and although he knew he would accept such

Interviewer Signature

Robert Genzman

Typed Signature Robert Genzman, Harold Leap and Beth Lichtenfels

Date transcribed Rife 4-25-78

BY:

FOrm #4-A

HH 50955 DocId: 32246272 Page 1

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## Page 5

Interview with Richard E. Snyder

Page 2.

employment, he applied to the CIA primarily for financial rea-

sons, was accepted, and served from 1949 to 1950. Most of

his CIA service consisted of training; he did little substan-

tive work for the Agency.

Snyder completely terminated his CIA employment and en-

tered the Foreign Service in 1950. He cannot recall any contact

with the CIA since 1950, aside from a letter which he sent to

the Agency after he retired from the State Department circa

1970 to inquire about contract work possibilities. The CIA's

response was negative.

Snyder has been in Military Intelligence and Military

Intelligence Reserve since the time of his active Army duty

(1940-1946), although there has never been any connection be-

tween his State Department employment and his military posi-

tions. He is currently in inactive Military Intelligence Re-

serve.

Snyder served as a consular officer at the American Em-

bassy in Moscow from July 1959 to July 1961. When shown lists

of State Department personnel in Moscow for the years 1959 and

1960, he said he could recognize no CIA personnel. He did not

know who had been the CIA's Chief of Station in Moscow when

he served there.

He said that the military attache people at

the Embassy may have been CIA employees, and that the travel

officer and the security officer named L'Angeli (phonetic) may

have been CIA employees. L'Angeli was once approached by the

NH 50955 DocId: 32216272 Page 5

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## Page 6

Interview with Richard E. Snyder

Page 3.

Soviets for defection.

Snyder said Minister Counselor Edward L. Freers (de-

ceased) was not a CIA employee. He did not know whether John

A. McVickar, his colleague in the consular office, was a CIA

employee.

McVickar, who arrived in Moscow before Snyder and

departed after Snyder, worked with Snyder throughout his two

year tour of duty in Moscow. Like L'Angeli, McVickar was once

approached by the Soviets for defection. Snyder said he never

told McVickar, whom he first met in 1959, that he (Snyder) had

once been a CIA employee. Snyder said that when asked by Dan

Rather of CBS if he (Snyder) had been with the CIA, he replied

that in the Soviet Union he had been nothing other than what

he claimed to be.

Snyder said that when he testified before the Warren Com-

mission, he was

not asked whether he had ever been a CIA employee.

After he testified, he told Allen Dulles that he had once worked

for the Agency. Dulles did not show much interest.

Snyder remembers that during his tour of duty in Moscow,

there came to his attention three defector cases--Robert Edward

Webster, Nicholas Petrulli, and then Lee Harvey Oswald. On

October 28, 1959, just before Oswald defected, Snyder sent a let-

ter (C.E. 914) to the State Department requesting advice on hand-

ling cases of defection. Snyder said that this request was not

directed at any particular case.

Snyder first became aware of Lee Harvey Oswald when Oswald

came to the embassy on October 31, 1959, to renounce his American

NW 50955 DocId:32246272 Page 6

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## Page 7

Interview with Richard E. Snyder

Page 4.

citizenship. He recalls that he and Oswald talked alone, al-

though McVickar was in an adjoining office with the door open.

Snyder said that McVickar's claim that he was in the same room

may be correct, but that he (Snyder) cannot remember for certain.

Oswald appeared to be determined and "uptight," and he declined

to sit, although he probably did sit later. He gave Snyder a

note stating that he wanted to renounce his American citizenship.

He either gave Snyder his passport or Snyder asked for it. Os-

wald said that he had been a radar operator in the Marine Corps,

and that he intended to give information he possessed to the

Soviets. Snyder's response was to attempt to delay any action

by Oswald and to get more information from Oswald. Oswald was

not talkative, but "humorless," and this meeting did not last

long--possibly one hour or so.

Snyder recalls that during this meeting Oswald did not

mention the specific military information which he possessed,

nor did he mention John F. Kennedy, political assassination, the

President of the United States, or Cuba. Oswald did talk about

the imperialism of the United States, his disloyalty to the

United States, his loyalty to the Soviet Union, and the fact

that he was a Marxist.

When asked to explain why he wanted to delay Oswald's

denunciation

"in view of the Petrulli case and other considera-

tions" (W.R. 748; C.E. 908), Snyder stated that Nicholas Petrulli

had earlier defected, that Petrulli's defection was nullified

NW 50955 DocId: 32246272 Page 7

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## Page 8

Richard E. Snyder Interview

Page 5.

by

a determination that he was mentally incompetent, that

Snyder wanted to avoid a repetition of this incident, and

that "other considerations" meant common sense and prudence.

After this

meeting with Oswald, Snyder did not talk

with McVickar and he did not contact any intelligence officers;

instead, he drafted a cable to be sent to Washington. Since

this cable contained all of the information Snyder obtained

from Oswald, and since it would be sent through the appropriate

persons at the embassy, he saw no need to contact anyone. He

may have talked to Freers before he sent the cable, but he did

not talk to anyone else. No one in the embassy approached him

to discuss this cable.

Several days later Oswald sent Snyder a letter protesting

his treatment at the embassy. Snyder cabled this information

to Washington.

McVickar may have tipped journalist Priscilla Johnson

McMillan concerning

Oswald's visit to the embassy. McVickar

never told Snyder about any information on Oswald which McVickar

may have obtained from

McMillan. Snyder knows of no other jour-

nalists who were tipped about Oswald's defection.

Regarding contacts with American journalists in Moscow,

Snyder stated that he knew Priscilla Johnson McMillan personally,

knew of A. I. Goldberg, had an official contact with Aline Mosby

concerning a Soviet provocation, and had two or three official

contacts with R. J. (Bud) Korengold concerning consular

issues

which could not be followed up at the embassy. In recent years

HM 50955 DooId: 32246272 Page 8

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## Page 9

Interview with Richard E. Snyder

Page 6.

Snyder has had contact with McMillan concerning her book

Marina and Lee as it pertains to Snyder.

Snyder remembers that some time after Oswald's visit

to the embassy Oswald

sent two letters to the embassy

from

Minsk.

Snyder had two meetings with swald upon his return from

Minsk in 1961. Snyder has no independent recollection of the

first of these meetings, but he said that records show that

such

a meeting occurred on a Saturday. The meeting must have

been brief. Oswald probably said that he wanted to return to

the United States, and Snyder probably told Oswald to come back

to the embassy later. McVickar and Snyder's secretary Verna

Deane Brown probably had contact with Oswald during this visit

and during Oswald's subsequent visit.

When Oswald returned to the embassy he seemed "meek."

He probably admitted that he had "learned a hard lesson the hard

way," and he expressed a concern that he might be prosecuted.

Snyder asked him about his various activities in the soviet

Union. Oswald stated that he had not given any information to

the soviets.

Snyder did not expedite Oswald's actual return to the

United States, which transpired after Snyder had left the Soviet

Union. Snyder did not expedite Oswald's application to renew

his passport; instead, he gave it "no great priority" as a

"petty way of getting even" with Oswald, whom he did not like.

HH 50955 DocId:32246272 Page 9

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## Page 10

Interview with Richard E. Snyder

Page

McVickar handled Marina Oswald's visa application. Snyder

does not recall ever meeting Marina Oswald, and he was not aware

that her uncle was a Soviet MVD officer.

Snyder did

not know why two applications for passport

renewal (C.E. 938; C.E. 947) were made out for Oswald.

When

asked why one application (C.E. 938) had been marked, "I have

been naturalized as a citizen of a foreign state," etc., Snyder

thought this was a typographical

error.

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