[Sample B: Approval/Signature Sheet] - George Mason University

significant level of interest in him.” 656 Newman began by looking at Oswald’s
defection. Oswald’s declaration to U.S. Embassy in Moscow consular officer Richard
Snyder that he intended to defect and share secrets with the Soviets set off alarm bells
across the intelligence bureaucracy. Snyder notified Washington of Oswald’s threat to
share secrets, especially “something of special interest”, and his cable reached the CIA,
FBI, and the Pentagon. 657 According to Newman, the “something of special interest”
was obviously the U-2, the CIA’s most important secret program at the time. The U-2
provided critical intelligence that showed the Soviets were not ahead of the United States
in their ballistic missile program. There was no so-called “missile gap,” which allowed
President Dwight Eisenhower to take a tougher line against the Soviets and Chinese.
Newman also discussed a number of anomalies in the CIA file on Oswald,
including the fact that a key file – called a 201 – was not opened on the former Marine at
the time of his defection but more than a year later. Such a file would be routinely
opened on someone of “active operational interest,” such as a defector to the Soviet
bloc. 658 Newman wrote that “Abnormalities in Oswald’s files like this one raise
questions about his possible role in U.S. intelligence operations.” 659 In other words, the
CIA may have been funneling key information about Oswald to some other location in
the bureaucracy to hide a secret program that could be comprised by his defection.
656 Newman, 199.
657 Newman, 5.
658 Newman, 47.
659 Newman, 48.
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