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14-00000 104-10209-10259 2025 RELEASE UNDER THE PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATION RECORDS ACT OF 1992

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H. D. Stevens THE LEE HARVEY OSWALD CASE 151164 29 January 1964

  1. According to a newspaper column of "Allen and Scott" in the Chicago American of 6 December 1963, on the OSWALD Case, Abram CHAYES, Legal Officer of the State Department, was one of two persons immediately responsible for OSWALD's being permitted to return to the United States from the Soviet Union in June 1962. The other individual named was Llewellyn THOMPSON, the then Ambassador to Russia. Another said to have been involved in the handling of OSWALD's case was Samuel WIESE, Counsel of the American Embassy in Moscow.

  2. Abram CHAYES, 352234, who as of 16 February 1961 was described as "the new Counsel in State," was granted security approval for liaison contact with J. Foster COLLINS (in the office of the Chief of the Covert Action Staff) on 6 March 1961. The request for CHAYES' clearance was a "Blanket" request to permit discussion with him of FSC 5412/2 matters on a need-to-know basis.

  3. In September 1961 there was a White House namecheck request on CHAYES' wife Antonia (Toni) Leigh CHAYES, nee: HANDLER.

  4. In March 1962, CHAYES was granted a renewal of his liaison contact clearance with C/CS on a continuing basis. This time his contact was Archibald ROOSEVELT, Jr.

  5. On 10 February 1962, HUMAN EVENTS reported as follows with reference to CHAYES:

"SOFT ON COMMIES: Representative Francis F. Walter (R.-Pa.), Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, has scored the new State Department regulations on passports, claim-ing they would allow Reds denied passports to rifle freely the confidential files of the FBI, the CIA and other investigative agencies." The man behind the new regulations, which Walter claims violate the Internal Security Act of 1950, is reportedly State's chief legal officer, Abram Chayes. Chayes, a Kennedy appointee, is an ex-Harvard professor who was Chester Bowles' top legal adviser when Bowles was Governor of Connecticut. Walter has introduced legislation to remedy the new passport regulations."

SECRET 21 Excluded from automatic downgrading and declassification

Dip J 1271-1029

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  1. Samuel WIESE, Counsel in the American Embassy in Moscow who is referred to above, may well be Samuel Griffin WIESE, Jr., 7-574, 7-1-7-45, who apparently was once a contract employee on ADAPTIVE. The State Department reviewed WIESE's file on 2 June 1954; and as of September 1962 a Samuel G. WIESE was Second Secretary of the American Embassy in Moscow. At that time WIESE advised in a cable to the State Department that it appeared that Bruce Frederick DAVIS, 352057, who defected from the United States Army in Germany on 13 August 1960, had not expatriated himself. DAVIS case is very similar to that of OSWALD; and he, like OSWALD, lived in the Soviet Union for two years after his defection and prior to making application for return to the United States. J

  2. WIESE was an applicant for CIA employment in early 1953 and was security approved subject to polygraph on 11 August 1953. He did not enter on duty and in September 1953, the office which had been interested in him was "no longer interested". On 13 November 1953, WIESE was granted a CHA to permit his use as a contract employee on ADAPTIVE in New York City. His CHA was cancelled on 25 March 1953.

  3. WIESE was named as a friend of William Orville MARCELL, 61693-DL, during an investigation of the latter for possible FI employmant in 1952. WIESE, according to MARCELL's landlady and social acquaintance in Washington, D. C. during the period of about a year which ended in April 1952, was the only person she knew by name with whom MARCELL was friendly. According to the informant, WIESE was a student at Columbia University whose address was 423 Pald Fall. MARCELL was security disapproved for FI employment in June 1952 because of his close association on a professional and social basis, while attending Denver University from 1946 to 1951, with persons of questionable loyalty. In November 1954, MARCELL was of interest to Project QJACTIVE with reference to assignment to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; however, the interested office withdrew their request on him, after Security advised of the derogatory information regarding him.

  4. WIESE from 1951 to 1954 attended Scarsdale High School in Scarsdale, New York, which was attacked by a Citizens Group, which alleged Communist influence in the school system. He had several questionable associates in addition to MARCELL.

N. D. Stevens

SECRET 21 Excluded from automatic downgrading and declassification