Oswald reached Moscow on 16 October 1959 and registered at the Hotel Berlin as a student. His Intourist guide was a woman named Rima Shirokova. When he was told his visa had run out and he had two hours to leave Moscow, he cut his left wrist in his hotel bathroom. He spent three days in the psychiatric ward of Botkin Hospital. [1]
On 31 October he went to the U.S. embassy, handed over his passport and asked to renounce his citizenship. The consul, Richard Snyder, stalled him; the formal renunciation was never completed, which is why he could come back. [2] The embassy’s cable to Washington said Oswald had told Snyder he had offered the Soviets “any information he has acquired as [an] enlisted radar operator.” [3]
In the Marines Oswald had been a radar operator at Atsugi, Japan. His security clearance was “confidential”, and he never held a higher one. [3]
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