Was this always the case involving defections? I'm not interested in conspiracy theories, only any insight on how Oswald could defect to to Soviet Union and then return to the West without being penalized. What did it actually mean to defect if you could simply renounce your defection after the fact?
EDIT: I'm not sure why the mods are chewing this post up, a good deal of the comments people have been leaving were perfectly reasonable and by the rules of the sub. It'd be nice if an actual historian would weigh in on this however.
Something I've wondered is how did someone defect. Did you just walk into the Soviet embassy and say "hi, I would like to defect"? Considering how hard immigration is, I have wondered this. Did the Soviets accept American immigrants easily?
When is a defection called "defection" and not simply a nationality switch?
Was he the only 'double-defector'?
It seems remarkable that he was not being more closely watched, if he had defected not once, but twice.