sorry, Jabawocky, unable! it was probably unrestricted, this was years ago!
anyone familiar with the route and current could probably answer your question. If anyone was in the wrong, it was probably me, because a similar thing happened near Atlanta, and the controller in that case when I squawked about conflicting traffic said sorry, he was too busy to tell me about it!
In both cases, it was VFR. And in both cases, I didn't see the opposition until quite late.
Moral of the story, look out for yourself!