An analysis of the annual and semiannual variation of the galactic cosmic ray intensity has been performed for the period 1953-1979 by using the data from the Climax and Dourbes neutron monitors. This analysis, based on a method developed for searching periodicities and recurrences in the cosmic ray intensity, has confirmed the existence of such variations and their phase changes associated with the reversals of the solar magnetic dipole. Hence the importance in the cosmic ray transport of transverse diffusion arising from drift effects due to the curvature and gradient of the interplanetary magnetic field is confirmed, since this is the mechanism which can explain the dependence on the solar magnetic cycle. Such a mechanism is effective when the polarity configuration of the interplanetary magnetic field is well defined and stable. A phase advance of the semiannual variation is observed, which can be explained through the modulation of the heliolatitude distribution of cosmic rays by the activity of the solar magnetic regions migrating in both hemispheres toward the equator, during the 11-year cycle of solar activity. A residual annual variation, detectable when averaging out the effects of the magnetic cycle or when the polarity configuration of the interplanetary magnetic field is not well defined, probably indicates the existence of a preferential azimuthal direction for the access of low-energy galactic cosmic rays into the heliosphere, along the galactic magnetic field.