James Hosty was born in
1928. He graduated with science degree in business administration
from the University of Notre Dame in 1948. He worked for the First
National Bank in Chicago and as a salesman
before joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation
in January, 1952. He initially was sent to Louisville but in December,
1953, was transferred to Dallas, Texas.
In March, 1963, Hosty was
ordered to keep Lee
Harvey Oswald under
observation. Soon afterwards Hosty discovered that Oswald was purchasing
The Worker, the newspaper of
the American Communist Party. In June,
Hosty heard from FBI headquarters that Oswald was in New
Orleans, and requested information on him.
Hosty visited the home
of Ruth
Paine to discover
where Oswald was living. He spoke to both Paine and Marina
Oswald about Oswald. When Oswald heard about the visit he went
to the FBI office in Dallas. When told that Hosty was at lunch Oswald
left him a message in an envelope.
The contents of the envelope
has remained a mystery. A receptionist working at the Dallas office
claimed it included a threat to "blow up the FBI and the Dallas
Police Department if you don't stop bothering my wife." Hosty
later claimed it said: "If you have anything you want to learn
about me, come talk to me directly. If you don't cease bothering my
wife, I will take appropriate action and report this to the proper
authorities."
Soon after Lee
Harvey Oswald was
arrested for the assassination of President John
F. Kennedy,
Hosty was called into the office of his superior, Gordon
Shanklin. Hosty was asked about what he knew about Oswald. When
Oswald was shot dead by Jack
Ruby
two days later, Shanklin
ordered Hosty to destroy Oswald's letter.
The Federal
Bureau of Investigation I discovered that Hosty's name and phone
number appeared in Oswald's address book. J.
Edgar Hoover
was worried that this indicated
that Oswald had been working closely with the FBI. That he might have
been an FBI informant on the activities of left-wing groups such as
the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Instead of passing Oswald's address
book to the Warren
Commission, the
FBI provided a typewritten transcription of the document in which
the Hosty entry was omitted.
When it was discovered
that Hosty had misled the Warren Commission he was suspended from
duty. Later he was transferred to the FBI office in Kansas City.
The message that Oswald
handed in to the FBI office in Dallas remained a secret until 1975.
It became public knowledge when someone in the FBI tipped off a journalist
about the existence of Oswald's letter. Oswald's relationship with
Hosty was explored by the Select Committee
on Intelligence Activities and the Select
Committee on Assassinations. Hosty admitted that he had misled
the Warren
Commission by
not telling them about the existence of the letter from Oswald. Gordon
Shanklin denied knowing about the letter but this evidence was
contradicted by the testimony of Hosty and William
Sullivan, the Assistant Director of the FBI.
In 1996 Hosty published
his book on the Kennedy assassination, Assignment:
Oswald.
Forum Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
Forum Debate on James P. Hosty
Namebase: James P. Hosty
Forum Debate on Watergate
(1)
James
Hosty was interviewed by Samuel Stern on behalf of the Warren
Commission on 8th
April, 1964.
Samuel A. Stern:
You said before that you had no further connection with the case of
Oswald until October 1963.
James Hosty: That is correct.
Samuel A. Stern: Would
you tell us in detail what your first contact was in October?
James Hosty: On October
3, 1963, I received a communication from our New Orleans office advising
that Lee Oswald and his wife Marina Oswald had left the New Orleans
area a short time before. According to the communication, Marina Oswald,
who was at that time 8 months pregnant, had left New Orleans with
her small child, 2-year-old child, in a station wagon with a Texas
license plate driven by a woman who could speak the Russian language.
Lee Oswald had remained behind and then disappeared the next day.
I was requested to attempt to locate Lee and Marina Oswald.
Samuel A. Stern: Did the
request come to you personally?
James Hosty:To the Dallas
office, and the case was then reopened to me. Dallas was an auxiliary
office to New Orleans, and it was reopened. I had previously handled
the case. It was reopened and assigned to me... On the 31st of October,
I did a credit check on Michael and Ruth Paine for the purpose of
developing further background. This credit check showed that Michael
Paine was employed at Bell Helicopter as an engineer, showed no employment
for Mrs. Paine, just showed her as a housewife, showed they had resided
in Irving area for a number of years, and showed a good reputation.
I then checked the criminal
records of the Irving Police Department, Dallas County Sheriff's Office.
They had no record for either Ruth or Michael Paine. Contacted the
Bell Helicopter Co. and the security officer at Bell Helicopter, Mr.
Ted Schurman, advised me that Michael Paine was employed by them as
a research engineer and he held a security clearance.
I then went to St. Marks
School in Dallas. I had known from previous experience this school
enjoyed a good reputation and I could approach them safely. I talked
to Mr. Edward T. Oviatt, the assistant headmaster at St. Marks School.
He told me that Mrs. Paine was a satisfactory employee, loyal to the
United States, and he considered her to be a stable individual. He
stated that Mrs. Paine was employed as a part-time teacher of the
Russian language at that school, and he also advised that in a recent
conversation with Mrs. Paine she had advised him that she had a Russian-born
woman living with her.
This woman could not speak
any English She had just given birth to a new baby, and she had another
small child. The husband of this woman had deserted her and Mrs. Paine
felt sorry for her and had taken her in. Mr. Oviatt went on to explain
that Mrs. Paine did this for two reasons. She wanted to improve her
Russian-speaking ability by having this person who spoke only Russian
in her household. Also, he stated that she was by nature a very kindly
individual, Quaker by background, and this was the sort of thing that
she would do to help a person in distress.
Samuel A. Stern: What was
the purpose of all these inquiries into the background of Mr. and
Mrs. Paine?
James Hosty: . I wanted
to make sure before I approached Mrs. Paine that she was not involved
in any way with Lee Oswald, in any type of activities which were against
the best interests of the United States.
Samuel A. Stern: How do
you mean before you approached Mrs. Paine?
James Hosty: Well, it was
my intention since we could not determine where Lee Oswald was, that
he was obviously not at her address, that the best way to find out
would be to ask Mrs. Paine.
Samuel A. Stern: Now, tell
us in detail of your interview with Mrs. Paine starting from the time
you rang the doorbell.
James Hosty: All right.
As I say, when I entered the house I immediately identified myself.
I showed her my credentials, identified myself as a special agent
of the FBI, and requested to talk to her. She invited me into the
house.
Samuel A. Stern: Did she
seemed surprised at your visit?
James Hosty: No, she didn't.
She was quite friendly and invited me in, said this is the first time
she had ever met an FBI agent. Very cordial. As I say, it is my recollection
I sat here on the couch and she sat across the room from me. I then
told her the purpose of my visit, that I was interested in locating
the whereabouts of Lee Oswald. She readily admitted that Mrs. Marina
Oswald and Lee Oswald's two children were staying with her. She said
that Lee Oswald was living somewhere in Dallas. She didn't know where.
She said it was in the Oak Cliff area but she didn't have his address.
I asked her if she knew where he worked. After a moment's hesitation,
she told me that he worked at the Texas School Book Depository near
the downtown area of Dallas. She didn't have the exact address, and
it is my recollection that we went to the phone book and looked it
up, found it to be 411 Elm Street.
Samuel A. Stern: You looked
it up while you were there?
James Hosty:
Yes; that is my recollection that we looked it up in her telephone
book to show it at 411 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas. She told me at this
time that she did not know where he was living, but she thought she
could find out and she would let me know.
(2)
James
P. Hosty, Assignment: Oswald (1996)
As soon as I walked
into Gordon Shanklin's smoke-filled office, I saw the copy of the
newspaper lying on his desk. I grabbed it. Staring back at me in bold,
black print was the front-page headline: "FBI KNEW OSWALD CAPABLE
OF ACT, REPORTS INDICATE."
"Oh God," I groaned.
I quickly scanned the first
few paragraphs while Shanklin sat quietly behind his desk puffing
away. The story read, "A source close to the Warren Commission
told the Dallas News Thursday that the Commission has testimony from
Dallas police that an FBI agent told them moments after the arrest
and identification of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, that 'we knew
he was capable of assassinating the president, but we didn't dream
he would do it...' In a memorandum to supervisors on Nov. 22, Lt.
Jack Revill, head of the Dallas police criminal intelligence squad,
reported that FBI special agent James (Joe) Hosty had acknowledged
awareness of Oswald in the basement of the City Hall at 2:05 PM, Nov.
22. His remark was made as five officers brought Oswald in from Oak
Cliff, Revill reported.
The article ended with
some enlightening comments from the police: "Dallas police officers
watched several known extremists prior to the Kennedy visit and even
sent representatives as far as 75 miles to interview others thought
to be planning demonstrations. Police chief Jesse Curry privately
has told friends, 'If we had known that a defector or a Communist
was anywhere in this town, let alone on the parade route, we would
have been sitting on his lap, you can bet on that.' But he refused
public comment."
The police were blatantly
trying to wriggle out from under a rock. . . . I wanted to laugh.
The police had a long list of well known Communists in Dallas, and
not one had a police officer sitting on his lap on November 22. In
fact, Detective H. M. Hart told me that the police neither picked
up nor watched anyone the day of November 22. Clearly, someone from
the police department had fed this story to reporter Hugh Aynesworth...
J. Edgar Hoover came out blasting.
He categorically denied the story's contentions. Revill himself partially
retracted some of the article's allegations; he told the Dallas Times
Herald that the comment that I never dreamed Oswald would kill the
president was all someone else's fabrication. But Aynesworth and the
Morning News had done the damage. It would prove to be irreversible
regarding my relationships with the Dallas police and the Dallas media.
Two of my fellow agents,
Bob Barrett and Ike Lee, later told me about their conversation with
Revill after the story broke. Revill told Barrett and Lee that he
had not wanted his November 22 memo to be released to the Warren Commission
or the press, but police chief Jesse Curry threatened to charge Revill
with filing a false police report if Revill wouldn't swear to the
truth in his memo. The police then got a memo from Detective Jackie
Bryan, who had been standing near Revill and me during this brief
garage conversation. Contrary to Aynesworth's assertion, Bryan supported
my version of the events. He reported that he did not hear me make
any kind of comment suggesting I knew Oswald was capable of killing
the president.
(3)
Edward
Jay Epstein, Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald
(1978)
Oswald died at Parkland
Hospital at 1:07 P.M. without regaining consciousness or speaking
another word. All that remained was the burial.
Two hours later Agent
Hosty was summoned to FBI headquarters in Dallas. According to Hosty's
sworn testimony, his superior, Gorden Shanklin, thereupon ordered
him to destroy both the note Oswald had delivered to the FBI shortly
before the assassination and the memorandum that Hosty had prepared
about the incident." After returning to his office, he followed
his orders and destroyed this evidence, flushing the remains down
the toilet.
(4)
James
P. Hosty, Assignment: Oswald (1996)
About a week after
the assassination, Aynesworth, along with Bill Alexander, an assistant
district attorney in Dallas, decided to find out if Lee Oswald had
been an informant of the Dallas FBI, and of mine in particular. To
this end, they concocted a totally false story about how Lee Oswald
was a regularly paid informant of the Dallas FBI. At the time, I had
no idea what information the Houston Post was relying on; it
wasn't until February 1976, in Esquire magazine, that Aynesworth
finally admitted he and Alexander had lied and made up the entire
story in an effort to draw the FBI out on this issue. They said Oswald
was paid $200 a month and even made up an imaginary informant number
for Oswald, S172 - which was not in any way how the FBI classified
their informants. Aynesworth then fed this story to Lonnie Hudkins
of the Post, who ran it on January 1, 1964. Hudkins cited confidential
but reliable sources for his story's allegations. The FBI issued a
flat denial of the Post story. I was once again prohibited by Bureau
procedure from commenting. It was clear that they were pointing a
finger at me, since I was known to be the agent in charge of the Oswald
file.
(5)
Dan
Rather,
The Warren Report:
Part 4, CBS Television (28th June, 1967)
The Commission had
before it the hard fact that Oswald's notebook contained the name,
phone number, and license plate number of Dallas FBI agent, James
Hosty. The FBI's explanation was that Hosty had asked Ruth Paine,
with whom Marina Oswald was living, to let him know where Oswald was
staying, that he jotted down his phone number, and that Marina, under
prior instructions from her husband, also copied down Hosty's license
plate.
(6)
Warren
Commission
(October, 1964)
Agent Hosty testified
that he was fully aware of the pending Presidential visit to Dallas.
He recalled that the special agent in charge of the Dallas office
of the FBI, J. Gordon Shanklin, had discussed the President's visit
on several occasions, including the regular biweekly conference on
the morning of November 22.
In fact, Hosty participated
in transmitting to the Secret Service two pieces of information pertaining
to the visit. Hosty testified that he did not know until me evening
of Thursday November 21, that there was to be a motorcade, however,
and never realized that the motorcade would pass the Texas School
Book Depository Building. He testified that he did not read the newspaper
story describing the motorcade route in detail since he was interested
only in the fact that the motorcade was coming up Main Street, "where
maybe I could watch it if
I had a chance."
Even if he had recalled
that Oswald's place of employment was on the President's route, Hosty
testified that he would not have cited him to the Secret Service as
a potential threat to the President. Hosty interpreted his instructions
as
requiring "some indication that the person planned to take some
action against the safety of the President of the United States or
the Vice President." In his opinion, none of the information
in the FBI files - Oswald's defection, his Fair Play for Cuba activities
in New Orleans, his lies to Agent Quigley, his recent visit to Mexico
City - indicated that Oswald was capable of violence. Hosty's initial
reaction on hearing that Oswald was a suspect in the assassination,
was "shock, complete surprise," because he had no reason
to believe that Oswald "was capable or potentially an assassin
of the President of the United States."
Shortly after Oswald was
apprehended and identified, Hosty's superior sent him to observe the
interrogation of Oswald. Hosty parked his car in the basement of police
headquarters and there met an acquaintance, Lt. Jack Revill of the
Dallas police force. The two men disagree about the conversation which
took place between them. They agree that Hosty told Revill that the
FBI had known about, Oswald and, in particular, of his presence in
Dallas and his employment at the Texas School Book Depository Building.
Revill testified that Hosty said also that the FBI had information
that Oswald was "capable of committing this assassination."
According to Revill, Hosty indicated that he was going to tell this
to Lieutenant Wells of the homicide and robbery bureau. Revill promptly
made a memorandum of this conversation in which the quoted statement
appears. His secretary testified that she prepared such a report for
him that afternoon and Chief of Police - Jesse E. Curry and District
Attorney Henry M. Wade both testified that they saw it later that
day.
Hosty has unequivocally
denied, first by affidavit and then in his testimony before the Commission,
that he ever said that Oswald was capable of violence, or that he
had any information suggesting this. The only witness to the conversation
was Dallas Police Detective V. J. Brian, who was accompanying Revill.
Brian did not hear Hosty make any statement concerning Oswald's capacity
to be an assassin but he did not hear the entire conversation because
of the commotion at police headquarters and because he was not within
hearing distance at all times.
(7)
James Hosty was interviewed by the
Warren
Commission
in 1964.
Mr. Shanklin advised
us, among other things, that in view of the President's visit to Dallas,
that if anyone had any indication of any possibility of any acts of
violence or any demonstrations against the President, or Vice President,
immediately notify the Secret Service and confirm it in writing. He
had made the same statement about a week prior at another special
conference which we had held. I don't recall the exact date. It was
about a week prior.
(8)
Hugh Aynesworth, JFK: Breaking
the News (2003)
As I reported in
the News five months later, under the two-column headline "FBI
Knew Oswald Capable of Act, Reports Indicate," Hosty arrived
at City Hall about 2:05 and rode up in an elevator with Lt. Jack Revill,
head of the DPD Criminal Intelligence Squad, and Officer V. J. "Jackie"
Bryan. According to Revill's written account of the episode, typed
up 45 minutes later and delivered to Chief Curry that afternoon, in
the basement Hosty "stated that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
was aware of the Subject (Oswald) and that they had information that
this Subject was capable of committing the assassination of President
Kennedy."
Hosty denied making the
statement to Revill. Over the years he has refused my interview requests.
A few months after the
assassination, I asked Gordon Shanklin why the bureau didn't at least
tell the Dallas police about Oswald, and where he worked. I observed
that the cops surely would have wanted to babysit such a character.
"We didn't want him
to lose his job," Shanklin explained.
"Well, Mr. Kennedy
lost his," I said quickly, appalled at what I'd just heard.
Though Shanklin never deliberately-to
my knowledge anyway-caused me any difficulty, I was told by some of
his agents that I was not his favorite person.
(9)
Peter Dale Scott, Deep Politics and
the Death of JFK (1993)
The House Committee
on Assassinations confirmed that the Hosty entry had been deleted
in the retyping of the memo. It called the incident "regrettable,"
but "trivial", even though what was at stake was an apparently
false statement by FBI officials under oath....
The FBI's handling of Hall,
and of the whole Odio story, suggests they had something to hide.
To begin with, the agents they sent to interview Silvia Odio, and
who asked no questions about the "double agent" story, were
James P. Hosty, Jr., and his partner, Bardwell D. Odum. Hosty also
interviewed Juan B. Martin, the man Odio had been interested in buying
arms from; yet his write-up of this interview is utterly trivial and
makes no reference to gunrunning at all.
James Hosty was hardly
the right agent to send for an impartial investigation. As the FBI
agent assigned to handle both arms trafficking and the Oswalds before
the assassination, Hosty quickly became a party to some of the FBI's
most serious cover-up activities. On November 24, 1963, long before
he finally interviewed Silvia Odio in December, Hosty had already
destroyed a threatening note which Oswald had left for him at the
Dallas FBI office. He had done so on orders from his boss, Gordon
Shanklin, which almost certainly came from Washington.
(10)
Publicity
blurb for James P. Hosty's book Assignment: Oswald (1996)
Straight from the
FBI counter-intelligence agent assigned to Lee Harvey Oswald prior
to the assassination of President Kennedy - and the lead investigator
in the FBI’s post-assassination investigation of Oswald - Assignment:
Oswald is the first authoritative insider’s account of our
century’s most traumatic event. Combining his own unique, intimate
knowledge of the case with previously unavailable government documents,
including top secret CIA files just released from the National Archives,
James Hosty tells the true story behind the assassination and the
government’s response to it, including the suppression of a documented
Oswald-Soviet-Castro connection.
Special Agent Hosty began
to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald in October 1963, a full month before
the JFK assassination. From November 22 on, Hosty watched as everyone
from the Dallas Police, the FBI, the CIA, Naval Intelligence, and
the State Department up through the Warren Commission to J. Edgar
Hoover, Robert Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson reacted to and manipulated
the facts of the president’s assassination - until Hosty himself
became their scapegoat. Now, after seeing his name appear in three
inconclusive federal investigations and countless fact-twisting conspiracy
theories (including Oliver Stone’s motion picture), Hosty has
decided to tell his own story.
Hosty’s testimony
has been universally acknowledged as vital to any complete understanding
of the Kennedy assassination, Hosty brings to this story an exclusive
insider’s knowledge of the mechanisms, the power structures,
and the rivalries in and among the various intelligence and law enforcement
agencies and why they have determined who knows what about the assassination.
Here, at last, is an unmistakably expert and responsible account of
the murder of President Kennedy.
(11) William Turner, Rearview Mirror (2001)
Now, in Dallas, he explained that he had just flown in on a 11 special" and hadn't even checked in at the local FBI office. We exchanged pleasantries, but I kept it short. I knew I was on the Bureau's "no contact" list of "enemies" and didn't want to compromise Jack by being seen together.
Over drinks with reporters at the Press Club of Dallas, I picked up some leads on the security breakdown story. A local brought up the name of police officer Welcome Eugene Barnett, who was stationed in front of the Depository Building when the shots rang out. I found Barnett directing traffic near the Adolphus Hotel. "If the moon fell on Dallas," the sandy-haired young man said, "it would land at my feet." He had been instructed to watch for troublemakers. As the president's motorcade swung past him, he heard a sharp report, like a firecracker. After about three seconds there was another shot. Dealey Plaza reverberated with the sounds. He looked over his shoulder toward the roof of the depository but saw nothing. The Secret Service men in a car behind the president's limousine were looking around, unable to fix where the shots were coming from. In what seemed like another three seconds after the second shot, a third sounded. A woman ran up to Barnett and yelled, "Over there in the bushes!" pointing to the landscaped flank of the plaza now familiar as the grassy knoll. While several policemen scurried in that direction, Barnett ran to the rear of the building, convinced that the first two shots had come from the roof and that the perpetrator might try to escape out the back door. But no one came out.
Barnett's account was intriguing in that it indicated shots from two locations, which meant at least two shooters. This was reinforced by his tight spacing of the shots. It didn't seem that the suspect could have fired three rounds in roughly six seconds with a bolt-action rifle fitted with a telescopic sight, which would have caused parallax. But I was in Dallas on a two-day deadline on the security story. The FBI had a definite responsibility to alert the Secret Service, which was charged with presidential protection, to the presence in the area of anyone who could possibly pose a threat. I knew that the standard procedure was to instruct all agents to contact informants and other sources to identify any such risks. Oswald, known to be a defector to the Soviet Union and pro-Castro activist, was on the face of it a political extremist. But a Secret Service spokesman I contacted, Jack Warner, flatly denied that the FBI had sent over a skinny (a background file) on Oswald. It had sent over a "risk list," but Oswald's name was not on it.
If not, why not? From a neutral phone I began contacting sources close to the FBI. One, Elmer Jacobsen, an ex-agent in Minnesota, had a source in Bryan, Texas, connected to the Dallas office, who reported that after Oswald returned to Dallas in October 1963, two agents, W. Harlan Brown and James Hosty, approached his mother, Marguerite, to obtain his address. She gave it to them and they interviewed him. Then, ten days before the assassination, Hosty interviewed him again.
So there was a scoop on the crime of the century: The FBI was in contact with the suspect but didn't tell the Secret Service or local police about his background. I rushed back to San Francisco to bang out the copy for the March 1964 issue of Saga in time for a press run in late January. What couldn't be included, since I had no evidence at the time, was that Hosty was running Oswald as a confidential informant. Several months later Jacobsen rather offhandedly mentioned that the Bryan source also had tagged Oswald as an FBI security informant, which would have been reason enough to withhold his name from the Secret Service. Jacobsen added that after the assassination, Oswald's FBI status had been given to the Secret Service in Washington. But there is no evidence that the Secret Service, whose chief, James J. Rowley, was an ex-FBI agent close to Hoover, ever passed on this vital bit of information to the Warren Commission.
(12) Ronald Kessler, The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI (2003)
When Oswald moved to Dallas, his file was assigned to James P. Hosty Jr. On November 1, 1963, Hosty visited Ruth Payne in Irving, Texas, where Oswald lived. She informed him that Oswald was working at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas and was staying temporarily in a rooming house there. Hosty briefly met Marina Oswald, his Russian-born wife, who appeared frightened. Hosty assured her the FBI would not harm her.
Payne promised to find Oswald's address in Dallas, and Hosty dropped in on her a second time, but she still did not know where Oswald was. Shortly after that visit-sometime between November 6 and 8 - Oswald appeared at the Dallas Field Office and demanded to see Hosty. When told by Nanny Lee Fenner, a receptionist, that he wasn't in, Oswald threw down an envelope, and Fenner read the note inside. She later recalled that it said if the FBI didn't stop bothering him, Oswald would "blow up" the FBI field office or the Dallas police department.
Fenner had worked for the FBI since 1942. People had come in with knives and pistols, and that hadn't bothered her. But she considered Oswald's note a serious threat and brought it to the attention of the assistant special agent in charge. He said to give the note to Hosty, who read the note and tossed it in his in box.
"The note merely threatened unspecified action against the FBI," Hosty told me. "Why would Oswald threaten to blow up the police department?"
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