J. Gordon Shanklin was
appointed special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Division of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1963.
In March, 1963, FBI agent
James 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,
Shanklin called James Hosty into the office.
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.
In 1964, the testimony
of Shanklin and Hosty was undermined when another Dallas FBI field
agent, Will Hayden Griffin, claimed that Oswald was definitely an
FBI informant.
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
James 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. Sanklin
denied knowing about the letter but this evidence was contradicted
by the testimony of Hosty and William Sullivan,
the Assistant Director of the FBI.
Shanklin remained as special
agent in charge of the Dallas Field Division until his retirement
in 1975
J. Gordon Shanklin died
in 1998.
Open
Debate on the Kennedy Assassination
(1)
James
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.
(2)
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.
(3)
James
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.
(4)
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.
(5)
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.
(6)
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.
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