James P. Hosty

Hosty’s notes have been part of a little controversy since Hosty claimed he had destroyed them as per common FBI procedure after having completed a typed up statement. Low and behold that when he published his book Assignment Oswald the notes appear in print. The excuse being used that he thought he had destroyed his notes, but that he found them after many years between papers while researching for the book.

Hosty’s notes like all the others contain only answers, nowhere is there anything with what questions were asked by any of the interrogators this seemed to be common procedure.

But there is a much bigger issue at hand. Hosty did not write this particular note, he wrote a lot more.

In Feb 2019 I find a document in Malcolm Blunt’s archive which is rather startling. See fpr yourself, as it points to Oswald going outside to watch the parade.

However in the same book by Hosty he lists an exchange of how the questioning went while Oswald was in custody.

Okay now, Lee, you work at the Texas School Book Depository, isn’t that right?

Yeah, that’s right.

When did you start working there?

About October fifteenth

What did you do down there?

I was just a common laborer.

Now, did you have access to all floors of the building?

Of course.

Tell me what was on each of those floors.

The first and second floors have offices. The third and fourth floor are storage. So are the fifth and sixth.

And you were working there today, is that right?

Yep.

Were you there when the president’s motorcade went by?

Yeah.

Where were you when the president went by the book depository?

I was eating my lunch in the first floor lunchroom.

What time was that?

About noon.

Were you ever on the second floor around the time the president was shot?

Well, yeah. I went up there to get a bottle of Coca-Cola from the machine for my lunch.

But where were you when the president actually passed your building?

On the first floor in the lunchroom.

And you left the depository, isn’t that right?

Yeah.

When did you leave?

Well, I figured with all the confusion there wouldn’t be any more work to do that day.

Hosty relies on his brief notes, his joint report with James Bookhout and his memory more than a decade after the event. He initially blends Oswald’s lunch (at 12:00) in the Domino Room with the limo passing by the building, but we also know that Oswald went out front to see what the commotion was about (and by commotion it is safe to assume that it was the crowd noise when the limo started to appear on Houston St.). But then blends it even more by allegedly asking again where he was when the limo passed by: The Domino Room.

Hosty did contact the TSBD before the assassination to enquire if Oswald was working there, in a report dated Dec. 9th 1963.

Hosty is the guy who informs Lt. Jack Revill of the DPD in the basement (yup the same place Oswald got shot) just before 3 PM on Nov 22nd 1963 that Oswald was a subversive who had stayed in Russia, and now comes the debatable part, and that he was capable of committing such an act as shooting The President. This latter part is in high dispute between the FBI and the DPD, but nevertheless Hosty, as an agent assigned to ‘manage’ files on subversives in the Dallas area and who had Oswald being part of those files never bothered or was ordered to inform the DPD nor the Secret Service. Even when the motorcade went right past the TSBD building! Captain Gannaway was smart when he heard Revill say what had happened in the basement and ordered him to write a statement there and then. Of course it was a C.Y.A. move which got Hosty in hot water with Hoover. Revill’s WC testimony did not help either. I also find the report suspect in the sense of the due diligence displayed in creating this piece of evidence, compared to the interrogations of Lee Harvey Oswald. Jesse Curry’s HSCA interview underlines the issues between Hosty and Revill and the FBI and the consequences thereof.

James Hosty during the Vincent Bugliosi fugezi trail of Lee Harvey Oswald.

In 1964 Hoover punishes Hosty and suspends him for 30 days and transfers him to Kansas City.