Dallas FBI Agent James Hosty #6
Updated: 5 days ago
THE WORRIES OF JAMES HOSTY
James Hosty expressed worry over his account of the meeting between KGB agent V.V. Kostikov and Lee Harvey Oswald (hereafter LHO). This fact can lead us to an interesting conundrum. Let’s continue reading from James Hosty’s book, Assignment Oswald (1996) on the topic of LHO meeting KGB agent Valeriy Kostikov in Mexico City on Sep 27-28, 1963:
As soon as I received my orders to appear before the Warren Commission, I began to prepare my testimony. I retrieved the Oswald file... To my consternation, two key items were missing. Someone had removed the two secret communications from FBI headquarters. One was the October 18, 1963, communique that indicated the CIA... had observed Oswald making contact with vice consul V. Kostikov at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. The second one...Oswald had written to the Soviet Embassy ...reporting that he had made contact with Kostikov. (Hosty, Assignment Oswald, 1996, pp. 139-140)
So, preparing to testify for the Warren Commission (hereafter WC), James Hosty got the FBI file on Lee Harvey Oswald (hereafter LHO) and noticed that two key items were missing. Hosty did not explain how he knew that these two items were missing, yet since he expected to see them there, we might surmise that he saw them there previously. He identified the two items:
An FBI memo of Oct 18, 1963 which had cited a CIA memo of 10/8/1963 about LHO calling for KGB agent Kostikov in Mexico City on 10/1/1963.
LHO’s typewritten letter of Nov 9, 1963 to the Soviet Embassy in Washington DC, boasting that he had contacted “comrade Kostin” in Mexico City.
It was important that Hosty named these two specific items, because their combination was crucial for his JFK conspiracy theory of a Communist plot between Kostikov and LHO. The FBI memo of Oct 18th correctly reported that LHO contacted Kostikov at the Soviet Embassy on Sep 27-28, 1963, but it incorrectly implied that LHO used the Cuban Consulate telephone to call for Kostikov on Oct 1, 1963.
As Bill Simpich showed in 2014, the CIA high command in Mexico City was certain that a Mole merely claiming to be LHO had made that call.
The FBI memo of 10/18/1963 also incorrectly claimed that LHO’s full name was “Lee H-e-n-r-y Oswald.” As Bill Simpich showed, that fake middle name was a trap used by the CIA high command to catch the Mole who had actually made that telephone call.
The alleged source of this FBI memo was a CIA memo of 10/8/1964. (Bill Simpich seems to have missed that this very memo had triggered the CIA Mole Hunt trap! We might presume that the CIA thereby caught that Mole and took serious action – secretly.)
LHO’s typewritten letter to the Soviets of Nov 9, 1963 is commonly called the “Mexico City Letter.” It was the final letter that LHO ever wrote. It received lots of attention during the WC hearings as CE-15. But for some reason, Hosty would complain that Alan Belmont tried to hide that letter from Hosty.
HOSTY’S BIG WORRY IN 1975
Turning to Hosty’s 1975 sworn statement to the US Congress Church Committee, Hosty wrote of an Airtel (FBI “airmail telegram”) and its supporting CIA memo. That Airtel was simply a copy of LHO’s “Mexico City Letter” which had been intercepted by the FBI at the Washington DC post office.
But in 1975 Hosty linked this FBI Airtel to a different CIA memo – this one dated two days later. We will soon review it. For now, let’s read from James Hosty’s sworn statement of Nov 14, 1975.
I, James Hosty, having been duly sworn make the following statement: I wish to bring the following information to the attention of the FBI at this time; not that I am alleging any wrongdoings on anyone’s part but in anticipation of possible questioning about Lee Harvey Oswald before any Congressional Committees, the possibility of asking about the handling of any other communications in this case, might cause me to have to furnish the following story which could cause considerable difficulty.
Hosty’s following story could cause “considerable difficulty” for whom? Let’s look closer.
On November 22, 1963, shortly after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and shortly after learning that Lee Oswald was a prime suspect, I attempted to locate his pending file and…I noticed -- on the top of the file was an Airtel from the Washington Field Office to the Bureau…On the way to the SAC’s office I read this Airtel and was able to determine that it was a letter intercept to the Soviet Embassy in Wash. D.C. telling of his recent contact with V.V. Kostikov, KGB agent in Mexico City.
So, this Airtel was simply the well-known WC exhibit, CE-15, LHO’s “Mexico City Letter.” No real difficulty so far. Let’s look closer.
I never received this Airtel through normal channels… The two items of secret information were [1] this Airtel in question and [2] an earlier CIA communication dated October 10, 1963, from Mexico City concerning Oswald’s contact. (James Hosty, Nov 14, 1975, Sworn Statement to the US Congress Church Committee)
There we get our first hint of Hosty’s worry. He saw this FBI Airtel (LHO’s “Mexico City Letter”) on 11/22/1963 without going through “normal channels.” But in that same context, Hosty cited for the first time a CIA memo dated Oct 10, 1963. Although Hosty would here accuse Alan Belmont of trying to hide the “Mexico City Letter” from him, that only distracted us from a larger problem – Hosty had seen a CIA memo without going through “normal channels.”
We are getting to that memo. We rightly ask, however, when did Hosty first learn about a Kostikov-LHO meeting? Was it on Nov 22, 1963 when he first read LHO’s “Mexico City Letter?” Or was it in late October when he received from New Orleans the FBI memo dated Nov 18, 1963? This is what he wrote in 1996:
In October 1963…I asked the New Orleans office to respond...When I received this information in late October from New Orleans, I saw the communication was dated October 18, 1963. The CIA report said that Lee Oswald had been in Mexico City and had made contact with V.V. Kostikov, a vice consul at the Soviet Embassy there… (Hosty, Assignment Oswald, p. 48)
There he says October. This was close to the date that Hosty gave the WC in 1964 when they questioned him about it, as follows:
Mr. HOSTY. I then received a communication on the 25th of October from the New Orleans office advising me that another agency had determined that Lee Oswald was in contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City in the early part of October 1963. (WC Hearings, vol. 4, James Hosty, 1964)
So, Hosty learned of a Kostikov-LHO meeting in October, 1963 – but in 1975 he wrote that he learned of it from CE-15, although outside “normal channels.” The FBI memo of Oct 18, 1963 which Hosty claimed he received from the FBI in New Orleans in Oct 25, 1963, did not reflect the CIA memo of 10/10/1963 however, since it never mentioned Kostikov. What did it finally say? Let’s read it from the Mary Ferrell site at this URL:
Here are the relevant lines:
AGENCY: CIA
RECORD NUMBER: 104-10050-10010
RECORD SERIES: JFK
AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 80T01357A
ORIGINATOR: CIA
FROM: DIRECTOR
TO: MEXICO CITY
DATE: 10/10/1963
TITLE: LEE OSWALD WHO CALLED SOVEMB
PROBABLY IDENTICAL TO LEE HENRY OSWALD.
1. LEE OSWALD WHO CALLED SOVEMB 1 OCT PROBABLY IDENTICAL LEE HENRY OSWALD (201-289248) BORN 18 OCT 1939, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANIA, FORMER RADAR OPERATOR IN UNITED STATES MARINES WHO DEFECTRED TO USSR IN 1959. OSWALD IS FIVE FEET TEN INCHES, ONE HUNDRED SIXTY-FIVE POUNDS, LIGHT BROWN WAVY HAIR, BLUE EYES…
The rest of this memo relates LHO’s 1959 defection into the USSR, his work at a radio factory in Minsk, his marriage to Marina Prusakova, and his successful 1961 request to return to the USA along with his Russian bride. What interests us, however, are the three errors the text above:
1. Incorrect middle name of LHO, “Lee H-e-n-r-y Oswald,” (Should be Harvey)
2. Incorrect weight of LHO as “one hundred sixty-five pounds.” (Should be 131 pounds)
3. Incorrect naming of LHO as the telephone caller to the “SovEmb” on Oct 1, 1963.
In the context of Bill Simpich’s 2014 book, State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City, the first two errors were traps set by the CIA high command in Mexico City to catch the Mole who had actually made that Soviet Embassy call.
The CIA memo in play that actually mentioned Kostikov was the one from Oct 8, 1963 and was the first known CIA memo to quote the fake data inserted by the CIA high command in Mexico City to identify the Mole from 10/1/1963 (as exposed by Bill Simpich, State Secret, 2014). The CIA memo of Oct 10, 1963 also used that fake data, but it didn’t mention Kostikov.
Yet, since Hosty in 1975 identified the CIA memo of Oct 10, 1963, and since his 1996 book identified the CIA memo of Oct 8, 1963, this shows that James Hosty had seen multiple CIA memos, even though security clearance for CIA memos was always extraordinarily high. That could be worrisome. I surmise that Hosty’s worry was that the US Congress might ask about “handling of any other communications in this case” which might “cause considerable difficulty” for himself and perhaps the FBI as an agency.
At first it was puzzling because LHO’s “Mexico City Letter” (CE 15) was old news. But Hosty further articulated his worry by saying: “I never received this Airtel through normal channels.” But it was simply laying on top of the everyday FBI file on LHO. It didn’t sound like a breach of channels until Hosty named a second CIA memo, the one from Oct 10, 1963.
Hosty did not tell the Church Committee in 1975 that he had already known about the Kostikov-LHO meeting a full month earlier than the JFK Assassination. Possibly he wanted to avoid questions about how he had obtained access to CIA memos, i.e., whether a rogue CIA staff sent secret CIA memos to rogue FBI staff – outside normal channels.
The FBI memo of 10/18/1963 that James Hosty saw in late October 1963, cited the CIA as its source, as follows.
CIA MEXICO CITY TODAY FURNISHED INFORMATION CLASSIFIED SECRET NOT TO BE FURTHER DISSEMINATED THAT SUBJECT CONTACTED VICE CONSUL VALERIY VLADIMIRIVICH KOSTIKOV AT SOVIET EMBASSY ON SEPTEMBER 28 LAST… (FBI Memo 10/18/1963)
The CIA memo which first said that was dated Oct 8, 1963 and it spoke of LHO as “Lee H-e-n-r-y Oswald,” thus falling into the CIA trap and spreading fake data – a full month before LHO wrote his “Mexico City Letter.”
So, I think that Hosty’s real worry was over the possibility he might face questions about illegally accessing sensitive CIA memos outside normal channels. Luckily for Hosty, the US Congress never raised that question. However, Hosty did not anticipate that Bill Simpich in 2014 would reveal the real scenario in which those very same CIA memos exposed the CIA Mole who impersonated LHO in Mexico City!
But who would try to link LHO with the KGB seven weeks before the JFK Assassination? Who had been tracking Oswald throughout 1963? We’re coming to that.
Thank you,
--Paul Trejo
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