Assignment: Oswald by James P. Hosty, Jr.

Assignment: Oswald by James P. Hosty, Jr.

By George Bailey
Oswald's Mother
Published: January 6, 2011

Former FBI Agent’s Book Reveals Some Surprises

I’ve read that FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty’s book, Assignment: Oswald, published in 1996 and now out of print, offers some surprising background details on the early turbulent days of the FBI’s investigation of the Kennedy and Tippet murders. Hosty’s account spares no one in this frank description of the events and personalties that shaped the early days of the JFK assassination investigation. James Hosty does a good job at recounting the chaotic scenes in the Dallas FBI headquarters and later, the Dallas Police Department with the gaggle of photographers and newsmen, the chain smoking, coffee swilling detectives, the banging and clanging of the teletype machines and typewriters, to the short fuses of overworked men enduring sleepless nights fueled by caffeine and adrenaline.

Early on Hosty makes this sobering assessment of being in the FBI:

“With time, my idealism waned, and I accepted the hard fact that law enforcement is basically gray. I also came to understand that one of our jobs was to protect the Bureau’s image at all costs, even if it ran roughshod over individuals or principles.”

A candid disclosure to say the least. And therein, lies the problem with the FBI investigating crimes. Their approach will have political angle to it. Hosty clearly illustrates this later when his boss Gordon Shanklin, who he describes as a “damn good man” orders him to destroy evidence in the case. Not once but twice, with a third time implied. And why? So as to eliminate any embarrassment to the prestige of the FBI and hence, J. Edgar Hoover since both were viewed as one and the same at the time. It should also be noted that Hoover’s early comments immediately after the assassination were that the FBI had no foreknowledge about Oswald, but in fact, they had a file on him starting the year of his defection to the Soviet Union in 1959. They kept him under tight surveillance by the time he landed back in America in June of 1962 to just a few days before the assassination in 1963.

Continued. . .