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Bart Kamp is an author and researcher at Dealey Plaza UK and has provided critical research into the assassination of JFK. His work and sources come from looking through the archives of Malcom Blunt who is known in the assassination research community for his encyclopedic knowledge of the JFK records held at the National Archives II in College Park, MD. New evidence from these files leads to Prayer Man a figure on the steps of the T.S.B.D. that is rumored to be Oswald. This is one of the most important questions in the JFK case because it means Oswald couldn't have taken the shot on the sixth floor proving him innocent. Out Of The Blank #1178 - Bart Kamp

It took Dallas FBI Agent James Hosty 33 years to publish his book about the JFK assassination: Assignment Oswald (1996). I reviewed this book last month, and it suddenly struck me that Bill Simpich's recent eBook, State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City (2014) offers the best interpretation of James Hosty's biased slant on the JFK murder. The theme of James Hosty's book is that KGB assassin, Valeriy Kostikov, was the accomplice of Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) in Mexico City, and supported LHO in the JFK assassination. Hosty goes further, and insists that the FBI, the State Department, the CIA and the Secret Service all knew about Kostikov's connection to LHO in 1963, and deliberately kept this information from Hosty. If these evil US Government forces would have told him the truth, implies Hosty, he could have saved JFK, his beloved President, for whose funeral he wept. This is the thematic undercurrent of Hosty's 1996 book, Assignment Oswald, from chapter one to the final chapter. Starting on page 48 of his book, Hosty sets up the chronology. In late October, 1963, Jeff Woolsey, INS officer, asked Hosty: "How about Oswald in Mexico City contacting the Russians?" Hosty replies that he never heard of this, and asked for more information, but Jeff Woolsey exclaimed that he shouldn't have said anything, and hurried away. Later that week, Hosty claimed that he saw an FBI communique of 10/18/1963 from the CIA, saying that Oswald was in Mexico City and contacted Valeriy Kostikov. Hosty then asked himself, melodramatically setting up the theme for his book, "Who is the world is Valeriy Kostikov?" The theme is carried out throughout the book in tiny snippets, In the center of his book is a photograph of Kostikov, and his text is peppered with allusions to his many murders in Mexico City, and the failure of the FBI and CIA to arrest him. Hosty concludes that the JFK plot began in Mexico City, not NOLA (as Jim Garrison proposed) and on page 244, in his final chapter, Hosty claims that FBI Directors Clarence Kelly and William Webster both agreed that the FBI failed to give Hosty information about Valeriy Kostikov -- thus confirming Hosty's innocence of any role in the JFK assassination. The trouble with Hosty's account is seen in vivid color by implication from Bill SImpich's brilliant eBook from 2014, State Secret: Wiretapping in Mexico City. This eBook is free for the taking on the Mary Ferrell web site, and IMHO one cannot offer an informed opinion about the JFK assassination today without reading this eBook. It's free, so there's really no excuse. What Bill Simpich shows, by using a careful analysis of recent FOIA releases of CIA documents from 1963, is that the legend that LHO contacted Valeriy Kostikov in Mexico City was started by an underground plot in Mexico City, by somebody who impersonated LHO over the telephone of the Cuban consulate, calling the USSR Embassy, which was the most heavily wire-tapped telephone on the planet in 1963. Calls on this telephone had to be transcribed into English and placed on the Mexico City CIA Director's Desk within 15 minutes. When this was done, the conclusion was clear -- the caller was not LHO. The caller claimed to be LHO, and directly asked the clerk about Valeriy Kostikov -- thereby linking the names of the two men for the record. The CIA concluded that the caller knew that the phone would be tapped -- and therefore the impersonation had to be an inside job. Somebody in the CIA or in the FBI in Mexico City did this -- as a rogue operation -- as a Mole -- completely unknown to the CIA high-command -- deliberately to link the names of LHO and Kostikov. Bill Simpich proved that a high-level CIA Mole Hunt emerged from this scenario, and Simpich traces that CIA Mole Hunt for more than a year after this event. The CIA sought the mole, but never caught the mole. Does anybody else see this connection? The truth only came out in 2014. Yet in 1996 James Hosty claimed that LHO really did try to contact KGB agent Kostikov. So, how did James Hosty know about this event -- when actually (1) it never really happened; and (2) the CIA kept this a secret so that it could pursue its Mole-Hunt in peace. The implied answer should be obvious -- James Hosty was part of that plot to frame LHO as a Communist, an FPCC officer, and a secret member of the KGB! This was the main thrust of the news coming out of Dallas on November 22, 1963 -- exactly 53 years ago today; that LHO was a Communist. Not a "Lone Nut," but a Communist. Long after the JFK assassination and the Warren Report -- the Radical Right in the USA continued to attempt to revive the legend that LHO was a Communist. James Hosty, it now seems to me, was working for the Radical Right. Certainly his argumentation in his 1996 book fully harmonizes with the claims of General Walker's WC testimony on that score. Regards, --Paul Trejo