Jump to content
The Education Forum

James Hosty and KGB Agent Kostikov


Paul Trejo

Recommended Posts

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 

Edited by Paul Trejo
Valeriy not Valerie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 285
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I always get an unsettled feeling when I think of Agent James Hosty.

He took an oath before testifying to the Warren Commission to tell " the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth."

Well, we all know now that James Hosty chose not to adhere to the "WHOLE truth" part of that oath to that "august body" of unbiased against JFK truth seekers.

When James Hosty was asked years later why he didn't mention to the Warren Commission his ordered destruction of contents from Oswald's local Dallas FBI file immediately after Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby he said  ... "They didn't ask."

They didn't ask.   They didn't ask?

Didn't the "oath" he took clearly ask for the "whole" truth? 

Hosty didn't understand that part of his oath?

That preposterous even offensive answer and excuse is about as rational as a witness to a deadly car accident not telling the investigative police that the driver who caused the accident ran a red light...simply because they "didn't ask" about it?

Does anyone here realize what Hosty telling the Oswald file destroying truth to the Warren Commission would have meant to the rest of JFK truth seeking history?

And what his withholding meant in this same context? 

If I could have personally interviewed Mr. Hosty I would have asked him these questions:

Mr. Hosty, you do realize that the Warren Commission's whole creation and purpose was to find out the truth ( the whole truth) about what happened to our beloved president JFK in Dallas, Texas on 11,22,1963 ?  Our entire nation wanted to know the truth of perhaps the greatest crime in our history ( along with Abe Lincoln's murder ) and the only way they could have any chance of knowing this was supposedly through this LBJ appointed commission?

Yet Mr. Hosty, you took that entire oath before testifying and you knowingly violated the "Whole Truth" part of it?

And I am not sure but was the traditional "So Help You God" addendum also part of this oath? 

Being an Irish Catholic, you would think that part of this oath would make it even more sacred and honorable to you personally.

So, for what reason Mr. Hosty ... what reason could you give for not keeping the "Whole Truth" part of your oath?

What could possibly be a higher calling for you ( someone who wept at JFK's funeral ) than to help find out the "whole truth" about JFK'S  murder and the main suspect Oswald as you knew it to be but then withheld from this commission?

You say that something in this folder would have caused an embarrassment to your employer? So, your loyalty to your employer is ( was) more important to you than helping the world know the whole truth about JFK's supposed, alleged killer? Your employers embarrassment is more important than trying to find the truth regards our presidents brutal slaughter right in your own home town? Under your protection?

Your loyalty to your employer, and your protection of your career standing with them ( including your pension)  obviously took priority in your chance to tell the world everything you knew of Lee Harvey Oswald.

You placed your employment agency and your own career ahead of the truth America and the world was so desperately seeking and needing.

In so doing you have helped to keep the majority of Americans mistrusting of their own government starting with that November day In Dallas, Texas 1963.

Thank you Mr..Hosty.

And since you admitted purposely withholding important information on Oswald to the highest investigative body in the land with the highest truth seeking purpose, what else did you hold back in this matter? Your credibility for total truth telling was lost on that day you were interviewed by the Warren Commission and refused to bring up what you fully knew and had on Lee Harvey Oswald before 11,22,1963.

And you "dare" to complain in your memoirs that important truth information about Oswald was withheld from "you" for many years? And how this offended you?

Now you know how your fellow Americans and especially us JFK truth seekers feel about you,after you admitted withholding Lee Harvey Oswald information from the Warren Commission and the American public, even and especially after you took "an oath"  to tell the "whole truth" as you knew it.

And your casual lunch break right at the time that JFK was traveling through your JFK and Adlai Stevenson extreme hating city ( which you knew it to be ) with it's threats against him blatantly expressed in the newspaper and on car windshields  ) belies your professed love of JFK and concern for his safety which should have been logically much, much more attentive in that super far right, JFK threatening dangerous city.

 

Edited by Joe Bauer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Joe,

Thanks for the perspective.  It rests at the heart of the matter.   Here is how the WC testimony of FBI Agent James Hosty began:

The CHAIRMAN. Would you raise your right hand, please, and be sworn? Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give before this Commission shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. HOSTY. I do...

The context is that that FBI Directors and Assistant Directors agreed with the Secret Service chiefs that the breakdown in US Government security on 11/22/1963 was precisely between the local, Dallas FBI and the Washington-based PRS (Protective Research Section) of the Secret Service.

For decades, the Secret Service protocol for every Presidential visit to a local city has been for the PRS to announce the visit weeks in advance, and then the local FBI office in that city would report to the PRS all the potentially dangerous people in that city.  That process never failed -- until Dallas, on 11/22/1963.

James Hosty sat at the center of that breakdown.

One major fib told by FBI agent Hosty was his answer to this question: Did you know who published the WANTED FOR TREASON: JFK handbills that circulated in Dallas on 10/24/1963 and 11/22/1963?  

Hosty said, No.  Yet the WC revealed that General Walker's aide, Robert Alan Surrey, printed and published those handbills.  WC witness Bernard Weisman said that he saw some of these handbills in the back seat of General Walker's car, driven by Robbie Schmidt.

In 1965, Penn Jones Jr. revealed that James Hosty and Robert Alan Surrey were bridge partners for years.  By his own admission in his book, Assignment Oswald (1996), Hosty's main FBI job in Dallas was to track the activities of the Radical Right.  Whether Hosty befriended Surrey to spy on the Radical Right, or because he sympathized with the Radical Right -- either way -- I cannot believe that James Hosty had no idea that Robert Alan Surrey was the printer and publisher of these handbills. 

Hosty told the WC that he had no idea who published the  WANTED FOR TREASON: JFK handbills -- and in fact it was these very people who are the focus of Jeff Caufield's recent book, General Walker and the Murder of President Kennedy: the Extensive New Evidence of a Radical Right Conspiracy (2015).

 Regards,
--Paul Trejo

 

 

Edited by Paul Trejo
grammar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

The context is that that FBI Directors and Assistant Directors agreed with the Secret Service chiefs

You make this sound like a great big group. There was only one FBI Director and he clearly made all the policy decisions for the Bureau and there was one SS Chief.

 

If I played bridge, (and I did play in a weekly poker group for years) it's entirely possible that one of the persons I played with did things throughout the week without my knowledge. It does seem obvious that Hosty cultivated the Bridge group association to collect information, given his duties and focus. Are there any reports (302s) concerning Walker and/or Surrey that Hosty authored?

Does Hosty's book give you the impression he leaned towards the radical right?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul:

Are you really serious?  You are trying to say that somehow Hosty and his knowledge about Kostikov in 1996 shows that somehow he was privy to something that was so super secret he had to be part of the plot?

The presence of Kostikov in Mexico City was pretty obvious to many people back in the nineties.  John Newman talked about it in his book in 1995.

Eddie and Danny had to know about it while their report was being declassified in 1994.  But even prior  to that in 1993, Kostikov and Oswald in MC were discussed in 1993 at thee Harvard Conference.

But beyond that, the meeting was also discussed in the book put out by those three Russian diplomats.  There is a question about whether or not the meeting ever took place.  And people argue about whether or not Oswald was there.  The CIA put out a story that he really was there, but that was on the day of the assassination.  But they held back all the evidence that seems to indicate he was not.   But even today, some people think he was there, like Newman and Hancock.

So what are you trying to say, besides giving another free ad to Simpich and his book? Thank God you didn't try and double that up with your usual sales pitch for Caufield and Harry Dean.

Edited by James DiEugenio
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/23/2016 at 0:38 PM, Chris Newton said:

You make this sound like a great big group. There was only one FBI Director and he clearly made all the policy decisions for the Bureau and there was one SS Chief.

If I played bridge, (and I did play in a weekly poker group for years) it's entirely possible that one of the persons I played with did things throughout the week without my knowledge. It does seem obvious that Hosty cultivated the Bridge group association to collect information, given his duties and focus. Are there any reports (302s) concerning Walker and/or Surrey that Hosty authored?

Does Hosty's book give you the impression he leaned towards the radical right?

Chris,

It's not a great big group -- but it is a massively important group.   These weren't just some FBI guys and some Secret Service guys -- these were the Chiefs and Directors of the FBI and Secret Service.   Yes there was only one FBI Director, but he had two Assistant Directors, and we cannot diminish their authority.

The Secret Service was a hierarchy -- people in the field, and people at Headquarters.   The headquarters people in the Secret Service PRS agreed that the FBI dropped the ball. 

My reading of James Hosty's 1996 book, Assignment Oswald, shows a writer (or his ghost-writer) claiming that Hosty was a liberal patriot, while at the same time accidentally revealing that Hosty was part of a inside group with inside knowledge of the mole-forged linkage of Valerie Kostikov to Lee Harvey Oswald.  So, yes, ultimately and unintentionally, Hosty gives me the impression that he leaned toward the Radical Right -- and his book was a Big Lie.   Well, the best lies are 99% truth and only 1% lie -- so it was a very good lie.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/23/2016 at 4:36 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

Are you really serious?  You are trying to say that somehow Hosty and his knowledge about Kostikov in 1996 shows that somehow he was privy to something that was so super secret he had to be part of the plot?

The presence of Kostikov in Mexico City was pretty obvious to many people back in the nineties.  John Newman talked about it in his book in 1995.

Eddie and Danny had to know about it while their report was being declassified in 1994.  But even prior  to that in 1993, Kostikov and Oswald in MC were discussed in 1993 at thee Harvard Conference.

But beyond that, the meeting was also discussed in the book put out by those three Russian diplomats.  There is a question about whether or not the meeting ever took place.  And people argue about whether or not Oswald was there.  The CIA put out a story that he really was there, but that was on the day of the assassination.  But they held back all the evidence that seems to indicate he was not.   But even today, some people think he was there, like Newman and Hancock...

James,

I'm serious.  John Newman did raise the Kostikov question in 1995, but James Hosty himself in 1996 claims that he had knowledge of the plot in 1963.  It's not my claim, it's Hosty;'s own claim.

Bill Simpich's revelation of the Mole Hunt is the proper context to evaluate James Hosty's 1996 confessions.  The Kostikov-Oswald connection was indeed so super-secret in 1963 that FBI agent James Hosty simply had to be part of that plot -- and therefore part of the JFK assassination plot.  That's my theory.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo 

Edited by Paul Trejo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/22/2016 at 2:19 PM, Paul Trejo said:

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, Valerie 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 Valerie Kostikov.  Hosty then asked himself, melodramatically setting up the theme for his book, "Who is the world is Valerie 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 Valerie 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 Valerie 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 Valerie 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 

I appreciate your take on James Hosty. I spoke with him, initially, about the limo, and then about Lee and Marina.  He did remark on how angry LHO became when he asked him about Mexico City.  It was my impression at that time (around 2000) that Hosty was either unaware or unconvinced that there were LHO imposters in MC.  So, while it is necessary to make sure he is given responsibility for everything he did know, we should be cautious to come to conclusions about things he might not have known or given proper credence to. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Paul:

That is  a distortion by you.

After the material about Kostikov was finally disseminated on 11/22 OF COURSE many thought that perhaps Oswald killed JFK for the KGB.

But that was not an unusual thesis at all to buy into.  LBJ thought about it himself.  How does that then mean that Hosty was in on it? As far as I can see, it does not.  He complains in his book that he did not know about who Kostikov was until after the assassination. 

Can you show that 1.) He knew about the alleged Oswald/Kostikov conversations prior to the murder of Kennedy, and 2.) That Hosty knew Kostikov was in charge of assassinations prior to 11/22/63?

 

Edited by James DiEugenio
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/23/2016 at 4:02 PM, Paul Brancato said:

Weren't LBJ and JEH neighbors and poker buddies?

Not sure about the poker, but definitely buddies...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

That is  a distortion by you.

After the material about Kostikov was finally disseminated on 11/22 OF COURSE many thought that perhaps Oswald killed JFK for the KGB.

But that was not an unusual thesis at all to buy into.  LBJ thought about it himself.  How does that then mean that Hosty was in on it? As far as I can see, it does not.  He complains in his book that he did not know about who Kostikov was until after the assassination. 

Can you show that 1.) He knew about the alleged Oswald/Kostikov conversations prior to the murder of Kennedy, and 2.) That Hosty knew Kostikov was in charge of assassinations prior to 11/22/63?

 

Exactly, Jim.  Hosty had information on 11/22 but no details, to my understanding.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

I appreciate your take on James Hosty. I spoke with him, initially, about the limo, and then about Lee and Marina.  He did remark on how angry LHO became when he asked him about Mexico City.  It was my impression at that time (around 2000) that Hosty was either unaware or unconvinced that there were LHO imposters in MC.  So, while it is necessary to make sure he is given responsibility for everything he did know, we should be cautious to come to conclusions about things he might not have known or given proper credence to.

Pamela,

It's very interesting that you've interviewed James Hosty.  Yet if I may be so bold, I think we have been too cautious about James Hosty for over a half century.

Your interview suggests that James Hosty stuck to his story.  That's what I would expect.  Yet it's precisely Hosty's own story in his book, Assignment Oswald (1996) that reveals this gap in his story: how could Hosty have been aware of a Kostilov-Oswald connection in 1963?

This is not my original claim -- this is Hosty's own claim inside his own book.  I'm surprised nobody has noticed this before (to the best of my knowledge).

Hosty's 1996 book is 99% historical fact and chronology -- there is only this 1% addition which is a thread that runs from the beginning to the end of his book.  It can be clearly seen by simply going to the Index in the back of the book, and finding the name, "Kostikov," and reading just those pages.

The Kostikov Myth, the reader will see, forms the very theme of his book.  Hosty "proves" his innocence of any wrongdoing in the JFK assassination by means of blaming "Kostikov" and by linking Oswald to Kostikov.  That's Hosty's own theme.  Hosty himself said he knew about this back in 1963.

So, the reason Bill Simpich (2014) is so important is because Simpich shows carefully, by using new FOIA releases of CIA documents, that the Kostikov Myth was part of a Top-Secret CIA Mole-Hunt -- unknown even to CIA agents -- except to the actual Moles that the CIA was trying to catch!

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
emphasis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/26/2016 at 0:11 PM, James DiEugenio said:

Paul:

That is  a distortion by you.

After the material about Kostikov was finally disseminated on 11/22 OF COURSE many thought that perhaps Oswald killed JFK for the KGB.

But that was not an unusual thesis at all to buy into.  LBJ thought about it himself.  How does that then mean that Hosty was in on it? As far as I can see, it does not.  He complains in his book that he did not know about who Kostikov was until after the assassination. 

Can you show that 1.) He knew about the alleged Oswald/Kostikov conversations prior to the murder of Kennedy, and 2.) That Hosty knew Kostikov was in charge of assassinations prior to 11/22/63?

James,

It's no distortion.  The material on Kostikov was disseminated in 1995 by John Newman, and James Hosty came out with his biography in 1996 -- but it would be a mistake to imagine that Hosty invented some "Kostikov-did-it" CT merely by reading John Newman's book in 1995. 

James Hosty tells us himself in his 1996 book that he had heard about Valerie Kostikov in October, 1963.  Here are his exact words:

---------- BEGIN EXTRACT FROM JAMES HOSTY, "ASSIGNMENT OSWALD" (1996), pages 47-48 --------

In October 1963, the New Orleans office sent me a communication reporting that the Oswalds had again disappeared...

Later that month, shortly after I received the New Orleans memo, I returned to the INS office to check on another case. Jeff Woolsey, the chief clerk at the INS office said, "Hey, Jim, what do you think of Lee Oswald in Mexico City making contact with the Russians a little while ago?"

"I didn't know that," I replied.  "Can I see that communication?"

"I can't.  Sorry, Jim," Woolsey said, somewhat embarrassed...

Back at the office, I sent an urgent overnight...Airtel, to FBI headquarters and the New Orleans office to respond.  By return mail, I received information...

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. Kostikov, a vice consul at the Soviet Embassy there...

---------- END EXTRACT FROM JAMES HOSTY, "ASSIGNMENT OSWALD" (1996), pages 47-48 --------

By the way, Hosty will later admit that this crucial FBI Airtel October 18, 1963, later "disappeared."   Afterwards, on the Monday after the JFK assassination,James Hosty claims that he first became suspicious of Kostikov.   Here are Hosty's own words.  The date is Monday 25 November 1963, at about 11am.  Hosty decided to speak to the Dallas FBI Assistant SAC, Kyle Clark.  Hosty says:

---------- BEGIN EXTRACT FROM JAMES HOSTY, "ASSIGNMENT OSWALD" (1996), page 70 --------

I decided to go talk with Clark.  I saw Ken Howe was in Clark's office.  I tapped on the door and moseyed in.

"Kostikov was going to --"  Clark was saying when I walked in, but when he saw me he stopped talking abruptly.  Howe and Clark turned and looked at me.  After a moment of awkward silence, Clark asked, "What do you want?"

"I wanted to talk to you.  But it can wait."

"I'll come and get you later," Clark replied.

Kostikov again!  Who was he, and what was going on?  I was being kept from the full facts.

---------- END EXTRACT FROM JAMES HOSTY, "ASSIGNMENT OSWALD" (1996), page 70 --------

James Hosty would not allow the US Government to block him, but would aggressively investigate Kostikov in the days and weeks to come.  This is detailed in his 1996 book.

The Kostikov CT is significantly different from the "Communists-did-it" CT that emerged out of Dallas and Mexico City in the first few hours and days of the JFK assassination.  Everybody on the Right said it was a "Communist plot," just as everybody on the Left said it was a "Fascist" plot.  In the Cold War, the US Government was duty bound to investigate charges that the USSR had killed JFK.  So that was indeed investigated.

But Kostikov was a special case.  He was known only to the CIA high-command -- and the alleged Oswald-Kostikov connection was known only to the creators of the Simpich Mole Hunt in September 1963.   It was a super-secret project.  Only the Moles in that impersonation knew anything about it.

Hosty knew about it, by his own admission -- but he claims that his superiors also knew, but were keeping it from him.  His evidence is non-existent.  That's my argument.

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
typos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now

×
×
  • Create New...