Jump to content
The Education Forum

James Hosty and KGB Agent Kostikov


Paul Trejo

Recommended Posts

10 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Hosty's account of his discussion with Belmont makes perfect sense to me. The record shows that the FBI knew of the Oswald letter to the Soviet Embassy, in which he mentioned "Comrade Kostin", on the 18th. This is almost certainly the document Hosty recalls. And yes, indeed, it's missing. I've looked for it myself. But Hosty is wrong. This document almost certainly mentioned "Kostin" but not Kostikov. There is a CIA document, however, which shows they called the FBI on the morning of the 23rd to tell them they thought "Kostin" was Kostikov, and that he worked with Department 13, the department in charge of assassinations. The FBI then went into CYA mode, and sought to hide that they'd had four days to figure out who "Kostin" was, but had failed to do so, and had thereby failed to properly protect the President. They removed references to "Kostin" from Hosty's file. They told him to throw away the note. They then redacted references to their knowing about Kostin on the 18th from documents released to the public. (After months of haggling, I recently acquired an FBI document from the archives which shows that the "Kostin" letter was intercepted by the FBI on the 18th, and that Oswald's handwriting on the letter was confirmed on the 23rd.)

(While the disappearance and redaction of these documents may have been done to conceal that the FBI had been reading the Soviet Embassy's mail, this is a bit difficult to believe. Like the Russians didn't know we were reading their mail? Perhaps, then, the FBI had a real and legitimate concern that, if they admitted they'd had a copy of Oswald's letter long before the Russians gave them a copy, that this would get back to the handful of dummies writing the embassy every year who didn't know their letters were being read. Or, perhaps not. Perhaps it was all about protecting Hoover's rep. In either case, it makes sense to me that Belmont was trying to hide stuff from Hosty.

Pat,

First, I agree with you 100% on your point that Comrade Kostin is not the same as Valerie Kostikov.  These are two different Russian names.

Secondly, the document may be missing from CIA files, however, it is a well-known FBI document in the Warren Commission, provided by Ruth Paine.  It is CE 015, namely, LHO's letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, signed by Lee H. Oswald and mailed on 12 Nov 1963. The letter referred to "my meetings with comrade Kostin."  

James Hosty, in his book, transforms the name in LHO's letter to "Kostikov."  You have rightly said that James Hosty is wrong on that -- I will add that James Hosty deliberately attempted to deceive readers on that.

The evidence shows, IMHO, that in his book, Assignment Oswald (1996), James Hosty deliberately fabricated an LHO-Kostikov connection in 1996.  The proof of this charge, IMHO, is the innovative 2014 work done by Bill Simpich. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

 

 

Edited by Paul Trejo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 285
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

On 12/5/2016 at 5:36 PM, Chris Newton said:

Paul,

The issue you're discussing, as I understand it, is whether Hosty could have seen a cable naming Kostikov in the context of the supposed Oswald Russian Embassy visit in mid October 1963.

There was a cable from CIA HQ to Mexico that mentioned Kostikov on 10/18/63. The problem with this cable, for Hosty's purposes, is that it was not disseminated to other agencies. It was not even known if Oswald met Kostikov, the meeting was only suggested as a "possibility" by the original source (supposedly). My take on this suggestion is that it's purpose was further "myth building".

Chris,

Would you please share a link to this 10/18/1963 CIA cable?  I gather that it fails to mention LHO, am I right?

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Edited by Paul Trejo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

Pat,

First, I agree with you 100% on your point that Comrade Kostin is not the same as Valerie Kostikov.  These are two different Russian names.

Secondly, the document may be missing from CIA files, however, it is a well-known FBI document in the Warren Commission, provided by Ruth Paine.  It is CE 015, namely, LHO's letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, signed by Lee H. Oswald and mailed on 12 Nov 1963. The letter referred to "my meetings with comrade Kostin."  

James Hosty, in his book, transforms the name in LHO's letter to "Kostikov."  You have rightly said that James Hosty is wrong on that -- I will add that James Hosty deliberately attempted to deceive readers on that.

The evidence shows, IMHO, that in his book, Assignment Oswald (1996), James Hosty deliberately fabricated an LHO-Kostikov connection in 1996.  The proof of this charge, IMHO, is the innovative 2014 work done by Bill Simpich. 

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

 

 

Uh, no. That wasn't my point at all. Oswald mentioned a "Comrade Kostin". The FBI had this letter on the 18th, but, apparently, failed to figure out that Kostin was most logically Kostikov, who would in fact later acknowledge he met with Oswald. In any event, the CIA called the FBI on the morning of the 23rd and told them they'd concluded Kostin was Kostikov, and that Kostikov had a relationship with Dept. 13, the Dept in charge of sabotage and assassinations.

Just imagine the panic this would create within the FBI. They'd known for days that Oswald had met with someone, but had failed to piece together that this man was the very man--in the entire western hemisphere--whose contact with Oswald should have set off alarm bells. It's an OOPS of epic proportions. So they covered it up. They knew Hosty was gonna get called as a witness somewhere along the line, so they removed from his files the cables and memos indicating they'd known about the "Kostin" letter days before the assassination. (They were concerned as well that these memos would expose their letter-reading operations in Washington.)

In any event, they must have let out a sigh of relief when the Soviet Embassy agreed to supply the government the contents of Oswald's file, and the "Kostin" letter was within the file. This allowed them to put Oswald's contact with "Kostin" on the record without revealing 1) that they knew about the letter, even before Ruth Paine gave them a draft of the letter on the 23rd, and 2) they had a copy of the letter 4 days before the assassination.  I've looked, and the Warren Report gives the impression the FBI didn't know about the letter until Ruth Paine told them about it, and never saw the finished letter before a copy was provided them by the Soviets. Documents in which the letter-reading program was acknowledged, moreover, were redacted, and were only released in full after the passing of the JFK Records Act.

Edited by Pat Speer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/2/2016 at 2:04 PM, Chris Newton said:

The 10/10/63 CIA cable that was disseminated to FBI was DIR 74673. It was released by the ARRB in 1995.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1546#relPageId=3&tab=page

The cable doesn't mention Kostikov.

 

Has anyone ever seen the telegram that this cable references?

 

Steve Thomas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Paul Trejo said:

OK, but to clarify -- the internal CIA cable of 10/9/1963 failed to make a direct link between Kostikov and LHO

No. It does make mention of Kostikov.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=54887#relPageId=2&tab=page

Edited by Chris Newton
updated w/unredacted link to cable
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Uh, no. That wasn't my point at all. Oswald mentioned a "Comrade Kostin". The FBI had this letter on the 18th, but, apparently, failed to figure out that Kostin was most logically Kostikov, who would in fact later acknowledge he met with Oswald. In any event, the CIA called the FBI on the morning of the 23rd and told them they'd concluded Kostin was Kostikov, and that Kostikov had a relationship with Dept. 13, the Dept in charge of sabotage and assassinations.

Just imagine the panic this would create within the FBI. They'd known for days that Oswald had met with someone, but had failed to piece together that this man was the very man--in the entire western hemisphere--whose contact with Oswald should have set off alarm bells. It's an OOPS of epic proportions. So they covered it up. They knew Hosty was gonna get called as a witness somewhere along the line, so they removed from his files the cables and memos indicating they'd known about the "Kostin" letter days before the assassination. (They were concerned as well that these memos would expose their letter-reading operations in Washington.)

In any event, they must have let out a sigh of relief when the Soviet Embassy agreed to supply the government the contents of Oswald's file, and the "Kostin" letter was within the file. This allowed them to put Oswald's contact with "Kostin" on the record without revealing 1) that they knew about the letter, even before Ruth Paine gave them a draft of the letter on the 23rd, and 2) they had a copy of the letter 4 days before the assassination.  I've looked, and the Warren Report gives the impression the FBI didn't know about the letter until Ruth Paine told them about it, and never saw the finished letter before a copy was provided them by the Soviets. Documents in which the letter-reading program was acknowledged, moreover, were redacted, and were only released in full after the passing of the JFK Records Act.

 

Has Kostikov ever been proved to have worked for Department 13?  (Just wondering.)

--  Tommy :sun

Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, Thomas Graves said:

 

Has Kostikov ever been proved to have worked for Department 13?  (Just wondering.)

--  Tommy :sun

That's a very good question. A literary agent who went to Russia and spoke to Kostikov after the fall of the Soviet Union appeared at the 50th anniversary conference in Pittsburgh. As I recall, he said Kostikov totally downplayed his role in any black-ops. In reading the CIA's memos regarding Kostin/Kostikov over on the Mary Ferrell site, I realized that the wording suggested Kostikov had worked with Dept. 13, and not that he'd worked FOR Dept. 13. Well, that's ambiguous. Maybe he arranged for their transportation or some such thing.  It doesn't mean he actually killed anyone, or arranged anyone's death. This led me to wonder, then, if the CIA official who called the FBI and blew the whistle regarding Kostikov didn't do this on purpose, knowing full well it would make the FBI cut and run.

Does Bill Simpich or John Newman get into this? I don't recall.

Edited by Pat Speer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Thank you, but I meant the actual telegram that the cable refers to.

My mistake.

It's actually the "Oswald" caller that mentions the telegram in the "tap" transcript. The Russians only say a message was sent but there's no evidence they actually sent anything.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55305#relPageId=202&tab=page

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Uh, no. That wasn't my point at all. Oswald mentioned a "Comrade Kostin". The FBI had this letter on the 18th, but, apparently, failed to figure out that Kostin was most logically Kostikov, who would in fact later acknowledge he met with Oswald. In any event, the CIA called the FBI on the morning of the 23rd and told them they'd concluded Kostin was Kostikov, and that Kostikov had a relationship with Dept. 13, the Dept in charge of sabotage and assassinations.

Just imagine the panic this would create within the FBI. They'd known for days that Oswald had met with someone, but had failed to piece together that this man was the very man--in the entire western hemisphere--whose contact with Oswald should have set off alarm bells. It's an OOPS of epic proportions. So they covered it up. They knew Hosty was gonna get called as a witness somewhere along the line, so they removed from his files the cables and memos indicating they'd known about the "Kostin" letter days before the assassination. (They were concerned as well that these memos would expose their letter-reading operations in Washington.)

In any event, they must have let out a sigh of relief when the Soviet Embassy agreed to supply the government the contents of Oswald's file, and the "Kostin" letter was within the file. This allowed them to put Oswald's contact with "Kostin" on the record without revealing 1) that they knew about the letter, even before Ruth Paine gave them a draft of the letter on the 23rd, and 2) they had a copy of the letter 4 days before the assassination.  I've looked, and the Warren Report gives the impression the FBI didn't know about the letter until Ruth Paine told them about it, and never saw the finished letter before a copy was provided them by the Soviets. Documents in which the letter-reading program was acknowledged, moreover, were redacted, and were only released in full after the passing of the JFK Records Act.

Pat,

OK, then we interpret these events very differently, you and I  First, I disagree when you say, "Kostin was most logically Kostikov."   That's a leap.  

As for the "Kostin" memo, that was not even written by LHO until after he returned from Mexico City and typed it on Ruth Paine's typewriter in mid-November, 1963.  It's a leap.

As for the FBI, the only thing they knew about LHO in Mexico City was what the CIA knew in Mexico City, which is totally spelled out in the Lopez Report (2003).  Oswald spoke with the Cuban consuls and the USSR Embassy clerks, and made an emotional fool of himself.  Period.  End of story.

Bill Simpich (2014) shows convincingly that LHO was impersonated in Mexico City over the most wire-tapped phone in the world, and that the CIA knew that it wasn't LHO who asked for Kostikov in that early October telephone call.  They started a Mole Hunt to find out who the impersonator was.  It was TOP SECRET.

The fiction that LHO made a plot with the KGB was a common story in Mexican newspapers after the JFK assassination -- sort of like our National Enquirer. 

To link "Kostin" with "Kostikov" is what James Hosty tried to do with his 1996 book.  I am arguing here that if James Hosty really did know about the LHO-Kostikov CT in October 1963 as he himself claimed, then he could have only learned it from David Morales (whom Bill Simpich said was the most likely impersonator).

Regards,
--Paul Trejo

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of all, it was the CIA that ID'ed "Kostin" as Kostikov, not Hosty. They did this on 11-23. And, second of all, who was "Kostin" if not Kostikov? Kostikov acknowledged meeting with Oswald. Are you claiming there was also a Kostin?

I think you're looking at this the wrong way. The person on the phone, whether an impersonator or Oswald himself, clearly wanted the CIA to know Oswald had met with Kostikov. There are a number of reasons why this could be. If it was Oswald, perhaps he wanted his contacts within the CIA to know he'd met with Kostikov, and figured that announcing it on a tapped phone was easier and less dangerous than trying to arrange a meeting in Mexico City,  OR, if it wasn't Oswald, perhaps this was information that was actually supplied by a mole within the embassy, and those running this mole wanted this information to make its way into the files, without revealing the identity or even existence of this mole. I'm leaning to the latter.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Oswald did travel all the way down to Mexico City and met with Kostikov himself, doesn't it say more than what we are debating?

I mean, here is a minimum wage, job skipping fellow who can't afford a car or take financial care of his wife and baby who are living with others and being helped by others and can barely make enough himself to stay in cheap rooms, yet he manages to travel to MC and garner a one-on-one meeting with one of the highest ranking members of the Russian spy network in the Western Hemisphere?

This incongruous inter-action with very high intrigue level people who should normally be keeping extremely poor and socially dysfunctional folk like Oswald well outside their gates just doesn't make sense!  If Oswald truly had this Kostikov's one-on-one ear and attention, then this elevates Oswald to much more than a simple, barely employed minimum wage earning ..."Lone Nut."

The equivalent would be Winston Scott taking an appointment with Boris Bushkin, an unemployed former radio assembly worker from Kiev who just arrived on a Greyhound bus with one change of ordinary clothes in a rag tag suitcase and just enough pocket change to eat at road side taco stands.

So much of what Oswald reportedly did in the last year of his life didn't make sense, unless he was much more than a frustrated, financially dysfunctional loner. 

 

Edited by Joe Bauer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

That's a very good question. A literary agent who went to Russia and spoke to Kostikov after the fall of the Soviet Union appeared at the 50th anniversary conference in Pittsburgh. As I recall, he said Kostikov totally downplayed his role in any black-ops. In reading the CIA's memos regarding Kostin/Kostikov over on the Mary Ferrell site, I realized that the wording suggested Kostikov had worked with Dept. 13, and not that he'd worked FOR Dept. 13. Well, that's ambiguous. Maybe he arranged for their transportation or some such thing.  It doesn't mean he actually killed anyone, or arranged anyone's death. This led me to wonder, then, if the CIA official who called the FBI and blew the whistle regarding Kostikov didn't do this on purpose, knowing full well it would make the FBI cut and run.

Does Bill Simpich or John Newman get into this? I don't recall.

Just wondering:  How would the CIA's warning the FBI that Oswald had been in contact with Kostikov have caused the FBI to "cut and run"?

--  Tommy :sun

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Chris Newton said:

My mistake.

It's actually the "Oswald" caller that mentions the telegram in the "tap" transcript. The Russians only say a message was sent but there's no evidence they actually sent anything.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=55305#relPageId=202&tab=page

Chris,

 

Thank you.

 

I had just been wondering about the telegram idea. To me, a telegram, as opposed to a diplomatic cable, implies a sense of urgency. It would also be sent "in the clear" as opposed to encrypted right? Surely the Russians knew that their mail and telegrams were being read - that's just common tradecraft. So, why would the Russians accommodate Oswald? Who's playing who here?

 

Steve Thomas

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...