James P. Hosty

Who was James P. Hosty?

James Patrick Hosty, Jr. was an American FBI agent assigned to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald upon Oswald's June 1962 return to the US after his brief defection to the Soviet Union. After Hosty made contact with Marina Oswald in order to interview her about her recent entry into the United States, Oswald wrote him a letter to protest the "harassment" of his wife Marina, and had Hosty's name and phone number in his address book. After the Kennedy assassination, Hosty did not disclose Oswald's letter about Marina to the Warren Commission and destroyed Oswald's letter on his superior's order. Because of this, Hosty attracted speculation as a possible conspirator in several conspiracy theories. Hosty was one of 12 agents reprimanded for investigative improprieties after the release of the Warren Report, and was transferred to the FBI's Kansas City office until his mandatory retirement in 1979.

Hosty later wrote a memoir about Oswald's assassination of Kennedy, titled "Assignment: Oswald". He was interviewed by dozens of historians and his book has been cited in a number of history books on the assassination for its clear accounting of the events from 1963.