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JFK Book Reviews - Assignment:Oswald By James Hosty · The Lone Gunman Podcast : JFK Assassination

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: What's up everybody, and welcome to JFK Book Reviews. I'm
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Rob Clark. He is Joe BURRELLI with one extra scar
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: this evening. Yes into the show Wednesday night for more
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: details on that. But today we got a book review
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: for you, and it is dun Assignment Oswald by James P.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Hosty Junior, with his son Thomas Hosty. This bad boy
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is slim thick as what I call her very much here,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: but she's got a nice looking, nice looking thick rump.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: So Joe tell us a little bit more about this
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: bad boy here.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Sure. So it was, of course authored by James P.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Host It was published in the United States in nineteen
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: ninety six by Arcade Publishing Incorporated in New York City,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: distributed by Little Brown and Company. I'm sure there's a
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: joke in there somewhere. It is about three hundred and
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: twenty eight pages long. There's about six hundred, six hundred
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: sixty one pages of reprints of documents and starts off
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: with an acknowledgment section, twenty chapters, an appendix, an index,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: and also a PostScript.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: There.
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  Speaker 2: It was released again in softcover in twenty eleven. James
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: Hosty was born in nineteen twenty eight, graduated with a
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: science degree in business administration from the University of Norre
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Dame in nineteen forty eight. A good Catholic boy, host
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: he worked for first the First National Bank in Chicago
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: and as a salesman before joining the FBI in January
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: nineteen fifty two, and then was initially sent to Louisville, Kentucky,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: but in December fifty three was transferred to Dallas, Texas.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: In March sixty three, host he was ordered to keep
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Lee Harvey Oswalt under observation. And let's see. You can
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: get this rob on Kindle available instantly for ten ninety nine.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: If you have an audiobook subscription, you can get it
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: for only ninety nine cents. Hardcover call copies on Amazon
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: ranged from six dollars and sixty nine cents. Shout out
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: to your latest Quick Hits episode up to thirty nine
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: dollars based on quality, and new on paperback for about
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: twenty six dollars. And I just want to read a
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: part of the acknowledgment's kind of intro section. When he
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: first found out about the JFK assassination, Holy Christ, most
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: he says, this couldn't be true. It couldn't be. My
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: mind was racing, but I couldn't get my thoughts in order.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I strained to listen to the other reports on the radio.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Than one thought suddenly pushed its way to the front
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: of my mind. Janet, my wife, was at the Dallas
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Trademark where President Kennedy had been scheduled to deliver a
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: luncheon address. She was one of the volunteer hostesses who
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: was to serve the President and his party. Just last night,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: we had received a report at the FBI Field office
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: that a radical right wing group named the Indigenant White
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Citizens' Council was going to demonstrate at the Trademark while
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: the President was there. The report said that violence was possible.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Anger now started to boil within me. I was squeezing
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: the steering wheel. I was dead sure one of those
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: radicals had pulled the gun and shot at the President.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: To hell with orders. I had to see my wife.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: She might be caught up in the gunfire. So, Rob,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I think this book definitely has a low nut lean
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: slash cya slash cover. Your agency's a lean towards it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Yes, it most certainly does have that. And according to
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: James Hosty, He had it a little rough after the assassination.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: As of course, the FBI was somewhat blamed because it
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: didn't have a good eye on Oswald pre assassination, given
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: what he had been up to in New Orleans, given
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the fact that he was a former Soviet defector, given
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the fact that they had been reading his mail and
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: knew that he had ordered rifles apparently. I mean, that's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: what happens when you read people's mail. You know. The
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Postal Inspector, Harry Holmes was telling the FBI everything, everything, everything,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: and you know, we know he was letting even letting
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: him know about Texas Texas Employment Commission and Oswald travails
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: with jobs. So of course anything that was flagged with
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: this guy or applied to him, you know, he let
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: him know that he was subscribe to, you know, the
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: socialists and communists and newspapers. So they knew Oswald was
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: a problem. And of course Hosty became the agency's scapegoat,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and all this he bore the brunt of the blame. Now,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: when Oswald returned from the USSR in nineteen sixty two
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: with Marina and Kid in tow there was a different
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: agent assigned to Oswald. His name was John Fame, but
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: he ended up retiring a couple months into his surveillance,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: well not really surveillance. He was tasked with questioning Oswald
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: when he returned m Marina when they returned from Russia
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to the United States. Now, what I did find interesting
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is there was another snitch in the Oswald family who
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: was informing, if you will, to the FBI, and that
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: would be Robert Oswald's wife, Vada. Yeah, crazy, huh. She
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: was telling the FBI things behind her husband and her
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: brother in law's back about Oswald and Marina. Now after
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: HOSTI got assigned hence the name of the book as
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Simon Oswald to keep an eye on Oswald. Okay, this
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: was about the time that he started working at Jagger's
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: child Stowveall. So Oswald is gainfully employed, you know, for
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a while, not really getting involved in anything nefarious. Right,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: He's got a stable job, he's got a place to live.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Not too much is going on. So Oswald kind of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: slips off the radar, right, and then he finds out,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: thanks to Harry Holmes, that Oswald has moved back to
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: New Orleans, right, and so he lets the New Orleans office. Know, hey,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: this guy has come back to New Orleans, just letting
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: you know type of thing. And Oswald in New Orleans
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: is crazy now that he might have come on the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: radar in the spring of sixty three, if you watched
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: our show a couple weeks ago, when we posit that
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: he could have possibly been picked up by the police
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: in early April nineteen sixty three, and like, oh, or
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the I ins or the police then they called the
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: I S to come down and question him. Then he
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: turned him loose because it was so silly, and there
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: was no official arrest record made of that encounter. And
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: whether or not that information ever got to the FBI,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but certainly after he was arrested in
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: August of nineteen sixty three, and then while he's in
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: jail asked to speak to somebody in the FBI, they
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: certainly knew who he was then and what he had
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: been arrested for and all of that. He didn't exactly
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: tell them the truth in that encounter. But I digress.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: So then you have Oswald moving back to Dallas after
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: leaving New Orleans and going to Mexico allegedly. Now in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: this book, host a lot of defending himself and rightfully so,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: like I said, he was made the scapegoat within the FBI,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and not just him. There was a lot of people
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: who were reprimanded, docked bonuses, pay, moved around, fired, you
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: name it. I did a show all about it, and
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: there was like twenty or thirty people in the FBI
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: who were reprimanded in some way former fashion after the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: assassination from Hoover. So, because of course you don't embarrass
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the bureau, you don't, You just don't. And if you do,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: you're gonna pay for it, and hosting paid, that's for sure,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: they sent him to a non preferred location known as
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Kansas City, Missouri, basically a nine, a non coveted place
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to get sent and that is where he ended his career.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: And along the way he had well he was called
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: before the Church Committee, the House Select Committee, the ARRB,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: and of course all these documents started coming out in
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the nineties, so he felt that he needed to set
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the record straight in his own voice. Joe, Yeah, hence
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: his reason for writing this book. Now, several relevatory things
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: are in this book that we didn't know before that
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: could only come from a man who was in his
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: position at the time. He denies the whole Lieutenant telling
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Revel all this stuff, and because there was a
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: bunch of stuff going on where Revel told a chief
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Curry some stuff that he said on TV and they
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: got Hoover got pissed off, and Rebel said, well, Hosty
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: told me this, blah blah blah. So he kind of
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: denies that. He basically also comes out and says that
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: at the time, prior to the assassination that Hosty was
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: actually more worried about Marina Oswald than Lee, because to him,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Lee seemed just like a normal working guy. You know,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: she's the Russian right who married the American defector and
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: came back here.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: Possible honeypot, Yeah.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: You know, and in past experience with the Bureau, they
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: found that a lot of these women are men, you know,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: that married these foreigners and returned to this country, are
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: working for the KGB or worse right, So he was
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: actually more worried about Marina than Lee. Now, this of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: course led to the whole Oswald note thing right at
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: FBI headquarters, and Hosty was out to lunch one day
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and Oswald dropped a note off for Hosty and after
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Oswald is killed. You know. He tells his superior, Gordon Shanklin,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: about it, and Shanklin says, oh, you got to get
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: rid of that shit, you know, burn it flushed, So
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: he ended up flushing it down the toilet, ripping it
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: in little pieces and flushing it down the toilet. Now,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: what's interesting about the note is the secretary who he
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: gave it to. He gave it to an unsealed envelope apparently,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and she said that it threatened that Oswald threatened to
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: blow up the FBI in the Dallas Police department if
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: you don't stop bothering my wife. Now, in the book,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Hosty claims that the note did not say that, didn't
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  Speaker 1: say that. He says, what the note actually said is,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: if you have anything you want to learn about me,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: come talk to me directly. If you don't cease bothering
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: my wife, I will take appropriate action and report this
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to the proper authorities. Right. So, you know, Hosty is
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: just following orders when he's told to destroy the note. Now,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: of course, he claims at this point Oswald is dead.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: There's not going to be a trial. It's not really
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: considered evidence. It's just nuisance paperwork. At this point, right,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: not relevant, he gets rid of it. Now, he does
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: stay in the book that he probably shouldn't have done that,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: and he probably should have held on to it, but
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: he did it, and he was following the orders when
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: he did it. So that kind of it is what
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: it is, type of thing, and he makes no bones
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: about it in this book that he believes in Lee
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Oswald and Lee Oswald alone is the assassin of John F. Kennedy,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: hence the loan Nut Lean right, Joe yes. So he
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: supports other great loan nut books out there, like you know,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Gerald Posner's Case Closed, right, and uh, David Belan's book
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: The Guy from the Warren Commission. And a lot of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: this book is dedicated to defending against conspiracy theories that
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: have been put out there. Now you mentioned, you know
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: that a lot of this book is some cover your
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: ass type stuff, right, And it was. You know, I
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: still believe to this day that we don't know everything
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: about what the FBI was up to when it comes
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to this co intel pro programs and infiltrating these Cuban
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: groups and what they knew and how long they had
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: known it. The type of thing. Now Hosty does blame
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the CIA for not being forthcoming with the Mexico City incident, right,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: but again, had they been watching him like they should have.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: He had been taken off of a I forget what
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: they call it, Joe, where they flag somebody security list,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: security alert, Yeah, a list or something else. Yeah, where
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: they you know, are supposed to really keep tabs on somebody.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: He'd been taking off this list, you know, a couple
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: months before the assassination. That's why a host he wasn't
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: pressed about really you know, following up and finding this
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: guy and talking to him, because you know, basically you
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: never think that something like this is gonna happen, you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: especially from somebody like this. So the gist of this
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: book is just Hosty coming forth and telling his side
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: of the story from his perspective. Now, of course, there's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: been so many unredacted FBI documents that have come out
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: since this book was written, and like Joe said, most
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of the documents in this book are CIA documents that
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: have been declassified. There's just some FBI documents in here
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: as well that had been declassified at the time. But
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: you got to remember this book started getting wrote in
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three after the hoopla of the JFK movie
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and the JFK Records Act, and people were starting to
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: put Hosty in the realm of being involved in some
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: kind of a conspiracy, he felt, and he felt the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: need to set the record straight, if you will, Hence
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the reason for the book. So Joe, that being said,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: what are your thoughts about the book and your rating?
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Sir?
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think he dedicates it to his family
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: and his future family and you know, kind of setting
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: the record straight. But like you mentioned, he does believe
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: strongly that Oswald acted alone. Argues the evidence is overwhelmingly
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: points to Oswalt as a loan government He definitely is
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: article to CIA, like you mentioned, the Mexico City incidents
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: and not and not sharing information. Uh. He also criticizes
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: the Warrant Commission in some ways as well, for for
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: I guess, not pursuing some certain leads. Uh. You know,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: it's hard to to make out what a rating here
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: because he's obviously trying to offend his own reputation. I
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: think there is some truth to that he was the
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: scapegoat in some sense, maybe somewhat unfairly.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Uh. And you know, a.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: Jaygahova, you know, you really got no choice, and you know,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: last book review, we did The Night Watch, The Night
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Watch David Attlee Phillips, which is kind of similar to this,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: just from a CIA standpoint compared to an FBI standpoint.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I do think there is some value, although maybe that
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: was more of a memoir of his at Lee phillips
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: whole career. This might be more focused on the JFK case,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: you know overall, and I honestly don't know what to
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: believe or what not to believe, and what is Cya
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: what is you know, you know, trying to save whatever
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: is left of his reputation type of thing. So it's
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: definitely but I definitely think there is some value, you know,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: from someone who you know, was definitely one of the
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: few people to have had experience with the Oswaltz pre
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: JFK assassination. Like you mentioned, he was assigned to him.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: So I'm not can they give this the rating I
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: gave the last book, which was five out of ten.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go one under that because I really
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: don't know where the bullshit ends and the bullshit begins.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: I'm going to give this a four guns up a thank.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: You, Joe, Well, I'm disappointed in this book. Highly disappointed
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: in this book because it could have been so much better.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: And I think it's not really written well as far
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: as a narrative perspective. It's not footnoted properly. Like I said,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the appendix, if you will, it's sixty one pages of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: documents that he might talk about in the book. Right,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: but you got to figure it all out at the end,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like, so again, we could
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: have done without this book being in the milieu. And
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: did he write this for a payday? I don't know.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, dude had nine kids, twenty two grandkids, god
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: knows how many great grandkids now, and you know, got
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to pay for him somehow. Right, it was a prolific
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: prolific what do you call them? Oh? Man, it's right
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: on the tip of my tongue. Coxsmith possibly, Uh yeah,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: nine kids, man, poor Janet Hosty. But the information presented
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: in this book, and there's way too much defending of
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: the Warrant Commission in this book and way too much
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: believing the official story unequivocally without diving very deep, I'm
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: going to go even lower than you, Joe, and I'm
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: going to give this thing a three. I say, if
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: you can get it for cheap and you just want
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: to read about something, go ahead. Honestly, I tell you,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: don't waste your money otherwise, there's just not much meat
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: on this bone. And if you're a believer in a conspiracy,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: all this book is going to do is piss you
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: off when you read it. So I'm going to give
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: this book a three. Guns Up, Joe. And with that
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: being said, folks, this has been JFK Book Reviews. We
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: also do a show called d Loan Gunman Podcast and
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: we do it live live streamed right here every Friday
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: night at seven pm. And we also do it for
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: our members on Wednesday night at seven pm for our
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: channel members. So if this is something you think you'd like,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: subject wise, head over to the channel. Check out the playlist.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: You'll find all kinds of good stuff in there. Check
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: out the live section. That's where you'll find all of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: our live shows we've done. Check out the book review section.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: If you want to check out some more, maybe click
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: on that there or that there or that over there
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: or wherever it is. I don't know where they put them.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: We haven't figured this out yet, but If you like
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: this show, you'll love that one. We talk about all
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: kinds of stuff relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: So we hope to see you over there.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: We do. Thank you everyone for joining us, and we
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: hope you have a great day or evening wherever you are.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Peace. We'll see you next time, folks. Later we
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: out