Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

第八章

This chapter covers the FBI’s pre-assassination investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas and the agency’s decision not to refer Oswald to the Secret Service ahead of President Kennedy’s 1963 Dallas visit.

FBI Pre-Assassination Investigation of Oswald in Dallas

In early September 1963, the FBI transferred principal responsibility for the Oswald case from its Dallas office to the New Orleans office. On October 1, 1963, the Bureau learned from the Oswalds’ New Orleans apartment rental agent that the family had vacated the unit, with Marina Oswald and the couple’s two children leaving in a Texas-registered station wagon. On October 3, Dallas FBI Agent Hosty reopened the case to support the New Orleans office; he checked Oswald’s former neighborhood and the broader Dallas-Fort Worth area but was unable to locate him. On October 10, the CIA notified the FBI that an individual tentatively identified as Oswald had contacted the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City earlier that month, the first indication the Bureau had that Oswald had left the United States. The FBI arranged to follow up with the CIA to verify Oswald’s entry into Mexico, while the State Department Passport Office, which knew Oswald had obtained a U.S. passport on June 25, 1963, did not share this information with either the CIA or FBI. On October 25, the New Orleans FBI office learned Oswald had provided a September forwarding address at 2515 West Fifth Street in Irving, Texas; after receiving this information on October 29, Hosty attempted to locate Oswald, interviewed neighbors on Fifth Street, and learned the address belonged to Ruth Paine. He initiated a limited background check on the Paines with plans to interview Mrs. Paine about Oswald’s whereabouts. On November 1, Hosty interviewed Paine, who stated Marina Oswald and the couple’s two children were staying with her, and Lee Oswald was living alone in the Dallas Oak Cliff area but she did not have his exact address. She disclosed Oswald worked at the Texas School Book Depository at 411 Elm Street, and said she would try to obtain his Dallas address. Hosty gave Paine his name and office phone number, and assured a visibly alarmed Marina Oswald via Paine (as interpreter) that the FBI would not harm or harass her. On November 4, Hosty confirmed Oswald worked at the Depository and had provided Paine’s Irving address as his own, and transferred principal case responsibility back to the Dallas FBI office. On November 5, Hosty visited the Paine residence again; Paine added only that Oswald had recently self-identified as a “Trotskyite Communist,” a statement she found illogical and amusing. Hosty never learned Oswald’s Dallas address or phone number during either interview. Paine later testified she learned Oswald’s Beckley Street roominghouse phone number in mid-October, shortly after he rented the room on October 14, but did not share it with Hosty, assuming the FBI could easily locate him on its own. Hosty took no further investigative action on the case until after the assassination. On November 1, he had received a New Orleans office report containing Agent Quigley’s August 10 jail interview memo noting Oswald provided false biographic information, and planned to wait for New Orleans to forward related paperwork before conducting a detailed interview with Marina Oswald. Official Bureau files confirm no active investigation occurred between November 5 and the assassination. On November 18, the FBI learned Oswald had recently contacted the Soviet Embassy in Washington, and shared this information with the Dallas office, which Hosty received the afternoon of November 22, 1963.