JFK Assassination Figure. The FBI Special Agent assigned to investigate Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, his failure to alert the Secret Service made him a target of conspiracy theorists for the remainder of his life. Raised in northern Illinois he joined the US Army in 1942, served in Europe, then earned a degree from Notre Dame in 1948. After working for a bank he joined the FBI in 1952 and the next year was assigned to the Dallas Field Office. In March of 1963 Hosty was given the task of investigating the movements and associations of returned Soviet defector and former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald who had brought a Russian wife to America and was suspected of Communist activities. Over the next months he was to make two field trips and interview Marina Oswald twice though responsibility for the matter shifted when Oswald moved to New Orleans. On the afternoon of November 22, 1963, Hosty was called to Dallas Police headquarters where he met Oswald for the first time and assisted in the interrogation. Summoned before the Warren Commission in 1964 he stated that under the rules of the time he was not allowed to communicate with the Secret Service since his investigation had shown that while Oswald was a Communist, an espionage danger, and a heavy drinker he had not threatened President Kennedy; further he revealed that on November 24, 1963, he had, on orders from his boss Gordon Shanklin, destroyed a written communication from Oswald allegedly complaining about the interviews with Marina. Thus Hosty provided everlasting fodder for the conspiracy theorists, a situation only made worse when it was revealed that his name and address had been redacted from Oswald's address book before it was made public. In the JFK aftermath Hosty was one of 12 FBI agents reprimanded and found himself transferred to the Kansas City Field Office where he remained until his 1979 age-mandated retirement. After working with the Kansas Department of Revenue for 10 years he retired to Punta Gorda, Florida, and over the years never refused an interview request. When Oliver Stone's 1991 movie "JFK" essentially accused him of being a co-conspirator in the assassination, he wrote the 1995 "Assignment: Oswald" in an attempt to set provide his side of the story. Even after being hurt by Stone's film he continued to meet with anyone who wished to discuss the subject. Hosty died of cancer. Of the way in which Lee Harvey Oswald had blighted the final 48 years of his life he said simply, "I'm sorry I ever got the case".