November 15, 1963: Oswald Threatens the FBI (and the Evidence Is Destroyed)

Two Dallas agents flushed material evidence in JFK's murder

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As we near the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, JFK Facts is looking back at key moments in the lead-up to JFK’s killing.

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FBI Special Agent in Charge J. Gordon Shanklin in 1966 (left); James Hosty testifying to Congress in 1975 (center); former Associate FBI Director James B. Adams (right).

By November 1963, FBI Special Agent James P. Hosty had been monitoring Lee Harvey Oswald on and off since March 31 of that year. That was the date Hosty said his supervisor, Kenneth Howe, first assigned him to the case of the young ex-defector to the Soviet Union.

In the intervening months, Oswald had scuffled with anti-Castro Cuban exiles in New Orleans while handing out pamphlets for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC). In September and October 1963, Oswald visited the Soviet and Cuban embassies in Mexico City seeking visas to travel to those countries.

Oswald returned to Dallas and took a job at the Texas School Book Depository. He lived in a boarding house under a false name and subscribed to a Marxist newspaper. The FBI was watching him.