house. She doesn’t trust him.
Yet Mrs. Paine is very warm to James Hosty. She invites him inside and gushes that this is the first time she’s ever met an FBI agent.
But Hosty isn’t just any agent. He’s a Notre Dame graduate and former banker who has worked in the Dallas branch office for almost ten years. He knows his way around Dallas and its growing suburbs. He is also a diligent investigator and thinks nothing of going out of his way to visit the home of Ruth Paine even as his Friday shift comes to an end.
But most of all, Special Agent Hosty is the FBI’s expert on Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald. Back in March, he opened a file on Marina in order to keep tabs on the Soviet citizen. Later that month, Hosty requested that Lee Harvey’s file be reopened due to Oswald’s obvious Communist sympathies. The agent has tracked the Oswalds from apartment to apartment, from Dallas to New Orleans and back again. The New Orleans FBI office has kept Hosty apprised of Oswald’s arrest and pro-Cuba behavior. But now the Oswald trail has grown cold.
Hosty asks Ruth Paine if she knows where he can find the man.
Paine admits that Marina and her two girls live in her home. After a moment’s hesitation, she puts forth that she doesn’t know where Oswald lives, though she does know that he works at the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas. Paine gets a phone book and looks up the address: 411 Elm Street.
Hosty writes all this down.
Marina wanders into the living room, having just awakened from a nap.
Speaking in Russian, Ruth Paine informs her that Hosty is an FBI agent. Marina’s face takes on a wild, fearful look. Hosty commonly sees this sort of behavior from people raised in Communist countries and knows that Mrs. Oswald thinks he’s some sort of secret police who has come to take her away. He immediately instructs Paine to tell Marina that he’s not there for the purpose of “harming her, harassing her, and that it isn’t the job of the FBI to harm people. It is our job to protect people.”
Ruth Paine translates. Marina smiles and calms down.
Hosty stands to leave. The interview has lasted almost twenty-five minutes. Hosty has a couple more cases he wants to follow up on before going back to Dallas. But even as he writes down his name and phone number for Paine, just in case she has any more information about Oswald’s whereabouts, Special Agent Hosty now mentally assigns a low priority to the Oswald investigation. He’s concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald is just a young guy with marital problems, a fondness for communism, and a habit of drifting from job to job.
There’s no need for urgency. Lee Harvey Oswald is bound to show up sooner or later. Special Agent Hosty is sure of that.
* * *
On November 11, the Monday after Hosty’s visit to Ruth Paine’s home, Special Agent Winston G. Lawson of the Secret Service’s White House detail is informed of the president’s upcoming trip to Dallas.
Lawson, a Korean War veteran in his early thirties, specializes in planning Kennedy’s official travels. As with all such visits, his primary responsibilities are to identify individuals who might be a threat to the president, take action against anyone considered to be such a threat, and plan security for the president’s speeches and motorcade route.
There is still discussion over whether there is to be a motorcade through downtown Dallas, which will be a security nightmare, thanks to the more than twenty thousand windows lining the city’s major thoroughfares. The more windows, the more places for a gunman to aim at the president’s limousine.
But Lawson temporarily sets that question aside. He begins his investigation of potential threats by combing through the Secret Service’s Protective Research Section (PRS). These files list all individuals who have threatened the president or may be potentially dangerous to him. A check of the PRS on November 8 by Lawson shows that no such person exists in the Dallas area.
Lawson then travels to Texas from Washington and interviews local law enforcement and other federal agencies, continuing his search for individuals who might be a threat to the life of John F. Kennedy. Of particular interest are the protesters involved in the Adlai Stevenson incident just a few weeks ago. Lawson obtains photographs of these people, which will be distributed to Secret Service and Dallas police on the day of the president’s visit. People who resemble those individuals will be instantly scrutinized should they come anywhere near the president.
Lawson’s diligence is soon rewarded when the FBI comes forth with the name of a Dallas-area resident who might be a serious threat to the life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Special Agent James Hosty Jr., however, does not provide that name, and it is not that of Lee Harvey Oswald. Instead, it is of a known local troublemaker who has absolutely no plans to kill the president of the United States.
* * *
Back in the nation’s capital, November 11 is a brisk day, marked by pale sunlight and a wind that straightens the many flags flying at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from the District of Columbia. A crowd of hundreds of soldiers and civilians looks on as the president of the United States celebrates Veterans Day by placing a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. John Kennedy, a decorated war veteran himself, stands at attention as a bugler blows taps, traditionally the final musical movement at all military ceremonies. The bugler’s name is Sergeant Keith Clark. He is the principal trumpeter of the U.S. Army Band and knows this sad song all too well. Clark plays the solo beautifully, the lonesome notes echoing mournfully across the sea of white tombstones and green grass.
President Kennedy is touched by the history and drama of this setting. Arlington was once home to the family of Robert E. Lee and was turned into a cemetery during the Civil War by Union troops so that the Confederate general might never again be tempted to live in the family mansion that still dominates the grounds. Kennedy can see why this was such a great loss to Lee, for the rolling hills look out over the river to Washington, where the fast pace and backroom deals are a drastic contrast to the quiet and peace of the cemetery.
“This is one of the really beautiful places on earth,” the president later tells Congressman Hale Boggs. “I could stay here forever.”
That thought is not fleeting. Kennedy repeats the sentiment to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. “I think, maybe someday, this is where I’d like to be.”
