FBI Special Agent John Fain closed his counterintelligence investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to retiring in September 1962. The agent who replaced him, Jim Hosty, agreed with Fain that there was no evidence worth a prosecutor’s time regarding the two years Oswald had spent in the Soviet Union. Still, Hosty thought it would be prudent to monitor Oswald’s activities at least for a while now that he was back in the US.
On 15 May 1963. 60 years ago today, Hosty dropped by unannounced the Oswald’s upstairs duplex at 214 W. Neely Street in Dallas to see what he might find. Had it been a month earlier Hosty, like George De Mohrenschildt, might have seen the sniper rifle propped against the wall that Oswald had used to take a shot at Edwin Walker. By coincidence, Hosty was also the FBI agent responsible for investigating the attempt on Walker’s life. As it was, however, Hosty found that the Oswald’s had disappeared without a trace, neither the post office nor the Immigration Service had a forwarding address. He dutifully wrote up a report, confident that Oswald would turn up somewhere before too long.
Fearing just such a visit by the FBI or the police, Oswald had fled to his home town of New Orleans with the sniper rifle on 25 April. At the same time, his wife and child moved to Irving Texas where they staid temporarily with Ruth Paine.
Upon arrival in New Orleans bus station, Oswald telephoned his Aunt Lillian Murret who kindly invited him to stay with her and her husband until he found work and a place of his own. Two weeks later, on 9 May, Oswald found a job at the downtown end of Magazine Street and a duplex apartment at the uptown end. The job was at the William B. Reily coffee company at 640 Magazine, where the company still thrives selling the Luzianne brand of coffee and iced tea. The apartment still exists, as well, at 4907 Magazine but is now refurbished into a law office.
Oswald immediately called his wife, Marina, and invited her and their baby daughter to join him. Marina’s friend Ruth drove then down so that the pregnant Marina would not have to deal with the grueling bus trip. They all arrived on 11 May. Ruth returned to Dallas on 14 May, the day before Special Agent Hosty dropped by Neely Street.
The what ifs in Oswald's story are amazing...Did Hosty end up closing the Walker investigation or...?