KANSAS CITY, Mo.-The FBI agent who inherited Lee Harvey Oswald’s file the year before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated has died of cancer.
Funeral services were held Saturday in the Kansas City suburb of Roeland Park, Kan., for James P. Hosty, who spent nearly five decades defending himself against accusations that he should have investigated Oswald more closely.
Hosty died June 10 of cancer at Kansas City Hospice House in Kansas City, Mo., McGilley and Hoge Johnson County Memorial Chapel said on its website. He was 86.
Hosty wrote the book “Assignment: Oswald,” which came out in 1996, partially in response to how he was depicted in the 1991 Oliver Stone film “JKF.”
As recently as 2003, Hosty told The Kansas City Star there was nothing he could have done to prevent the assassination given what he knew at the time. He also conceded he probably would “go to my grave trying to straighten this out.”