Did Oswald kill Kennedy? Did he act alone?

The Warren Commission, established by President Lyndon Johnson to investigate the assassination, concluded in 1964 that New Orleans-native Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, firing three shots from a window in his Dallas workplace, the Texas School Book Depository. The commission said Oswald left the book depository moments after shots were fired from the sixth floor, returned by bus and cab to his rooming house, then ventured out again. Oswald fatally shot Patrolman J.D. Tippit, then fled into a movie theater, where he was soon arrested.

1963 was a time of anxiety amid cold war

Many Americans may not recall how scary it was in 1963. A nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union in Cuba had ended barely a year before. On Nov. 20, 1963, a spy plane returning from a mission over Cuba crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, killing its pilot, Capt. Joe Hyde Jr. The United States had about 189 million people. The unemployment rate was 5.5 percent. The median family income was $6,200. Gas averaged 29 cents a gallon; a loaf of bread, 22 cents and the average cost of a new home, $12,650.

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