Secrecy wasn't the only constraint the Warren Commission faced. Knowing that the relatively obscure 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparked World War I, and in the midst of a Cold War recently heightened by the Bay of Pigs invasion and Cuban missile crisis, Lyndon Johnson was anxious to get the Kennedy investigation wrapped up as quickly and with as little reference to foreign powers as possible in order to avoid World War III.

The concern for speed and streamlining caused the commission to give short shrift to some relevant things such as Operation Mongoose — an attempt to overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro. Nevertheless, "I think the Warren Commission pretty much got the story in order," Hall said.

Last, but far from least, the Kennedy assassination marked a sea change in American culture and in the way Americans view their government.

Four other high-profile assassinations or attempted assassinations — Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and George Wallace — occurred within 10 years of the JFK shooting. The Vietnam War grew from a cinder to a conflagration. Drugs, sex, rebellion and disenchantment were embraced by a rising generation. Faith in government, already wavering, was dashed in the wreckage of Watergate and its associated scandals. A new, more cynical America emerged, one which tended to look back at the Kennedy years with rose-tinted nostalgia.

If only JFK had lived, people thought, things would be better.

"In the short haul (the assassination) probably elevated JFK's reputation," Hall said. "I think much of that effect now has dissipated. Historians are increasingly of the view that what he left behind was mixed — not negative, necessarily, but mixed. He had strength, vitality, wit, but the simple fact is, it takes a while to learn to become president."

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