Great post Bill. Nothing like going back to the actual scene. A couple of points stand out to me. Oswald was certainly acting as though he believed that he could already have been identified as a suspect by the time he is in the cab. Getting out of the cab a distance away confirms that. He had good reason to do so since he knew he was already a person known to the FBI as a political nut. For all he knew, they had connected the dots. A police officer had already pulled a gun on him. He was missing from the crime scene - his place of work. He had good cause to believe the authorities were on to him. That has implications for shooting Tippit. Oswald can't identify himself to Tippit if he thinks that he is already a suspect. He has to shoot him before it gets to that point. In addition, Oswald's options were limited for escape. He doesn't have much money. No car. What does he know? The bus system. Where has he recently gone on a bus? Mexico. Where is the only place that he could conceivably get asylum? Cuba. Where has he been trying to get to for months for before the assassination? Cuba. Put them all together and the most logical avenue available to Oswald is to take a bus to Mexico, try to get to the Cuban or Russian embassy and ask for asylum. Of course, that's a longshot fantasy on his part but there was no other option. I think Oswald had already accepted the likely outcome of his death or arrest in the commission of the act. After the Tippit encounter, he is just moving in any direction still available and ducking into the TT to get off the street is not a bad idea. He just should have paused to buy a ticket. Like James Earl Ray, it is not impossible that Oswald might have made it out of the country in those days. I can't see Oswald toughing it for long in Mexico but he would be beyond the direct jurisdiction of the American authorities making it more difficult to find him.
