LEE BOWERS -- IS HE REALLY A "CONSPIRACY" WITNESS AT ALL?
David Von Pein
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The more one looks over Lee Bowers' WC testimony, the less and less
"pro-CT"/"pro-multiple shooters" Bowers becomes (despite the fact that
CTers for years have loved to prop Bowers up as a sterling and rock- solid
"Conspiracy" witness).
Lee Bowers' testimony is quite interesting in the "Where Did The Shots
Come From?" regard. Upon looking at his April 2, 1964, Warren Commission
testimony, we can certainly see how, indeed, the "CT" side has gently
turned Mr. Bowers into a "Conspiracy" witness, when he actually doesn't
really belong in that category at all. ....
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/bowers.htm
Bowers is one of the many, many witnesses who heard exactly three shots
fired on 11/22/63, and he said the shots came from either the area of the
Depository OR the Triple Underpass area. But not from BOTH of these
locations. It was one or the other, but not both.
But conspiracy theorists have turned Mr. Bowers into a conspiracy-
favoring witness who (to hear the CTers tell it) positively saw PROOF of a
second gunman on the Knoll. But when you look more deeply at his
testimony, it can be seen that he's not actually a witness with which to
promote conspiracy or a Knoll shooter.
He didn't see a "gunman" on the Grassy Knoll or behind the picket fence
behind the Knoll. He didn't see any rifle or other weapons. He merely saw
some "milling around". Let's look at Mr. Bowers' exact words to the Warren
Commission:
"I just am unable to describe rather than it was something out of the
ordinary, a sort of milling around, but something occurred in this
particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for
some reason, which I could not identify." -- Lee E. Bowers, Jr.; 04/02/64
The conspiracy buffs, in true-to-form "Make Mountains Out Of Molehills"
style, have thus turned Mr. Bowers' "out of the ordinary", "milling
around", "I just am unable to describe", and "I could not identify"
remarks into apparent "proof" that a killer had just shot JFK from behind
a fence atop the Grassy Knoll....even though Bowers saw NO WEAPONS OF ANY
KIND in the hands of anyone he observed that day. And he specifically said
he "could not identify" what it was that caught his eye in the area of the
fence.
The testimony of Bowers also provides some idea as to the type of
reverberating sounds that can be produced in Dealey Plaza. And while
earwitness testimony is useful to a degree, it is at the same time, as my
cohort in LN-ism, Vincent Bugliosi, has said repeatedly throughout his
career, "notoriously problematic". ....
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"With respect to whether or not any shots were fired from the Grassy
Knoll, I want to make the following observations -- firstly, it is
perfectly understandable that the witnesses were confused as to the origin
of fire. Not only does Dealey Plaza resound with echoes, but here you have
a situation of completely-unexpected shots over just a matter of a few
moments.
"When you compound all of that with the fact that the witnesses were
focusing their attention on the President of the United States driving by,
a mesmerizing event for many of them....and the chaos, the hysteria, the
bedlam that engulfed the assassination scene....it's remarkable that there
was any coherence at all to what they thought they saw and heard.
"Human observation, notoriously unreliable under even the most optimum
situation, HAS to give way to hard, scientific evidence. And we do have
indisputable, scientific evidence in this case that the bullets which
struck President Kennedy came from his rear, not his front." -- VINCE
BUGLIOSI; 1986
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