LEE BOWERS: IS HE REALLY A "CONSPIRACY" WITNESS AT ALL?
David Von Pein
ABOUT LEE E. BOWERS, JR.:
=====================
The more one looks over the Warren Commission testimony of
assassination witness Lee Bowers (plus his 11/22/63 affidavit), the
less and less "pro-CT"/"pro-multiple shooters" Mr. 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". .....
=====================
"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
=====================
MORE ABOUT BOWERS & BUGLIOSI:
"There's a strong reason to believe that what {witness Lee E.}
Bowers said is not credible. .... {In Bowers' sworn 11/22/63
affidavit} he said absolutely nothing at all about the commotion and
unusual activity behind the picket fence that attracted his
attention." -- Vince Bugliosi; Page 898 of "Reclaiming History" (c.
2007)
"If Bowers hadn't died...in August of 1966, it probably would
have been just a matter of time before he had Jack Ruby with a machine
gun on the grassy knoll." -- VB; Page 899 of "RH"
~~~~~~
The above comment VB makes about Bowers' affidavit is a very good
point. Upon checking out Bowers' original 11/22 affidavit, just as
Vince said, that document doesn't mention a single word about Bowers
having seen any men near the picket fence.
In fact, practically the entire affidavit contains Bowers'
observations about the three cars that circled the parking lot just
before the shooting, with the shooting itself seemingly being a mere
afterthought in Mr. Bowers' mind. The only reference to the actual
shooting comes in the last two sentences of Bowers' affidavit, when he
says:
"About 8 or 10 minutes after he left {i.e., the last of the three cars
that toured the lot} I heard at least 3 shots very close together.
Just after the shots the area became crowded with people coming from
Elm Street and the slope just north of Elm." .....
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/bowers1.htm
But even if we were to fully believe Mr. Bowers with respect to what
he told the Warren Commission in 1964 and Mark Lane in 1966, the sum
total of Bowers' comments really makes him a pretty decent "lone
assassin" type of witness.
chuck schuyler
As has been pointed out by many, Lee Bowers actually doesn't put
anyone suspicious behind the knoll area fence in a position to shoot
at the motorcade.
From Wikipedia, capitalization is my emphasis:
At the moment of the assassination he [Lee Bowers] was operating the
Union Terminal Company's two-story interlocking tower, overlooking the
parking lot just north of the grassy knoll and west of the Texas
School Book Depository. He had an unobstructed view of the rear of the
concrete pergola and the stockade fence atop the knoll. He described
hearing three shots that came from either the Depository on his left
or near the mouth of the Triple Underpass railroad bridge on his
right; HE WAS UNSURE BECAUSE OF THE REVERBERATION FROM THE SHOTS.
When asked by the Warren Commission, "Now, were there any people
standing on the high side -- high ground between your tower and where
Elm Street goes down under the underpass toward the mouth of the
underpass?" Bowers testified that at the time the motorcade went by on
Elm Street, four men were in the area: one or two uniformed parking
lot attendants, one of whom Bowers knew; and two men standing 10 to 15
feet (3 to 5 m) apart near the Triple Underpass, WHO DID NOT APPEAR TO
KNOW EACH OTHER. One was "middle-aged, or slightly older, fairly heavy-
set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers" and the other was
"younger man, about midtwenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat
or jacket." One or both were still there when the first police officer
arrived "immediately" after the shooting. Many assumed that Bowers
meant that these men were standing behind the stockade fence at the
top of the grassy knoll.
However, two years later when Bowers was interviewed by assassination
researchers Mark Lane and Emile de Antonio for their documentary film
Rush to Judgment, he clarified that these two men were on the OPPOSITE
side of the fence from Bowers, and that NO ONE WAS BEHIND THE FENCE
WHEN THE SHOTS WERE FIRED.[1] Bowers said,
"These two men were standing back from the street somewhat at the top
of the incline and were very near two trees which were in the area.
And one of them, from time to time as he walked back and forth,
disappeared behind a wooden fence which is also slightly to the west
of that. These two men to the best of my knowledge were standing there
at the time of the shooting."
Note: The man that appeared to "disappear" behind a wooden fence (the
mythical knoll shooter???) appeared that way BECAUSE THE FENCE WAS
BETWEEN THIS PERSON AND BOWERS. This person WAS NOT in postion BEHIND
the knoll/fence to fire a weapon.
Yet Bowers testimony is often cited as proof of something fishy going
on...kooks get it wrong again.
Kelley Eidem
It was the deaf guy who saw the gunman.
chuck schuyler
> It was the deaf guy who saw the gunman.- Hide quoted text -
Ed Hoffman, like so many of the CT'ers that post here, is a liar. A
storyteller. He made sh*t up to inject himself into an historical
event.
And people like you believe him.
He changed his story over the years-it grew in detail and got more
'interesting'. His original account is/was different than the accounts
he relayed years later.
His own family didn't believe him.
Maybe his family is part of the cover-up...
bigdog
> It was the deaf guy who saw the gunman
Four years after it happened.