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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