Yeah Mitch, it's a really simple misunderstanding. It doesn't make Rowland stupid or confused. And it's easy to see how he could make such a simple mistake - what's the space between the top of his head and the window? It's really not that big of a deal. Unless, of course, you have an interest in undermining Rowland's testimony. His estimation of how far the rifleman is stood in the building is the only aspect of his description he has a problem with and it's no surprise, at a distance it would be an incredibly difficult thing to do.
Obviously, because it is a misunderstanding, you can simply insist that it's not a misunderstanding at all and that he was looking through a 30" gap describing a 36" space to the top of the rifleman's head. That's fair enough.
This is a summary of how the kerfluffle surrounding this particular point has progressed:
Dan O': "Arnold Rowland saw a man with a rifle in the SW corner window on the sixth floor of the TSBD"
Jack N: "Rowland claimed there was a 30-36 inch gap above the top of the guy's head and below the open window sash. The open window is only about 30" wide, yet Rowland saw most of the man plus the 30-36 inch gap though that 30 inch window opening. No way that can happen"
Dan O': "That's because Rowland misunderstood the question Specter was asking him. Rowland really meant the horizontal distance between the top of the man's head and the window."
Mitch T: "Given the specific question that Specter asks and the context of the exchange leading up to it, there's no real room to allow Arnold to be confused about exactly what he's being asked."
Dan O': "No, it has to be the horizontal distance between the top of the rifleman's head and not the vertical."
Mitch T: "Why?"
Dan O': "Because if it was the vertical distance, then it would have been impossible for Rowland to have seen what he said he saw"
You're begging the question here, assuming that Rowland actually saw the man with the rifle, and bending his testimony around that assumption, when Rowland's story is the point of contention.
I view Rowland's description of the rifleman as reliable and consistent - the description he gives his wife before the assassination is consistent with the description he gives in his affidavit is consistent with the description he gives in his WC testimony. The notion that he just made this description up for his wife, then tracked down a police officer and made it up for him then went to the DPD and made it up for his affidavit etc. is, in my opinion, nonsense.
Going back to the pic I posted, although it is a very rough presentation of a basic principle, once it is understood Rowland was not referring to a 3ft space above the rifleman's head, it becomes clear that he was accurately describing what we would expect someone to see looking through the window.
"He's already put the distance at 3 to 5 feet; you'd have us believe that he then decided it was really 2.5 to 3 feet."
This is not exactly a mind-bending difference is it. Note that 3ft is in both distances. Not really something I would describe as being "highly problematic". Certainly not a deal-breaker.
It doesn't have to be a "mind-bending" change, just a significant one, and he makes that significant change in a
very short period of time. In your interpretation, a couple of minutes after he already made an issue of the man being 3'-5' inside the window, he's almost halving that distance with no explanation behind the change. You'd have a better point if he made it a 30"-36" distance months or years after putting 3'-5' between rifleman and window. Assuming that the change is a shift in Rowland's estimate of the distance between man and window and not his estimate of the vertical apparent distance between the top of the man's head and the top of the window opening, going from 3'-5' to 30"-36" in a couple of minutes is very hard to accept without a better-supported explanation.
"Assuming your contention makes an Arnold Rowland an easily confused boy too dumb to properly answer what should be a straightforward question and unable to keep his own story straight through the deposition. If that's the best you can do, you need to stop trying before he gets the chair under your defense."
So, you've assumed, for argument's sake, Rowland has made a simple misunderstanding and is talking about the distance the rifleman is stood away from the window. You've described this situation as still being "highly problematic". The single example you give to highlight how problematic it is actually demonstrates a consistency with what Rowland has already stated.
Rowland is grilled endlessly on the tiniest detail of what he witnessed and is impressively accurate throughout but because of this single, perfectly understandable misunderstanding he is a "confused boy too dumb to properly answer what should be a straightforward question and unable to keep his own story straight through the deposition".
Let's really assume Rowland has misunderstood the question and answered as honestly as he could - we then find him describing being able to see the rifleman from just below the waist to just above his head. When we look at the pic I posted it is clear this description is perfectly plausible.
The single example that Jack N brought up (and we are continuing with here) is evidence that we are arguing about a single example, and nothing more. It doesn't prove or imply that it is the
only example of an issue with Rowland or his testimony. Another example that has been brought up are how he changed to location of the man he saw from the time of his first affidavit to the WC testimony several months later. His 11/22 Sheriff's Department affidavit puts the man 15 feet behind he window. The next day, he told the FBI that the man was 10-15 feet behind the window. The next day, he wrote out a statement to the FBI placing the man 12-15 feet behind the window. Mr Nessan has pointed out that Rowland's wife testified to the Commission that Rowland had told her that the man was "about 12 feet" inside the window (thank you, Jack). Although she was admittedly equivocal about the exact distance, twelve feet jives nicely with Rowland's early statements. Then we come to Rowland's Commission testimony, where he now says that the man in the TSBD is 3-5 feet from the window. That's quite a change. He also adds a second man on the sixth floor who doesn't appear in any of his earlier statements. Mrs Rowland also didn't recall him ever claiming there was a second man on the 6th floor.
I suspect that the second man was added at some point after Rowland learned about Bonnie Ray Williams' presence on the sixth floor at the same time Rowland claimed to see his rifleman. Rowland still gets the window wrong. Williams was not in the sniper's nest on the east side, but a couple of windows over. Williams becomes a real problem for the Rowland story: Williams would easily have been able to see anyone standing where Rowland placed his rifleman. Of course, Williams never reported anything like that.
You're making a big deal that Rowland's description of the gunman's appearance remains consistent. If true, how much does that really mean? Any fiction can be easily repeated. The Grimm Brothers noted that the storytellers from which the Grimms gathered their collection of fairy tales could repeat the stories endlessly, never changing so much as a single word in each telling. That consistency doesn't make Hansel and Gretel a true crime story. And the consistency-of-appearance argument ignores the glaring inconsistencies in position, or the addition of a second man on six. Or that the real "second man" should have seen the rifleman, but didn't.
I've already posted the dossier that the WC gathered on Rowland. It's located in the National Archives, here:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7461052You should read the whole thing. You probably don't want to; it's not a very flattering picture of Mr Rowland. But it will give you some insight into the person behind the testimony. And shed light on the credibility thereof.
