Video: Lee Bowers Interview With Mark Lane

[John Corbett]

Perhaps you would care to tell us what were those three cars doing cruising around the small parking lot behind the grassy knoll shortly before the assassination. Why would three cars "just happen" to cruise around that particular parking lot in three separate trips, with the first car arriving at 11:55, the second at 12:15, and the third at 12:20? Why was one of the driver's talking into a mic?

Just remember that your version of the assassination is accepted by only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the adults in the Western world.

You might pretend to believe that Bowers was either lying or that it is just a whopping, remarkable coincidence that three cars separately cruised around in the parking lot behind the knoll starting just 35 minutes before the shooting, but most people don't see a credible innocent explanation for the cars' actions.

I believe Bowers. What I don't buy is your assumption those cars he saw had anything to do with the assassination. There are any number of possible reasons for those cars to have driven back there. It is customary for CTs to treat every unexplained event as evidence of a conspiracy even though they have no proof of it.

[Lance Payette]

Just for orientation, this video, by genial CTer Jessica Connell, nicely illustrates the Elm Street Extension and Bower's tower in relation to it. I find it distinctly odd that Conspirator Recon Vehicles would have used this unlikely route to "case the joint" within minutes of the JFKA. Of course, the entire notion of Conspirator Recon Vehicles is fundamentally absurd, but if we overlook that detail the absurdity is only increased, it seems to me, by having them using the Elm Street Extension to Nowhere.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Just for orientation, this video, by genial CTer Jessica Connell, nicely illustrates the Elm Street Extension and Bower's tower in relation to it. I find it distinctly odd that Conspirator Recon Vehicles would have used this unlikely route to "case the joint" within minutes of the JFKA. Of course, the entire notion of Conspirator Recon Vehicles is fundamentally absurd, but if we overlook that detail the absurdity is only increased, it seems to me, by having them using the Elm Street Extension to Nowhere.

SMH. The extension road was not a road to "nowhere." You could use the road to enter and leave the railyard parking lot. The extension road would have been a perfectly reasonable way to enter and leave the parking lot. Have you ever been to Dealey Plaza? Have you ever studied a map of the plaza?

So are you saying the three cars "just happened" to appear to be reconning the area, that all three were merely "looking for a parking place"? Are you saying Bowers was just fabricating?

Did you actually watch the video? I ask because the video shows that Bowers would have had an excellent view of the parking lot.

You do not seem to have read Bowers' accounts.

[Lance Payette]

SMH. The extension road was not a road to "nowhere." You could use the road to enter and leave the railyard parking lot. The extension road would have been a perfectly reasonable way to enter and leave the parking lot. Have you ever been to Dealey Plaza? Have you ever studied a map of the plaza?

Yes, I have been to Dealey Plaza. Yes, I have studied maps of Dealey Plaza. In fact, I started a thread here about the parking area and Bowers' view, to wit: https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,4477.msg168316.html#msg168316. (Addition: I just reviewed that thread, which was predictably derailed by Royell's silliness. Michael posted his "reconning the area" claim there as the only reasonable explanation for the three cars observed by Bowers. Ho-hum, on it goes.)

Let's say our JFKA conspiracy has a gunman shooting from the picket fence or thereabouts. Less than a half hour before the assassination, we have three separate "recon" vehicles drive directly in front of the TSBD on the Elm Street Extension, through the restricted gate and around the railroad parking area in full view of Lee Bowers and anyone else in the area, including police, with one of the drivers openly speaking on a walkie-talkie. And we do this WHY? For WHAT PURPOSE?

Is our gunman hiding in a boxcar with a walkie-talkie, waiting to hear "It's a go, the coast is clear" or perhaps "Abort the mission, there are two goddamn little old ladies standing right behind the fence." He can't just see for himself if the coast is clear? He needs three recon vehicles staged ten minutes apart? Only to a 33rd-degree conspiracy wacko would this "recon" stuff make ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER. Yes, the Elm Street Extension would be a "perfectly reasonable" way to reach the railroad parking area, but that's not the issue; the issue is, for WHAT SANE PURPOSE would assassination conspirators want to do this? Take us through - PLEASE, TRY - exactly what a conspiracy would look like that requires three recon vehicles casing the area in the half hour before the assassination.

Because you are in the grip of conspiracy-think to a degree that borders on insanity, these vehicles simply MUST have some conspiracy-related purpose.

So are you saying the three cars "just happened" to appear to be reconning the area, that all three were merely "looking for a parking place"? Are you saying Bowers was just fabricating?

My guess would be that, given the confusing layout of Elm Street and the Extension, the vehicles probably just blundered into the railroad parking lot and wondered how to get out. Or perhaps they intended to park but then realized it was a private lot. "Reconning the area" -  - is that what I do every time I hunt for a parking space at Walmart or blunder into a private lot and have to figure out how to exit? I am somewhat suspicious of the level of detail Bowers claimed to recall, but it's possible and he did provide most of it in his affidavit. He wasn't intrigued enough to keep watching (he said he didn't see what the third car finally did because he was "busy") and, despite all this activity, he saw nothing suggestive of a gunman until Mark Lane connected with him and his story unsurprisingly got "better."

Did you actually watch the video? I ask because the video shows that Bowers would have had an excellent view of the parking lot.

You do not seem to have read Bowers' accounts.

Come on, booby. I posted the video after having previously started a thread about Bowers' view and have read and watched Bowers' accounts perhaps a hundred times over a period of many years. The difference is, I read and watch with a clear and rational mind and not one predisposed to find evidence of a conspiracy under every rock.

[Lance Payette]

In a fit of near-terminal boredom, I reviewed a number of the many "Bowers" posts at the Ed Forum.

1. The entire transcript of Lane's interview with Bowers is available for a small fee from the Wisconsin Historical Society. Bowers specifically told Lane that he saw no accomplices on his side of the fence. Lane conveniently omitted this.

2. Ed Forum members expressed surprising skepticism about Bowers' credibility. Not that he was lying, but that he was conflating what he had actually seen and what he had later heard. One pretty careful analysis of what he could actually see from his tower makes clear that he could not have seen some of what he described (nothing about the cars, which he clearly could have seen).

3. There was, of course, speculation that Bowers himself was part of the conspiracy - a "lookout" of some sort.

4. Steve Thomas identified that the two cars with black-on-white out of state plates and Goldwater stickers had to be from Virginia. Langley, the CIA headquarters, is in Virginia. Case closed.

5. The following compilation was attributed to Matt Douthit:

* Researcher David Murph interviewed Reverend Wilfred Bailey, Bowers’s minister. "Lee did discuss that day with me. He said he saw movement behind the fence. He believed something was going on, but he never got more specific than that. He did not share with me any more than he shared with the Warren Commission."

* New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison was approached by James R. Sterling, a friend and fellow employee of Bowers. Sterling said Bowers “...observed two men running from behind the fence. They ran up to a car parked behind the Pergola, opened the trunk and placed something in it and then closed the trunk. The two men then drove the car away in somewhat of a peculiar method.”

* Another friend of Bowers, Walter Rischel, came forward and revealed to reporter Morey Terry: “He said he saw a car pull up. Two men got out of the car, and they were carrying what appeared to be rifles. He said that one gunman apparently positioned himself either on their car or on a car. The other one I don’t recall where he said he was. He said he saw both men fire shots. He could tell by the puffs of smoke that it came from the rifles.” Terry: “You’re saying that Lee Bowers told you that he saw both men fire?” Rischel: “Yes, he did.”

* In addition, legendary Texas journalist Penn Jones Jr. said he also heard the complete Bowers story: “He said he saw gunmen firing at the President from their hidden position. He didn’t see all of them, but he saw two of them that were firing. At the President.”

* And finally, there is Olan Degaugh, Bowers’s boss. Researcher Debra Conway wrote: “I interviewed the supervisor for the railroad yard and Bowers’ boss's superior. He told us that Bowers told him and his direct boss that he did see the two men BEHIND THE FENCE and he thought at least one of them was shooting. He said he didn't go further with it because he was afraid. He didn't want his life threatened or ruined being the main witness against Lee Oswald being the lone shooter.” From Conway’s notes: “Degaugh felt Bowers never told the authorities about the men, the car, or what he saw these men doing immediately after the shooting because he did not want to be more involved in the assassination controversy.” A few years later, Conway re-interviewed Degaugh. “Degaugh said that Bowers told him that he saw someone running away. This person put something inside a car, get into the car and drive away. Degaugh said that Bowers told him it looked like a rifle.”

And on it goes.

[John Corbett]

Isn't it strange that we have these hearsay accounts of what Bowers supposedly said, but never told the WC about it when he had the chance.

Mr. BALL - I believe you have talked this over with me before your deposition was taken, haven't we?
Mr. BOWERS - Yes.
Mr. BALL - Is there anything that you told me that I haven't asked you about that you think of?
Mr. BOWERS - Nothing that I can recall.
Mr. BALL - You have told me all that you know about this, haven't you?
Mr. BOWERS - Yes; I believe that I have related everything which I have told the city police, and also told to the FBI.
Mr. BALL - And everything you told me before we started taking the deposition?
Mr. BOWERS - To my knowledge I can remember nothing else.

[Benjamin Cole]

LP-

Verily, there was a lack up of investigative follow-up on many credible witnesses who described the last two shots as nearly "simultaneous," such Dallas Sheriff Seymour Weitzman, or Secret Service agent Kellerman, and several others.

Same, why did no one ever ask Gov JBC, "What do you mean, you were shot at by 'automatic' weapons? That is entirely inconsistent with what we theorize what happened, that a lone gunsel with a single-shot-per-bolt-action rifle perped the JFKA."

I suspect JBC meant that the assassin(s) were armed with an automatic rifle, but toggled to one shot per trigger squeeze mode. But no one at either the WC or HSCA clarified that. By all accounts, JBC was a smart guy, head screwed on tight. Seems odd JBC would use the expression "automatic" rifle. Connally served in WWII on the flight deck of aircraft carriers, so I assume he had some sort of working knowledge of firearms. JBC is reported to have been an avid sport game hunter as well.

It requires a large suspension of disbelief to accept the LNT-SBT with a single-shot-per-bolt-action rifle narrative.