The JFK 100

How accurately does Stone present what Lee Bowers said?

Here is Bowers's key testimony as it's given in the movie:

BOWERS (VOICE OVER) Towards the underpass, I saw two men standing behind a picket fence . . . they were looking up towards Main and Houston and following the caravan as it came down. One of them was middle-aged, heavyset. The other man was younger, wearing a plaid shirt and jacket. . . . There were two other men on the eastern end of the parking lot. Each of 'em had uniforms.

We see the parking lot from Bowers's point of view -- at a distance, but we have a sense of the cars and see the men at a distance, two uniformed men. The parking lot is bumper-to-bumper with a sea of cars. Rain that morning has muddied the lot. These brief images are elaborated on later.

BOWERS (V.O.) (CONT'D) At the time of the shooting there seemed to be some commotion . . . I just am unable to describe -- a flash of light or smoke or something which caused me to feel that something out of the ordinary had occurred there on the embankment . . .⁽¹⁾

The implication is that the "flash of light or smoke" Lee Bowers saw was someone firing a rifle behind the picket fence.

Is this what Bowers said?

Here is the relevant section of Bowers's testimony. He was deposed for the Warren Commission by senior counsel Joseph Ball and junior counsel David Belin on April 2, 1964.

 

Mr. BALL. 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?

Mr. BOWERS. Directly in line, towards the mouth of the underpass, there were two men. One man, middle-aged, or slightly older, fairly heavy-set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers. Another younger man, about mid-twenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket.

Mr. BALL. Were they standing together or standing separately?

Mr. BOWERS. They were standing within 10 or 15 feet of each other, and gave no appearance of being together, as far as I knew.

Mr. BALL. In what direction were they facing?

Mr. BOWERS. They were facing and looking up towards Main and Houston, and following the caravan as it came down.

Mr. BALL. Did you see anyone standing on the triple underpass?

Mr. BOWERS. On the triple underpass, there were two policemen. One facing each direction, both east and west. There was one railroad employee, a signal man there with the Union Terminal Co., and two welders that worked for the Fort Worth Welding firm, and there was also a laborer's assistant furnished by the railroad to these welders.

Mr. BALL. You saw those before the President came by, you saw those people?

Mr. BOWERS. Yes; they were there before and after.

Mr. BALL. And were they standing on the triple underpass?

Mr. BOWERS. Yes; they were standing on top of it facing towards Houston Street, all except, of course, the one policeman on the west side.

Mr. BALL. Did you see any other people up on this high ground?

Mr. BOWERS. There were one or two people in the area. Not in this same vicinity. One of them was a parking lot attendant that operates a parking lot there. One or two. Each had uniforms similar to those custodians at the courthouse. But they were some distance back, just a slight distance back.

Mr. BALL. When you heard the sound, which way were you looking?

Mr. BOWERS. At the moment I heard the sound, I was looking directly towards the area -- at the moment of the first shot, as close as my recollection serves, the car was out of sight behind this decorative masonry wall in the area.

Mr. BALL. And when you heard the second and third shot, could you see the car?

Mr. BOWERS. No; at the moment of the shots, I could -- I do not think that it was in sight. It came in sight immediately following the last shot.

Mr. BALL. Did you see any activity in this high ground above Elm after the shot?

Mr. BOWERS. At the time of the shooting there seemed to be some commotion, and immediately following there was a motorcycle policeman who shot nearly all of the way to the top of the incline.

Mr. BALL. On his motorcycle?

Mr. BOWERS. Yes.

Mr. BALL. Did he come by way of Elm Street?

Mr. BOWERS. He was part of the motorcade and had left it for some reason, which I did not know.

Mr. BALL. He came up --

Mr. BOWERS. He came almost to the top and I believe abandoned his motorcycle for a moment and then got on it and proceeded, I don't know.

Mr. BALL. How did he get up?

Mr. BOWERS. He just shot up over the curb and up.

Mr. BALL. He didn't come then by way of Elm, which dead ends there?

Mr. BOWERS. No; he left the motorcade and came up the incline on the motorcycle.

Mr. BALL. Was his motorcycle directed toward any particular people?

Mr. BOWERS. He came up into this area where there are some trees, and where I had described the two men were in the general vicinity of this.

Mr. BALL. Were the two men there at the time?

Mr. BOWERS. I -- as far as I know, one of them was. The other I could not say. The darker dressed man was too hard to distinguish from the trees. The white shirt, yes; I think he was.

Mr. BALL. When you said there was a commotion, what do you mean by that? What did it look like to you when you were looking at the commotion?

Mr. BOWERS. 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.

Mr. BALL. You couldn't describe it?

Mr. BOWERS. Nothing that I could pinpoint as having happened . . .⁽²⁾

When asked if he heard anything at the time of the shooting, Bowers said he'd heard three shots.

 

Mr. BELIN. And were you able to form an opinion as to the source of the sound or what direction it came from, I mean?

Mr. BOWERS. The sounds came either from up against the School Depository Building or near the mouth of the triple underpass.

Mr. BALL. Were you able to tell which?

Mr. BOWERS. No; I could not.⁽³⁾

To summarize: At the time of the shooting, Lee Bowers saw two men behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll -- one "middle-aged or slightly older, fairly heavy-set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers," the other "about mid-twenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket" -- standing about ten or fifteen feet apart.

Bowers could see other people, but these were on the triple underpass over Elm Street, not behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll.

According to Bowers, "At the time of the shooting there seemed to be some commotion, and immediately following there was a motorcycle policeman who shot nearly all of the way to the top of the incline." Bowers further describes the "commotion" as "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."

But whatever it was that attracted Bowers's attention, it was not a gunshot. Bowers did not associate any such shot with the knoll area; he could only guess that the shots he heard came from "up against the School Depository Building or near the mouth of the triple underpass"; he could not even venture a guess as to which it had been.

Furthermore, at least one, or possibly both of the men Bowers describes were still behind the fence when the first policeman arrived there, almost immediately after the shots ended. (This was Dallas police officer Robert Weldon "Bobby" Hargis.)

So where does Oliver Stone get the idea that Lee Bowers saw "a flash of light or smoke or something"?

He gets it from Mark Lane's book, Rush to Judgment. Lane interviewed Lee Bowers several years later, on March 31, 1966. At that time, this is how Bowers describes the same event:

 

At the time of the shooting, in the vicinity of where the two men I've described were, there was a flash of light or there was something which occurred which caught my eye in this immediate area on the embankment, and what this was, I could not state at that time, and at this time I could not identify it other than there was some unusual occurrence, a flash of light or smoke or something which caused me to feel like something out of the ordinary had occurred there.⁽⁴⁾

It goes to show how crucial context can be. Whether one consults Lee Bowers's 1964 Warren Commission testimony or his 1966 interview with Mark Lane, he describes having his eye drawn to the area of the picket fence by something he could not describe. At that point, regardless of what it was that had caught his eye, he saw absolutely nothing out of the ordinary, did not believe any shots had been fired from the knoll, and, as photographic evidence corroborates, the police began converging upon the area almost immediately.

In JFK, Oliver Stone also implies that foul play was involved in Lee Bowers's death in a traffic accident a few years after the assassination.⁽⁵⁾ Investigator David Perry has researched this issue thoroughly and found no basis for such a belief.

The bottom line is that if anything out of the ordinary occurred behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll that day, Lee E. Bowers, Jr., did not see it from his elevated railroad tower a short distance away.

NOTES:

1. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 30. All quotations are from the shooting script and may vary slightly from the finished motion picture.

2. Warren Commission Hearings Vol. VI, pp. 287-88. Bowers's complete Warren Commission testimony is available online.

 

In his book, Rush to Judgment, attorney Mark Lane makes much of the exchange that follows this quotation.

 

Mr. BALL. You couldn't describe it?

Mr. BOWERS. Nothing that I could pinpoint as having happened that --

 

"Before Bowers could conclude this most important sentence," Lane writes, "the Commission lawyer interrupted with an unrelated question." (Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment [New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1992], p. 32.)

 

Mr. BALL. Afterwards did a good many people come up there on this high ground at the tower?

Mr. BOWERS. A large number of people came, more than one direction. . . .

 

Thus, Lane implies that Joseph Ball was actively seeking to suppress Bowers's testimony. But it is not clear from the transcript whether Bowers was interrupted, as Lane states, or whether Bowers simply trailed off, having nothing substantial to add; Lane's speculation is unwarranted.

Moreover, Lane overlooks the fact that, at the conclusion of the deposition, Ball gave the witness an opportunity to elaborate upon anything he had related, or point out anything he felt had been omitted. Bowers was very clear that he had omitted nothing.

 

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. (WC Hearings Vol. VI, pp. 288-89.)

 

In fact, shortly following the assassination, Bowers made it reasonably clear to the authorities that he had seen nothing particularly unusual at all; see for example the statement he dictated to the Dallas County Sheriff's Office.

3. Warren Commission Hearings Vol. VI, pp. 286-87.

4. Mark Lane, Rush to Judgment (New York: Thunder's Mouth, 1992), p. 32.

5. Oliver Stone and Zachary Sklar, JFK: The Book of the Film (New York: Applause, 1992), p. 104.