Lee Edward Bowers Jr. was an American railroad employee who was a witness to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Bowers' testimony to the Warren Commission, and his subsequent interview comments, differed in certain aspects from the official conclusion that all shots were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the Texas School Book Depository building. The circumstances of Bowers' death in a car accident in 1966 led to allegations that his demise was part of a cover-up of the Kennedy murder.
Lee Edward Bowers Jr. was an American railroad employee who was a witness to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Bowers' testimony to the Warren Commission, and his subsequent interview comments, differed in certain aspects from the official conclusion that all shots were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the Texas School Book Depository building. The circumstances of Bowers' death in a car accident in 1966 led to allegations that his demise was part of a cover-up of the Kennedy murder.
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Lee Edward Bowers Jr. (January 12, 1925 – August 9, 1966) was an American railroad employee who was a witness to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Bowers' testimony to the Warren Commission, and his subsequent interview comments, differed in certain aspects from the official conclusion that all shots were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the Texas School Book Depository building. The circumstances of Bowers' death in a car accident in 1966 led to allegations that his demise was part of a cover-up of the Kennedy murder.
Early life and career
Bowers was born in Dallas and spent most of his life there. After serving in the U.S. Navy from ages 17 to 21, he attended Hardin-Simmons University for two years, then Southern Methodist University for two years where he majored in religion. He worked at the Union Terminal Company railyard for 15 years, while also earning extra money as a self-employed builder. In 1964, he was hired as business manager for a hospital and convalescent home.
Eyewitness to JFK assassination
On the day of the JFK assassination, Bowers was a railroad switchman working in the Union Terminal Company's two-story interlocking tower. It overlooked a small parking lot for railroad employees that was located north of the grassy knoll and approximately 50 yards west of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD). From his elevated vantage point, Bowers had an unobstructed view of the rear of the concrete pergola, as well as of the stockade fence and the cluster of trees at the top of the grassy knoll incline.
Later interview comments
In March 1966, when Bowers was interviewed by Mark Lane for the Emile de Antonio-directed documentary film Rush to Judgment, Lane requested that Bowers elaborate on his recollection of the "out of the ordinary" incident that attracted his eye during the shooting. Bowers responded by saying that as the motorcade passed, there was "a flash of light or smoke or something which caused me to feel like something out of the ordinary had occurred there."
Bowers also stated that of the two unidentified men he saw standing in the area, neither was dressed like a railroad employee or police officer: "Th
On April 2, 1964, Bowers provided testimony to Joseph A. Ball, assistant counsel of the Warren Commission (WC), at the US Post Office Building in Dallas. After giving brief autobiographic information and a history of his employment with Union Terminal, Bowers recalled his observations on November 22. He said that after 10:00 am, the area near the tower was devoid of activity because, in preparation for the presidential motorcade, traffic in the vicinity had been blocked off. This made it easier for Bowers to notice three cars which separately entered the railroad employee parking lot during a time span roughly 20-30 minutes before the shooting started at 12:30 pm. Each car drove slowly around the parking lot. Two cars had out-of-state license plates and "Goldwater for '64" bumper stickers; one car was muddy up to its windows, while another had a white male driver who was speaking into a "mike or telephone" of some kind: "He was holding something up to his mouth with one hand and he was driving with the other".
Bowers also spotted (and this portion of his testimony would later be a source of contention) two men standing near the stockade fence just before the shots were fired. When asked by Ball, "Now, were there any people standing on the...high ground between your tower and where Elm Street goes down under the underpass toward the mouth of the underpass?", Bowers said that when 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. These two men were unknown to Bowers, and "gave no appearance of being together". One was "middle-aged, or slightly older, fairly heavy-set, in a white shirt, fairly dark trousers" and the other was a "younger man, about midtwenties, in either a plaid shirt or plaid coat or jacket."
When the assassination began, Bowers heard three shots that came either from the TSBD on his left, or from near the Triple Underpass on his right; he was unsure of the origin because of the reverberation from the shots. He added that he sensed a "commotion" of some kind had occurred at the top of the grassy knoll. In his 1966 book Rush to Judgment, Mark Lane called attention to this exchange in which Bowers attempts to explain his visual impressions during the shooting:Bowers: (...) something occurred in this particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for some reason, which I could not identify.Ball: You couldn't describe it?Bowers: Nothing that I could pinpoint as having happened that—Ball: Afterwards did a good many people come up there on this high ground at the tower?
In Lane's interpretation, Ball interrupted Bowers with a tangential question in order to steer the discussion away from any possible suggestion of a non-Oswald shooter.
Bowers concluded his testimony by recounting what he saw in the first minutes after the shooting, how a crowd of bystanders and policemen (he estimated as many as 100 people) rushed to the top of the grassy knoll. He said one policeman immediately drove his motorcycle partway up the grassy knoll incline and then jumped off to search behind the stockade fence and trees. Asked if the two men were still there when the motorcycle policeman arrived on the scene, Bowers replied:[A]s 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 one in the white shirt, yes; I think he was.
In a final exchange, Ball alluded to a pre-deposition conversation he had had with Bowers, as well as to the current testimony, and inquired: "You have told me all that you know about this, haven't you?" Bowers answered: "Yes, I believe that I have related everything which I have told the city police, and also told to the FBI."
