To make it easier to find, here is a post that links all the bits of the report serialized here back in 2010.
Some of you might be searching for more details since this fascinating tale now that Bill Rowe has printed his volume of reminiscences and anecdotes titled The Premiers: Frank and Joey – Greed, Power, and Lust.
The investigation into the fire at Elizabeth Towers was a huge scandal in the late 1970s that ended with Rowe’s political career laying in smouldering ruins around his feet. Of course, Bill set the Bic to it himself and doused himself in gasoline for good measure, although the version in the new book is - not surprisingly – light on the details and heavy on the self-serving commentary.
Judge Lloyd Soper’s report runs a mere 47 typescript pages. The writing is crisp and clear and the evidence used to sustain the conclusions is damning. Rowe tries to slight Soper for bias at one point in the book, now that the judge is dead an unable to defend his own integrity. That comment, as with the rest of the book winds up telling us more about Rowe than about the people he is supposedly writing about.
If you’ve read Rowe’s book, then read Soper’s report and judge for yourself. If you start with the report, get the book and give it a go too for fairness sake.
- Introduction and Commission
- The Elizabeth Tower Fire and its Investigation
- The Release of the Reports of the Investigation
- The Question of Justification
- Recommendations
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