Thursday, November 13, 2003, At City Hall, Commission: Fill & Download for Free

I do not believe Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone conspirator in the killing of President Kennedy.For several reasons that I will list below then provide examples of further conspirators Oswald was associated with or impersonated by that prove he was not a lone gunman:Oswald was a “Patsy”. Just like he said. Carolyn Arnold, a secretary who worked in the Texas School Book Depository, placed Oswald in the second floor lunchroom eating his lunch between 12:15 p.m. and 12:25 p.m. This is exactly where Oswald said he was at that time.Oswald described two negro employees that he saw while eating his lunch on the second floor. One of these employees, Junior Jarman, later told detectives that he was on the second floor during this time which vouched for Oswald’s statement. It is hard to imagine that the presidential assassin was in the second floor lunchroom eating lunch instead of in position on the sixth floor when the motorcade was supposed to be coming by the building at that time.NOTE: The motorcade was running late because of delays at Love Field when the Kennedy’s approached a fence line to greet supporters who had come to see him.Arnold gave her statement following the assassination and only discovered years later that what she told authorities had been changed without her knowledge or approval.Eye-Witnesses. Amos Euins and Arnold Rowland witnessed the assassination from Houston and Elm Street across from the Texas School Book Depository. They both described a shooter with different clothing than Oswald was wearing as well as described a bald spot on the persons head that didn’t apply to Oswald, either. Rowland told police that he saw two men on the sixth floor. The Warren Commission chose to discredit and disbelieve Euins and Rowland’s testimony because they witnessed someone other than Lee Harvey Oswald in the sixth floor window as the shooter (s).Howard Brennan was another eye-witness on Houston and Elm Street who told authorities he saw a gunman in the sixth floor window firing shots at the motorcade.Brennan later identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man he thought he saw holding the rifle during a police lineup that featured several Dallas police detectives and teenagers.However, Brennan later said he couldn’t positively identify the man as Oswald. He later said he saw Oswald on television after the assassination and was afraid of a conspiracy and that he would be harmed.He later changed his story and said Oswald was the man after further queries by Warren Commission attorneys.Because of Brennan’s ambiguity of his identification of Oswald, the Warren Commission ruled his testimony as probative rather than conclusive evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sixth floor gunman.90-Seconds. Dallas policeman Marion Baker and TSBD superintendent Roy Truly both entered the building approximately 90-seconds after the gunshots.They proceeded to run across the first floor to the far northwest staircase and began running toward the top floors.As Truly reached the second floor and continued up the stairs, Baker saw a motion in the door window on the second floor landing. Baker stopped and entered the doorway and immediately drew his revolver on a suspect.Truly noticed Baker was no longer following him and returned to the second floor and found Baker aiming his gun at Lee Harvey Oswald. Truly told Baker that Oswald was an employee and they both continued their trek upstairs.Baker described Oswald as calm, not out of breath and holding a Coca-Cola bottle when he approached him.It is difficult to believe that Oswald could have run down four flights of stairs, purchase a Coke and then appear calm and not out of breath while a policeman pointed a gun at him 90-seconds or so after killing the president.By the way, Oswald was exactly where he told authorities he was and also exactly where Carolyn Arnold said he was minutes before the assassination.No Fingerprints. Nada. None were found on the rifle although Oswald’s palm print was later discovered on the understock of the weapon several days later after the FBI had taken possession of all assassination evidence. By the way, the FBI immediately commandeered all of the evidence and whisked it away to Washington, D.C. Which was illegal under Texas law.Parafin Test. Oswald also passed a parafin test on his face in Dallas police custody which indicated he did not fire a rifle. He did have traces of metallic residue from his hands but that could have been caused by handling books in the book depository. After all, Oswald’s fingerprints were found all over the sixth floor of the TSBD because as Oswald said in his own words, “…naturally, if I work in that building.”Top Cop. Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry was driving the lead car of the motorcade. After driving through the triple underpass, immediately ahead of the gunshots behind him, he radioed to get men up on the overpass and see what happened up there. He later told interviewer Tom Johnson that he was not convinced that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy:“We don’t have any proof that Oswald fired the rifle, and never did. Nobody’s yet been able to put him in the building (TSBD) with a gun in his hand.”Assassin Rifle. There is no evidence of Oswald’s continued possession of the assassin rifle. Warren Commission Staff attorney Wesley Liebeler argued against a draft report that said the murder weapon had been in Oswald’s possession from the time it was brought from New Orleans in the late summer of 1963 in Ruth Paine’s station wagonNOTE: Paine was the woman whose house Marina Oswald and her daughters were living located in Irving, Texas at the time of the assassination. Lee Harvey Oswald also once lived there but was renting a bedroom in a boarding house in Dallas at the time of the assassination.Both Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald told investigators that the rifle was stored in the garage. They only discovered it was missing during a police search. Liebeler successfully argued that the Warren Commission could not state the continuous possession without further evidence.Here is what Leibeler wrote in an unpublished, internal Warren Commission document questioning some of the statements the Commission was trying to pass off as fact in its final report:“The conclusion is even worse when it states that “the rifle was kept among Oswald’s possession from the time of its purchase until the day of the assassination.” I do not think the record provides any real evidence to support that broad statement. The fact is that not one person alive today ever saw that rifle in the Paine garage in such a way that it could be identified as that rifle.”HSCA JFK Exhibit 36 “Memorandum re: Gallery Proofs of Chapter IV of the Report.” From: Wesley J. Liebeler. DATE: September 6, 1964Police would show Oswald photos presumably taken of him holding the rifle and a revolver with Russian magazines in the back yard of his Dallas apartment on Neely Street.Marina Oswald told investigators that she took the photos.After she initially said she had never seen them or taken them. Later she maintained her husband’s innocence.There were a lot of problems with Marina Oswald’s testimony incriminating her husband in the assassination. And more than just her broken-English. The F.B.I. brought in Russian translators to decipher Marina’s answers to their questions.Marina Oswald’s veracity was questioned and debunked by none other than the Warren Commission itself.Commission attorney Norman Redlich wrote this memo to J. Lee Rankin, Lead Counsel, dated February 28, 1964 titled JFK Exhibition No. 13:“Neither you nor I have any desire to smear the reputation of any individual. We cannot ignore, however, that Marina Oswald has repeatedly lied to the Service, the F.B.I. and this Commission on matters which are of vital concern to the people of this country and the world.”Oswald was non-plussed by the photos and said that was his head superimposed on someone else’s body.He would know.One of his first jobs in Dallas was at a local graphics company, Jaggers Chiles Stovall, a high-security company that did photographic work for the U.S. Government. The company provided photo identification of Russian nuclear launch sites in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. Oswald worked there from October 1962 to April 1963.The photos have been investigated ad nauseum.Both the Warren Commission and HSCA found the photographs authentic. Additional tests done with more sophisticated equipment were done in the 21st century and also confirmed the authenticity of the photos.However, Oswald denied he was in the photos and said they were forged. His wife later recanted her testimony saying she took the photos.Like many instances in this case, it doesn’t make any sense an assassin would take such incriminating photos with the rifle he would later use in the assassination.Wesley Buell Frazier. No one saw Lee Harvey Oswald carry a rifle down the street from the parking lot into the TSBD. His neighbor in Irving and co-worker, Wesley Buell Frazier, and his sister, told the Warren Commission they saw Oswald had a large package wrapped in brown paper when Frazier drove Oswald to work on the day of the assassination (Oswald had spent the night at the Paine household on Thursday).Frazier told the police that Oswald told him the package was curtain rods for his boarding room in Dallas. However, the problem with Frazier’s story is twofold:1) Frazier and his sister both told police that the package was too small (28″) to have been the disassembled rifle (38″);2) and no one else saw Oswald carry the package down the street and into the TSBD.Well, correction. One person, Jack Dougherty saw Oswald enter the TSBD on November 22, 1963. However, he told the Warren Commission that Oswald was not carrying “anything in his hands” when he arrived for work that morning.The Girl On The Stairs. Victoria Adams was 22-years old on November 22, 1963 and watched the motorcade from the fourth floor of the TSBD, where she worked, with another employee.They both immediately ran down the northwest staircase after the final headshot. Adams and the other woman didn’t see or hear anyone else above or below them on those same stairs Oswald would have covered at that exact time if he had been running down from the sixth floor.The Warren Commission immediately recognized Adams and her co-workers testimony would cause them serious timeline problems with their “Oswald did it” theory if Adams and her friend were to be believed.So, just as one might expect, The Warren Commission chose to disregard Adams and her friends’ story, discredited her, altered her testimony and didn’t include her co-workers corroboration.Adams went into hiding for 35-years until she was found by author Barry Ernest. His book, “The Girl On The Stairs” tells Victoria Adams story that the Warren Commission didn’t want you to hear.So, does all of this prove Lee Harvey Oswald was innocent of killing President John F. Kennedy?No.However, a competent defense attorney armed with eyewitnesses and Oswald’s own denial would of had a field day discrediting the official version and posited reasonable doubt into the minds of the jury.They also would have been undoubtedly helped by the following revelations:NOTE: Many of these stories were uncovered over the years and released to the public through follow up investigations such as the Church and Rockefeller Committees and the House Select Committee On Assassinations, release of assassination documents through the 1992 JFK Act through the Assassination Records Review Board and investigative work.Carl Mather. The Oswald Imposter. Castro & The Rex. This story came to light immediately following the assassination.Dallas television sports reporter Wes Wise covered the assassination during the all-hands on deck weekend coverage and was asked to speak to a local organization a few weeks later at an Oak Cliff El Chico restaurant. Wise was approached afterwards by Mack Pate, a repair shop owner whose shop shared a parking lot with the El Chico, who said he had suspicious information concerning activities following the assassination.Pate introduced Wise to one of his mechanics, T.F. White, who told Wise that after the assassination he observed a man sitting in a 1961 Ford Falcon in the El Chico parking lot who drew his attention. As police sirens were reporting to the Oak Cliff area following the J.D. Tippit murder 5-blocks southeast of the parking lot, at approximately 2 p.m. (NOTE: The real Lee Harvey Oswald had already been arrested and was sitting in Detective Will Fritz’ office being interrogated), this man seemed to lower himself down in the front seat as to not be seen. White approached the man who noticed White and immediately quickly drove off east down Davis Street.Wise asked White if he could identify the man and White said it was Lee Harvey Oswald who he had seen on television over the weekend of the assassination. White even had taken the time to write down the license plate of the car.Wise took this information to the FBI who traced the license plate to a 1957 Plymouth registered to Carl Mather of Richardson, Texas.However, when the FBI contacted Mather he became uncomfortable and refused to talk to them about the incident citing his top secret CIA-linked security clearance with his employer Collins Radio.Collins Radio was a major CIA contractor and Mather had done high-security communications work including installing special electronics equipment in Vice President Johnson’s Air Force Two plane.Later, in an odd twist, it would be discovered that Collins Radio had leased a World War II submarine destroyer, The Rex, from a Miami oilman named J.A. Belcher, that made national headlines.Belcher told The Miami Herald he leased The Rex for oceanographic research to the international division of Collins Radio of Dallas. Apparently, Collins Radio was using The Rex for sophisticated radio surveillance for marine technology not necessarily for spying on Cuba.On November 1, 1963 The New York Times featured a story and a photo of The Rex docked in Palm Beach, Florida, with two slips on board that were empty, following an overnight raid on Cuba.Earlier Fidel Castro had gone on television in Cuba for a 3-hour televised rant and told the nation that his soldiers had repelled the attack by The Rex and had captured four U.S. soldiers who had admitted they were C.I.A. employees and were singing like canaries. He also claimed he had the two boats missing from The Rex complete with the words “The Rex” painted on their sides. Castro went on to say the U.S. soldiers told him the ship was based in Palm Beach, Florida.But not before Soviet MIG-15’s were airborne and mistakenly attacked the G. Louis, a Liberian ship carrying minerals from Jamaica to Texas. The Rex escaped through the darkness to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and although the Soviet MIG’s eventually found The Rex and attacked it, they were short on fuel and returned to the safety of Cuban bases.U.S. Navy Phantom fighters were launched from Florida based upon distress signals that the G. Louis had radioed during the attack. However, they were soon recalled avoiding a potential fight with the Soviet Union.Just a little Cold War hi-jinx in the Caribbean between nuclear powers that found themselves smack-dab in the middle of the JFK assassination!Back to Carl Mather.Mather’s wife was more cooperative than her husband and told the F.B.I. that the car had been parked at Mather’s employer, Collins Radio in Richardson, all morning.That is until the Mather’s drove the car to officer J.D. Tippit’s home in south Dallas to console the mourning widow of officer Tippit. The Mather’s had once lived next door to the Tippit’s and were good friends.Although Wise’s tip had discovered a license plate of a car belonging to a man with CIA-linked security clearance on another car driven by a Lee Harvey Oswald double 5-blocks from the J.D. Tippit murder scene, 45-mintues later, the F.B.I. said White was simply confused not only by the car make and color but doubted his positive identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as merely coincidence.They didn’t think anything sinister with Mather’s knowing J.D. Tippit or a Lee Harvey Oswald look-a-like in a car bearing his license plate being seen a few blocks from the Tippit murder scene 45-minutes afterwards or his presence at Tippit’s home afterwards. More on this in a few minutes.Regardless of what the F.B.I. said, Collins Radio’s cover was blown with the discovery of The Rex incident.And, additional research has revealed the real role of the CIA in the attempted overthrow of the Castro Government including assassination plans to kill Fidel Castro.The top-secret CIA base JMWAVE in Miami has been exposed along with its efforts to infiltrate Cuba with secret assassination teams in “Operation Pathfinder” and its’ “Operation 40” whose counterintelligence efforts composed of anti-Castro Cubans were formed to seize control of the Cuban government after the Bay of Pigs invasion.Robert Vinson and The Oswald Imposter. Robert Vinson was an Air Force sergeant in 1963. Vinson told authors James Johnston and Jon Roe, “Flight from Dallas: New Evidence of CIA Involvement in the Murder of President John F. Kennedy”, (2003) and James Douglass, “JFK and the Unspeakable” Why He Died and Why It Matters”, (2008), that on November 22, 1963, he hitched a ride on a C-54 cargo plan from Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. heading to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver.His eventual destination was Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs but he was told the cargo plane to Denver was his only option. Vinson said he and two pilots were the only passengers on the plane, which he said lacked the usual Air Force markings.At some point, the pilot announced over the intercom that the president had been shot and the plane immediately turned south. At approximately 3:30 p.m., the plane landed in a rough patch of land in the Trinity River basin between Oak Cliff and downtown Dallas. The exact location is on the western edge of the river floodplain between the Corinth Street and Cadiz Street bridges that go over the Trinity River. Vinson recognized downtown Dallas from photographs he had seen.And, it is conveniently located 1.3 miles east from the El Chico parking lot that T.F. White observed the Oswald look-a-like at 2 p.m. Interestingly, Davis Street turns into Corinth Street.Vinson said that two men in beige overalls emerged from a Jeep and came running from the corner of the Corinth Street Bridge to the plane.Neither men spoke to each other or acknowledged Vinson’s presence in the plane which took off and landed later after dusk on a proper runway at Roswell Air Force Base in New Mexico.Vinson eventually made his way to Colorado Springs the next day and was watching television coverage of the assassination when he was startled by a resemblance between Lee Harvey Oswald and one of the two men who had got on the plane in Dallas.Early in 1965, Vinson worked in an administrative role for the CIA at a secret base north of Las Vegas. He retired a year and a half later and kept his story close to the vest for nearly 30 years to save his pension. He only gave an interview to a local television station after passage of the 1992 JFK Act which freed him from any restrictions imposed by his former employment.The Roger Craig Story. Dallas County Deputy Sheriff Detective Roger Craig watched the motorcade from Houston and Main street outside the new Dallas County Courthouse.He immediately ran across the street to Dealey Plaza following the gunshots. Craig was on the south side of Elm street when he heard a shrill whistle behind him. Craig turned and looked across Elm Street where he saw a Nash Rambler station wagon pulling over to the curb. He observed a Latin-looking, husky man driving and leaning over looking out the passenger side window. Craig saw a young white man in his twenties, approximately 5′8″ or 5′9″ and 140–150 lbs. running down the grassy incline from the TSBD who entered the car which immediately drove off westbound on Elm Street.Craig later appeared in Dallas Police Homicide Detective Will Fritz’ office after he learned that a suspect had been arrested. Craig said he went into Fritz’ office and identified the man sitting there as the same man he saw leaving the TSBD and entering the Nash Rambler station wagon. Fritz told Craig this man was Lee Harvey Oswald who had been arrested earlier inside the Texas Theater on suspicion he had murdered Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit.Craig said that Oswald became visibly upset upon his identification and the mention of his leaving the TSBD and getting into a Nash Rambler station wagon. Craig said Oswald said,“that station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine…don’t try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it” and later exclaimed, “everyone will know who I am now.”He even said Oswald rose out of his chair and leaned over the desk toward Detective Fritz to hammer home his point.Craig said Fritz received a call from Dallas County Sheriff Bill Decker around this time who summoned Fritz back to Dealey Plaza for a discussion in his office.Afterwards, Fritz completely denied Craig was ever in his office and disputed his entire story about the Oswald conversation.Dallas County Sheriff Roger Craig’s description of Lee Harvey Oswald leaving the TSBD and entering a Nash Rambler Station Wagon was verified by two men who were in cars immediately behind the vehicle when it pulled over to the curb as well as others who saw the same thing as Craig did.Marvin Robinson was driving his car west on Elm when he saw a man come down the grassy incline and enter the station wagon.Mrs. James Forrest was standing near the Grassy Knoll and said she saw a man suddenly run from the rear of the TSBD, down the incline and then enter a Nash Rambler station wagon. She said if the man she saw enter the station wagon was not Lee Harvey Oswald “It was his identical twin.”Roger Craig was named Man of the Year by the Dallas Sheriff’s office in 1960 and had a successful career being promoted four times. His eye-witness account of Oswald leaving the TSBD was verified by four other witnesses who saw the same thing.Because Craig’s story was at odds with the known movements of Lee Harvey Oswald after the assassination, the Warren Commission chose to believe Detective Will Fritz and not Craig.It is suspicious upon reflection because Craig’s version was not only supported by other witnesses but would blow the entire Warren Commission lone gunman theory out of the water.The Warren Commission simply said that although it was plausible that Craig and the witnesses did see a man running down the incline who entered the station wagon, they were mistaken that it was Lee Harvey Oswald.The Mexico City Problem. Immediately after the assassination F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover learned that the CIA in Mexico City had surveillance photos and an audio recording from the Soviet Embassy of a man who they claimed was Lee Harvey Oswald.Hoover told Johnson during a phone conversation on Saturday, November 23, that the man the CIA said was Lee Harvey Oswald did not look like the suspect who had been arrested in Dallas. Hoover also told Johnson the voice recording of the man who called the Soviet Embassy while in Mexico City and claimed to be Lee Harvey Oswald was not the voice of the man the Dallas police had in custody.This was indeed a major problem for Hoover and Johnson because it meant that someone was impersonating the accused presidential assassin in Mexico City in September of 1963.Shortly thereafter on Monday, November 25, Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach sent a memo to Bill Moyers, a Johnson confidant, that said in part:“The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been convicted at trial”.Katzenbach’s memo continued,“Speculation about Oswald’s motivation ought to be cut off and we should have some basis for rebutting thought that this was a Communist conspiracy or (as the Iron Curtain press is saying) a right-wing conspiracy to blame it on the Communists. Unfortunately, the facts on Oswald seem about too pat—too obvious (Marxist, Cuba, Russian wife, etc.). The Dallas police have put out statements on the Communist conspiracy theory, and it was they who were in charge when he was shot and thus silenced.”Katzenbach advocated a public F.B.I. report to satisfy this objective though he noted the possible need for,“the appointment of a Presidential Commission of unimpeachable personnel to review and examine the evidence and announce its conclusions.”(Mary Ferrell Foundation, “The Katzenbach Memo”).President Johnson would announce the formation of the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy through Executive Order #11130 four days later on November 29, 1963.The Odio Incident. Silvia Odio was the daughter of an Anti-Castro Cuban dissident. Her father Amador Odio was imprisoned by Fidel Castro for his attempt to assassinate Castro.Ms. Odio provided testimony to the Warren Commission that Lee Harvey Oswald was one of three men who visited her apartment in Dallas in September of 1963.Odio claimed the men were attempting to solicit money for the anti-Castro effort in which she was involved, The Cuban Revolutionary Junta or JURE. Odio testified that two of the Cubans identified themselves as “Leopoldo” and “Angel” and that the American was introduced as “Leon Oswald”.“Leopoldo” told Odio the next day over the phone that the American was a Marine and was an excellent shot. He said the American had said,“Cubans don’t have any guts…because President Kennedy should have been assassinated after the Bay of Pigs, and some Cubans should have done that, because he was the one that was holding the freedom of Cuba actually.”Odio said the men told her that they had come from New Orleans and were about to leave on a trip.Odio testified that “Leon Oswald” was most certainly Lee Harvey Oswald and that the meeting occurred prior to October 1, likely on the preceding Thursday, September 26 or Friday, September 27.The Warren Commission asked the F.B.I. to investigate Odio’s claims. The F.B.I. interviewed two men who were anti-Castro Cuban leaders who denied knowing anything about Odio’s allegations.However, they interviewed another man named Loran Hall who stated he had visited Odio in September 1963 with Lawrence Howard and William Seymour.The Warren Commission final report said the F.B.I. had not yet completed its’ investigation of the Odio matter but the Commission “concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was not at Mrs. Odio’s apartment in September of 1963”.The House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) stated in its final report in 1979 that it was “inclined to believe Silvia Odio” and that at least one of the men (Hall, Howard and Seymour) looked like Oswald. The Committee also disagreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald could not have been in Dallas during the timeframe specified in Odio’s allegations.The HSCA said,“Oswald’s actions and values were consistent with someone who would favor the Castro regime, and speculated that Oswald may have associated with anti-Castro activists in order to implicate that movement in the assassination for some unrelated reason.”Further corroborating evidence for the veracity of the Odio visitors as JFK co-conspirators comes in the form of Richard Case Nagell, as told by James Douglass in “JFK and the Unspeakable”.Nagell was the featured person in Dick Russell’s book “The Man Who Knew Too Much” published in 1992.Nagell was a U.S. Army counterintelligence officer from 1955 to 1959. He was a Field Operations Intelligence officer which he described as a “covert extension of the CIA policy and activity designed to conceal the true nature of CIA objectives”.In the 1950’s, Nagell began his Army/CIA role as a double agent in liaison with Soviet Intelligence. It was in Tokyo in this capacity that Nagell crossed paths with another counterintelligence agent named Lee Harvey Oswald.Nagell was working with Soviet Intelligence in 1963 in Mexico City in his role as double agent. He was reporting to the CIA and assigned by the KGB to monitor Lee Harvey Oswald in the United States after his return from Russia.During this time, Nagell confirmed that he became involved with Oswald and two Cuban exiles in what he saw was a “large” operation to kill JFK. The Cubans were known by their “war names” of “Angel” and “Leopoldo”.Nagell told Russell that Angel and Leopoldo “were connected with a violence-prone faction of a CIA-financed group operating in Mexico City and elsewhere”. He identified Angel’s and Leopoldo’s CIA-financed group as Alpha 66, a group of Cuban exile paramilitaries who were directed by David Atlee Phillips, Chief of Covert Action at the CIA’s Mexico City Station.In early 1963, Phillips deployed Alpha 66 in attacks on Russian ships in Cuban ports. The purpose was to draw JFK into a war with Cuba.Nagell would eventually try to convince Lee Harvey Oswald that he was being duped by Angel and Leopoldo as the assassination patsy. However, Oswald was evasive and unresponsive to Nagell’s appeal. He was ordered by the KGB to kill Oswald to prevent the assassination patsy scenario and to keep them from becoming scapegoats themselves.Nagell would eventually send a registered letter to J. Edgar Hoover on September 17, 1963 warning of the impending assassination. He later removed himself from any possible connection in the assassination plot by shooting up an El Paso Bank to place himself in federal custody rather “than commit murder and treason“.He was later convicted and served 4–1/2 years in prison.SummaryThese are just a few of the examples of conspiracy involving the real or fake Lee Harvey Oswald. Many others have been researched and reported over the years which further substantiate the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald was being impersonated leading up to the assassination.Further reading about these and other acts of conspiracy in the JFK Assassination case can be found in the following:James Johnston and Jon Roe, “Flight from Dallas: New Evidence of CIA Involvement in the Murder of President John F. Kennedy”, (2003).James Douglass, “JFK and the Unspeakable” Why He Died and Why It Matters”, (2008).David Talbot, “The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA and the Rise of America’s Secret Government”, (2016).Dick Russell, “The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hired to Kill Oswald and Prevent the Assassination of JFK”, (1992).Joseph McBride, “Into the Nightmare: My Search for the Killers of President John F. Kennedy and Officer J.D. Tippit”, (2013).William Kelly, “JFKcountercoup.blogspot.com”Mary Ferrell Foundation, “maryferrell.org”Gary Cornwell, “Real Answers: The True Story Told by Gary Cornwell, Deputy Chief Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee On Assassinations, in Charge of the Investigation of the John F. Kennedy Assaassination”, (1998).In the final analysis, the Warren Commission was a political body established to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President John F. Kennedy and did not have any accomplices.Just like the Katzenbach Memo had outlined on November 25, 1963.The Warren Commission Report was inept and incomplete and relied completely on evidence submitted by the F.B.I. and CIA, two organizations who had plenty of reasons to keep their association with Oswald under wraps.Such as the CIA/Mafia assassination plots to kill Fidel Castro and the fact that CIA officer George Joannides, who in 1963 was the Chief of Psychological Warfare branch of the agency’s JMWAVE station in Miami, directed and financed the Directorio Revolucionario Estudantil (DRE). The DRE was a student revolutionary group of Cuban exiles whose officers had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald in the months prior to the assassination.Clearly Warren Commissioner Allen Dulles, former CIA Director who was fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs invasion debacle, was aware of these efforts within the CIA. As were CIA officials fully aware that Joannides’ role in the DRE was hidden from officials with the HSCA in 1978 when the CIA appointed him as the agency’s liaison to the committee.And, many of the remaining documents being withheld from the public by the government concerning the JFK assassination involve the CIA and Joannides’ work with the DRE.One only has to listen to J. Edgar Hoover’s phone conversation with President Johnson on November 24, 1963 just hours after Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald on national television to learn what his top priority was,“The thing that I am most concerned about…is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin.”Robert E. Blakey was the Chief Counsel of the HSCA investigation and he described the Warren Commission as:“The Warren Commission was a political body, not a scientific or even historical commission. The single shooter was a political judgment. It is not necessarily what happened.”Blakey continued:“The evidence is complex, difficult to put together, and it points in more than one direction, particularly if you are troubled by what happened in the Plaza. The single shooter was one theory, but hardly the only one.”And, HSCA Chief Counsel Robert E. Blakey wrote in 2003 about CIA obstruction of the HSCA inquiry after learning that the CIA had put retired CIA official George Joannides, who secretly ran the anti-Castro Cuban student organization called the D.R.E., in the summer of 1963 when Oswald was interacting with the group, as the main liaison with the HSCA and the CIA regarding all requests for information,“I now no longer believe anything the Agency told the committee any further than I can obtain substantial corroboration for it from outside the Agency for its veracity”.So you can choose to believe The Warren Commission Report hook, line and sinker.Just like many have done over the years and still do today despite overwhelming evidence that points in other directions that has been revealed over the years, some of which I have reported here.Many authors have made a living keeping The Warren Commission myth alive by simply cherry-picking its findings and using its own slanted evidence to support its claims.Others will pop up in chat rooms with superiority-complexes and blast anyone who tries to counter its claims with derogatory charges of “conspiracy theorists”.And that’s ok.Just remember that it has long been known that the CIA has regularly used mainstream reporters as plants to support its disinformation to counter any negative claims against the agency, especially its work on the JFK Assassination. In 1967, the CIA actually wrote an internal memo, “Countering Criticism of the Warren Report”, instructing employees on how to discredit its critics who challenged the “official narrative”.And, none other than Watergate-sleuth Carl Bernstein revealed an official CIA program called “Operation Mockingbird” in a 1977 Rolling Stone article titled “The CIA and The Media”, that sponsored CIA-plants within major newspapers, television networks and magazines in an attempt to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes.So keep reading and researching.Thanks to the on-going research of people and organizations, we know more now about the assassination than we did in 1963.Enough to know that the Warren Commission was incomplete and inept in its findings regardless of what its mouthpieces say to discredit the so-called “conspiracy theorists”.I prefer “conspiracy realists”!

prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Council of Ministers took oath to office on Thursday. The Union Cabinet for the 17th Lok Sabha includes 24 cabinet ministers, 9 ministers of state with independent charge and 24 ministers of state.The top leaders who were sworn-in as cabinet ministers include Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, DV Sadananda Gowda, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ram Vilas Paswan and former foreign secretary S Jaishankar, a surprise pick.Some of the key ministers in the previous Modi government, including Sushma Swaraj, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Maneka Gandhi, are not a part of the new council of ministers. Former finance minister Arun Jaitley had written to PM Modi on Wednesday and said that he did not want to be a part of the new government due to health reasons.Here's a full list of cabinet ministers in Modi Cabinet 2.0Rajnath SinghAmit ShahNitin GadkariDV Sadananda GowdaNirmala SitharamanRam Vilas PaswanNarendra Singh TomarRavishankar PrasadHarsimrat Kaur BadalThawar Chand GehlotS JaishankarRamesh Pokhriyal "Nishank"Arjun MundaSmriti IraniDr Harsh VardhanPrakash JavadekarPiyush GoyalDharmendra PradhanMukhtar Abbas NaqviPrahlad JoshiMahendra Nath PandeyArvind SawantGiriraj SinghGajendra Singh ShekhawatFull list of ministers of state with independent charge in Modi Cabinet 2.0Kiren RijijuSantosh GangwarShripad NaikJitendra SinghRao Inderjit SinghRK SinghHardeep Singh PuriMansukh MandaviyaPrahalad Singh PatelFull list of ministers of state in Modi Cabinet 2.0Arjun Ram MeghwalAshwini Kumar ChaubeyFaggan KulasteRaosaheb DanveKrishan Pal GurjarGeneral (Retd) VK SinghGangapuram Kishan ReddyPurushottam RupalaRamdas AthawaleSadhvi Niranjan JyotiBabul SupriyoSanjeev BalyanSanjay Shamrao DhotreAnurag ThakurSuresh AngadiNityanand RaiRattan Lal KatariaV MuraleedharanRenuka SinghSom ParkashRameswar TeliPratap Chandra SarangiBarmer Kailash ChoudharyDebasree ChaudhuriSTRENGTH OF MODI CABINET 2.0There are 24 cabinet ministers and as many as 25 ministers of state, while nine other were given MoS with independent charge rank.As per the Constitution, the total number of Union ministers, including the Prime Minister shall not exceed 15 per cent of the number of members in the LS.PM Narendra Modi can have as many as 80 ministers in the 543-member Lok Sabha. With current appointments, the total number of Union ministers in 17th Lok Sabha is 57.Full list of cabinet ministers in Modi Cabinet 2.0 with profilesRAJNATH SINGHSenior BJP leader and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh represents Lucknow Lok Sabha seat. He has been elected from the coveted seat for the second time, before that he had representated Gautam Budhh Nagar Lok Sabha constituency in 2009. Number 2 in Modi government, Rajnath Singh is likely to be appointed as the home minister of India again.Rajnath Singh had started his career as RSS volunteer but joined politics in 1974 as secretary of Janasangh of Mirzapur region and later became the MP from Mirzapur in 1977.Known for his no non sense attitude, Rajnath is a soft spoken politician and the senior most leader in the Modi Cabinet.During his stint as home minister in the previous term, Rajnath Singh battled with Kashmir militancy, Pakistan incursions, the emergence of Islamic State in India among other challenges.AMIT SHAHConsidered as BJP's key strategist, Union minister Amit Shah is likely to get a key portfolio in Modi Cabinet 2.0. Before the Central government, Amit Shah and Narendra Modi worked together in the Gujarat ministry. Amit Shah's tuning with PM Narendra Modi is hailed as jodi of Jai and Veeru.In the 2019 general elections, Amit Shah contested and won from Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency with a margin of over 5.5 lakh votes. He broke all records of LK Advani.Amit Shah has had a meteoric rise in national politics in recent years. In 2010, Shah spent time in jail for the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case. He got conditional bail to stay away from Gujarat. Four years later, Amit Shah became national president of the BJP and took the party to astronomical heights. According to party's own estimates, the BJP is today world's largest party. Under his leadership, the BJP managed to get re-elected to Union government with a massive increase in their vote share.NITIN GADKARIKnown as the Highway man, 62-year-old Nitin Gadkari has been sworn in for the second time as cabinet minister. During Modi government 1.0, Gadkari successfully shouldered the responsibility of Shipping, Surface Transport, Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation Ministry. He is likely to get an important ministry in the second term as well.Nitin Jayram Gadkari started his political career with student's wing ABVP. At the age of 38, Gadkari served as PWD minister in the Shivsena-BJP Govt in 1995. Gadkari was credited with building with nation's firstever Express way from Mumbai to Pune.Gadkari rose in the national scenario when he was made the national president of BJP in 2009 replacing Rajnath Singh. In 2014, he contested and won the Lok Sabha elections from Nagpur seat.As the transport minister, Gadkari is credited with building excellent Road and Highway network with approximately 26 kms per day. Gadkari is also known for his proximity with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat.DV SADANANDA GOWDALawyer-turned-politician DV Sadananda Gowda is a returning minister in Modi Cabinet. In the previous government, Sadananda Gowda handled railway ministry, law and justice, statistics and programme implementation and chemicals and fertilisers for various spans of time.17th Lok Sabha is Sadananda Gowda's fourth entry to Parliament. In 2019 general elections, he defeated Congress heavyweight Krishna Byre Gowda, a member of the HD Kumaraswamy ministry.An RSS worker and a vocal ABVP leader during his college days, Gowda started his political career from Jan Sangh, the previous avatar of BJP. Gowda practised law for a while and became a public prosecutor too but he gave up his law practice to pursue politics. He worked in the BJP in various capacities right from the grass-root level.In 2011, Sadananda Gowda became chief minister of Karnataka. However, his term as chief minister was marred by infighting in the BJP, which at last resulted in Gowda's resignation. In 2014, Gowda returned to Lok Sabha by winning election from Bengaluru North constituency.NIRMALA SITHARAMANNirmala Sitharaman has risen from the ranks of the BJP and reached the prestigious chair of the Ministry of Defence during previous Modi government. Before becoming the first woman defence minister of India, she handled the Minister of State portfolio in the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Minister of State (Independent charge) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.Sitharaman has served as Member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, since 2016. In 2003, during Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure, she became a member of National Women for Commission and served on the position till 2005. Sitharaman had joined the BJP in 2006, when Nitin Gadkari was the party chief, and she became the national spokesperson of the party.RAM VILAS PASWANEight-time Lok Sabha MP and former Rajya Sabha member Ram Vilas Paswan was on Thursday once again inducted into the Narendra Modi cabinet. The Lok Janshakti Party National President was Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution in the previous Modi government.Paswan's party had contested six Lok Sabha seats in Bihar in the recently concluded elections and emerged victorious on all. The LJP chief this time refrained from contesting election from Hajipur after he was assured Rajya Sabha birth by the BJP.Paswan began his political career way back in 1969 when he was first elected to the Bihar Legislative Assembly. He entered Lok Sabha for the first time in 1977 from Hajipur constituency. Thereafter, he represented this seat in 1980, 1989, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014.Paswan formed Lok Janshakti Party in 2000. He also served as a Union Minister in UPA 1 between 2004-09. He, however, lost elections from Hajipur in 2009 and was there after send to Rajya Sabha by RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav.NARENDRA SINGH TOMARThree-time MP Narendra Singh Tomar returns to Modi Cabinet for a second stint. In the previous term, Tomar served at the helm of several ministries, including mines, steel, labour and employment and rural development and panchayati raj.Born on June 12, 1957 at Murar in Gwalior district, Tomar was president of the Gwalior unit of the BJP youth wing from 1980-84. He was elected as a councilor in 1983, entered the Madhya Pradesh assembly in 1998 and served as a minister in the BJP government in the state from 2003-2007.Later, he was appointed as state BJP president. After a brief stint as a Rajya Sabha member, Tomar was elected to the Lok Sabha from Morena in 2009.It was Tomar who conducted the ceremony in the Central Hall of Parliament when Narendra Modi was unanimously elected by the NDA's constituent parties as their leader.In 2014, he won the Lok Sabha election from Gwalior. He returned to Morena in the 2019 election, winning by a margin of over 1.13 lakh votes.RAVI SHANKAR PRASADPM Narendra Modi has reposed faith in senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad and inducted him into the Union Cabinet. During the previous Modi government, Prasad was Union Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology Minister.A noted Supreme Court advocate, 54-year old Ravi Shankar Prasad who fought his first Lok Sabha elections from Patna Sahib in 2019, defeated Congress's Shatrughan Sinha by a margin of over 2,85,000 votes.Ravi Shankar Prasad was also Minister of Coal and Mines, Law & Justice and Information and Broadcasting in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. He has been three time Rajya Sabha MP earlier.HARSIMRAT KAUR BADALShiromani Akali Dal leader and former Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal has been reinducted in the Union Cabinet. Harsimrat Kaur Badal is the wife of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president and former Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and daughter-in-law of former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.Born on July 25, 1966, Harsimrat belongs to the family of Attar Singh Majithia, who was a prominent general in Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Army.She began her political career in 2009 by winning Bathinda Lok Sabha election and defeating Captain Amarinder Singh's son Raninder Singh by a margin of 1.2 lakh votes. She had won in the 2014 Lok Sabha election by defeating her husband's cousin Manpreet Badal. Harsimrat was re-elected in 2019 from the same constituency.THAWARCHAND GEHLOTA prominent Dalit face of the BJP, Thawarchand Gehlot, has made his way to the Narendra Modi cabinet for a second consecutive time. Gehlot was appointed as the Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment during the Modi government's first stint in 2014.Gehlot represented the Shajapur Lok Sabha seat between 1996 and 2009. Following delimitation, Shajapur constituency ceased to exist and Dewas constituency came into being in 2008. In 2009, Gehlot lost the Lok Sabha poll to Congress leader Sajjan Singh Verma.The BJP leader became a Rajya Sabha member in 2012 and was re-elected to the Upper House of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh in 2018. His Rajya Sabha term will end in 2024.Considered close to Modi, Gehlot, one of the most noticeable faces from the Scheduled Caste (SC), was earlier deputed as the central observer for BJP in Gujarat.As a minister, Gehlot scripted several schemes for the welfare of the deprived sections of the society as well as for the physically-challenged people.S JAISHANKARPM Narendra Modi's surprise pick, S Jaishankar is a career diplomat, who retired as the foriegn secretary of India. Jaishankar was a key member of the Indian team which negotiated the landmark Indo-US nuclear deal. He is also credited with helping resolve the Doklam stand-off between India and China.A 1977-batch IFS officer, Jaishankar had earlier served as India's ambassador to the US and before that to China.Among other positions, Jaishankar has been India's High Commissioner to Singapore and Ambassador to the Czech Republic.Last year, Tata Group appointed Jaishankar as its president for global corporate affairs, within three months of his retirement from the government service. In 2019, Jaishankar was conferred with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award of the country.RAMESH POKHRIYAL NISHANKPoet-politician Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank's appointment as cabinet minister is his comeback to politics after eight years. After his term as the Uttarakhand chief minister ended in 2011, Ramesh Pokhriyal was lost in political wilderness, until this day. During these years, he won every election he contested, but did not get any ministerial berth in his state or at the Centre.Nishank won the Doiwala assembly seat in 2012. Two years later, he vacated the seat to contest from Haridwar in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, defeating the then chief minister Harish Rawat's wife Renuka by 1.7 lakh votes. In the 2019 elections, he retained the seat, defeating Ambrish Kumar of the Congress by a bigger margin of 2.59 lakh votes.Nishank has been elected to the state assembly five times, first in undivided Uttar Pradesh and later Uttarakhand from 1991 to 2014.He is said to be close to BJP president Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari. He is also known for proximity to yoga guru Ramdev.Nishank is a prolific Hindi writer with 36 works to his credit, of which 10 have been translated into other languages.ARJUN MUNDAProminent tribal leader Arjun Munda is a three-time chief minister and favourite among public not only in his home state of Jharkhand but also in neighbouring Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh.Munda, who began his career with the JMM during the statehood struggle before joining the saffron brigade, was first elected as MLA in 1995 in undivided Bihar and went on to win three consecutive terms from Kharsawan before losing the seat in 2014.Munda first became chief minister in March 2003, when he replaced the state's first chief minister Babulal Marandi after JDU and Samata Party MLAs had revolted against the latter's style of functioning. He was the tribal affairs minister in the first Marandi-led NDA government.The 51-year-old tribal leader also won a by-election for Lok Sabha seat from Jamshedpur and held the post of BJP's national general secretary.In 2019, Munda edged out Congress's Kalicharan Munda by a wafer thin margin of just 1445 votes in Khunti(ST) seat besides campaigning for the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in Odisha and Chhattisgarh.SMRITI IRANISmriti Irani is back with a bang. In 2014, Smriti Irani had become the yougest cabinet minister and held several illustrious portfolios, including HRD, Textiles and Information & Broadcasting Minister. In 2019, she has been reinducted in the Union Cabinet and is likely to be alloted a key portfolio.Smriti Irani, who lost Lok Sabha elections in 2004 and 2014, emerged a giant-killer of 2019 by defeating the Congress president Rahul Gandhi in his home turf.Irani was part of Modi cabinet as a rajya Sabha MP. She was elected to the Upper House in 2011 and re-elected in 2017 for a second term.An eloquent speaker, she was often the BJP's first choice for addressing the party's press conferences and defending it during debates in Parliament.Dr HARSH VARDHANDoctor-turned-politician Harsh Vardhan is the only MP from the national capital to get a place in Narendra Modi's council of ministers. Dr Harsh Vardhan served as the Minister of Health and Family Welfare during the Modi government's first stint in 2014 and was later given the charge of the Ministry of Earth Sciences and Ministry of Science and Technology.Dr Harsh Vardhan was the health minister of Delhi in 1994. During his tenure as health minister of Delhi, he had successfully launched the Pulse Polio Programme, which was later launched nationwide for immunisation of millions of children against polio.PRAKASH JAVADEKARPrakash Javadekar is among the returning cabinet ministers in Team Modi 2.0. In the previous Modi government, Prakash Javadekar rose from a minister of state with independent charge to HRD minister.He was first inducted in Modi Cabinet as MoS for environment with independent charge. Later, he was given the charge information and broadcasting ministry for brief time and finally was made cabinet minister for human resource development.A long-time RSS worker, Prakash Javdekar was known as the right wing organisation's choice for handling the HRD ministry and working on preparing draft for national education policy.Prakash Javadekar was elected to Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh in 2014 re-elected in 2018. His tenure ends in 2024.PIYUSH GOYALBJP's go-to-man, Piyush Goyal took oath of office to Union Cabinet for a second stint as minister on Thursday. During the last Modi government, Piyush Goyal held coal, power, railways and finance portfolios for different time spans.A chartered accountant by profession, Goyal, known for his corporate network developed during his days as an investment banker, is considered to be a key backroom strategist who played a significant role in resource mobilisation of the party.Considered a blue-eyed boy of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, Goyal was given the finance portfolio during Arun Jaitley's absence due to ill health.As a railway minister, Goyal, a Rajya Sabha member, achieved several firsts, including announcement of first bullet train. He is also credited for making transformational changes in India's power sector, including fast tracking of electrification of nearly 18,000 unelectrified villages.DHARMENDRA PRADHANDharmendra Pradhan, BJP's face in Odisha, has found a spot in the Modi Cabinet for the second time. During the previous term, Dharmendra Pradhan served as Union minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas.As Union minister, Pradhan was credited for leading the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) from the front. The party credits Dharmendhra Pradhan for significant in roads in BJD dominated Odisha. During the recently concluded assembly elections in Odisha, BJP managed to increase its seat share from 10 to 13. Intrestingly, the winning party BJD had won a vote share of 44.7 per cent, while BJP which was a distant second in terms of seats managed a vote share of 32.5 per cent.MUKHTAR ABBAS NAQVIBJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi is the lone Muslim in the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has won the 2019 Lok Sabha elections on the slogan 'sabka saath, sabka vikas and sabka vishwas'. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who has found himself back in the Council of Ministers for a second stint, will have the responsibility of winning the hearts of minorities and taking forward the 'development without appeasement' policy.Naqvi was the Minority Affairs Minister in the previous dispensation and is credited with major reforms in the Haj policy.During his tenure, the Haj subsidy was done away with under a new policy and women were allowed to go on the pilgrimage without Mehram or a male companion.If he gets the Minority Affairs portfolio again, he would look to take forward the welfare policies and reforms while having the added responsibility of winning the hearts of minorities.PRALHAD JOSHIPralhad Joshi, 56, has been elected MP from Darwad in Karnataka for the fourth consecutive term.Joshi is among three other parliamentarians from Karnataka who have landed a ministerial berth in the Modi government that was sworn in on Thursday. Suresh Chanabasappa Angadi, the MP from Belagavi district, DV Sadananda Gowda, who served as minister for statistics and planning, and Nirmala Sitharaman, the Rajya Sabha MP from the state and defence minister in the previous cabinet, will be the other three representing Karnataka.Born into a Brahmin family, Joshi rose to prominence in the northern Karnataka district of Dharwad with the BJP and eventually replaced Vijay Sankeshwar in 2004 to contest from the Dharwad North constituency, which has been with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 1996.MAHENDRA NATH PANDEYMahendra Nath Pandey has made a comeback in Modi Cabinet. Pandey served as a Union minister of state (MoS) in the Ministry of Human Resource Development between 2016 and 2017.He was given the responsibility of the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit in 2017 after the party's massive win in the assembly elections. Leading the charge of the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Pandey played a significant role in wooing the upper caste in favour of the party. And party rewarded him.Active in politics since his collge days at Benras Hindu University, Pandey took active part in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and was booked under the National Security Act by the Mulayam Singh Yadav government in the state.ARVIND SAWANTFrom building the party's organisation in northern Maharashtra's Dhule to wresting the high-profile Mumbai South seat, it has been a long journey for Shiv Sena lawmaker Arvind Sawant who has got a berth in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet.Known as a leader accessible to party workers and people, Sawant made a mark during his first term in the Lok Sabha in 2014 with his speeches which reflected a detailed analysis of the issues concerned and suggestions on policy decisions.The 68-year-old leader, who retained his Mumbai-South seat this time by defeating Congress's Milind Deora by over 1 lakh votes, has been associated with the Shiv Sena since the party's early years.GIRIRAJ SINGHGiriraj Singh, who reluctantly contested against CPIM candidate Kanhaiya Kumar in Begusarai and won, has been reinducted in Modi Cabinet for a second stint.During the first term of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government at the Centre, Giriraj served as a member of the Standing Committee on Labour and Joint Committee on Salaries and Allowances of Members of Parliament.On November 2014, which saw the first expansion of the Modi cabinet, Giriraj Singh was made a Union Minister of State in the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. In 2017, he was made a Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the same ministry.Giriraj won his first election to Lok Sbaha in 2014 from the Nawada parliamentary seat in Bihar. He, however, was given a ticket from Begusarai in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Though upset with the change in seat, Giriraj defeated his nearest rival Kanhaiya Kumar of the CPI by a staggering 4.2 lakh votes.GAJENDRA SINGH SHEKHAWATSecond-time Lok Sbaha MP Gajendra Singh Shekhawat is ready for his second stint in the Union ministry.Shekhawat, who has returned to Lok Sabha after defeating Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's son from the high-stakes Jodhpur seat, was made the minister of state for agriculture and farmers' welfare in September 2017.As an MP, Shekhawat contributed to the development of the civil airport of Jodhpur city, which is also known as the 'blue city', and expansion of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.The 51-year-old had defeated Ashok Gehlot's son Vaibhav Gehlot in Jodhpur by over 2.7 lakh votes. The chief minister had represented the constituency five times since 1980.Full list of ministers of state with independent charge with profilesKIREN RIJIJUOne of the most prominent faces of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Northeast, Kiren Rijiju, has represented the Arunachal West constituency in the Indian Parliament after he was elected as a member of the 14th Lok Sabha. He is now among those nine ministers of state with independent charge who form a part of the Union Cabinet for the 17th Lok Sabha.A Delhi University graduate, he is an excellent orator and has travelled worldwide. Often referred to as the voice of Northeast India, he had also been chosen as the best young MP by many media agencies. In the 2009 Lok Sabha election, he was defeated by a very thin margin of 1,314 votes by the Congress candidate.But he was re-elected from the same constituency after defeating Congress's Takam Sanjoy by a margin of 43,738 votes in 2014 Lok Sabha elections.SANTOSH GANGWARRepresenting the Bareilly constituency in the Indian parliament, Santosh Gangwar won the Lok Sabha on a BJP ticket and first became an MP in 1989. He served for six successive terms. He has held various posts such as Union Minister of State (independent charge) Ministry of Textile; Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; and Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.In the outgoing Modi government, he was in-charge of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.During the Lok Sabha elections 2019, Gangwar retained the Bareilly seat, defeating his nearest rival, Bhagwat Saran Gangwar of the SP, by a margin of 1,67,282 votes. An alumnus of the Agra and the Rohilkhand University, he has worked for the public on a huge scale in Bareilly.SHRIPAD YESSO NAIKInducted into the Union Cabinet for another term, he represents the Bharatiya Janata Party from North Goa constituency. A recipient of the Samaraj Ratna Award, he has served as a member of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th Lok Sabha. In 2014, Naik was allotted the AAYUSH (independent charge) and Health & Family Welfare ministries in the Cabinet reshuffle. Before that, he was the MoS with independent charge for culture, tourism. He has played a key role in growth of the saffron outfit in Goa.In 1999, he became the first Lok Sabha Member of Parliament of the BJP from Goa. Naik defeated Goa Congress president Girish Chodankar by a margin of over 80,000 votes in the 2019 general election. He became a Minister of State handling civil aviation, culture and tourism portfolios during the Modi government's first stint in 2014.Responsible for propagating yoga across the world, he was considered equal in stature to Parrikar in state politics. Naik said his induction in the new Modi Cabinet was an honour for Goa.JITENDER SINGHAn endocrinologist and spokesman in the state of Jammu and Kashmir representing BJP, Jitendra Singh has been sworn-in as Minister of State with independent charge. In 2014, he won the Udhampur seat for the 16th Lok Sabha in the general elections.He was the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Department of Atomic Energy and Space until the dissolution of 16th Lok Sabha recently.He turned out to be victorious with the highest ever winning margin in Jammu and Kashmir in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, for which he was felicitated by the party. He won by 3.57 lakh votes defeating Congress's Vikramaditya Singh, the son of Jammu and Kashmir's last prince Karan Singh, in the Udhampur Lok Sabha seat.A graduate from Stanley Medical College, Chennai and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, brought major changes in resolving governance related grievances received from people across the country, which was one of the key focus areas of the government.RAO INDERJIT SINGHA member of Bharatiya Janata Party, he represents Gurugram in Haryana and has served as Cabinet Minister for the Environment, Minister of State for External Affairs and as Minister of State for Defence Production. His constituency saw many developmental projects coming to the region during his tenure such as AIIMS Rewari, improvement in road infrastructure and setting up of Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority.Son of Rao Birendra Singh Haryana's second Chief Minister, Rao Inderjit Singh has also been a member of the Indian shooting team from 1990 to 2003 and was also a national champion in Skeet. The 69-year-old defeated Congress veteran Ajay Singh Yadav, a six-time MLA from Rewari, by 3,86,256 votes in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.Rao Inderjit Singh believes the mantra of his and his party's success is good governance, development and trust. The leader, during his stint as Union minister in the Modi government has served as Union Minister of State for Planning and Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers.RK SINGHA former bureaucrat and a member of the Indian Parliament since May 2014, RK Singh represents the Arrah constituency. He has served as the Minister of State for power and new and renewable energy in the outgoing government and executed the launch of household electrification scheme Saubhagya, one of the poll planks of Modi government. In Arrah, RK Singh defeated his nearest rival Raju Yadav of CPI (ML) by a margin of 147285 votes.A 1975 batch Bihar cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and former Home Secretary of India, Singh played an important role in enhancing the roads conditions in Bihar, during the Nitish Kumar government's first term (2004-2009). He was the principal secretary in the road construction department.HARDEEP SINGH PURIAuthor of several books and research papers, Hardeep Singh Puri has been sworn in as a Minister of State (independent charge) and was greeted with cheers of 'Jo bole so nihaal' as he took oath in English.He is a former bureaucrat and Minister of State for urban affairs (independent charge), Hardeep Puri lost in Amritsar by a margin of over 99626 votes against Congress's Gurjeet Singh Aujala, but still managed to retain his berth and was re-inducted into Modi's council of ministers.A former officer of Indian Foreign Service (IFS) 1974 batch, he has served as the permanent representative of India to the United Nations (UN) from 2009 to 2013. It was because of Bharatiya Janata Party's approach to national security that he decided to join the same in January 2014.MANSUKH MANDAVIYAMansukh Mandaviya, a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat, joined the Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in his youth and has been politically active ever since. Senior leaders from the party took his organizational skills into account and henceforth, gave him the responsibility of Yuva Morach of Palitana. He then served as the president of Palitana BJP unit.At the age of 46, he has become a Union minister for a second term.In the previous government, Mansukh Mandaviya was Minister of State for Road Transport, Highways, Chemical and Fertilisers and Shipping. Yesterday, on Thursday, the young parliamentarian drove to the Rashtrapati Bhavan on a bicycle, from his residence in new Delhi, to take oath as a minister.PRAHALAD SINGH PATELA representative of the Damoh Loksabha Constituency in Madhya Pradesh, Prahlad Singh Patel is an advocate by profession and was once considered a political protege of Uma Bharti. In 1989, he became a member of the 9th Lok Sabha and then got re-elected to the 11th Lok Sabha in 1996 for a second time, 13th Lok Sabha in 1999 and 16th Lok Sabha in 2014. In the third Vajpayee Ministry, he was the minister of state for coal. It is after 15 years that he has obtained a position in the Union council of ministers.In 2000, Prahlad Singh Patel brought a private bill for ban on cow slaughter in Parliament.Prahlad Singh Patel separated from the BJP in 2005 but re-united after three years. He started his political journey in 1980 as the president of the Jabalpur University Students' Union. He subsequently held powerful positions in the BJP's youth wing in the state. A strict vegetarian and a deeply religious man, he is among the few politicians who have done the 'Narmada Parikrama', a walk along the banks of the river, considered sacred.Full list of ministers of state with profilesARJUN RAM MEGHWALFormer IAS officer Arjun Ram Meghwal was sworn in as minister of state (MoS) after being elected to the Lok Sabha for the third consecutive time from Rajasthan's Bikaner. Frst elected to the Lok Sabha in 2009, he was born in a family of weavers at Kishmidesar village in Bikaner. A recipient of the best parliamentarian Award, 2013, he defeated his cousin and Congress candidate Madangopal Meghwal. Perceived as a soft-spoken politician, Arjun Ram Meghwal is a law graduate and did his MBA from the University of Philippines. He took charge as Union minister of state for parliamentary affairs, water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation in September 2017.ASHWINI KUMAR CHAUBEYBorn on January 2, 1953, Ashwini Kumar Chaubey took oath as Union Minister in the new Modi government at a big ceremony held yesterday, on May 30, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi. Ashwini Kumar Choubey has served as the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare from 2014 to 2019 in the outgoing government. Representing the Buxar constituency, he had got built 11,000 toilets for minority and below poverty line families, under the Swachh Bharat mission. In 2012, he had also served as the health minister in the Nitish Kumar cabinet.FAGGAN KULASTEFormer Minister of State for Health, Faggansingh Kulaste, a tribal leader from Madhya Pradesh, has made it to the council of ministers for the second time.A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member, he represents the Mandla constituency of Madhya Pradesh and has served as Minister of State in Vajpayee ministry from 1999. He has been a six-time MP and won from the tribal Mandla Lok Sabha seat in 1996 for the first time. Later, he won the ST-reserved seat in the Mahakoshal region of the state in 1998, 1999, 2004, 2014 and now 2019. In Mandla, he was ahead by 8,394 votes over Congress Kamal Singh Marawi.RAOSAHEB DANVEMaharashtra BJP chief Raosaheb Danve, a five-time MP who was a Union minister for a short period during the first term of the Modi government, returned as a minister of state. Born in 1955, Raosaheb Dadarao Patil Danve won the Lok Sabha elections from Jalna seat in Maharashtra. He has represented the seat in 13th and 14th Lok Sabha too.KRISHAN PAL GURJARBorn in 1957, Krishan Pal Gurjar won the Lok Sabha election from Faridabad seat in Haryana. He is a former Haryana BJP chief and a veteran in state politics. He came into limelight with his debut Lok Sabha polls in 2014 when he trounced his Congress rival and four-time MP Avtar Singh Bhadana. The 61-year-old leader from Haryana defeated Bhadana again in this general election, by a margin of over six lakh votes. He has been sworn in as a Minister of State in the Narendra Modi-led Union cabinet.During his stint, the Delhi Metro was made operational up to Ballabhgarh and much delayed Kundli-Manesar-Palwal and Kundli-Ghaziabad-Palwal expressways opened.GENERAL (Retd) VK SINGHA decorated Army officer, General Vijay Kumar Singh served as the 24th Chief of Army Staff. He was the first commando to be promoted to general and was the first serving Indian military chief to take the government to court.After briefly supporting Anna Hazare in his anti-corruption crusade, Singh joined the BJP in March 2014. He contested the Lok Sabha polls from Ghaziabad constituency in Uttar Pradesh where he defeated actor-politician Raj Babbar by a record 5.67 lakh votes, the second highest margin of victory after PM Narendra Modi's.GANGAPURAM KISHAN REDDYThe state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president of Telangana, Gangapuram Kishan Reddy started his career as a youth leader in late twentieth century. From 2002 to 2005, he served as the National President of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. He has been the member of the legislative assembly representing Amberpet assembly segment.PARSHOTTAM RUPALA1954 born Parshottam Khodabhai Rupala represents the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state of Gujarat. Before debuting in politics, he served as a school principal from 1977 to 1983. He was serving as the Union Minister of State for Panchayati Raj, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in the outgoing government. He was a former member of Gujarat Legislative Assembly from Amreli.RAMDAS ATHAWALEEarlier served as the Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment in the Narendra Modi government, Ramdas Athawale from Maharashtra was born on December 25, 1959. Before this, he was the Lok Sabha MP from Pandharpur. He has also been the editor of a weekly magazine called Bhumika. On the question of Modi's leadership of NDA following the 2019 elections, he had said earlier that the Modi government will continue to lead the country after 2019 and with a far greater majority than 2014.SADHVI NIRANJAN JYOTISworn in as a Minister of State in the Narendra Modi-led Union cabinet yesterday, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti has been a minister in the first Narendra Modi government. She is now back in the House after winning from Fatehpur parliamentary constituency in Uttar Pradesh, improving her victory margin this time by over 70,000 votes. The MP has been a strong advocate of promoting afforestation, social and cultural values, protecting cows, uplifting poor children etc.BABUL SUPRIYOBorn Babul Supriyo Baral, he was elected to Lok Sabha from Asansol in West Bengal for a second term and took oath as a minister on Thursday. He comes from a musical family and was greatly influenced by his grandfather, Banikantha NC Baral, a noted Bengali vocalist and composer. It was during a flight as a co passenger of Yoga Guru Ramdev, that he found his calling in politics. It was Ramdev, who offered Supriyo, an ardent follower of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra modi, to contest election on a BJP ticket. He agreed and the rest is history.He contested on a BJP ticket from Asansol Lok Sabha seat and won the polls with a handsome margin.SANJEEV BALYANA BJP member, he was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014 from the Muzaffarnagar constituency after trouncing BSP's Kadir Rana by a margin of more than four lakh votes. In the 2019 general election, he defeated Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal by a margin of 6,500 votes. He was appointed the minister of state for agriculture and food processing in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in May 2014.SANJAY SHAMRAO DHOTRESanjay Shamrao Dhotre is a member of the 16th Lok Sabha of India, representing the Akola constituency of Maharashtra. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has also served as a member of the 14th Lok Sabha and 15th Lok Sabha between 2004-2014 from Akola.ANURAG THAKURAnurag Thakur has been being sworn in as a Union minister on Thursday. Son of former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, Anurag Thakur had won the Hamirpur constituency for the fourth time by defeating Ram Lal Thakur of the Congress by nearly four lakh votes, a record margin for the constituency. He had got a vote share of 69.04 per cent by bagging over 6.8 lakh votes.Thakur had received the 'Best Young Parliamentarian Award' in 2011. He had also remained chief whip of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Lok Sabha.SURESH ANGADIA four-time member of Lok Sabha from Belgaum Lok Sabha constituency, Suresh Angadi is also an educationist whose institutions offer courses in commerce, science, computer science, business administration and engineering. Suresh Angadi belongs to the dominant Lingayat community, who form the core electoral base of BJP, particularly in north Karnataka. He has always maintained his popularity graph high as he never saw defeat ever since he took a plunge into electoral politics in 2004.In the recently-concluded Lok Sabha election, he defeated Congress candidate V S Sadhunnavar.NITYANAND RAISeen as the BJP's Yadav face in Bihar, where the party has been traditionally identified with the upper castes and the members of his community have been ardent supporters of Lalu Prasad's RJD, Nityanand Rai has undergone a meteoric rise in the last half decade. He retained his seat in the recent general elections wherein he defeated former Union minister Upendra Kushwaha by over 2.77 lakh votes.RATTAN LAL KATARIAEntering Parliament for the third time, Rattan Lal Kataria is often seen as the BJP's Dalit face in Haryana. The Ambala MP Kataria (67) defeated former Union minister and Congress veteran Kumari Selja by a margin of 3.42 lakh votes to win from Ambala. He was spokesperson of Haryana BJP in early 1980s and served as the party's state unit president between 2001 and 2013. Known for penning short poems, Kataria is a law graduate.V MURALEEDHARANBorn in a Congress family in Thalassery, V Muraleedharan joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) during his student days. Muraleedharan headed the local unit of the ABVP during Emergency. His oratory skills and leadership qualities helped him to rise in the party lines. He is a graduate in English literature and language from Brennen College in Thalassery.RENUKA SINGHFormer state minister Renuka Singh of the BJP defeated her Congress rival Khel Sai Singh in Surguja by a huge margin of 1,57,873 votes. She was the member of Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly from Premnagar Assembly constituency during 2003-2008.SOM PRAKASHSom Parkash, a former IAS officer and two-time MLA from the Phagwara Assembly constituency, was born in April 1949. He has pursued MA (Economics) from the Panjab University, Chandigarh. Som Parkash is a first-time MP elected from the Hoshiarpur (SC) constituency and was sworn in as a Union minister of state on Thursday. A prominent Dalit face in Punjab's Doaba region, Som Parkash defeated Congress nominee and legislator Raj Kumar Chabbewal from Hoshiarpur by just 48,530 votes.RAMESWAR TELIA two-term MP from Dibrugarh in Assam and a tea-tribe leader who is into active politics since his student days, Dibrugarh's sitting BJP MP Rameswar Teli won by a high margin of 3,64,566 votes over former Union minister of the Congress, Paban Singh Ghatowar. The 49-year-old leader had made his foray into electoral politics in 2001 when he won from Duliajan assembly constituency, which is under Dibrugarh Lok Sabha seat, on a BJP ticket and retained it in 2006.PRATAP CHANDRA SARANGIPratap Chandra Sarangi, popularly known as Odisha's Modi, who was elected from the Balasore Lok Sabha constituency, sworn in as a Minister of State (MoS) in the Modi cabinet on Thursday. Though an RSS pracharak, Pratap Chandra Sarangi had fought the 2009 Odisha assembly elections as an Independent candidate. A good orator, both in Odia and Sanskrit, the RSS follower, is popular for riding around villages in a bicycle.BARMER KAILASH CHOUDHARYFirst-time MP, Kailash Choudhary, was sworn in Thursday as minister of state in the Narendra Modi-led government. He is entering Parliament after defeating a Congress heavyweight, former Union minister Jaswant Singh's son Manvendra Singh. He is the president of the Rajasthan unit of the BJP's Kisan Morcha and has been active on farmers' issues. He won from Jat-dominated Barmer, the constituency which occupies the biggest area in Rajasthan, by a margin of over three lakh votes.DEBASREE CHAUDHURIA prominent face in the BJP's Bengal brigade, Debasree Chaudhuri is third-time lucky in her electoral battles. She worked in the party's youth wing and women's front for years and has been one of the general secretaries of the party's state unit for the last couple of years. In 2016, she unsuccessfully contested the assembly polls. This time the party fielded her from Raiganj, one of the seats which the BJP was highly hopeful about. She defeated TMC's Kanaialal Agarwal by 60,574 votes.source: indiatoday