United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States

Rockefeller Commission

United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
Swearing-in of the Rockefeller Commission in 1975: Nelson A. Rockefeller, Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Ronald Reagan, Edgar F. Shannon Jr., David W. Belin, John T. Connor, C. Douglas Dillon, Erwin N. Griswold, and Lane Kirkland
History
Established by	Gerald Ford on January 4, 1975
Membership
Chairperson	Nelson Rockefeller
Other committee members	Lyman L. Lemnitzer Ronald Reagan Edgar F. Shannon Jr. David W. Belin John T. Connor C. Douglas Dillon Erwin N. Griswold Lane Kirkland

The United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States was ordained by President Gerald Ford in 1975 to investigate the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies within the United States. The Presidential Commission was led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, from whom it gained the nickname the Rockefeller Commission.

The commission was created in response to a December 1974 report in The New York Times that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on US citizens, during the 1960s. The commission issued a single report in 1975, touching upon certain CIA abuses including mail opening and surveillance of domestic dissident groups. It also publicized Project MKUltra, a CIA mind control research program.

Several weeks later, committees were established in the House and Senate for a similar purpose. White House Personnel, including future Vice President Dick Cheney, edited the results, excluding many of the commission's findings from the final report. Some of these findings were included in later reports by the Congressional Committees.

Before it was even released, the report faced scrutiny from the media, and was deemed a "whitewash." The investigation was intended to be independent of Presidential interference, but the findings and recommendations included in the final report were highly altered from what was chosen by the commission itself. It was ultimately superseded in notability by the more substantial Church Committee in what became known as the "Year of Intelligence."