A December 22, 1974, New York Times investigation by Seymour Hersh prompted President Gerald Ford to establish the Rockefeller Commission on January 4, 1975, led by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. The commission documented CIA surveillance of antiwar and dissident groups, including infiltration, photography, mail opening, and dossiers on American citizens. It also publicized Project MKUltra, the CIA’s Cold War program of unwitting drug and interrogation experiments. Subjects were given high doses of LSD and, at foreign sites, exposed to electroshock, sensory isolation, and extreme temperatures. The program included American, Canadian, and Danish citizens and CIA detainees; researcher Frank Olson died after an LSD experiment in 1953.
The commission’s independence was compromised before publication. White House personnel, including future Vice President Dick Cheney, edited the report, removed an 86-page section on CIA assassination plots, softened findings that intelligence activities were “unlawful,” and changed conclusions about dossiers and antiwar-group infiltration. CIA lawyer John S. Warner acknowledged that the agency had “no specific authorization” to conduct assassinations, while staff criticized the agency for withholding or inadequately preserving records. The June 11, 1975, report was widely criticized as a whitewash, and later disclosures in the 1990s and 2007 exposed the extent of the suppression. The Church Committee’s subsequent investigations produced more substantial scrutiny, while Ford’s executive order prohibited assassinations.
