Gerald Ford White House Altered Rockefeller Commission Report in 1975; Removed Section on CIA Assassination Plots

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB543-Ford-White-
House-Altered-Rockefeller-Commission-Report/

White House Aide Dick Cheney Spearheaded Editing of Report to Dampen Impact

New Documents Cast Further Doubt on Commission’s Investigation, Independence

National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 543

Edited by John Prados and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi

The Gerald Ford White House significantly altered the final report of the supposedly independent 1975 Rockefeller Commission investigating CIA domestic activities, over the objections of senior Commission staff, according to internal White House and Commission documents posted today by the National Security Archive at The George Washington University (www.nsarchive.org). The changes included removal of an entire 86-page section on CIA assassination plots and numerous edits to the report by then-deputy White House Chief of Staff Richard Cheney. 


Today’s posting includes the entire suppressed section on assassination attempts, Cheney’s handwritten marginal notes, staff memos warning of the fallout of deleting the controversial section, and White House strategies for presenting the edited report to the public. The documents show that the leadership of the presidentially-appointed commission deliberately curtailed the investigation and ceded its independence to White House political operatives.