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.

White House Personnel, including future Vice President Dick Cheney, edited the results, excluding many of the commission's findings from the final report.

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.

Authored by Seymour M. Hersh, it documented an intelligence operation against the anti-war movement, as well as "break-ins, wiretapping and the surreptitious inspection of mail" conducted since the 1950s.

Although he was not aware of its existence, Hersh uncovered much information that had been documented in the "Family Jewels", a report ordered by Director of Central Intelligence William Colby that chronicled CIA abuses over the past 25 years.

It also reported that the CIA "set up a network of informants who were ordered to penetrate antiwar groups", and even placed an avowedly anti-war congressperson under surveillance while putting other lawmakers in a dossier on dissident Americans.

Instituted in 1967 by the NSA, Project MINARET's purpose was to document "Soviet, Chinese, and North Vietnamese influence over the militant civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements" for the CIA and FBI, according to historian Donald Critchlow.

Some of its elements, specifically the backward head snap seen in the Zapruder film and the possible presence of CIA operatives in Dallas, were addressed in the Rockefeller Commission.

Future president and former governor of California Ronald Reagan was chosen as a member, along with former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lyman Lemnitzer.

[9]: 29-31 In a dinner with New York Times executives and editors later that January, Gerald Ford revealed the issue of CIA assassination plots, sparking media and public interest in the subject and injecting it into the "Year of Intelligence.

[10] According to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum, "The Commission heard testimony, taped interviews, took depositions, consulted experts in forensic pathology and ballistics, examined photographic evidence, and requested documents from various intelligence and law enforcement agencies."

The Zapruder film was analyzed, along with other photographs and documents from agencies including the CIA, and Kennedy's autopsy materials were examined by a panel of medical consultants.

[12]: 39, 41–43, 48, 68 The investigators sought CIA documents on assassination plots conducted in its history and information on administrative routines and questioned key witnesses.

His final proposition was that of an "Anti-Murder Amendment," in reference to the contentious issue of CIA-sponsored assassinations of foreign, and potentially even American, politicians and leaders.

These included a recommendation for formation of new civilian agency committee to be formed to resolve concerns about “the use of CIA-developed intelligence collection mechanisms for domestic purposes.”[14] The White House further sought to increase public trust by instructing intelligence agencies to periodically review their holdings of secret documents and attempt to declassify much material as possible.

White House editors converted Griswold's statement into part of the main text which the entire Rockefeller panel had supposedly agreed upon, and used it to buttress a recommendation to create a joint committee of the Congress to oversee the CIA and other intelligence agencies and went on to Recommendation 4 — that Congress consider making the CIA budget, to some degree, public.

[11]According to historians John Prados and Arturo Jimenez Bacardi:The White House edit both put words into Rockefeller Commissioners' mouths and dispensed with concerns they had expressed.

Ford may have been comfortable with his subordinates' maneuvers, but they helped drain credibility from the Commission's investigation, as the panel's own staff had warned in discussions of whether to include its assassinations report...

The Senate noted that the Rockefeller report incorrectly characterized these as "reprimands," when in reality they were explicitly not, and had no negative impact on the career advancement of their recipients in the following years.

Under media pressure, Ford publicly turned over assassinations material to the Church Committee, which completed its report in October 1975.

"[18] The committee voted to reject this demand, and Church answered him on November 4, writing, “in my view the national interest is better served by letting the American people know the true and complete story ... We believe that foreign peoples will, upon sober reflection, admire our nation more for keeping faith with our democratic ideals than they will condemn us for the misconduct itself.”[19] Nonetheless, on November 20 the Senate convened in a secret session to debate releasing the Church assassinations report, but took no vote on whether to hold its release.

Under threat of being sued, President Ford eventually allowed the Pike Committee to access CIA documents "on loan."