# Commissions of inquiry: the UK and the US The great public inquiries of Britain and America: the UK's Macpherson report on institutional racism, Scarman, Leveson, Saville, Hillsborough, Chilcot, and the child-abuse and infected-blood inquiries; and the US Warren, Kerner, Church, Knapp, Tower, and 9/11 commissions. Documented findings, with the disputed conclusions like the Warren Commission's noted. *This story parallel: The police and the lodge: Freemasonry in the Met* *This story parallel: Northern Ireland: the Troubles and collusion* *This story part of: State, law, and coercion* ## c. 1 January 1932 — Pecora Commission investigates the 1929 crash The US Senate Committee on Banking and Currency investigated the causes of the 1929 stock market crash and the practices of Wall Street banks, gaining public attention after Ferdinand Pecora became chief counsel in January 1933. The hearings exposed conflicts of interest, manipulative trading and reckless practices by major banks and their executives. The findings built public and political support for the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which created the SEC. ## 26 September 1963 — Denning Report on the Profumo affair Lord Denning published his report into the Profumo affair, the scandal in which War Minister John Profumo had an affair with Christine Keeler and lied to Parliament about it. The report examined security risks from Keeler's parallel involvement with a Soviet naval attache and criticised the handling of the case, though it cleared ministers of wider misconduct. It became a bestseller and a landmark case study in how a single sex scandal could destabilise a government. ## 29 November 1963 — Warren Commission established President Lyndon Johnson established the Warren Commission, chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination of President John F Kennedy in Dallas on 22 November 1963. It was tasked with determining the facts of the assassination and quelling public speculation about a conspiracy. The commission held hearings and reviewed evidence from the FBI, Secret Service and other agencies over the following ten months. ## 24 September 1964 — Warren Commission report The Warren Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy and that there was no evidence of a domestic or foreign conspiracy. This lone-gunman finding was disputed from the outset and remains contested; a later congressional body, the House Select Committee on Assassinations, concluded in 1979 that Kennedy was 'probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy', a finding that itself remains debated among historians. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans do not accept the commission's lone-gunman conclusion. ## 28 July 1967 — Kerner Commission established President Lyndon Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission after its chairman, Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, to investigate the causes of urban riots that had swept American cities in 1967, including Newark and Detroit. It was asked to examine what happened, why it happened, and what could be done to prevent it happening again. The commission's work was widely watched amid fears of continued urban unrest. ## 1 March 1968 — Kerner Report on the 1967 urban disorders The Kerner Commission's report famously warned that the United States was 'moving toward two societies, one Black, one white, separate and unequal', attributing the riots to systemic racism, poverty and discriminatory policing rather than any organised conspiracy. It called for large-scale investment in jobs, housing and education in Black communities, recommendations that were largely not adopted. The report remains one of the most cited documents in American debates on race and urban policy. ## c. 26 December 1972 — Knapp Commission on NYPD corruption The Knapp Commission, established by New York City Mayor John Lindsay after officer Frank Serpico's allegations of widespread corruption, published its findings on systemic bribery and graft within the New York Police Department. It distinguished between 'grass eaters', officers who passively accepted payoffs, and 'meat eaters', who actively extorted money, and found corruption was tolerated and covered up at multiple levels of the department. The report led to reforms in internal oversight and anti-corruption enforcement within the NYPD. ## 4 January 1975 — Rockefeller Commission established President Gerald Ford established the Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, chaired by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, after press reports alleged the CIA had illegally spied on American citizens. It was tasked with investigating whether the agency had exceeded its statutory authority for domestic activities. Its work ran in parallel with a separate and more expansive Senate investigation, the Church Committee. ## 27 January 1975 — Church Committee established The US Senate established the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, chaired by Senator Frank Church, to investigate abuses by the CIA, FBI, NSA and other intelligence agencies. It was formed amid revelations of domestic spying, assassination plots against foreign leaders, and COINTELPRO operations against civil rights and anti-war activists. It became the most thorough congressional investigation of US intelligence agencies to date. ## c. 6 June 1975 — Rockefeller Commission report The Rockefeller Commission confirmed that the CIA had engaged in illegal domestic surveillance of American citizens, including opening mail and infiltrating anti-war and civil rights groups, in violation of its charter. It also disclosed the existence of CIA experiments with mind-altering drugs on unwitting subjects. Critics argued the commission's mandate and findings were narrower than the abuses later documented by the Church Committee. ## 26 April 1976 — Church Committee final report The Church Committee's final reports documented CIA involvement in assassination plots against foreign leaders including Fidel Castro, the FBI's COINTELPRO campaign of surveillance and disruption against Martin Luther King Jr and other activists, and widespread warrantless surveillance of American citizens by the NSA. Its findings led directly to the creation of permanent congressional intelligence oversight committees and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. It remains the benchmark reference for documented US intelligence agency abuses. ## 10 April 1981 — Brixton riots Rioting broke out in Brixton over three days after tensions between the largely Black community and the Metropolitan Police, including the aggressive use of stop-and-search powers under the 'sus law'. Almost 300 people were injured and dozens of buildings and vehicles were burned. The disorder prompted the government to commission an official inquiry into its causes. ## 25 November 1981 — Scarman Report on the Brixton riots Lord Scarman's report into the Brixton riots found that discriminatory use of police stop-and-search powers and racial disadvantage had been major causes of the unrest, though he stopped short of calling the police force 'institutionally racist' as a matter of policy. It recommended reforms to policing methods, community relations and the recruitment of Black officers. The report shaped British policing debates for the following two decades. ## 1 December 1986 — Tower Commission established on Iran-Contra President Ronald Reagan established the President's Special Review Board, chaired by former Senator John Tower, to investigate the Iran-Contra affair, in which senior administration officials had secretly sold arms to Iran and diverted the proceeds to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua in violation of a congressional ban. It was one of three separate Iran-Contra investigations, alongside a joint congressional committee and an independent counsel. The commission had access to National Security Council files and interviewed senior officials, including the president. ## 26 February 1987 — Tower Commission report The Tower Commission found that the National Security Council staff had run the Iran-Contra operation with inadequate oversight, and criticised President Reagan for detachment from and poor management of his own staff, though it did not directly conclude that Reagan knew of the diversion of funds to the Contras. It recommended reforms to how the NSC operated. National Security Adviser John Poindexter and staffer Oliver North were later convicted of charges related to the affair, though the convictions were subsequently overturned on appeal. ## 15 April 1989 — Hillsborough disaster A human crush at Hillsborough football stadium during an FA Cup semi-final killed 97 Liverpool supporters, the worst disaster in British sporting history. An initial inquiry and inquest blamed fan behaviour and returned verdicts of accidental death, while police reports were later found to have been altered to shift blame away from South Yorkshire Police. Campaigning by victims' families eventually led to a fresh independent review of the evidence. ## 22 April 1993 — Murder of Stephen Lawrence Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old Black student, was stabbed to death in an unprovoked racist attack while waiting for a bus. The Metropolitan Police investigation was botched, and despite strong suspicion falling on a group of white youths, no one was convicted at the time. The case and its flawed investigation later prompted a public inquiry into the police response. ## 29 January 1998 — Saville Inquiry established into Bloody Sunday Prime Minister Tony Blair established a new public inquiry, chaired by Lord Saville, into the killing of 13 unarmed civilians by British soldiers in Derry on 30 January 1972, an event known as Bloody Sunday. It replaced the earlier 1972 Widgery Tribunal, whose findings were widely regarded as a whitewash that had largely exonerated the army. The Saville Inquiry became the longest and most expensive public inquiry in British history. ## 24 February 1999 — Macpherson Report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence Sir William Macpherson's inquiry into the Metropolitan Police's failed investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder concluded that the force was 'institutionally racist', defining the term as the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate service to people because of their race. The report made 70 recommendations covering police training, recruitment, stop-and-search and the definition of a racist incident. It became a defining document in British debates on policing and race. ## 27 November 2002 — 9/11 Commission established Congress and President George W Bush established the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, known as the 9/11 Commission, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the attacks of 11 September 2001. Chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, it examined intelligence failures, aviation security, and the government's emergency response. It held public hearings that included testimony from senior national security officials. ## 18 July 2003 — Death of David Kelly David Kelly, a government weapons expert who had been named as the source for a BBC report questioning the government's Iraq weapons dossier, was found dead near his home. His death was ruled a suicide. It prompted the government to establish an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding it. ## 28 January 2004 — Hutton Inquiry report on the death of David Kelly Lord Hutton's inquiry into the death of David Kelly concluded that Kelly had taken his own life and largely cleared the government of wrongdoing in how it named him as the BBC's source, while criticising BBC editorial and management failures. The report's conclusions were widely seen as favourable to the government and were criticised by much of the press as a whitewash. Its reception badly damaged public trust in official inquiries and led to the resignation of the BBC's chairman and director-general. ## 14 July 2004 — Butler Review on Iraq intelligence Lord Butler's review examined the intelligence used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, particularly claims about weapons of mass destruction in the government's September 2002 dossier. It found the intelligence was unreliable and had been presented with more certainty than was warranted, and criticised informal decision-making processes in government, though it did not conclude that intelligence had been deliberately falsified. The review contributed to a wider reassessment of the case for war. ## 22 July 2004 — 9/11 Commission report The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that the attacks succeeded because of failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management across US intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including a lack of information-sharing between the CIA and FBI. It recommended sweeping reforms, including the creation of a Director of National Intelligence to coordinate the intelligence community and the National Counterterrorism Center. Most of its major recommendations were subsequently enacted by Congress. ## 20 May 2009 — Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission established Congress established the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to examine the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, modelled explicitly on the earlier Pecora Commission. Chaired by Phil Angelides, the ten-member panel held public hearings and interviewed hundreds of witnesses, including bank executives, regulators and economists. It was tasked with reporting on the causes of the collapse of major financial institutions. ## 15 June 2009 — Iraq Inquiry (Chilcot Inquiry) established Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a public inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, into Britain's involvement in the Iraq War from 2001 to 2009, covering the decision to go to war, military planning, and the aftermath of the invasion. The inquiry took evidence from ministers, officials and military commanders, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Its report was delayed for years, partly over disputes about declassifying communications between Blair and US President George W Bush. ## 15 June 2010 — Saville Report on Bloody Sunday The Saville Inquiry's report found that the killings on Bloody Sunday were unjustified and unjustifiable, that none of the victims posed a threat, and that soldiers had fired first and then lied about it afterward. Prime Minister David Cameron apologised in the House of Commons on the report's publication, calling the killings 'unjustified and unjustifiable'. The findings reversed the 1972 Widgery Tribunal's conclusions that had largely blamed the victims. ## 27 January 2011 — Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's majority report concluded that the 2008 financial crisis was avoidable and resulted from widespread failures in financial regulation, corporate governance and risk management, along with excessive borrowing and poorly understood mortgage-backed securities. The commission's four Republican-appointed members did not fully endorse the majority findings, with three issuing a dissenting report emphasising broader macroeconomic causes and one issuing a separate dissent focused on housing policy. The split conclusions reflected continuing political disagreement over the crisis's root causes. ## 13 July 2011 — Leveson Inquiry established into press standards David Cameron established a public inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press, following revelations that journalists at the News of the World had hacked the phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler. The inquiry heard evidence from politicians, celebrities, victims of press intrusion and newspaper executives. It was set up amid a wider scandal over phone hacking that led to the closure of the News of the World. ## 12 September 2012 — Hillsborough Independent Panel report The Hillsborough Independent Panel published its report after reviewing more than 450,000 documents, finding that police failures had caused the disaster, that up to 41 of the 97 deaths might have been preventable with a better emergency response, and that police statements had been altered to remove criticism of policing. The panel found no evidence to support claims of fan misbehaviour causing the crush. The report led to the quashing of the original inquest verdicts. ## 29 November 2012 — Leveson Report on the press Lord Justice Leveson's report found evidence of widespread unethical and sometimes unlawful conduct across parts of the British press, including phone hacking, and recommended a new system of press self-regulation backed by statute to make it independent of both the press and government. The recommendation for statutory underpinning proved deeply controversial and was largely resisted by the newspaper industry, which instead set up its own regulator, IPSO. Implementation of Leveson's core recommendations remains disputed and incomplete. ## c. 7 July 2014 — Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse established The Home Secretary announced a statutory public inquiry, later known as IICSA, to examine how institutions in England and Wales, including schools, churches, the police and local authorities, had handled allegations of child sexual abuse. The inquiry was restructured after its first two chairs resigned amid controversy, before Professor Alexis Jay took over in 2016. It went on to examine dozens of institutions over several years of hearings. ## 26 April 2016 — New Hillsborough inquests conclude Fresh inquests into the 96 deaths recognised by the original inquest concluded that the victims were unlawfully killed and that policing failures had caused or contributed to the disaster. The jury found that supporter behaviour had not contributed to the crush, formally rejecting the narrative advanced in the immediate aftermath. It was the longest jury case in British legal history. ## 6 July 2016 — Chilcot Report on the Iraq War The Chilcot Report concluded that the UK had joined the 2003 invasion of Iraq before peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted, that the case for war was presented with unwarranted certainty, and that planning for the aftermath was seriously inadequate. It did not rule on the legality of the war but was strongly critical of the decision-making process under Tony Blair's government. Blair maintained he had acted in good faith, while critics said the report vindicated long-standing objections to the war. ## 14 June 2017 — Grenfell Tower fire A fire spread rapidly up the exterior of Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey public housing block in west London, killing 72 people. Combustible aluminium composite cladding installed during a recent refurbishment was found to have accelerated the fire's spread. The disaster led the government to establish a public inquiry into its causes. ## 11 July 2017 — Infected Blood Inquiry established Prime Minister Theresa May announced a UK-wide public inquiry, chaired by Sir Brian Langstaff, into the treatment of patients with contaminated blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s, which had infected thousands with HIV and hepatitis C, mostly through NHS treatment for haemophilia. It became known as one of the worst treatment disasters in the history of the NHS. The inquiry heard evidence over several years from victims, families and officials. ## 30 October 2019 — Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report The first phase of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick, focused on the events of the night of the fire and found that the London Fire Brigade's 'stay put' advice had continued too long after the building's compartmentalisation had failed, contributing to deaths. It also confirmed that the building's cladding had failed to adequately resist the spread of fire. The second phase went on to examine the wider causes, including regulation, product testing and refurbishment decisions. ## 20 October 2022 — IICSA final report published The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse published its final report, finding that institutions across British society, including the Church of England, the Catholic Church, schools, the armed forces and local authorities, had repeatedly failed to protect children and had prioritised their own reputations over victims. It made 20 recommendations, including a mandatory duty to report abuse and a national compensation scheme. Implementation of its recommendations by government has been slow and partial. ## 20 May 2024 — Infected Blood Inquiry report The Infected Blood Inquiry's final report found that the scandal was not an accident but the result of failures by doctors, the NHS and successive governments, including a cover-up to protect the reputation of the medical profession and the state. It found that patients were treated with blood products known to carry serious risks without adequate consent, and that warnings were repeatedly ignored. The government subsequently established a compensation scheme for victims and their families. ## 4 September 2024 — Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 report The Grenfell Tower Inquiry's final report found that the deaths were the result of decades of failure by government, the construction industry and product manufacturers, including systematic dishonesty by companies that manufactured and marketed combustible cladding materials. It concluded that successive governments had failed to act on known fire safety risks in high-rise buildings with dangerous cladding. The report made 58 recommendations covering construction regulation, fire safety and government oversight.