against the CIA, to avoid being "tarnished by controversy," to install "safeguards on intelligence" and to ensure the CIA's ability to operate was not inhibited. Ford appointed his vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, to head the 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. Dean Rusk turned down a membership request from the White House. Representative Samuel Stratton volunteered, but neither he nor any other members of Congress were selected. Generals Matthew Ridgeway and Maxwell Taylor were both considered, but Lemnitzer was chosen instead. The commission was established on January 4, 1975. 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." Investigation Operation Mongoose, Castro assassination attempts and Cuban operations According to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library & Museum, the CIA, along with the State Department, Defense Intelligence Agency, and Justice Department provided the commission documents on the planning of covert operations in Cuba, including assassination attempts on Fidel Castro, from 1960 to 1964. These documents largely dealt with Operation Mongoose, along with the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban missile crisis. Details such as minutes of meetings of anti-Castro planning groups, "reports on their operations, and memoranda between the individuals involved" were included. Furthermore, the Ford Library holds "transcripts of sworn testimony and interviews conducted by Rockefeller Commission staff with former CIA, State Department, and Defense Department officials from the 1960s regarding what they knew about plans to assassinate foreign leaders and about the connection between the Cuba operations and organized crime." Kennedy assassination The commission investigated allegations of CIA was involvement in the assassination of President Kennedy. These included claims of CIA relationships with Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby. Furthermore, the alleged presence of CIA Agents E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis in Dallas at the time of the assassination, and allegations that they had fired the "shots from the grassy knoll", were investigated. 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." Witness testimonies and exhibits, many