Reports of U.S. Presidential Commissions and Other Advisory Bodies: A Bibliographic Listing

Presidential commissions have been established to explain catastrophes such as the Gulf oil spill, Challenger Space Shuttle accident, Pearl Harbor, the AIDS epidemic, and more. There have been many famous advisory groups, such as the Warren Commission, the Kerner Commission, and the Tower Commission. Reports from commissions like these are a window into the political climate of a particular point in history and are thus a valuable resource. Join us as we explore how to locate U.S. Presidential Commission Reports.

For more than a century, presidents have created advisory groups (also called committees, commissions, boards, blue ribbon panels, or task forces) to advise them on particular issues. Typically the group’s task is to analyze a situation, give an explanation for the cause of the problem, and make recommendations for change. There have been many famous advisory groups, a number of which have concluded with controversial findings. Learn about five of them with HeinOnline’s Reports of U.S. Presidential Commissions database.

On the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941, the United States was assaulted in a surprise, preemptive military strike by the Empire of Japan. Though the United States had maintained a neutral stance in the ongoing Second World War, the attack sparked the nation’s entry into the burgeoning global conflict. Learn more about the event with several HeinOnline databases.

On this day in 2001, the United States experienced the single worst terrorist attack in human history. The morning of Tuesday, September 11 saw four separate but coordinated attacks in various U.S. locations, which killed 2,966 people, injured more than 6,000 others, and resulted in billions of dollars in damages. The events of September 11th shocked the world, paving the way for a more aggressive, preemptive U.S. approach to foreign policy and national security. Join HeinOnline in understanding the tragedy and researching its impact as we remember the fallen.

Thanks to the wildly popular HBO miniseries on the subject, the Chernobyl nuclear explosion of 1986 has become a hot topic in the news. The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, an area covering approximately 1,000 square miles around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, has even become quite the tourist attraction. Journey with HeinOnline into the depths of the disaster, and learn a little more about nuclear energy in the U.S. while you’re at it.

It has recently been determined that drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50 years of age. This finding is just one effect (among many) of the rising U.S. opioid crisis which, as of 2018, has been declared a national public health emergency by the Trump Administration and by the Department of Health and Human Services. With the opioid crisis rising once again to the forefront of U.S. news given the recent Johnson & Johnson opioid lawsuit, learn about the context of the epidemic and recent U.S. countermeasures with HeinOnline.