Thick, footnote-laden reports from official government bodies have played a surprisingly important role in shaping American policy and public opinion. To give a few examples from my conscious lifetime:
- The Warren Commission report in 1964, on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, argued strongly that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and without any outside guidance or collaboration. Agree, disagree (to me it's always seemed implausible, but I have no convincing other interpretation), it remains the central document for discussions of the topic.
- The Kerner Commission report in early 1968 examined the race riots of the previous few years and concluded that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal." It was an immediate national bestseller. Martin Luther King said that the report was "physician's warning of approaching death, with a prescription for life." Six weeks later he was shot dead.
- The Church Committee reports of 1975 and 1976, which were technically reports of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, laid out a wide range of abuses and excesses by the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies. These included targeted assassinations of foreign leaders and widespread and previously unknown surveillance programs. Afterwards some intelligence officials claimed that their hands had been tied, etc., but it was a mammoth and necessary airing of excesses.
- The Hart-Rudman Commission in 2001, technically the Commission on U.S. National Security/21st Century, was the one that warned the incoming George W. Bush administration of the likelihood of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
- The 9/11 Commission report of 2004, technically the "Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States," was another immediate bestseller that examined the sins of omission and commission that predated the worst-ever terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
There have been others that made news and focused attention: the Grace Commission, the "Nation at Risk" Commission, the report on the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, the Moynihan report, plus more early in the 20th century (e.g. this). The point is, these big, ponderous official studies are often the way the United States has dealt with big, ominous issues.