'We should have our own observers of information': the American Commission to negotiate peace looks at Russia, 1919

Abstract

ABSTRACT The United States found itself relatively unprepared to participate in the World War I peace conference that convened in Paris in January 1919. President Woodrow Wilson began American preparations for the peace conference in mid-1917, when he established ‘The Inquiry’ to provide background and policy papers for use at the negotiating table. Once the conference began, however, the American peace commissioners realized they required more current information to support their work. To supplement the information provided by the Department of State, the American Commission to Negotiate Peace established its own sources. In addition to participating in a number of inter-allied investigatory missions established by the conferees, the Americans sent twelve field missions of their own to various places in Europe and Asia Minor to collect information. Three of those field missions targeted Russia. The results of those missions were mixed. This article discusses the origins of the Commission’s little-known field mission program and describes the work and activities of the three missions into Russian territory. In doing so, it shows some of the earliest steps in the evolution of a more modern approach to the gathering of foreign intelligence consonant with the more prominent of the United States role in international affairs as a result of the war.