Nye Committee
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Nye Committee studied the causes of United States involvement in World War I between 1934 and 1936. There were seven members of what was officially known as Senate Munitions Investigating Committee. Senators Homer T. Bone, James P. Pope, Bennett Champ Clark, and Arthur H. Vandenberg served on the committee. Alger Hiss was the committee's general counsel, Senator Gerald Nye lead it. Ninety-three hearings questioned more than two hundred witnesses. It found that bankers had pressured Wilson to intervene in the war in order to protect their loans abroad. Also, the arms industry was at fault for price fixing and held excessive influence on American foreign policy leading up to and during World War I.
The committee reported that between 1915 and April 1917, the US loaned Germany 27 million dollars ($27,000,000). In the same period, the US loaned the UK and its allies 2.3 billion dollars ($2,300,000,000), or about 85 times as much. The conclusion has been drawn that the US entered the war because it was in its commercial interest for the UK not to lose.
