We need a similar Truman Commission for aid to Ukraine.
Background
Imperial Japan had occupied parts of China for nearly a decade when, in 1940, the U.S. began formalizing massive aid to the nationalist Republic of China. With the fall of France in June that year, the U.S. started providing ammunition, military aircraft, tanks, and food to the British. The U.S. also traded its own naval destroyers to the UK in exchange for 99-year leases on British military bases in the Americas.
But there was a problem. American trade routes were under threat, and the U.S. not only had to replenish its arsenal but modernize and expand it. U.S. war production was insufficient, obsolete, and hampered by procurement problems and fraud.
To address those problems, the Senate established the investigative committee in early 1941 chaired by Senator Truman (D-Missouri) to identify problems and fixed them. The Lend-Lease Act became law at about the same time.
With a growing investigative staff, it would make hundreds of site visits, call 1,798 witnesses, hold 432 public hearings, and convene about 300 executive sessions. It carefully looked at procurement, military construction, and defense programs. It published detailed staff reports that reached unanimous approval through careful consensus-building. And it propelled Truman to national prominence.
The DOGE of its time
The committee immediately went to work, increasing in tempo after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and Hitler and Mussolini declared war against the U.S. in December, 1941. Its investigations didn’t hinder the war. They decisively helped the war effort.
Here’s some of what the Truman Committee accomplished:
- Saved between $10-15 billion in military spending (1942 dollars) equivalent to $200 billion to 300 billion in 2025 dollars.
- Successfully helped streamline procurement, and federal contracting practices.
- Exposed inefficiencies in the Office of Production Management, leading to fast reforms.
- Contributed to improving military preparedness and efficiency.
- Exposed inefficiency, obsolesence, waste, fraud, and abuse in defense contracting, including the exposure of: Fraud by a firearms company to take war production money without providing services. Alcoa and Standard Oil’s intentional on development of substitute materials that competed with their patents, which
- created artificial shortages during the war. Curtiss-Wright Company’s defective airplane engines that killed pilots in training. Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp.’s sale of faulty steel for shipbuilding, and the company’s false quality control reports.
- Exposed defective materials and equipment being provided to American sailors, Marines, and soldiers, preventing countless needless American and allied casualties.
- Its revelations and recommendations improved the efficiency and quality of war production.
- It helped ensure steady and efficient supply of raw materials like aluminum, copper, and steel.
- Fixing those inefficiencies enabled the U.S. to outproduce Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo combined. By late 1943, American companies manufactured munitions almost equal to the Nazi, fascist, and Imperial Japanese enemies AND all the allies including the British Empire and the Soviet Union – combined.
- In short, the Truman Committee, from 1941-44, helped shorten the war. Its oversight, which some saw as cumbersome, actually sped up the defeat of the Nazis, fascists, and Tojo’s military regime.
- After Truman became vice president in 1944 and president the next year, the commission he started continued until 1948 to study wartime defense production and programs, and recommend future improvements.
A Truman Committee for Ukraine
With so many questions about U.S. aid to Ukraine – and practically no oversight of what is being provided – it’s time for Congress to establish an equivalent of the Truman Committee.
Lack oversight always means colossal waste. It always opens the door to fraud and other abuse. Corruption in Ukraine – and corruption among the Americans involved in the Ukraine war effort – have yet to be investigated.
Fraudsters and criminals remain at large, underming public support in the U.S.
There are no “lessons learned” for future conflicts.
The Trump administration appears ready to start audits and criminal investigations, but these are time-consuming among other priorities, even as President Trump actively holds open the door to further assistance against the Russian invaders.
Aid to Ukraine has been a broadly bipartisan issue, despite all the partisan acrimony on almost everything else.
A Truman-style investigative committee on aid to Ukraine should be equally bipartisan. Bipartisanship and collegiality on the Truman Committee was critical to success. Rather than hamper the Allied victory in World War II, it helped speed up that victory.
A congressional investigative committee on Ukraine aid – properly organized, staffed, and led – should do the same.
