Harley Kilgore

Harley Kilgore was a Democratic senator from West Virginia who joined the Truman Committee as its investigations expanded. His clearest documented role was as a persistent questioner in a major hearing on the Canol Pipeline Project, where he and staff counsel Hugh Fulton led the examination of Brehon B. Somervell.

Committee Membership

By the fall, the committee’s appropriation had risen from $15,000 to $50,000, and its membership had grown to include Kilgore as an additional Democrat, alongside two new Republican members. Its staff expanded as well, eventually reaching fifteen investigators and an equal number of clerks and stenographers. Kilgore’s appointment placed him within a committee whose growing resources reflected its increasing reach into wartime spending and administration.

The Canol Hearing

The committee examined Somervell for four and a half hours over the Canol Pipeline Project. Kilgore and Fulton did most of the questioning while committee chairman Harry S. Truman listened. At the close of the hearing, Truman presented a letter reporting that a search of Navy files had found no record that the Navy had been asked for an opinion on the project or invited to participate; no Navy officers or officials had been questioned orally about it. Somervell replied that he had never claimed to have consulted the Navy. Truman then suggested that the project could nonetheless concern the Navy because ships consumed substantial quantities of oil.

Role in the Committee

The account identifies Kilgore through his committee work rather than through a separate personal narrative. His participation in the sustained questioning shows him helping to conduct an inquiry that tested the explanations offered by senior military officials against documentary evidence. The episode places him among the committee’s active investigators, though the record here does not specify which individual questions he asked or what conclusions he personally drew.