The American Commission to Negotiate Peace, successor to The Inquiry, participated in the peace negotiations at the Treaty of Versailles from January 18 to December 9, 1919. Frank Lyon Polk headed the commission in late 1919. The peace conference was superseded by the Council of Ambassadors (1920–1931), which was organized to deal with various political questions regarding the implementation of provisions of the Treaty, after the end of World War I. Members of the commission appointed by President Woodrow Wilson included:

The Inquiry was a study group established in September 1917 by Woodrow Wilson to prepare materials for the peace negotiations following World War I. The group, composed of around 150 academics, was directed by the presidential adviser Edward House and supervised directly by the philosopher Sidney Mezes. The Heads of Research were Walter Lippmann and his successor Isaiah Bowman. The group first worked out of the New York Public Library but later worked from the offices of the American Geographical Society of New York once Bowman had joined the group.