Organization founded in 1958 by Robert H. Welch, Jr.
(18991985), a retired American candymaker, to combat communism and promote ultraconservative causes. It was named for an American missionary and army intelligence officer killed by Chinese Communists in 1945, considered by the society the first hero of the Cold War . Its membership reached more than 70,000 in the 1960s. Its many publications warned of communist infiltration of the U.S. government and called for the impeachment of officials such as Earl Warren . The New American is the organization's biweekly magazine.