Political ideologue Robert Welch (1899-1985) founded the John Birch Society to promote his conspiracy theory that Communists controlled American society.

Robert H. W. Welch, Jr., was born in Chowan County, North Carolina, on December 1, 1899. A bright boy, he graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1916 and studied at the U.S. Naval Academy, 1917-1919, and at Harvard Law School, 1919-1921. In 1922 he joined his brothers in a candy manufacturing business in Boston from which he retired as vice president in 1956. A prosperous and well-regarded businessman, Welch was little known outside Massachusetts.

Like many Americans, Welch became increasingly alarmed as Communist regimes seized power in Eastern Europe and Asia in the years following the end of World War II. Convinced of the need to educate Americans about the danger of Communist subversion, he founded the John Birch Society in 1958. Welch named the society after a 26-year-old American soldier...