In 1946 the "Mercury" merged with the democratic-socialist magazine "Common Sense". By 1950, the "Mercury" was owned by Clendenin J. Ryan. He changed the magazine's name to "The New American Mercury". Ryan was the financial angel for Ulius Amoss, a former Office of Strategic Services agent who specialized in operating spy networks behind the Iron Curtain to destabilize Communist governments and the publisher of International Services of Information in Baltimore; his son Clendenin Jr. was a sponsor of William F. Buckley Jr. and the Young Americans for Freedom. Ryan transformed "The American Mercury" in a conservative direction.