Talk:Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: Difference between revisions

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			== Age at death / limitations of sidebar ==
	==Details of execution==

			The right-hand information block suggested that, having died the same day, they died at the same age in spite of having different birth years. Reviewing the code, it appears this was an auto-calculated field which does not allow the flexibility of reporting two death ages at a unique time for non-unique birthdates. To clarify for other readers, I changed the code from
	I admit the details of the execution are rather grisly, even though they are brief. However, the gory details of the Rosenbergs' execution is one of the major elements of their story -- two possibly innocent civilians being executed by one of the most heinous and inhuman methods available. Please decide whether the execution details should be included in the article. -- ]
			\| date_of_death = {{death date and age\|1953\|6\|19\|1918\|5\|12\|mf=y}} (both)
			to
			\| date_of_death = {{death date and age\|1953\|6\|19\|1918\|5\|12\|mf=y}} (Julius), and aged 37 (Ethel)
			which I believe removes the ambiguity. There is still some minor formatting inconsistency as the sidebar places the initial age in parenthesis, but this was the best I could do with the automated process. At least now they are not reported dead at the same age.

	Suggestion for further research:
	I recall reading something about the opening of Soviet archives, and there being some information regarding the Rosenbergs' execution/crimes.
	I've also read that Julius took 3 tries & Ethel 5 - but I don't have a good source on that. And did you mention that they left behind 2 young sons?
	~ender 2003-04-02 23:45 MST

			== Change "Later developments" section to use chronological order ==

			I think it will benefit our readers if we untangle this section. New sources of information emerged at specific dates, which we can use:
			* 1995 publication of Venona decryptions (material that was available to the FBI but not made public during the trial)
			* 2001 David Greenglass later statements
			* 2008 release of grand jury testimony
			* 2008 Morton Sobell later statements
			* 2009 Vassiliev notebooks published online
			The Rosenberg children and their campaign for the exoneration of Ethel Rosenberg belong in a different section.
			I am going to try to sort this out. ] (]) 18:52, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
			: 1995 Venona descriptions:
			"...For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's brother David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband..."
			But Mr. David Greenglass wasn’t the brother of Mrs. Ruth Greenglass. He was her spouse!
			This phrase must be written so:

			For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's spouse David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband. --] (]) 07:21, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
	== Speech ==

			== Clarification about Ethel ==
	Hello. I am a student, and I am writing a speech on this topic for my English Class. I found it to be very sad, interesting, and educational; that is why I chose it to be my topic. I think that your site has helped me immensely, and I thank you for all the wonderful information that you provided me with. I just wanted to notify you and give you my thanks.

			The previous version of this article claimed at the start that both Julius and Ethel spied for the Soviets and provided info to them. But all of the article’s sources that I looked at said that Ethel was involved in recruiting but ''not'' in providing info to the Soviets. So that opening paragraph seemed to me to be factually incorrect (according to the article’s sources), so I changed it. My change may not have been the best way to address this issue, I don’t know; but if someone ends up reverting my change, then please make other changes to make the article match what it says in the sources. (Or else provide a source for the specific claim that Ethel passed info to the Soviets.) — ] (]) 00:33, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
	==Nikita Khrushchev==
	The article says ''Nikita Khrushchev praised the pair in his 1990 memoirs when he wrote of their "very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb".'' how's that when Khrushchev died in 1971?

			== Ethel's Innocence ==
	:It does seem amazingly prescient, doesn't it? But "Khruschev Remembers" was transcribed from Khruschev's tapes and published in at least two volumes: I can't quite track the bibliographic records just now but it seems that Little, Brown either published or republished the last of these around 1990. I'm not sure if that's the explanation. - ] 03:36, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

			This article would benefit from including information on the prosecution’s knowledge of intercepted Soviet communications related to the Rosenberg case. These communications detailed espionage activities using codenames for various spies, yet notably referred to “Ethel” directly in the description of the role codenamed “Antenna,” believed to refer to Ethel’s husband, Julius. It is significant that the prosecution was aware of this fact, and there is evidence suggesting that Ethel’s execution was intended, in part, to conceal the extent to which the United States had successfully intercepted and decoded Soviet messages. ] (]) 17:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)
	Given this is such a politically charged case, how reliable is the transcription? Particularly since this more controversial detail comes out very late in the piece!--] 23:28, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

			:It's speculative.--] (]) 01:55, 6 November 2024 (UTC)
	== Disputed ==
			::Wrong.
			::https://www.justsecurity.org/105873/ethel-rosenberg-wrongful-execution/ ] (]) 04:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

			== Not a spy ==
	We say in our lead that "the Rosenbergs were indeed guilty of espionage". I am more than passingly familiar with the case, and while it seems to me to be very likely that Julius engaged in espionage (although less clear whether he passed on any important information), I've seen almost nothing to suggest any such involvement by Ethel, and quite a bit to the contrary (much of it in our article). This seems to me to qualify as a factual dispute, so rather than edit, I am slapping on a "disputed" tag and giving 72 hours for someone to back that up with a citation before I edit. -- ] 23:01, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
			https://www.justsecurity.org/105873/ethel-rosenberg-wrongful-execution/ <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 04:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

	:I agree... all the available evidence seems to indicate that Ethel was innocent except insofar as she was Julius' wife. I say just fix it, forget the disputed tag... it was probably just an oversight. ] 13:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

	:I'll give someone another day or so to find a citation, then I'll do just that. -- ] 18:24, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

	:: Remember, Ethel was not convivted of espionage, but conspiracy to commit espionage. The difference may seem subtle, but it has a whole other legal definition. It is much easier to convict someone of conspiracy to (fill in the blank), because you do not have to show that the individual knew a crime was bieng commited, or that they had an active part in the crime itself.

	::Just food for thought. ] 07:59, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

	:::However, the case in point is not what the courts found, but what the actual truth is. ] 11:47, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

	:::Remember that the statement in our lead is not that she was "indeed guilty" of conspiracy, but of espionage. And I have yet to see a single citation for that. TDC, you seem (in effect) to be agreeing with that. -- ] 18:42, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

	It's been a while and there's been no citation, so I'm amending the lead and removing the disputed tag. ]←] 17:20, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

	: Agreed, but since I'm the one who raised the dispute, you should not have removed the tag before I said that your edit meets my objection (it does, so no big deal). -- ] 17:59, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

	I removed "also" of this sentence: "particularly considering that the Soviets were ''also'' receiving information on the Atomic bomb from Klaus Fuchs and Donald Maclean."
	With that "also" you admit Julius Rosember was actually giving information on the Atomic bomb to the Soviets. That is disputed. -- ] 17:59, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

	The evidence against Julius should be more disputed as it hangs on a Venona transcript produced by the executioner (the US govt) 50 yrs after the event. The craziness of the KGB using codenames for everyone and then giving a street address should be mentioned here! I've made more comments on Venona under the Fuchs entry.--] 23:36, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

	==LITERATURE==

	Just a note: for anyone interested in a literary research on this case, read E.L. Doctorow's "The Book of Daniel", where he tells the story of Daniel, the son of Rochelle and Paul Isaacson, a couple accused of espionage and executes in Sing Sing in 1954... (Italian user)

	: Though highly fictionalized, in ways that Robert Meeropol has been unhappy with. In particular, he feels that he and his brother were much better treated by the CP than the book suggests. -- ] \| ] 21:54, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

	==Things missing==
	Things missing from this article which ought to be worked in include:
	*It was the capture of Klaus Fuchs which lead to Harry Gold which lead to David Greenglass which lead to the Rosenbergs. Fuchs shouldn't be only mentioned at the end of the article as a bit player, he's half the story, and certainly responsible for the context.
	*The assistant prosecutor in this case was none other than ], later side-man of ]. This deserves some note.
	*The Rosenbergs were not the only defendents at the trial; there was a third: ], who was not executed.
	*The specific information Julius Rosenberg was supposed to have passed on included: lens molds, implosion diagrams, the ], and information about a speculative space platform which would have sat between the earth and the moon (no joke!).
	Just a suggestion, for those who have a little time to burn... --] 23:46, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

	] '''did not''' lead to Harry Gold. This is a factoid. The details are in Norman Moss's ''Klaus Fuchs''. Fuchs was asked to identify a Soviet courier from photographs - one of which was Gold. He failed to identify Gold. He was then showed film of Gold - a rather dubious move - and then "identified" him. In other words, they already had Gold as a suspect. The true story is still by no means clear.

	By the way, Mort Sobell is still around, in contact with the Rosenberg boys and still maintains his innocence.

	Other weird stuff in the trial includes a lot of evidence about a super-dooper "spy table" the Rosenbergs had. It was just a normal table, of course. Then again, the Alger Hiss Case did feature the Pumpkin Papers! --] 21:59, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

	:This document is fundemental reading: ]; the government knew of the Rosenbergs from Venona materials, however (as the section on Prosecution explains) Venona materials were not used in prosecution. As the 1956 documents states in the introduction,
	::"Based on information developed from (Secret) traffic, there has been prosecution of Judith Coplon, Valentin Gubitchev, Emil Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, Alfred Dean Slack, Abraham Brothman, Miriam Moskowitz, David Greenglass, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Morton Sobell and William Perl. All of '''these cases were investigations instituted by us directly or indirectly from (Secret) information. These prosecutions were instituted ''without'' using (Secret) information in court.'''" {emphasis mine}
	:Hence, Fuchs was not the source of info, but did provide the links necessary for a successful prosecution without Venona materials. ] 04:36, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

	This underlines my problem with this approach:
	* The document you cite is authored by US intelligence. These are the organisations responsible for the WMD 'intelligence failure'/ disinformation success - and this was apparently written during the Cold War. They were also answering accusations that they had unjustly executed the Rosenbergs. So this source has a few credibility problems.
	* Soviet double agent Kim Philby (defected 1963) stated he met Meredith Gardner, the chief cryptographer for Venona (''My Secret War''). This invalidates all the waffle about 'not letting the Soviets know we know'.
	* The document admits the Venona evidence is 'circumstantial' and 'hearsay'. Why then is it universally accepted as final proof of the Rosenbergs' guilt?
	* The general approach to evidence relies not on analysis but on accumulation: 'throw enough mud, some of it sticks'. The cases cited are impressive if you don't know the dubious details. As is all the other evidence and since the sources are ''not'' independent (all emanating from US intelligence) they amount to little more than 50 years of self-justification.
	* As a result, there is a welter of supposed connections but none of this adds up to a logical spy operation. We know Fuchs spied in Los Alamos - but why run the know-nothing Greenglass in the same facility (and risk him blowing Fuchs' cover)? And why involve the Rosenbergs in some top secret family picnic? That just creates a larger target for US counter-intelligence. None of it makes sense.
	--] 22:40, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
	**The document cited is an ] memorandum; FBI did not investigate Sadam's ]. Invalid metaphor. Also, cite where in the 1956 "Belmont to Boardman" memo they were "answering accusations that they had unjustly executed the Rosenbergs".
	**Soviets knew we knew in ] through thier mole, ], as Moynihan Secrecy Commission attests .
	**The memo clearly states the 'hearsay' rule in a court of law could be overcome with ] testimony from cryptographers, and would provide needed corroboration for successful prosecution.
	**The ] investigation (] is an entirely different field) spanned 38 years, enough time presumably to examine the evidence, establish the facts, and report findings.
	**I do not believe the Rosenberg's denied they were involved in ]. ] 17:41, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

	***The Venona material came to the FBI via NSA, CIA and who knows who else. The FBI was hardly 'pure' at this time - take their operation against Martin Luther King for example. What a quibble!
	***Everyone knew the Rosenbergs were a hot issue. Still makes headlines! Get real!
	***The point of Philby is that he came out as a mole in 1963. The US govt took 30 years to release Venona. One-finger typists?!
	***On 'hearsay' you cite the memo to prove the memo's validity.
	***On 'counterintelligence' you've missed the point but 'presumably' says it all.
	***The Rosenbergs always proclaimed their innocence. How bizarre!--] 03:36, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
	:::See my response at ] <br>(here's a classified secret, the answer is 3<sup>4</sup> + 3 + 3). ] 04:00, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
	::::Clearly 87 has some numerological (?) significance for you. Seriously, all your protestations of good faith underline the fact you have none. The comment that you don't believe the Rosenbergs denied espionage speaks for itself. But because you like logical quibbles, why don't you try to explain it? Are you maintaining they were honest spies who couldn't bring themselves to lie?? Are you maintaining that some espionage would have been OK?? To the best of my knowledge you have never denied being an idiot. --] 10:56, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

	== Ethel Rosenberg's involvement. ==
	I think the answer to your question is revealed by Julius' codename: "LIBERAL".:05:06, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

	:Well, the Venona information is somewhat suspicious and there is no clear account of Ethel's involvement or not among scholars. As to why people felt/feel the way they do, that's a historical question; if you look into the history of it, it becomes more clear. One of the reasons is that the US government did convict them with a fairly weak case and gave them extremely harsh sentences (no other convicted spy, even those who did give dramatically more important information to the USSR, was ever sentenced to death; especially not for helping a country which, at the time they were spying, was an Allied power), which certainly didn't help. (I am ambivalent as to the overall guilt, by the way) --] 02:13, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

	I am not sure calling the USSR an Ally at the time is accurate. On paper, sure, they were, but in reality it was a marriage of convenience, the reality was that the UK was really an ally in that there was genuine good will there, but not so with the USSR. {{unsigned\|12.41.204.3\|25 Aug 2005}}

	:Pitchka, you can find books that make almost any imaginable claim about this case. The issue is to find ones that are scholarly, reputable, and weren't rapidly demolished by other scholars who reviewed them.

	:I've been following the discussion of the Venona documents, although not super closely. You give a book title, but it might be more useful to name authors. Whose book is this? That would make it easier to track down what others have had to say about its scholarship... -- ] \| ] 21:19, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)
	:::For a review of that from the opposite camp, see this . -- ] \| ] 06:44, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)
	:::Pitchka, you seem to misunderstand the main historical disputes about the Rosenbergs. It is generally thought that Julius certainly passed information on to the USSR, but it is not as clear about Ethel. Aside from this, there is a question of whether their trial was fair and whether their punishments were worthy of their accused crimes. Related to that is the question of whether their data was really of any use: compared to the data given by Fuchs and Hall, it was practically worthless (Greenglass knew very little about the bomb). Aside from even that, there is the question of whether their work for the USSR was ''to help to USSR against the USA'' or if it was ''to help the USSR against the Nazis'', which are different questions (a motivational ambiguity not present in American law but represented in British law; because Klaus Fuchs gave information to another Allie he was given the relatively light sentence of 14 years, whatever the later history had the USSR become). I think you'd do good to try and see what other people are saying rather than just wildly characterizing everyone who disagrees with you as a dupe. --] 03:07, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
	::::Ah, nothing shows a cooperative attitude like sticking your later response before my earlier one... -- ] \| ] 20:30, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
	UTC)
	::::Thank you, FastFusion, right on the mark. -- ] \| ] 07:14, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

	::::Take your biased ramblings elsewhere, Pitchka, we are interested in facts, not political rants. ]

	== Judge's speech ==

	Can someone verify the grammatical accuracy of the judge's speech? It is currently quite confusing. (amon April 29, 2005)

	The grammar is correct if old-fashioned: the use of 'but' to be 'other than' and the phrase 'millions more of innocent people' where we would say 'millions more innocent people.'--] 11:06, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

	== Venona ==
	The November 14 document has this: "Direction of probationers will be continued through LIBERAL"; Ethel was one of the "probationers", i.e., LIBERAL was her case officers. The November 27 document was a response to Moscows' inquiry about a new probationer not directly being supervised by an ] officer. This same evidence, (though not from Venona source) was used by both the prosecution and jury. ] 21:54, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

	:I don't find the Nov 14 to be an explicit reference to Ethel at all -- it only is if you make assumptions about her involvement in the first place, which is begging the question that the document was cited to answer (whether she had participated). --] 20:36, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

	==Confession & Commutation==
	I note that NOBS doesn't believe there is any evidence that the Rosenbergs were induced to confess and 'name names' by the prospect of commutation to life imprisonment. But Doctorow writing in the late 60s (his Book of Daniel was published in 1971) gives this detail, so the story must have been current back then. ] 13:02, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
	:''Book of Daniel'' is a work of fiction, I'm not sure it is the best source to use. --] 20:37, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
	But of course I'm aware of this :-) Nonetheless, Doctorow is writing with ideas that were current at the time so the idea that they were offered commutation in exchange for info. is not _just_ an idle speculation. ] 21:56, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
	:: Not being a lawyer, it is my layman's understanding that a guilty plea in any capital crime always spare's the life of the accused. And I can develope the sources that said a guilty plea would have spared them (for now, see Haynes & Klehr, it is not unsymapathetic to the Rosenbergs execution, basically says they were something of the public patsies & fall guys for the larger coverup of conspiracy that took place and was not revealed til Venona. Also, Venona probably couldn't have been used against them because of "hearsay" etc)] 02:01, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
	:::Your "layman's understanding" is simply wrong. A guilty plea will not inherently stave off capital punishment. What ''is'' common in the U.S. is the explicit "plea bargain" by which prosecution and defense agree to skip a trial, with the defendant pleading guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence. But these require a specific negotiation in each instance. -- ] \| ] 05:07, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
	::Evidently a plea bargain was negotiated then. I came accross reference to it in ''passim''; this article however is not my main focus at the moment so I havent been able to follow up and corroborate it. There may have even been a reference to someone pleading with Ethel to cop the plea for the sake of the children and she refused, thinking the Communist Party would look after the children. ] 05:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

	:::I was under the impression -- from Radosh and Milton's ''The Rosenberg File'', I think -- that the point of trying to give Ethel the death penalty was to induce a guilty plea in ''Julius'' (that is, if Julius pleaded, then they would spare Ethel's life). I believe he cites memos from Saypol to this effect. In any event, I am pretty sure there is hard evidence that the death penalties were seen as both sending powerful messages and hopefully getting them to talk (though I believe J. Edgar Hoover famously and accurately predicted that the double-execution would have a "psychological effect" on the populace which would cause a lot of them to doubt the entire endeavor). Anyway, I'll try to source these when I get a chance... in general I think the Radosh book is the best thing I've read on the trial (most thorough and balanced, anyhow). --] 02:36, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
	::::Surely the different treatment of Greenglass (who was actually at Los Alamos) is a clear indication.--] 11:11, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

	== Executed secret agents ==

	As far as I can see, this belongs to the "Executed secret agents" category. I added it, but perhaps a "secret agent" has a narrower definition. If it is wrong, feel free to fix it. (And if it is right, delete this comment). --] 7 July 2005 18:57 (UTC)

	== Cut from article ==

	I cut this recent addition:
	:"It has been suggested that the prosecution of the Rosenbergs was an effort by the United States government to "send a message" that would help stop the leaking of information about the U.S. nuclear program to the Soviets."
	Given the controversial nature of the topic, an uncited conjecture about the government's (or the Rosenbergs') motivations has no place here. If someone has a cited author to whom to attribute the conjecture, great, then put it back in the article with attribution. -- ] \| ] 00:56, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

	::I'm pretty sure this can be attributed to some high level figures, but I'll look into a good citation. --] 02:07, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

	==X-line==
	"] the Soviet vice consul in ]" was changed to "] of the KGB X-line in ]". I have no idea what "X-line" is supposed to mean. I see it on quite a few KGB-related articles, always with out explanation or a link. -- ] \| ] 05:02, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
	:Generally, we take it to mean "technical line". But like so many things about Soviet intelligence, like its name (Cheka, OGPU, GPU, NKVD, MGB, KGB), parallel organizations (KGB illegals, GRU, GRU illegals, Comintern, CPUSA secret apparatus), code names being changed, priorities being changed, it is difficult to be precise in any given timeframe. So an insertion like "technical line" may be OK for now, however it is subject to revision to something like, "scientific technical line", or "atomic technical line", or "military technical line", or few other possibilities. ] 16:23, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
	::I hope you will agree, though, that the term is obscure enough that wherever used it deserves either an explanation or a link. -- ] \| ] 06:50, September 13, 2005 (UTC)
	:::Very much so. Actually, it may be useful to introduce many common jargon terms from Soviet intelligence into the English language since it meaning to often gets lost in translation. ] 16:50, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
	:::: Probably an article on each of these (or on several closely related terms jointly) is in order, rather than duplicate the explanation, especially because in many cases there is liable to be disagreement over the precise meaning, and probably some terms changed meaning in different contexts. Then we link when using the terms. -- ] \| ] 05:36, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
	:::::Yes, I'm seriously considering it. I was thinking in terms of ], which is somewhat analagous to "CIA station", with various subheadings like Rezident, X-line, I or Informational line, P or political line, etc. ] 05:51, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

	== Omission ==

	Why is the documentation from the Russian government post-Cold-War and the reference to Feklisov mentioned in the "trial and conviction" section but not in the "posthumous revelations" section? ] 18:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

	== Added objection ==

	This was just added to the article by user ]:

	:''(McCarthy was a ''Senator'', and in no way connected to HUAC, which was run by members of the ''House of Representatives''. The above statement saying that he targeted US Citizens is disingenuous. Project VENONA proved that McCarthy was correct, and that he should have even widened his search.)''

	I've pulled it from the article for now as it's more of an objection than a rewrite, but I wanted to post it here so some editors can take a look. My own reaction is that I'm not really an expert on this, but it does seem that the VENONA decryptions are sufficiently covered under "Posthumous revelations", and while McCarthy wasn't on HUAC, I've certainly seen clips myself of him talking about "anti-American activities"; I don't think that's an unfair characterization here, but of course I'd be happy to see evidence to the contrary. --] 17:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

	*I agree with your action. The article does not assert McCarthy had anything to do with HUAC nor does it even mention HUAC. As for McCarthy and VENONA, that's a different question alltogether, one covered on the McCarthy page. --] 18:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

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Facts from this article were featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on June 19, 2004, June 19, 2005, June 19, 2006, June 19, 2007, June 19, 2008, June 19, 2009, June 19, 2010, June 19, 2013, June 19, 2018, June 19, 2021, and June 19, 2023.

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Age at death / limitations of sidebar

The right-hand information block suggested that, having died the same day, they died at the same age in spite of having different birth years. Reviewing the code, it appears this was an auto-calculated field which does not allow the flexibility of reporting two death ages at a unique time for non-unique birthdates. To clarify for other readers, I changed the code from

| date_of_death  = June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 35) (both)

| date_of_death  = June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 35) (Julius), and aged 37 (Ethel)

which I believe removes the ambiguity. There is still some minor formatting inconsistency as the sidebar places the initial age in parenthesis, but this was the best I could do with the automated process. At least now they are not reported dead at the same age.

Change "Later developments" section to use chronological order

I think it will benefit our readers if we untangle this section. New sources of information emerged at specific dates, which we can use:

1995 publication of Venona decryptions (material that was available to the FBI but not made public during the trial)
2001 David Greenglass later statements
2008 release of grand jury testimony
2008 Morton Sobell later statements
2009 Vassiliev notebooks published online

The Rosenberg children and their campaign for the exoneration of Ethel Rosenberg belong in a different section. I am going to try to sort this out. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:52, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

1995 Venona descriptions:

"...For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's brother David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband..." But Mr. David Greenglass wasn’t the brother of Mrs. Ruth Greenglass. He was her spouse! This phrase must be written so:

For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's spouse David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband. --Анатолий Глезер (talk) 07:21, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Clarification about Ethel

The previous version of this article claimed at the start that both Julius and Ethel spied for the Soviets and provided info to them. But all of the article’s sources that I looked at said that Ethel was involved in recruiting but not in providing info to the Soviets. So that opening paragraph seemed to me to be factually incorrect (according to the article’s sources), so I changed it. My change may not have been the best way to address this issue, I don’t know; but if someone ends up reverting my change, then please make other changes to make the article match what it says in the sources. (Or else provide a source for the specific claim that Ethel passed info to the Soviets.) — Elysdir (talk) 00:33, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Ethel's Innocence

This article would benefit from including information on the prosecution’s knowledge of intercepted Soviet communications related to the Rosenberg case. These communications detailed espionage activities using codenames for various spies, yet notably referred to “Ethel” directly in the description of the role codenamed “Antenna,” believed to refer to Ethel’s husband, Julius. It is significant that the prosecution was aware of this fact, and there is evidence suggesting that Ethel’s execution was intended, in part, to conceal the extent to which the United States had successfully intercepted and decoded Soviet messages. ChloeMS (talk) 17:26, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

It's speculative.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:55, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Wrong.

https://www.justsecurity.org/105873/ethel-rosenberg-wrongful-execution/ 2600:8802:5913:1700:7597:DD0E:35B5:1044 (talk) 04:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Not a spy

https://www.justsecurity.org/105873/ethel-rosenberg-wrongful-execution/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8802:5913:1700:7597:DD0E:35B5:1044 (talk) 04:23, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

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