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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)
to
| 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.
NPV maintained?
I'm questioning the NPV of this article. The article seems quite slanted towards putting forward a largely discredited theory of the Rosenburg's innocence. Anyone familiar with this episode is aware that it was a celebrity cause of the far left for 20 years that the Rosenbergs were innocent. Eventually the evidence became overwhelming with the release of the Venona intercepts and so it was shelved.
It seems this article continues the tradition, now limited to trying to prove the innocence of Ethyl Rosenburg, alone. In fact as current written it might better by titled "The Innocence of Ethyl Rosenberg".
I note that many of the sources are from the Communist news paper "Sparticus" which can hardly be considered a reliable source in an article about Communist plots and spying.
Having a section on "controversy" and including some trimmed down information on this might be appropriate, but repurposing the article as ongoing propaganda is not.
I believe the article falls far short of maintaining a neutral point of view.
24.22.76.12 (talk) 16:28, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
- Spartacus Educational is not a Communist newspaper, though it does have a strange name. You are possibly confusing it with the Spartacus League or the Spartacist League (US).--Jack Upland (talk) 22:40, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Ethel
"Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Elizabeth Rosenberg (September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who spied for the Soviet Union" --That's the lead sentence, but the article goes on to say that the evidence strongly indicates that Ethel did no spying. Wik should not have self-contradictory articles. Kdammers (talk) 12:19, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
- The lead is correct. The rest of the article has been COATRACKED to claim their innocence. Changes coming soon. DaltonCastle (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
- The article should be neutral. Controversy continues. It would be better to say that they were American citizens who were executed for spying for the Soviet Union.--Jack Upland (talk) 22:34, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree that stating they spied for the Soviets is not neutral. Jojalozzo (talk) 23:30, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
- Current wording of the lead reflects WP:WEIGHT of specialist historians' opinion about Ethel's culpability (and absolutely no RS disputes Julius's guilt any more): "In 2014, five historians who had published on the Rosenberg case wrote that Soviet documents show that "Ethel Rosenberg hid money and espionage paraphernalia for Julius, served as an intermediary for communications with his Soviet intelligence contacts, provided her personal evaluation of individuals Julius considered recruiting, and was present at meetings with his sources. They also demonstrate that Julius reported to the KGB that Ethel persuaded Ruth Greenglass to travel to New Mexico to recruit David as a spy."" 73.114.32.138 (talk) 04:05, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
What does this mean?
From the intro: Distilling this consensus, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz wrote that the Rosenbergs were "guilty - and framed"
What exactly does "guilty - and framed" mean anyhow? It sounds like wishy-washy legal speak that you would expect from a lawyer. If uttered by anyone else they would be called weasel words. Simply because it was uttered by some famous lawyer doesn't make it really material to the subject and here is sounds very vague to the point of worthless. Perhaps it can be removed. Zedshort (talk) 20:05, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
- It means the Rosenbergs spied for the USSR (both of them, although Julius did most of the legwork) but that they were victims of prosecutorial misconduct. This is the position of most scholars who have gone into the question (i added cites to back up). It's not 'weasel words' it's a direct and pithy and accurate. NPalgan2 (talk) 20:15, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
- And why is Alan Dershowitz quoted? Is he an expert in this case? Simply because he is a famous lawyer and even has credentials in some aspects of the law does not make him a useful person to quote on the subject. To label them both guilty and at the same time framed is precisly what I mean by weasel words...to have it both ways and very lawyerly. Zedshort (talk) 23:09, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
- Why not read Radosh and Milton's book? NPalgan2 (talk) 00:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
- It's not having it both ways.--Jack Upland (talk) 11:44, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
- Why not read Radosh and Milton's book? NPalgan2 (talk) 00:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
- And why is Alan Dershowitz quoted? Is he an expert in this case? Simply because he is a famous lawyer and even has credentials in some aspects of the law does not make him a useful person to quote on the subject. To label them both guilty and at the same time framed is precisly what I mean by weasel words...to have it both ways and very lawyerly. Zedshort (talk) 23:09, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
It means what it seems to mean ... nothing. Those are just weasel words that should be removed. Dershowitz's opinion should be removed. It is not based on fact. It is merely an opinion, and not even a legal opinion. It has zero credibility in this context and adds nothing to this article, which SHOULD be based only on facts. As it is now, about half of it is based on opinion and conjecture, and therefore it isn't worth reading. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 08:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
What kind of value did the Rosenbergs provide to the Soviet Union?
The second sentence in the article states: They were instrumental in the transmission of information about top-secret military technology and prototypes of mechanisms related to the atomic bomb, which were of value to the Soviet nuclear weapons program and also provided top-secret radar, sonar, and jet propulsion engines to the Soviet Union
(Presumably the second part refers to plans rather than actual artifacts.)
But the bibliography provided doesn't seem to unambiguously support the idea that the prototypes of mechanisms were so valuable.
Reference 3 (by American author and educator Radosh) does, but reference 56 (from the NYT) quotes the director of the facility where the Soviet bombs were made as stating that they got nothing from the Rosenbergs. I'm not sure how the Misplaced Pages's doctrine of 'reliable sources' plays out here, but the article seems to be weighting the Weekly Standard more heavily than the NYT. Of course, that may actually be the truth, but references provided seem to add up to a kind of murky total (and i suppose that the actual material that they provided is not available for independent assessment).
Son of eugene (talk) 01:16, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
- Accounts differ.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:41, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
- In equity, if any spies working on the Soviets' behalf were executed owing to the extent to which they aided the Soviet nuclear program, Klaus Fuchs, Donald MacLean, David Greenglass and Harry Gold ought to have been before or with the Rosenbergs. Fuchs was the man without whom the idea of thermonuclear weapons and so much other crucial and hard to develop design and scientific information would never have left Los Alamos, Gold moved Fuchs' information to Russian handlers. David Greenglass allowed the Soviet nuclear program not to have to design the explosive lens array at the center of the plutonium bomb. MacLean was the Russians' eyes and ears in high-level Anglo-American cooperation during the Manhattan Project. None of these men died, so I concur with Alan Dershowitz that while the Rosenbergs were guilty and unquestionably so of spying for Stalin, they were "framed" to the extent that they died while three incomparably more guilty Soviet spies lived. The preponderance of guilt in this case was forced on the Rosenbergs' shoulders where it did not belong.
- I'm re-reading Richard Rhodes' history of the invention of thermonuclear weapons, Dark Sun, and finding myself of two minds on the question of whether the Rosenbergs ought to have died at all. The nuclear secrets they helped steal for the Soviets may have emboldened Stalin to back Kim Il Sung in his invasion of South Korea, which carried an eventual price tag of 1.2 million (according to sources cited in our article Korean War) military and civilian deaths. Had the US continued to enjoy a substantive nuclear monopoly in 1950, it's unlikely that invasion would have occurred. Rhodes states that his sources say Stalin was apprehensive about backing the invasion even with his small arsenal of fission bombs. The Rosenbergs intended to move considerable military technology (not merely the explosive lens and other technology for imploding plutonium which David Greenglass personally transferred to the Soviets) and it's not possible to say whether or not the Soviets would have eventually gotten most of it through Lend-lease. The issue, ultimately, rested on whether or not the Rosenbergs had the mens rea or "ready mind" - the willingness and awareness to commit a grave crime, and proceeded to commit it, aware of its consequences - Soviet world domination. They were committed Communists and desired that goal.
- In the matter of weighting, there's no basis, given sources from the Weekly Standard and New York Times to prefer either per se. Both sources have been WP:BIASED for years. We ought to use our best judgment in weighting source material. Citing Ronald Radosh as a source for the assertion that the Soviet nuclear program got nothing from the Rosenbergs is, by itself WP:UNDUE - views of other historians with other perspectives on the matter should be presented. Richard Rhodes, who was severely critical of the Rosenbergs' execution, interviewed most of the still-surviving staff of the original Soviet nuclear program, and he does no more than say that there's disagreement on that point. Rhodes has flaws, of course - including a huge vendetta against Edward Teller he pushes through almost the last three-quarters of Dark Sun. Rhodes tends to bend over backwards in being charitable toward Ethel and Julius Rosenberg - but there's nothing in his extensive description of the material supplied to Igor Kurchatov through the NKVD and GRU's combined atomic spy network to absolve the Rosenbergs of complicity in that spy effort. They were complicit in helping Fuchs' material move into Soviet hands. And a nuclear arsenal emboldened Stalin in his expansion of Communism throughout Europe and Asia, so blood was on the Rosenbergs' hands, arguably. loupgarous (talk) 01:48, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- Well, as I said, accounts differ... We should summarise what reliable sources say, and clearly indicate that this is an opinion, whether it's an opinion by the New York Times and Washington Post, or the New York Post and Washington Times. Of course historians are biased. Even I am partisan. In addition, reflective retrospective crystal ball g(r)azing is problematic. If the Rosenbergs had not been spying (if they were), would the Korean War (the origins of which are contested) have occurred anyway? And even if they did cause the war, are they responsible for the carnage? Is April Glaspie responsible for the carnage of the Gulf War and the Iraq War? Is Hitler responsible for the Cold War or the Israeli-Palestine conflict? These are questions we can't answer while the hourglass sand flows... As Kissinger said Zhou said, it's too early to tell. And we could wool-gather till the cows come home and the chickens return to roost. But at the going down of the sun and in the misty mornings of consciousness, I've lost the thread of the conversation in the stream of the collective unconscious... In summary, we should uphold the policies of Misplaced Pages (which I know we all hold to be holy writ) and avoid violating WP:UNDUE, WP:FORUM, and most of all WP:TEMPLAR as much as is humanly possible. In fact, we should avoid Misplaced Pages policy discussions altogether. That being said, I don't think you know what "equity" means in a legal sense.--Jack Upland (talk) 17:32, 2 September 2017 (UTC)
- I misused the term "equity". I meant "fairness". That said, there's abundant evidence in reliable sources that Gold and the Rosenbergs were complicit in the transfer of classified nuclear weapon design information from Fuchs (and the team Greenglass worked with by his own efforts). If the Rosenbergs deserved death, so did Gold, Greenglass, Fuchs, and MacLean, each one of which engaged in espionage on United States soil.
- Practical considerations (the British declining to extradite Fuchs to face charges carrying the death penalty and and MacLean's defection to the Soviet Union) saved Fuchs's and MacLean's lives. That left Gold and the Rosenberg. Gold sold Greenglass out, and David and Ruth Greenglass sold the Rosenbergs out. All of that's in reliable sources. I was answering the OP's question "What kind of value did the Rosenbergs provide to the Soviet Union?", and not writing for an article here. Broadly construed, the Soviets got incredible value for the few thousand dollars in bribes, gifts and expenses for their spies in and around the Manhattan Project (that figure comes from Rhodes' Dark Sun, as well as the following information).
- Richard Rhodes describes interviews with the surviving Soviet nuclear weapons team in which the information relayed from Fuchs and Greenglass through the Gold/Rosenberg network played a central role in that research and development effort. The Soviet espionage apparatus and nuclear weapons decision-makers (the NKVD's Lavrentiy Beria controlled both) distrusted the espionage results as possible disinformation, but Igor Kurchatov explicitly asked for all available intelligence of other nation' nuclear research and tachnology. When the father of the Soviet atomic bomb specifically asks for something from the head of Soviet intelligence, it's important, and the Rosenbergs were part of that intelligence effort.
- The Army Security Agency's Meredith Gardner supplied decrypts of Soviet cable traffic which FBI agent Robert Lamphere was able to use to identify Ethel Rosenberg as a Soviet espionage contact in 1948; the same group of decrypts were later used to identify Klaus Fuchs as the main spy inside Los Alamos; the arrest of Klaus Fuchs caused Julius Rosenberg to urge David Greenglass to leave the United States as soon as possible, giving them four thousand dollars to do so. And that request caused the Greenglasses to testify against the Rosenbergs for leverage in a plea bargain (as did Harry Gold). All of that's in Dark Sun and the sources Rhodes cites to support it.
- You're right that from there, what follows is largely crystal-ball stuff. Many sources point to the mutual desire of South Korea's Syngman Rhee and North Korea's Kim Il-Sung for a war of unification (of course, the outcomes each man desired were different), but anything that could have influenced the willingness of Stalin to ship massive war materiel to North Korea and Mao to send 300,000 "volunteers" to support the North Korean invasion mattered in those decisions.
- To compare and contrast one of your examples and mine, whatever April Glaspie might have had on her person when speaking to Saddam Hussein, it wasn't a nuclear weapon. The Rosenbergs were part of the effort which gave Iosif Stalin one. Just in the way that intelligence on the direction of our efforts prevented the Soviets from making costly errors in reactor and nuclear weapon design, at the very least, the Rosenbergs gave the Soviets the bomb long before they'd have gotten one without help. loupgarous (talk) 23:10, 3 September 2017 (UTC)
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