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Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

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The Rosenbergs

Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) and Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) were Jewish American Communists who were thrust into the world spotlight when they were tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union. The accuracy of these charges remains controversial, though decades later, Soviet communications decrypted by the VENONA project became publicly available, which indicate that Julius Rosenberg was actively involved in espionage, although they provided no evidence that he performed the specific acts of espionage for which he was convicted or that Ethel Rosenberg was involved. Specifically, the couple was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and were accused of passing nuclear weapons secrets to Russian agents.

Background

Julius Rosenberg was born to a Jewish family on May 12, 1918 in New York. He graduated from the City College of New York with a degree in electrical engineering in 1939 and in 1940 joined the Army Signal Corps where he worked on radar equipment. He became a leader in the Young Communist League, where in 1936 he met Ethel, whom he married three years later.

Ethel Greenglass was born on September 25, 1915 in New York, also to a Jewish family. She was an aspiring actress and singer, but eventually took a secretary job at a shipping company. She became involved in labor disputes and joined the Young Communist League, where she first met Julius. The Rosenbergs had two sons.

Julius Rosenberg was originally recruited by the KGB on Labor Day 1942 by former KGB spymaster Semyon Semenov. Julius had been introduced to Semyonov by Bernard Schuster, a high ranking member of the CPUSA as well as Earl Browder's personal KGB liaison. After Semyonov was recalled to Moscow in 1944, his duties were taken over by his apprentice, Alexander Feklisov. According to Feklisov, Julius was his most dedicated and valuable asset, providing thousands of classified reports from Emerson Radio including a complete proximity fuze, the same design that was used to shoot down Francis Gary Powers's U-2 in 1960. Under Feklisov administration, Julius Rosenberg recruited sympathetic individuals to the KGB’s service. Joel Barr, Al Sarant, William Perl and Morton Sobell were all recruited by Julius.

Under Julius Rosenberg’s direction Perl supplied Feklisov with thousands of documents from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics including a complete set of design and production drawings for the Lockheed's P-80 Shooting Star. Feklisov learned through Julius that his brother-in-law David Greenglass was working on the top secret Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, and used Julius to recruit him.

During World War II, the USSR and the USA became allies in war, but the USA was highly suspicious of Joseph Stalin's intentions. As such, the Americans did not share information or seek assistance from the Soviet Union for the Manhattan Project. The Soviets were aware of the project as a result of espionage penetration of the US government, however, and had made a number of attempts to infiltrate its operations at the University of California, Berkeley. A number of project members — some high-profile, others lower in rank — did voluntarily give secret information to Russian agents, many because they were sympathetic to communism (or the Soviet Union's role in the War) and did not feel that the USA should have a monopoly on atomic weapons.

After the war, the US resisted efforts to share nuclear secrets, but the Soviet Union was able to produce its own atomic weapons by 1949. Their first nuclear test, "Joe 1", shocked the West in the speed it was produced. It was discovered in January 1950 that Klaus Fuchs, a German refugee theoretical physicist working for the British mission in the Manhattan Project, had given key documents to the Russians throughout the war. Through Fuchs' confession, US and UK intelligence agents were able to find his "courier", Harry Gold, who was arrested on May 23, 1950. A former machinist at the top-secret Los Alamos laboratory, Sgt. David Greenglass, confessed to having passed secret information on to the USSR through Gold as well. He testified that his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, and her husband, Julius, had also passed secrets. Another accused conspirator, Morton Sobell, fled to Mexico City, but was later deported to the United States for trial.

Trial and conviction

The case against the Rosenbergs, and Sobell, began on March 6, 1951. The prosecution's primary witness, David Greenglass, stated that his sister Ethel, working as a "probationer” or "agent", as defined by the VENONA Historical Monographs which accompanied the NSA's release of Venona materials, typed notes containing US nuclear secrets. These were later turned over to Harry Gold, who would then turn them over to Anatoly A. Yakovlev of the KGB X-line in New York City.

From the beginning, the trial attracted a high amount of media attention, and like the trial of Alger Hiss, generated a largely polarized response from observers, some of whom believed the Rosenbergs to be clearly guilty, and others who asserted their innocence.

Although the notes typed by Ethel apparently contained little that was relevant to the Soviet atomic bomb project, this was sufficient evidence to for the grand jury to indict Ethel and enough for the jury to convict on the conspiracy to commit espionage charge. Supporters felt that a capital charge of conspiracy to commit espionage was not only far too severe, but was not supported by the available evidence.

It is believed that part of the reason Ethel was indicted in addition to Julius was so that the prosecution could use her as a 'lever' to pressure Julius into giving up the names of others who were involved. If that was the case, it didn't work. On the witness stand Julius asserted his right under the Fifth Amendment to not incriminate himself whenever asked about his involvement in the Communist Party or with its members. Ethel did similarly. Neither defendant was viewed sympathetically by the jury.

Investigations into the couple's history revealed conflicting evidence that Julius Rosenberg had many dealings with an NKVD agent. Since the end of the Cold War, the Russian government has released documentation that shows Julius Rosenberg was providing information to the NKVD. Alexander Feklisov has stated in a memoir and in many interviews that he was Julius Rosenberg's control agent ,and met Julius on over 50 occasions over a three year period beginning in 1943. Mr. Feklisov said that, though Julius had provided military secrets, he was never able to provide any information of substance concerning the atomic bomb.

The role played by Assistant United States Attorney Roy Cohn, the prosecutor in the case, is controversial, since Cohn stated in his autobiography that he influenced the selection of the judge, and pushed him to impose the death penalty on both Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

Execution

The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and sentenced to death under section 2 of the Espionage Act, 50 U.S. Code 32 (now 18 U.S. Code 794), which prohibits transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government information "relating to the national defense", by judge Irving Kaufman on April 5. The conviction helped to fuel Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into "anti-American activities" by US citizens. While their devotion to the Communist cause was well documented, they denied the spying charges even as they faced the electric chair.

The couple were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War. In imposing the death penalty, Judge Kaufman noted that he held them responsible not only for espionage but also for the deaths of the Korean War:

I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason.

Their case has been at the center of the controversy over communism in the United States ever since, with supporters steadfastly maintaining that their conviction was an egregious example of persecution typical of the "hysteria" of those times (see Red Scare, McCarthyism) and likening it to the witch hunts that marred Salem and medieval Europe (a comparison that provided the inspiration for Arthur Miller's critically acclaimed play, The Crucible).

At the time, some Americans believed both Rosenbergs were innocent or received too harsh a punishment, and a grass-roots campaign was started to try to stop the couple's execution. Other Americans felt that the couple got what they deserved. Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but he refused on February 11, 1953, and all other appeals were also unsuccessful.

The couple was executed in the electric chair on June 19, 1953. Reports of the execution state that Julius died after the first application of electricity, but Ethel did not succumb immediately, and was subjected to two more electrical charges before being pronounced dead. The chair was designed for a man, and Ethel Rosenberg was a petite woman; this discrepancy resulted, it is claimed, in the electrodes fitting poorly. Eyewitness testimony describes smoke rising from her head.

Posthumous revelations

In 1995, the National Security Agency publicly released documents from the VENONA project, an effort to decrypt intercepted communications between Soviet agents and the NKVD/KGB. A 1944 cable from New York to Moscow makes it clear that Julius Rosenberg was engaged in espionage, though the importance of his effort is not clear, particularly considering that the Soviets were receiving information on the Atomic bomb from Klaus Fuchs and Donald Maclean. Ethel's involvement is not clear from the VENONA transcripts. A document from November 27, 1944 specifically about Ethel lists her as a "fellowcountryman" and claims that she was aware of Julius' work. Ethel was apparently never assigned a code name — Julius was always referred to as "ANTENNA" or "LIBERAL" — which has cast doubt onto her significance and involvement.

In his memoirs, published posthumously in 1990, Nikita Khrushchev praised the pair for their "very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb." Whether this was in fact the case, however, has been disputed. The quality of the information given to the Soviets, as reported by Greenglass, was also quite poor in comparison to the information given by Fuchs, who had a much more intimate understanding of the research being done, as revealed by records of Fuchs' detailed transmissions in the now-opened Soviet archives.

David Greenglass was spared execution in exchange for his testimony. He spent 10 years in prison and was released in 1960, and has lived under an assumed name since his release. Decades later, in late 2000, Greenglass claimed that he had committed perjury and falsely implicated his sister Ethel. Greenglass said he chose to turn in his sister in order to protect his wife and children.

Controversy

From the beginning of their trial through the present, the Rosenberg case has been a controversial issue, with individual opinions falling roughly among ideological lines. There are a number of points of contention which still hold, even after the revelation of many hundreds of pages of previously secret evidence.

  • To what extent was Ethel involved? As noted above, there seem to be reasons to believe that while Julius was likely involved in some form of espionage, his wife Ethel may have not been, or not to the extent to which she was convicted. The VENONA transcripts are ambiguous as to Ethel's involvement, and the government case against her seems to have rested only on the testimony of her brother, David Greenglass, who later apparently told reporters that he had perjured himself in order to lessen his own sentence and to help his wife avoid jail time.
  • Were they given a fair trial? There are many critics who have alleged that the political climate of the time, and the seemingly a priori conviction by Judge Kaufman of the pair's guilt, would have made it impossible for the Rosenbergs to have had a fair trial by an impartial jury. The Rosenberg lawyer, Emanuel Bloch, also made a number of massive legal blunders (such as not cross-examining Harry Gold, who in later trials was found to be highly unreliable) suggesting either his incompetence or inability to cope with such a high-profile trial.
  • Was their sentence fair? The imposition of the death sentence upon the Rosenbergs has been the most controversial aspect of the case, as they were sentenced far more harshly than any other "atomic spies," primarily because they refused to confess to their alleged crimes. Klaus Fuchs, who spied for many more years than the Rosenbergs were alleged to and gave far more sensitive information to the Soviet Union, was only sentenced to 14 years in jail by comparison, in part because he cooperated with authorities and because the Soviet Union was an ally of the United States and the United Kingdom at the time he passed on information. This latter point—whether the alleged Rosenberg espionage in 1945 should be held to the international politics of 1950—is one of special contention, as some critics (the Rosenbergs' sons, in particular) have argued that the Rosenbergs were not trying to undermine the United States when they gave the USSR classified information, but rather trying to help the USSR fight against a greater enemy, Nazi Germany. In 1950, though, this distinction was not made by the U.S. judge or jury, who saw their espionage in the context of the Cold War, Judge Kaufman going so far as to blame the couple for the Korean War.
  • Did they actually help the Russian program? Recent scholarship has suggested that Greenglass and the Rosenbergs actually knew very little about the workings of the atomic weapons aside from basic concepts that the Russians had already acquired through other espionage sources anyway (or would have likely figured out fairly quickly on their own once their atomic bomb project was put into full production), and compared to the information given by Fuchs and Theodore Hall, it is unlikely that the Rosenberg/Greenglass data would have significantly aided the Soviet project. Even the detailed information given by Fuchs and Hall seems to have only marginally sped up the Soviet project, as it was heavily distrusted by project leader Lavrenty Beria. This, of course, is a question not necessarily related to their guilt or sentencing.

The Rosenbergs' children

The Rosenbergs' two sons, Robert and Michael, were orphaned by the execution, and no relatives dared adopt them for fear of ostracism or worse. They were finally adopted by the songwriters Ann and Abel Meeropol. Abel Meeropol wrote the classic anti-lynching anthem "Strange Fruit," made famous by singer Billie Holiday. Robert and Michael co-wrote a book about the experience, We are your sons: The legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1975), and Robert wrote another book in 2004, An execution in the family: One son's journey. In 1990, Robert founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a non-profit foundation which provides support for children whose parents are Left-wing activists involved in court cases.

Michael's daughter, Ivy Meeropol, directed a 2004 documentary about her grandparents, Heir to an Execution, which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival.

In fiction

The Book of Daniel, a 1971 novel by E. L. Doctorow, is loosely based on the Rosenberg case; the 1983 film Daniel, starring Timothy Hutton, is based on Doctorow's book. Robert Coover's 1977 novel The Public Burning is a parodic reconstruction of their execution. Tony Kushner's 1992 play Angels in America features a fictionalized version of Ethel Rosenberg, played by Meryl Streep in the HBO version.

The first sentence of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar is "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

A play, The Rubenstein Kiss debuted at the Hampstead Theatre in London on 17 November 2005. Inspired by the iconic photograph showing Ethel and Julius Rosenberg kissing in the back of a police van, the play takes place during both the final years, pre- and post- trial, of the Rosenbergs' lives, and also in 1975, when two young radicals explore the the Rosenbergs' life and trial. Written and directed by James Phillips, the original production starred Samantha Bond and Will Keen.

Notes

  1. Alexander Feklisov and Sergei Kostin, The Man Behind the Rosenbergs. Enigma Books (2001). ISBN 1929631081. p. 140-147.
  2. ibid.
  3. VENONA Historical Monograph #2: New York KGB Tradecraft and Operations, 1942-1943. National Security Agency. 1995.

See also

Further reading

  • Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth, Henry Holt (1983), hardcover, ISBN 0030490367

External links

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