Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

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Julius (1918-1953) and Ethel (1915-1953) Rosenberg were a nondescript couple accused in 1950 by the United States government of operating a Soviet spy network and giving the Soviet Union plans for the atomic bomb.

The trial of the Rosenbergs became a political event of greater importance than any damage they may have done to the United States. It was one of the most controversial trials of the twentieth century, and it ended with their execution.

The arrest of the Rosenbergs was set in motion when the FBI arrested Klaus Fuchs, a British scientist who gave atomic secrets to the Soviets while working on the Manhattan project. Fuchs's arrest and confession led to the arrest of Harry Gold, a courier for Soviet spies. Gold in turn led investigators to David Greenglass, a small-time spy who confessed quickly. Greenglass then accused his sister Ethel and brother-in-law Julius of controlling his activities.

Julius Rosenberg was a committed communist who graduated from the City College of New York in 1939 with a degree in electrical engineering. He had married Ethel Greenglass in the summer of that year. She was a headstrong woman, active in organizing labor groups. The couple had two sons, Michael, born in 1943, and Robert, born in 1947.

Espionage Activities

Julius had opened a mechanic shop with his brother-in-law, but the business soon began to fail, largely due to a lack of attention from Julius, who had begun to spy for the Soviets. He began by stealing manuals for radar tubes and proximity fuses, and by the late 1940s had two apartments set up as microfilm laboratories. He had become the coordinator of a large spy network.

Julius immediately realized the implications of Harry Gold's arrest and began to make arrangements to get out of the country, but the FBI moved swiftly and he was arrested in July 1950.

His wife was arrested in August. The government had little evidence against her, but hoped to use the threat of prosecution as a lever to persuade Julius to confess. The couple was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage, and their trial began on 6 March 1951. The prosecutor was attorney Irving Saypol, the judge was Irving Kaufman, and the defense was led by Emmanuel Bloch.

From the beginning the trial attracted national attention. Saypol and his young assistant, Roy Cohn, decided to keep the scope of the trial as narrow as possible, with establishing the Rosenbergs's guilt the main target, and exposing their spy ring a lesser concern. Nonetheless, the trial was punctuated by numerous arrests of spies associated with the Rosenbergs, some appearing in court to testify against them.

Defense Incompetence

From the beginning the defense had problems. Bloch tried to downplay the importance of the information the prosecution claimed the Rosenbergs had stolen, and then turned around and requested that all spectators and reporters be barred from the courtroom when the information was discussed. Bloch later said he was trying to impress the jurors with a bold move, but what he actually did was impress them with the importance of the information.

Bloch also accused David Greenglass of turning on his sister and her husband because of their failed business, but his efforts only elicited sympathy for a man who had been forced to turn in a family member. Greenglass damaged the Rosenbergs by testifying that Julius had arranged for him to give Harry Gold the design of the atomic bomb used on Nagasaki (which differed considerably from the Hiroshima bomb). When Gold himself testified, he named Anatoli Yakovlev as his contact. This directly tied the Rosenbergs to a known Soviet agent.

International Protests

After months in prison, the Rosenbergs still maintained their innocence and began to write poignant letters, which were widely published, protesting their treatment. The case was followed closely in Europe, where many felt the Rosenbergs were being persecuted as Jewish (though Judge Kaufman was also Jewish). A movement began to protest the "injustice" of the Rosenberg trial. Passions both for and against the Rosenbergs grew so great that they even threatened Franco-American relations, as the french were particularly harsh in their condemnation of the trial as a sham.

By the end of the trial the defense had all but collapsed under the weight of the evidence and Bloch's incompetence. His summation appealed to the jurors' emotions, while prosecutor Saypol ran cooly through the testimony. Although the evidence against Ethel was slight, the jury and the public had come to believe that she was the mastermind of the operation. Both she and Julius were found guilty and sentenced to death, a punishment more fitting a treason conviction than the lesser charge of espionage.

In the months between the sentencing and execution, criticism of the trial grew more strident, and major demonstrations were held. Nobel Prize winner Jean-Paul Sartre called the case "a legal lynching which smears with blood a whole nation."

In spite of attempts at appeal and a legal stay issued by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed on 19 June 1953, both refusing to confess.

Years after the execution the case still stirs debate. It can now be seen as arising from the height of Cold War hysteria fed by the Korean War, which had broken out the summer before the trial. It must be remembered that, although the Rosenbergs were communists and spies, they did not spy for an enemy of the United States, as the sentence might indicate, but rather for its wartime ally. Recent studies of the couple's activities show that the evidence against them was overwhelming. It is difficult, however, to imagine the execution of a married couple without understanding of the hysteria that the Cold War produced.

Further Reading

Hanseman, Robert G., "Julius Rosenberg," in The Cold War:1945-1991, Vol. 1, edited by Benjamin Frankel, Gale Research, Detroit, Michigan, 1992, pp. 427-428

Meeropol, Michael, and Robert Meeropol, We Are Your Sons, University of Illinois, Chicago, 1986.

Radosh, Ronald, and Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1983.

Schneir, Walter and Miriam, Invitation to an Inquest, Doubleday, New York, 1965.

Sharlitt, Joseph, Fatal Error, Scribners, New York, 1989.

In 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for helping the Soviet Union steal the secrets to the atomic bomb from the United States during World War II. Judge Irving R. Kaufman, who presided at the trial, sentenced the Rosenbergs to death after concluding that their "betrayal … undoubtedly … altered the course of history to the disadvantage of [the United States]." The Rosenbergs maintained their innocence from the time of their arrest until they were executed. The Rosenbergs' two sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol, have spent much of their adult lives attempting to clear their parents' names.

Morton Sobell (born April 11, 1917), a former employee for the Naval Bureau of Ordnance, was also indicted for conspiracy to commit espionage with the Rosenbergs and named as a codefendant. During June 1950 Sobell fled to Mexico with his wife under an assumed name. After being apprehended and extradited back to the United States, Sobell was convicted of the conspiracy charge and sentenced to thirty years in prison. He was paroled in January 1969.

Both of the Rosenbergs were members of the American Communist party. Julius, who had been born on May 12, 1918, came from an impoverished background. He had received a degree in electrical engineering from City College of New York but had trouble obtaining and keeping employment. At the time of his arrest, he was struggling to run a small machine shop with David Greenglass, Ethel's brother. Like her husband, Ethel, who had been born on September 28, 1915, came from a poor family.

The Rosenbergs' trial has been the subject of legal, political, and historical controversy for nearly half a century. Some view the Rosenbergs as martyred victims of the Communist hysteria that menaced the political landscape in the United States during the 1950s. Others see the Rosenbergs as criminals who were singularly responsible for ending the United States' nuclear monopoly and compromising the security of millions of people. The picture painted by historians has always been incomplete because many materials concerning the Rosenbergs remain classified.

The U.S. government did not indict the Rosenbergs for treason and might have encountered constitutional difficulties if it had pursued such an indictment. Article III, Section 3, of the Constitution defines treason as giving "aid and comfort" to the enemies of the United States. During World War II, the Soviet Union was an ally, not an enemy, of the United States. Further, the Constitution requires that every "overt act of treason" be witnessed by two persons. Yet, as the trial revealed, many of the conspiratorial acts committed by the Rosenbergs were witnessed by only one person.

The Rosenbergs' trial began on March 6, 1951, at the federal courthouse in New York City. Spectators and members of the press packed the gallery, the hallways, and the courthouse steps in an effort to catch a glimpse of the so-called atom spies in what some observers called the "trial of the century." Judge Kaufman conducted the voir dire and impaneled a jury in less than two days. Irving Saypol was the chief prosecuting attorney and was assisted by Roy Cohn and James Kilsheimer. Julius Rosenberg was represented by Emanuel Bloch, while Emanuel's father, Alexander Bloch, represented Ethel.

The Prosecution's Case

The first witness against the Rosenbergs was Max Elitcher, a thirty-two-year-old electrical engineer employed by the Naval Bureau of Ordnance during the 1940s. Elitcher testified that in June 1944 Julius asked him to assist the Soviet Union by providing classified information about naval equipment. Over the next several years, Elitcher said, Julius made other references to his central role in a Soviet espionage ring with members scattered across the United States. Nonetheless, Elitcher maintained that he never disclosed any confidential information to the Rosenbergs.

Elitcher also provided the only testimony against Sobell. Elitcher told the jurors that on several occasions Sobell attempted to entice him to commit espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. Elitcher recalled one instance when he accompanied Sobell on a drive to Knickerbocker Village where the defendant delivered a can of film to Julius Rosenberg. Although Elitcher was unable to tell the court what, if anything, was inside the can, he did testify that Sobell described the contents as "too valuable to be destroyed and too dangerous to keep around."

David Greenglass, the twenty-nine-year-old brother of Ethel Rosenberg, was the prosecution's second witness. Greenglass, a member of the American Communist party, had enlisted in the army as a machinist in 1943. In July 1944 he was assigned to the Manhattan Project, the top secret Allied program based in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for the development of the atomic bomb. As part of his job, Greenglass performed research on high explosives.

Greenglass testified that he learned about the nature of the Manhattan Project in November 1944 when his wife, Ruth, visited him in Albuquerque. Before leaving for New Mexico, Ruth was invited to the Rosenbergs' apartment in New York where Ethel disclosed that Julius had been sharing classified information with the Soviets. During the same visit, Julius informed Ruth that her husband was working on a project to develop an atomic bomb and proposed that David help the Soviets by stealing secrets from Los Alamos. Upon learning of Julius's invitation from Ruth, David testified that he agreed to engage in atomic espionage for the Soviet Union.

In January 1945 David went home to New York on furlough and met with the Rosenbergs. David testified that during one visit he provided Julius with a verbal description of the atomic bomb, explaining that the Los Alamos scientists were designing a high explosive lens mold. David accompanied this description with a packet of sketches outlining the mold. He also provided Julius with a list of the scientists working on the Manhattan Project and an overview of the Los Alamos facilities. Because some of the written material was illegible, David told the jury, Ethel typed his notes.

A few days later the Greenglasses ate dinner at the Rosenbergs where a plan was designed for David to exchange information in New Mexico with a courier who would be sent by Julius. To enable David to identify this courier, Julius cut a Jell-O box into two irregularly shaped pieces, gave one piece to David, and said the other piece would be given to the courier.

The next summer Ruth rented an apartment in Albuquerque where David usually spent the weekends. During the first weekend in June, a man visited the Greenglass apartment, identifying himself as "Dave from Pittsburgh." The man told the Greenglasses that he was a courier sent by "Julius." After the courier produced the matching half of the Jell-O box, David gave him some additional sketches of the lens mold experiments.

In September 1945 David returned to New York on a second furlough. Meeting with Julius and Ethel at the Rosenbergs' apartment, David drew a cross section of the atomic bomb and described the implosion principle underlying it. David testified that Ethel again typed up the written material, correcting spelling and grammar where necessary. The prosecution asked David to draw a replica of the sketches that he had given to the Rosenbergs and the courier. The prosecution then called Walter Koski, a physical chemist, who testified that the sketches were "reasonably accurate" and revealed much of what the government had been attempting to keep secret at Los Alamos.

Ruth Greenglass, who testified next, corroborated the central elements of her husband's testimony. Ruth testified that she had assisted David in procuring classified information from Los Alamos for the Rosenbergs. She also testified that the Rosenbergs had showed her a mahogany table that they had received from the Soviets as a token of their appreciation. A portion of the table was hollow, Ruth said, and a lamp had been inserted so that microfilm pictures could be taken.

As the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was closing in on the Greenglasses and the Rosenbergs, Ruth told the jurors, Julius developed a plan for David and Ruth to elude law enforcement. The plan called for David and Ruth to travel to Mexico where a Soviet agent would be waiting with passports and cash. The agent would then escort the Greenglasses to Czechoslovakia or Russia. Although Julius gave the Greenglasses more than $4,000 to defect from the United States, Ruth testified that neither she nor David ever left the country.

The primary corroborating witness for the Greenglasses' testimony was Harry Gold, a forty-year-old chemist who testified that he had been spying for the Soviet Union since 1935 and had been working with Anatoli Yakovlev, a Soviet agent, for a number of years. Gold said that Yakovlev had sent him on a vital mission to New Mexico during the first weekend of June 1945.

On Saturday, June 2, Yakovlev instructed Gold to travel to Santa Fe where he would meet with Klaus Fuchs, a nuclear scientist from Great Britain who was working on the Manhattan Project. During their meeting Fuchs provided Gold with diagrams and written descriptions of the atomic bomb. On a previous occasion, Fuchs had given Gold a complete set of his notes from Los Alamos. In February 1950 Fuchs was captured by British intelligence and confessed to his role in the atomic espionage conspiracy. Fuchs, who received a fourteen-year sentence, identified Gold as the Soviet liaison he met in Santa Fe.

Gold also testified that the day after meeting with Fuchs, he traveled to Albuquerque where he was scheduled to meet a man Yakovlev described only as "Greenglass." Yakovlev had given Gold the matching half of the Jell-O box and told him to bring Greenglass greetings from "Julius." When Gold arrived at the Greenglass apartment, a man Gold now identified as David Greenglass gave him an envelope of drawings and other materials in exchange for $400.

Gold testified that he turned this envelope over to Yakovlev who immediately transmitted it to the Soviet Union. Gold said that Yakovlev subsequently thanked him for obtaining such "excellent" and "valuable" data. The prosecution introduced two exhibits to bolster Gold's testimony, a receipt indicating that Ruth Greenglass had deposited $400 into her account at the Albuquerque National Bank on June 4, 1945, and a registration card from the Albuquerque Hilton Hotel signed by Harry Gold on June 3, 1945.

The final witness for the prosecution was Elizabeth Bentley, a forty-four-year-old former Soviet spy who was known to the public as the "Red Spy Queen." Bentley bragged that as a top-ranking member of the Communist party in the United States, she was responsible for pilfering a wide variety of industrial, military, and political secrets. Bentley then became a double agent for the FBI and was assigned to infiltrate and expose domestic Communist espionage networks.

In addition to testifying at the Rosenbergs' trial, Bentley had testified in a number of cases involving the prosecution of her former comrades in the American Communist party. In each case Bentley's testimony verged on the theatrical. At the Rosenbergs' trial, she testified that she had received a number of late night espionage-related phone calls from a man who called himself "Julius." Bentley admitted that she never met this man, however, and could not identify his voice.

The Defense

Whereas the prosecution's theory of the case seemed relatively straightforward, the defense strategy was enigmatic. The defendants' case was fraught with errors, ranging from minor to monumental. Most of these mistakes have been attributed to lead defense attorney Emanuel Bloch.

Bloch's first major mistake occurred during the direct examination of David Greenglass. When the prosecution sought to introduce one of the sketches Greenglass had drawn, Bloch made a motion, asking the court to impound the exhibit. When the prosecution attempted to question Greenglass about his notes that accompanied the sketches, Bloch asked the court to clear the press and spectators from the courtroom to prevent any further leaks of atomic secrets. The prosecution, who had been expecting Bloch to challenge Greenglass's qualifications to testify as an expert regarding the scientific significance of the sketches, happily concurred with Bloch's dual motions.

As it turns out, the prosecution had reason to be relieved. Several nuclear physicists vehemently disputed whether an ordinary machinist such as Greenglass possessed sufficient experience and educational background to testify or explain the complex principles behind the atomic bomb. In an effort to obtain executive clemency for the Rosenbergs in 1953, for example, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Harold Urey told President Dwight D. Eisenhower that a "man of Greenglass's capacity is wholly incapable of transmitting the physics, chemistry, and mathematics of the bomb to anyone." Other physicists wondered why the Soviets would even want Greenglass's sketches since they already had received diagrams of the bomb from Fuchs, a nuclear scientist. Bloch never called any scientists to challenge Greenglass's testimony.

Historians have argued that by failing to challenge Greenglass's scientific expertise and by asking the court to impound his sketches, Bloch convinced the jury that it was about to hear the secret of the atomic bomb. At least one of the Rosenberg jurors agreed with this analysis, stating that it was not until Bloch asked the court to keep the Greenglass exhibits confidential that he had become impressed with the importance of the trial.

A second major mistake occurred when Bloch failed to cross-examine Gold. Gold was an admitted liar. During a previous legal proceeding, he told the court that as a result of his espionage activities he "had become so tangled up in a web of lies that it was easier to continue telling an occasional lie than to try and straighten out the whole hideous mess." When the impeachment value of this prior testimony is coupled with the large number of glaring inconsistencies between Gold's testimony during the Rosenbergs' trial and his pretrial accounts of the same events, Bloch's decision against cross-examining Gold looms larger.

The Controversy Continues

Why Bloch made these mistakes is a question that remains unanswered. Although some historians claim that he was simply a bumbling attorney, Bloch had defended a number of defendants accused of espionage and had developed a reputation as a competent litigator. Other historians have suggested that Bloch purposely botched the trial in an effort to make martyrs of the Rosenbergs as part of a larger socialist agenda. In any event Bloch later expressed regret for his mistakes, attributing them in part to the politically charged legal climate of the times.

Indeed, during the early 1950s, hysteria over Communism pervaded almost every aspect of life in the United States. As a result, criminal defendants who were associated with Communist influences often received less than impartial hearings from judges and jurors. This paranoid fear of Communism began to manifest itself shortly after World War II.

Several events contributed to the concern about Communism. In 1948 Greece, Turkey, and Czechoslovakia were under siege by Communists. China came under Communist control in the spring of 1949. On January 21, 1950, Alger Hiss, a former member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, was convicted of perjury for statements he had made in response to espionage charges that had been lodged against him. A few weeks after the Hiss conviction, an obscure senator from Wisconsin named Joseph R. McCarthy startled the nation by brandishing a list of 205 Communists that he asserted were employed by the federal government. In June 1950 the Korean War erupted and the Rosenbergs were arrested.

This series of events affected the FBI's investigation of the Rosenberg conspiracy. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, had become concerned about public perception of his organization. Some officials had begun to question whether Hoover and the FBI were acting with sufficient vigilance to extinguish the internal Communist threat. With each new revelation about Communist spies in the U.S. government, Hoover took more severe measures to shore up what some perceived as national security breaches. The Rosenberg case was an example of the most extreme measures taken by the FBI.

Government files demonstrate that the FBI had expressed little interest in prosecuting Ethel Rosenberg until her husband refused to confess and implicate others in his spy ring. "There is no doubt," Hoover wrote to Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, that "it would be possible to proceed against other individuals" if "Julius Rosenberg would furnish details of his extensive espionage activities." "Proceeding against his wife," Hoover emphasized, "might serve as a lever in this matter." Shortly after this letter was written, Ethel was arrested and charged with the same crime as her husband.

When Julius obstinately refused to cooperate with the FBI, the government informed the defendants that the death penalty would be sought in the event of their conviction. The FBI never relented from its use of Ethel as a "lever" against Julius, ultimately executing Ethel for her role as an accessory to the crime committed by her husband and brother. Declassified documents show that the entire testimony relating to Ethel's role as a typist for her husband's espionage ring, which was the only evidence offered to implicate her in the conspiracy, was concocted by the FBI and the Greenglasses just eight days before the trial began.

Historians have raised other suspicions with regard to the FBI's investigation of the Rosenbergs. On May 22, 1950, Gold submitted an initial written confession to the FBI. The confession made a passing reference to Albuquerque but made no assertion that he had been sent by "Julius" to see a man named "Greenglass" from whom he had acquired secret information about the atomic bomb. Nor did the confession allude to irregularly shaped pieces of a Jell-O box or a Soviet agent named Yakovlev.

After a number of subsequent interviews with the FBI, some of which were conducted in the presence of David Greenglass, Gold said he was able to remember each of the missing details that he had earlier "forgotten." Walter and Miriam Schneir, authors of Invitation to an Inquest, have argued that these allegedly "forgotten" details were supplied to Gold by the FBI so that his story would corroborate the Greenglasses' testimony. The FBI has steadfastly maintained that it did nothing improper, unethical, or illegal to jog Gold's memory, and declassified government files from the case have offered no "smoking gun."

Many supporters of the Rosenbergs who have long suspected that the FBI manufactured evidence to strengthen its case do not deny that Julius was involved in some form of espionage for the Soviet Union. In 1995 the U.S. government released forty-nine decoded Soviet intelligence messages that it had intercepted during World War II. These messages offer proof that Julius, whose code name was "Liberal," was the ringleader of an espionage network of young U.S. Communists who provided the Soviets with documents relating to classified radar and aircraft information.

The intercepted messages imply that Julius may have been involved in efforts to obtain information from the Manhattan Project but reveal nothing specific. Nikita Khruschev, the former Soviet premier, noted in his memoirs, however, that the Rosenbergs "provided very significant help in accelerating the production of the atomic bomb." As the federal government declassifies and releases more documents from the Rosenberg files, a clearer picture of the Rosenberg espionage network will emerge. The most recently released files suggest that Ethel did not participate in her husband's espionage efforts due to her health.

In light of the murky questions that still surround the Rosenberg case, the jury's guilty verdict and the judge's death sentence remain a source of controversy. Supporters of the verdict and sentence point out that Justice William O. Douglas granted a temporary stay of the Rosenbergs' execution so that the Supreme Court could consider whether to hear the case on appeal. After reviewing the Rosenbergs' petitions to determine whether they presented any legal issues that were appropriate for appellate review, the Supreme Court denied certiorari. Justice Hugo L. Black was the lone dissenter. On June 19, 1953, the day after their twenty-second wedding anniversary, the Rosenbergs were put to death in the electric chair.

; red scare.

See: cold war.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg
Born	September 25, 1915(1915-09-25) (Ethel) May 12, 1918(1918-05-12) (Julius) New York City, New York (both)
Died	June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 37) Ethel June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 35) Julius Sing Sing Prison (both)
Charge(s)	Conspiracy to commit espionage
Penalty	Capital punishment
Status	Executed
Occupation	Actress, Singer, Secretary (Ethel), Electrical engineer (Julius)
Children	Michael Meeropol, Robert Meeropol

Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (September 25, 1915 ^[1] – June 19, 1953) and Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) were Jewish American communists who were convicted and executed in 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage during a time of war. The charges related to their passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. This was the first execution of civilians for espionage in United States history.^[2]

In 1995, the U.S. government released a series of decoded Soviet cables, codenamed VENONA, which supported courtroom testimony that Julius acted as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets, but cast doubt on the level of Ethel's involvement.^[3][4] The decision to execute the Rosenbergs was, and still is, controversial. The New York Times, in an editorial on the 50th anniversary of the execution (June 19, 2003) wrote, "The Rosenberg case still haunts American history, reminding us of the injustice that can be done when a nation gets caught up in hysteria."^[5] This hysteria had both an immediate and a lasting effect; many innocent scientists, including some who were virulently anti-communist, were investigated simply for having the last name "Rosenberg."^[6] The other atomic spies who were caught by the FBI offered confessions and were not executed. Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, who supplied documents to Julius from Los Alamos, served 10 years of his 15-year sentence.^[7] Harry Gold, who identified Greenglass, served 15 years in Federal prison as the courier for Greenglass and the German scientist, Klaus Fuchs.^[8] Morton Sobell, who was tried with the Rosenbergs, served 17 years and 9 months of a 30-year sentence.^[9] In 2008, Sobell admitted he was a spy and confirmed Julius Rosenberg was "in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information and what the American government described as the secret to the atomic bomb."^[10]

Contents 1 Early life and education 2 Marriage and family 3 Career 4 Grand jury 5 Trial and conviction 6 Execution 7 Later developments 7.1 Memoir of Nikita Khrushchev 7.2 Boris V. Brokhovich 7.3 Alexandre Feklisov 7.4 Venona 7.5 David Greenglass 7.6 Release of grand jury transcripts 7.7 Morton Sobell 7.8 The Rosenbergs' children 8 In popular culture 9 See also 10 Notes 11 Works cited 12 Further reading 13 External links

Early life and education

Julius Rosenberg was born to a family of Jewish immigrants in New York City on May 12, 1918. Census records show that his family lived at 205 East 113th when he was two years old. The family moved to the Lower East Side by the time Julius was eleven. His parents worked in the shops of the Lower East Side, as Julius attended Seward Park High School. Julius became a leader in the Young Communist League, USA while at City College of New York. In 1939 he graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering.

Ethel Greenglass was born on September 25, 1915, in New York City. An aspiring actress and singer, she eventually took a secretarial job at a shipping company. She became involved in labor disputes and joined the Young Communist League, where she met Julius in 1936.^[11]

Marriage and family

Julius and Ethel married in 1939. They had two sons, Robert and Michael. After their parents' convictions and executions, the boys were adopted by the teacher and songwriter Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne (and took the Meeropol surname to protect their privacy while they were growing up).^[11]

Career

Julius Rosenberg joined the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, in 1940, where he worked as an engineer-inspector until 1945. He was fired when the U.S. Army discovered his previous membership in the Communist Party. Important research on electronics, communications, radar and guided missile controls was undertaken at Fort Monmouth during World War II.^[12]

According to a 2001 book by his former handler Alexandre Feklisov, Rosenberg was originally recruited by the NKVD on Labor Day 1942 by former spymaster Semyon Semenov.^[13] He had been introduced to Semenov by Bernard Schuster, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party USA as well as Earl Browder's personal NKVD liaison. In fact, Feklisov, a life-long Communist, was covering the role of Jacob Golos, who in 1942 passed the Communist "information" cell of young engineers headed by Julius Rosenberg into direct contact with the Soviet operatives in New York. After Semenov was recalled to Moscow in 1944, his duties were taken over by Feklisov.^[13]

According to Feklisov, Rosenberg provided thousands of classified (top secret) reports from Emerson Radio, including a complete proximity fuze, the same device an upgraded model of which was used to shoot down Gary Powers' U-2 in 1960. Under Feklisov's administration, Rosenberg is said to have recruited sympathetic individuals into NKVD service, including Joel Barr, Alfred Sarant, William Perl and Morton Sobell.^[14] The Venona intercept shows that Julius Rosenberg (code name LIBERAL) was the head of this particular spy ring.

According to Feklisov, he was supplied by Perl, under Julius Rosenberg’s direction, 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 says he learned through Rosenberg that his brother-in-law David Greenglass was working on the top-secret Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory; he used Julius to recruit him.^[13]

The USSR and the U.S. became allies during World War II, after Nazi Germany's surprise attack on the USSR in 1941, but the U.S. government was highly suspicious of Joseph Stalin's long-term intentions. 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 U.S. government and made a number of attempts to infiltrate its operations at the University of California, Berkeley. The FBI file CINRAD (Communist Infiltration of the Radiation Laboratory) implicated J. Robert Oppenheimer, a consultant at the Radiation Lab and later, the key figure at Los Alamos, because of his earlier communist sympathies.^[15] A number of project members—some high-profile—voluntarily gave secret information to Soviet agents, many because they were ardent communists^[16] or were sympathetic to the Soviet Union's role in the war and did not feel the U.S. should have a monopoly on atomic weapons.^[17]

After the war, the U.S. continued to protect its nuclear secrets, but the Soviet Union was able to produce its own atomic weapons by 1949. The West was shocked by the speed with which the Soviets were able to stage their first nuclear test, "Joe 1", on August 29, 1949.^[18] In January 1950 the U.S. discovered that Klaus Fuchs, a German refugee theoretical physicist working for the British mission in the Manhattan Project, had given key documents to the Soviets throughout the war. Fuchs' identified his courier as Harry Gold, who was arrested on May 23, 1950.^[19] Gold confessed and identified Sergeant David Greenglass, a former machinist at Los Alamos, as an additional source.

Greenglass confessed to having passed secret information on to the USSR through Gold. Though he initially denied any involvement by his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, eventually he claimed that she knew of her husband's dealings and typed some documents for him.^[16] He also claimed that her husband, Julius, had convinced her sister Ruth Greenglass to recruit David while on a visit to him in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1944. He said Julius had passed secrets, and linked him and Ethel to the Soviet contact agent Anatoli Yakovlev. This connection would be necessary as evidence if there was to be a conviction for espionage.^[20]

Another accused conspirator, Morton Sobell, was on vacation in Mexico City when both Rosenbergs were arrested. According to his memoir, On Doing Time, he tried to figure out a way to reach Europe without a passport. Abandoning that effort, he returned to Mexico City, where he claimed to have been kidnapped by members of the Mexican secret police and driven to the U.S. border, where he was arrested by U.S. forces.^[21] The government claimed Sobell was arrested by the Mexican police for bank robbery on August 16, 1950, and extradited the next day to the United States in Laredo, Texas.^[22] He was charged and tried with the Rosenbergs on one count of conspiracy to commit espionage.

Grand jury

In August 1950, a federal grand jury was convened to hear the Justice Department's case for indictments. The grand jury transcripts,^[23] made public in 2008,^[24] record that on August 3, Ethel Rosenberg's sister-in-law, Ruth Greenglass, testified that in November 1944, Julius Rosenberg recruited Ethel, and urged her to recruit David Greenglass (Ruth's husband) into a conspiracy to engage in atomic espionage for the Soviet Union:

“

[H]e proceeded to tell me that he knew that David was working on the atomic bomb.... that he felt there was not a direct exchange of scientific information among the Allies, and that it would be only fair for Russia to have the information, too... and he wanted to make that possible. He asked me if I would relate this to David and ask him to pass on information through Julius.

”

She added that Ethel participated in this effort, urging her to comply:

“

His wife said that I should at least relay the message, that she felt that David might be interested, he would want to do this.... [S]he urged me to talk to David. She felt that even if I was against it, I should at least discuss it with him and hear what he had to say.[25]

”

On August 17, the grand jury returned an indictment alleging 11 overt acts. Both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were indicted, as were David Greenglass and Anatoli Yakovlev.^[26]

Trial and conviction

Police photograph of Ethel Rosenberg.

Police photograph of Julius Rosenberg after his arrest.

David Greenglass' sketch of an implosion-type nuclear weapon design, illustrating what he allegedly gave the Rosenbergs to pass on to the Soviet Union.

The trial of the Rosenbergs and Sobell began on March 6, 1951. The judge was Irving Kaufman, the prosecutor was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Irving Saypol and the attorney for the Rosenbergs was Emanuel Hirsch Bloch.^[27][28] The prosecution's primary witness, David Greenglass, stated that his sister Ethel typed notes containing U.S. nuclear secrets in the Rosenberg apartment in September 1945. He also testified that he turned over to Julius Rosenberg a sketch of the cross-section of an implosion-type atom bomb (the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, as opposed to a bomb with the "gun method" triggering device as used in the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima).^[29] The notes allegedly typed by Ethel apparently contained little that was relevant to the Soviet atomic bomb project and some suggest Ethel was indicted along with Julius so that the prosecution could use her to pressure Julius into giving up the names of others who were involved.^[30] However, neither Julius nor Ethel Rosenberg named anyone else and during testimony each asserted their right under the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment to not incriminate themselves whenever asked about involvement in the Communist Party or with its members. The then Deputy Attorney General of the United States William P. Rogers, when later asked about the failure of the indictment of Ethel to extract a full confession from Julius, reportedly said, "She called our bluff."^[31]

The Rosenbergs were convicted on March 29, 1951, and on April 5 were sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman under Section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917, 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."^[32] The conviction helped to fuel Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into anti-American activities by U.S. citizens. While their devotion to the Communist cause was well documented, the Rosenbergs denied the espionage charges even as they faced the electric chair.^[33]

The Rosenbergs were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War.^[34] In imposing the death penalty, Kaufman noted that he held them responsible not only for espionage but also for the deaths of the Korean War:

“

I consider your crime worse than murder... I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians the A-Bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the 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. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country. No one can say that we do not live in a constant state of tension. We have evidence of your treachery all around us every day for the civilian defense activities throughout the nation are aimed at preparing us for an atom bomb attack.[35]

”

After the publication of an investigative series in The National Guardian and the formation of the National Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case, some Americans came to believe both Rosenbergs were innocent or received too harsh a punishment, and a grassroots campaign was started to try to stop the couple's execution. Between the trial and the executions there were widespread protests and claims of antisemitism; the charges of antisemitism were widely believed abroad, but not among the vast majority in the United States, where the Rosenbergs did not receive any support from mainstream Jewish organizations nor from the American Civil Liberties Union as the case did not raise any civil liberties issues at all.^[36]

Marxist Nobel-Prize-winning existentialist philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre called the trial "a legal lynching which smears with blood a whole nation. By killing the Rosenbergs, you have quite simply tried to halt the progress of science by human sacrifice. Magic, witch-hunts, autos-da-fé, sacrifices — we are here getting to the point: your country is sick with fear... you are afraid of the shadow of your own bomb."^[37] Others, including non-Communists such as Albert Einstein and Nobel-Prize-winning physical chemist Harold Urey,^[38] as well as Communists or left-leaning artists such as Nelson Algren, Bertolt Brecht, Jean Cocteau, Dashiell Hammett, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, protested the position of the American government in what the French termed America's Dreyfus affair.^[39] In May 1951, Pablo Picasso wrote for the communist French newspaper L’Humanité, "The hours count. The minutes count. Do not let this crime against humanity take place."^[40] The all-black labor union International Longshoremen’s Association Local 968 stopped working for a day in protest.^[41] Cinema artists such as Fritz Lang registered their protest.^[42] Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953, and all other appeals were also unsuccessful.^[43][44]

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, investigated how much the Soviet spy ring helped the USSR to build their bomb. In 1945, Moynihan found, physicists Hans Bethe estimated that the Soviets would be able to build their own bomb in five years. “Thanks to information provided by their agents,” Moynihan concluded in his book Secrecy, they did it in four. That was the edge that espionage gave them: one year.”^[45]

Execution

Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where the Rosenbergs were executed

Because the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons did not operate an electric chair at the time, the Rosenbergs were transferred to the New York State-run Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining for execution. The couple were executed at sundown in the electric chair on June 19, 1953.^[2][46] This was delayed from the originally scheduled date of June 18 because, on June 17, Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas had granted a stay of execution. That stay resulted from the intervention in the case of Fyke Farmer, a Tennessee lawyer whose efforts had previously met with scorn from the Rosenbergs' attorney.^[47]

On June 18, the Court was called back into special session to dispose of Douglas' stay rather than let the execution be delayed for months while the appeal that was the basis of the stay wended its way through the lower courts. The Court did not vacate Douglas' stay until noon on June 19. Thus, the execution then was scheduled for later in the evening after the start of the Jewish Sabbath.^[48] Desperately playing for more time, their lawyer, Emanuel Hirsch Bloch, filed a complaint that this offended their Jewish heritage, so the execution was scheduled before sunset, at 8 pm on Friday instead of the regular time of execution at Sing Sing of 11 pm. which usually took place on Thursday.^[49]

Eyewitness testimony (as given by a newsreel report featured in the 1982 documentary film The Atomic Cafe) describes the circumstances of the Rosenbergs' death, noting that while Julius Rosenberg died after the first electric shock, his wife did not. After the normal course of electrocutions, attendants removed the strapping and other equipment only to have doctors determine that Mrs. Rosenberg had not yet died (her heart was still beating). Three courses of electrocution were ultimately applied, and at conclusion eyewitnesses reported, Bob Considine among them, that smoke rose from her head in the chamber.^[50]

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were buried at Wellwood Cemetery in Pinelawn, New York.^[48]

Later developments

Memoir of Nikita Khrushchev

The posthumously published memoir of Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, records that he learned from Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav M. Molotov that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg "had provided very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb." The memoir adds:

“

Let this be a worthy tribute to the memory of those people. Let my words serve as an expression of gratitude to those who sacrificed their lives to a great cause of the Soviet state at a time when the U.S. was using its advantage over our state to blackmail our state and undermine its proletarian cause..."[51]

”

Boris V. Brokhovich

The engineer who later became director of Chelyabinsk-40, the plutonium production reactor and extraction facility which the Soviet Union used to create its first bomb material, denied any involvement by the Rosenbergs. In 1989, Boris V. Brokhovich told The New York Times in an interview that development of the bomb had been a matter of trial and error. "You sat the Rosenbergs in the electric chair for nothing", he said. "We got nothing from the Rosenbergs."^[52]

Alexandre Feklisov

According to Alexandre Feklisov, the former Soviet agent who was Julius' contact, he had not provided the Soviet Union with any useful material about the atomic bomb, "He didn't understand anything about the atomic bomb and he couldn't help us."^[4]

Venona

In 1995 the results of the Venona decryption project were released by the US government. Among these was a Soviet Intelligence cable of September 21, 1944, from New York station to Moscow Center which read in part:

“

LIBERAL recommended the wife of his wife's brother, Ruth GREENGLASS.... She is 21 years old, a TOWNSWOMAN [GOROZhANKA], a GYMNAST [FIZKUL'TURNITsA] since 1942.... LIBERAL and his wife recommend her.... [Ruth] learned that her husband ... is now working at the ENORMOUS [ENORMOZ] plant in SANTA FE, New Mexico.

”

Notes by U.S. Signals Intelligence Service cryptographers identify the code-names LIBERAL as "Julius ROSENBERG," GOROZhANKA as "American Citizen," FIZKUL'TURNITsA as "Probably a Member of the Young Communist League," and ENORMOZ as "Atomic Energy Project."^[53]

David Greenglass

David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother and key prosecution witness, recanted his testimony about his sister's typed notes. He stated in an interview in 2001: "I don't know who typed it, frankly, and to this day I can't remember that the typing took place. I had no memory of that at all—none whatsoever."^[34] He said he gave false testimony to protect himself and his wife, Ruth, and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so; "I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister."^[34] He refused to express any remorse for his decision to sacrifice his sister, saying only that he did not realize that the death penalty would be invoked.^[34]

Release of grand jury transcripts

In a hearing, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein decided to make public the grand jury testimony of 36 of the 46 witnesses but not that of Greenglass. Citing the objections of Greenglass and two other living witnesses, the judge claimed that their right to privacy "overrides the public’s need to know."^[54] Georgetown University law professor David Vladeck argued on behalf of historical groups that because of recent interviews, Greenglass forfeited the privacy he now claims and that the testimony should be released. Hellerstein was not convinced. The testimony of the other seven witnesses will be released upon their consent, or confirmation that they are dead or impossible to find.^[54]

In September 2008, hundreds of pages of grand jury transcripts were released. With this release, it was revealed that Ruth Greenglass had irreconcilable differences in her grand jury testimony in August 1950 and the testimony she gave at trial. At the grand jury, Ruth Greenglass was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] down on a piece of paper?"^[55] She replied, "Yes, I wrote [the information] down a piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him."^[55] But, at the trial she testified that Ethel Rosenberg typed up notes about the atomic bomb.^[55]

Morton Sobell (left), Marshall Perlin, Robert Meeropol, Franz Loeser, April 19, 1976.

Morton Sobell

In 2008, after many years of denial, Morton Sobell finally admitted he was a Soviet spy and confirmed Julius Rosenberg was "in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information ... [on] the atomic bomb."^[10] However, he stated that the hand-drawn diagrams and other atomic-bomb details that were acquired by David Greenglass and passed to Julius were of "little value" to the Soviet Union, and were used only to corroborate what they had already learned from the other atomic spies.^[10] He also stated that he believed Ethel Rosenberg was aware of her husband's deeds, but took no part in them.^[10] In a subsequent letter to The New York Times, Sobell denied that he knew anything about Julius Rosenberg's alleged atomic espionage activities – that the only thing he knew for sure was what he (Sobell) did with Julius Rosenberg.^[56]

The Rosenbergs' children

The Rosenbergs' two sons, Robert Meeropol and Michael Meeropol, spent years trying to prove the innocence of their parents. After Morton Sobell, at age 91, confessed in 2008, they acknowledged their father had been involved in espionage, but not passing secrets of the bomb. They noted that new evidence cast more doubt on their mother's guilt and said they considered her an innocent person, set up by the government.^[57] The Rosenberg children were orphaned by the executions and no relatives adopted them. They were adopted by the songwriter Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne, and they assumed the Meeropol surname. Under the pen name of Lewis Allan, he (Abel Meeropol) wrote the classic anti-lynching anthem "Strange Fruit", made famous by singer Billie Holiday.

Robert and Michael co-wrote a book about their and their parents' lives, We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1975). Robert wrote a later memoir, An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey (2003). In 1990, he founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a nonprofit foundation that provides support for children of targeted progressive activists, and youth who are targeted activists.^[58] Michael is recently retired as the Chair and Professor of Economics, School of Arts and Sciences, Economics at Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Michael's daughter, Ivy Meeropol, directed a 2004 documentary about her grandparents, Heir to an Execution, which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival.^[59]

Michael and Robert Meeropol believe that "whatever atomic bomb information their father passed to the Russians was, at best, superfluous; the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct; their mother was convicted on flimsy evidence to place leverage on her husband; and neither deserved the death penalty."^[57] Their mother, they concluded, had not been a spy, but rather had been framed by the false testimony of her brother, and should never have been tried, much less executed.

In popular culture

• Turkish poet Melih Cevdet Anday has written the poem "Ani", "Memory/Remembrance" in English, dedicated to Rosenbergs and Zulfu Livaneli has composed the same named song for the lyrics.
• The Rosenbergs are referred to in Sylvia Plath's novel The Bell Jar (1963), including in the famous opening line, "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."'^[60]
• The E. L. Doctorow novel The Book of Daniel (1971) is based on the Rosenberg case as seen through the eyes of the (fictionalized) son. Doctorow wrote the screenplay of the Sidney Lumet film, Daniel, starring Timothy Hutton.
• Robert Coover's The Public Burning (1977) dealt with the case. Unlike Doctorow, Coover uses real names for most protagonists of the case, and uses a fictionalized Richard Nixon as his narrator for half of the chapters. This sparked a long delay in the publication of the novel, since publishing houses feared lawsuits from persons portrayed in the book.
• French singer Jean Ferrat released a (fictional?) letter by Ethel Rosenberg to her sons as a chanson under the title "Si nous mourons" (If We Die) (1979).^[61]
• In the 1992 film Citizen Cohn, Ethel Rosenberg is portrayed by Karen Ludwig.
• Ethel Rosenberg is a major supporting character in Tony Kushner's critically acclaimed play Angels in America (1993), in which her ghost haunts a dying Roy Cohn. In the HBO 2003 miniseries adaptation of the play, she was portrayed by Meryl Streep.^[61]
• In Season 1 Episode 12 (Prison Story) of the television show "The Pretender (TV series)", the main character Jarod is subject to a simulation where he supports Rosenberg's innocence.
• Faiz Ahmed Faiz, a celebrated revolutionary poet of Pakistan, praised Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's sacrifices in his poems, which are now classics of Urdu poetry.
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are portrayed in the episode "Time Again and World" of the television show Sliders. The episode, which takes place in an alternate universe in which the United States Constitution was abridged in 1963 by President J. Edgar Hoover, has the Rosenbergs mentioned as the ones who assassinated John F. Kennedy. After the Rosenbergs are executed, Hoover becomes President due to his popularity with the execution, abridges the Constitution, and places the country under martial law, which lasts well into the 1990s.
• The Rosenbergs are noted in the lyrics of We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel.
• Millicent Dillon dealt with these figures in her fictional biography Harry Gold (2000).^[62]
• Tema Nason wrote Ethel: A Fictional Autobiography (2002), based on Ethel Rosenberg.
• Julius Rosenberg is available in the computer game Civilization 4 as a Great Spy.
• In The Simpsons episode "The Color Yellow" Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are briefly mentioned as being members of the Simpson family.
• In You've Got Mail, Meg Ryan's character's first boyfriend Frank (played by Greg Kinnear) is a journalist referred to as 'the greatest living expert on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.'
• In the episode Scardey Dick of 3rd Rock From The Sun, Sally and Tommy are dressed as Julius and Ethel for Halloween.

See also

• Atom Spies
• Roy Cohn, member of the prosecution team
• Soviet atomic bomb project

Notes

1. ^ Her tombstone Find a Grave
2. ^ ^{a b} "50 years later, Rosenberg execution is still fresh". Associated Press in USA Today. 2003-06-17. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-06-17-rosenbergs_x.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-08. 
3. ^ "Rosenberg sons acknowledge dad was spy". Associated Press at MSNBC. September 17, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26761635. Retrieved 2009-03-13. "The guilt of the Rosenbergs, the conduct of their trial, and the appropriateness of their sentence have been the subject of continued debate since their arrest and trial. While independent corroboration has indicated that Julius Rosenberg did pass information to the Soviets, there is little evidence that his wife Ethel participated in espionage." 
4. ^ ^{a b} Stanley, Alessandra (March 16, 1997). "K.G.B. Agent Plays Down Atomic Role Of Rosenbergs". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E2DF1438F935A25750C0A961958260&scp=3&sq=feklisov&st=nyt. Retrieved 2008-06-24. "A retired K.G.B. colonel has for the first time disclosed his role as the human conduit between Moscow and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg ... Aleksandr Feklisov, 83, said ... while Julius Rosenberg did give away military secrets, he had not provided Russia with any useful material about the atomic bomb." 
5. ^ "Remembering the Rosenbergs". The New York Times. June 19, 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/opinion/19THU3.html?pagewanted=1. Retrieved 2010-04-22. 
6. ^ "THE OTHER ROSENBERGS: They Had The Wrong Name At The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time". Moment. March/April 2011. http://momentmag.com/moment/issues/2011/04/rosenbergs.html. Retrieved 2011-09-04. 
7. ^ Ranzal, Edward (March 19, 1953). "Greenglass, in Prison, Vows to Kin He Told Truth About Rosenbergs". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00714FE3D59107A93CBA81788D85F478585F9. Retrieved 2008-07-07. "David Greenglass, serving 15 years as a confessed atom spy, denied to members of his family recently that he had been coached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the drawing of segments of the atom bomb." 
8. ^ Whitman, Alden (February 14, 1974). "1972 Death of Harry Gold Revealed". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50B1EFA3D541A7493C6A81789D85F408785F9. Retrieved 2008-07-07. "Harry Gold, who served 15 years in Federal prison as a confessed atomic spy courier, for Klaus Fuchs, a Soviet agent, and who was a key Government witness in the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg espionage case in 1951, died 18 months ago in Philadelphia." 
9. ^ Ranzal, Edward (January 15, 1969). "Morton Sobell Free As Spy Term Ends". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30B14F63C5E147493C7A8178AD85F4D8685F9. Retrieved 2008-07-07. "Morton Sobell, sentenced to 30 years for a wartime espionage conspiracy to deliver vital national secrets to the Soviet Union, was released from prison yesterday after serving 17 years and 9 months." 
10. ^ ^{a b c d} Roberts, Sam (September 12, 2008). "For First Time, Figure in Rosenberg Case Admits Spying for Soviets". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/12/nyregion/12spy.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss. Retrieved May 7, 2010. "Sobell, who served nearly 19 years in Alcatraz and other federal prisons, admitted for the first time that he had been a Soviet spy." 
11. ^ ^{a b} Denison, Charles and Chuck (2004). The Great American Songbook. Author's Choice Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 1931741422. http://books.google.com/books?id=TPOS7AMCOhoC&pg=PA45&dq=Abel+Meeropol+children&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Abel%20Meeropol%20children}&f=false. 
12. ^ Wang, Jessica (1999). American science in an age of anxiety. UNC Press. p. 262. ISBN 0807847497. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ok_A5UV1mdoC&pg=PA262&dq=Julius+Rosenberg+Army+Signal+Corp+work&cd=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
13. ^ ^{a b c} Feklisov, Aleksandr; Sergei Kostin (2001). The Man Behind the Rosenbergs. Enigma Books. ISBN 1-929631-08-1. 
14. ^ Feklisov, Aleksandr; Sergei Kostin (2001). The Man Behind the Rosenbergs. Enigma Books. pp. 140–147. ISBN 1-929631-08-1. 
15. ^ Evans, Medford Stanton (2007). Blacklisted by history. Random House. p. 137. ISBN 1400081059. http://books.google.com/books?id=vz42rDYmf3wC&pg=PA137&dq=University++California+Berkeley+Soviet+WWII+infiltration&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
16. ^ ^{a b} NOVA Online - Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies
17. ^ See Bombshell. Times Books. 1997. ISBN 0-8129-2861-X.  with reference to Theodore Alvin Hall and Saville Sax and their motives.
18. ^ Ziegler, Charles A.; Jacobson, David (1995). Spying without spies. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 220. ISBN 0275950491. http://books.google.com/books?id=mIVto1lFdFEC&pg=PA220&dq=Nuclear+test+Job1&cd=4#v=onepage&q=Nuclear%20test%20Joe%201&f=false. 
19. ^ Radosh, Ronald; Milton, Joyce (1997). The Rosenberg file. Yale University Press. pp. 39–40. ISBN 0300072051. http://books.google.com/books?id=QpKjGSHAcaYC&pg=PA39&dq=Fuchs+courier+Harry+Gold&cd=7#v=onepage&q=Fuchs%20courier%20Harry%20Gold&f=false. 
20. ^ Theoharis, Athan G. (1999). The FBI: a comprehensive reference guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 65–66. ISBN 0897749916. http://books.google.com/books?id=VnQduXa4JdoC&pg=PA65&dq=Greenglass+Julius+Rosenberg+espionage&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Greenglass%20Greenglass%20Julius%20Rosenberg%20espionage&f=false. "FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover subsequently termed this case "the crime of the century."" 
21. ^ Neville, John F. (1995). The Press, the Rosenbergs, and the Cold War. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 25. ISBN 0275949952. http://books.google.com/books?id=CeY15p_CuYAC&pg=PA25&dq=Morton+Sobell+arrest&lr=&cd=5#v=onepage&q=Morton%20Sobell%20arrest&f=false. 
22. ^ Neville, John F. (1995). The Press, the Rosenbergs, and the Cold War. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 25. ISBN 0275949952. 
23. ^ "Records of the Rosenberg Grand Jury Transcripts". National Archives and Records Administration. http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/topics/courts/rosenberg-jury.html. Retrieved 13 January 2011. 
24. ^ "National Archives to Open Rosenberg Grand Jury Transcripts". Press Release. National Archives and Records Administration. September 9, 2008. http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2008/nr08-144.html. Retrieved 13 January 2011. 
25. ^ "Testimony of Ruth Greenglass, August 3, 1950". Records of the Rosenberg Grand Jury Transcripts (National Archives and Records Administration): 09137–09138 (PDF 6–7). 1950. http://media.nara.gov/northeast/nyc/rosenbergcasefiles-greenglass-ruth-pg9132to9161.pdf. Retrieved 13 January 2011. 
26. ^ "The Atom Spy Case". Famous Cases and Criminals. Federal Bureau of Investigation. http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/history/famous-cases/the-atom-spy-case/the-atom-spy-case. Retrieved 13 January 2011. 
27. ^ Jenkins, John Philip. "Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg (American spies) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Britannica.com. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1353311/Julius-Rosenberg-and-Ethel-Rosenberg. Retrieved 2011-09-04. 
28. ^ "Milestones, Feb. 8, 1954". Time. 1954-02-08. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,860424,00.html. Retrieved 2008-06-21. 
29. ^ Roberts, Sam (2003). The Brother: the untold story of the Rosenberg Case. Random House. pp. 403–407. ISBN 0375761249. "On February 28, 1945, the NKVD submitted to Lavrenti Beria a comprehensive report on nuclear weaponry, including implosion research, based chiefly on intelligence from Hall and Greenglass." 
30. ^ Roberts, Sam (2001). The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case. Random House. pp. 425–426, 432. ISBN 0-375-76124-1. 
31. ^ Roberts, Sam (2008-06-26). "Spies and Secrecy". The New York Times. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/podcast-spies-and-secrecy/#more-3235. Retrieved 2008-06-27. "No, he replied, the goal wasn’t to kill the couple. The strategy was to use the death sentence imposed on Ethel to wring a full confession from Julius — in hopes that Ethel’s motherly instincts would trump unconditional loyalty to a noble but discredited cause. What went wrong? Rogers’s explanation still haunts me. 'She called our bluff' he said." 
32. ^ Huberich, Charles Henry (1918). The law relating to trading with the enemy. Baker, Voorhis & Company. p. 349. http://books.google.com/books?id=Bgc9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA349&dq=espionage+act+of+1917+text&cd=5#. 
33. ^ Theoharis, Athan G. (1999). The FBI: a comprehensive reference guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 65. ISBN 0897749916. 
34. ^ ^{a b c d} "False testimony clinched Rosenberg spy trial". BBC. December 6, 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1695240.stm. Retrieved 2008-07-30. 
35. ^ "Judge Kaufman's Statement Upon Sentencing the Rosenbergs". University of Missouri–Kansas City. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_SENT.HTM. Retrieved 2008-06-24. 
36. ^ Radosh, Ronald; Milton, Joyce (1997). The Rosenberg File. Yale University Press. p. 352. ISBN 0300072051. http://books.google.com/books?id=QpKjGSHAcaYC&pg=PA352&dq=Anti-semitism+Rosenberg+trial+execution&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Anti-semitism%20Rosenberg%20trial%20execution&f=false. 
37. ^ Schneir, Walter (1983). Invitation to an Inquest. Pantheon Books. p. 254. ISBN 0394714962. 
38. ^ Feklisov, Aleksandr; Kostine, Sergei (2001). The man behind the Rosenbergs. Enigma Books. p. 311. ISBN 1929631087. "The great physicists Albert Einstein and Harold Urey asked President Truman to pardon the couple." 
39. ^ Radosh, Ronald; Milton, Joyce (1997). The Rosenberg File. Yale University Press. p. 352. ISBN 0300072051. "But it was the apparent parallel with France's own Dreyfus case that touched the deepest chords in the national psyche." 
40. ^ Schulte, Elizabeth (Issue 29, May–June 2003). "The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg". International Socialist Review. http://www.isreview.org/issues/29/rosenbergs.shtml. Retrieved 2008-10-05. 
41. ^ "Unions throughout U.S. joining in plea to save the Rosenbergs". Daily Worker. 1953-01-15. 
42. ^ Sharp, Malcolm P. (1956). Was Justice Done? The Rosenberg-Sobell Case. Monthly Review Press. p. 132. 56-10953. 
43. ^ Schrecker, Ellen (1998). Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Little, Brown and Company. p. 137. ISBN 0316774707. 
44. ^ Cortes, Arnaldo (1953-02-14). "Pope Made Appeal to Aid Rosenbergs.". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0C14FF345E177B93C6A81789D85F478585F9. Retrieved 2008-09-17. "Pope Pius XII appealed to the United States Government for clemency in the Rosenberg atomic spy case, the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano revealed today." 
45. ^ Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Secrecy (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1999), 143–44.
46. ^ "Execution of the Rosenbergs". The Guardian (London). June 20, 1953. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1953/jun/20/usa.fromthearchive. Retrieved 2008-06-24. "Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was executed early this morning at Sing Sing Prison for conspiring to pass atomic secrets to Russia in World War II" 
47. ^ Wood, E. Thomas (2007-06-17). "Nashville now and then: A lawyer's last gamble". NashvillePost.com. http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2007/6/17/nashville_now_and_then_a_lawyers_last_gamble_and_a_universitys_divorce. Retrieved 2007-08-08. "Farmer, working at no charge against the opposition of not only the government but also the Rosenbergs' legal team, had showed up at Douglas's chambers without an appointment, on the day after the high court adjourned for the term. Farmer convinced the jurist that the Rosenbergs had been tried under an invalid law. If they could be charged with any crime, he asserted, it would have to be a violation of the Atomic Energy Act, which did not carry a death penalty, rather than the Espionage Act of 1917." 
48. ^ ^{a b} Haberman, Clyde (June 20, 2003). "Executed At Sundown, 50 Years Ago.". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E6D81E38F933A15755C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. Retrieved 2008-06-23. "Rosenberg. One more name out of thousands, representing all those souls on their journey through forever at Wellwood Cemetery, along the border between Nassau and Suffolk Counties.... Usually at Sing Sing, the death penalty was carried out at 11 p.m. But that June 19 was a Friday, and 11 p.m. would have pushed the executions well into the Jewish Sabbath, which begins at sundown. The federal judge in Manhattan who sentenced them to death, Irving R. Kaufman, said that the very idea of a Sabbath execution gave him 'considerable concern.' The Justice Department agreed. So the time was pushed forward." 
49. ^ Roberts, Sam (2003). The Brother: the untold story of the Rosenberg case. Random House. p. 11. ISBN 0375761249. http://books.google.com/books?id=z6HtGVvO6jEC&pg=PT20&dq=Rosenberg+execution+before+sunset&cd=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false. "(According to Orthodox tradition, the Sabbath begins eighteen minutes before sunset Friday and ends the following evening.)" 
50. ^ Philipson, Ilene (1993). Ethel Rosenber: beyond the myths. Rutgers University Press. pp. 351–352. ISBN 0813519173. http://books.google.com/books?id=8g6JU4hTJ2AC&pg=PA351&dq=Bob+Considine+Rosenberg+execution&cd=1#v=onepage&q=Bob%20Considine%20Rosenberg%20execution&f=false. 
51. ^ McFadden, Robert (1990-09-25). "Khrushchev on Rosenbergs: Stoking Old Embers". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/25/world/khrushchev-on-rosenbergs-stoking-old-embers.html. Retrieved 2008-08-13. "Nearly four decades after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to pass America's atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, the case that has haunted scholars, historians and partisans of the left and the right has found a new witness: Nikita S. Khrushchev." 
52. ^ McFadden, Robert (2008-09-25). "Khrushchev on Rosenbergs: Stoking Old Embers". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0DC103FF936A1575AC0A966958260. Retrieved 2008-08-13. "Nearly four decades after Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to pass America's atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union, the case that has haunted scholars, historians and partisans of the left and the right has found a new witness: Nikita S. Khrushchev." 
53. ^ "Venona 1340 New York to Moscow 21 September 1944". National Security Agency. http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/21sep_recruitment_by_rosenbergs.pdf.  1340 New York to Moscow 21 September 1944
54. ^ ^{a b} "Judge hears case for historic Rosenberg spy trial". Associated Press (New York Daily News). July 22, 2008. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/07/22/2008-07-22_judge_hears_case_for_historic_rosenberg_.html. Retrieved 2008-07-30. 
55. ^ ^{a b c} Watt, Holly (2008-09-12). "Witness Changed Her Story During Rosenberg Spy Case". Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091103887.html. 
56. ^ "LETTER; The Rosenberg Case". The New York Times. September 19, 2008. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03EFD9163AF93AA2575AC0A96E9C8B63&ref=julius_rosenberg. 
57. ^ ^{a b} Roberts, Sam (September 16, 2008). "Father Was a Spy, Sons Conclude With Regret". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/nyregion/17rosenbergs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2008-09-17. "Now, confronted with the surprising confession last week of Morton Sobell, Julius Rosenberg’s City College classmate and co-defendant, the brothers have admitted to a painful conclusion: that their father was a spy." 
58. ^ "My Parents Were Executed Under the Unconstitutional Espionage Act". Democracy Now!. December 30, 2010. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/30/son_of_julius_and_ethel_rosenberg. Retrieved 2011-01-06. 
59. ^ "Sundance: Heir To An Execution". CBS News. January 20, 2004. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/20/entertainment/main594590.shtml. Retrieved 2011-01-06. 
60. ^ Plath, Sylvia, The Bell Jar, ISBN 978-0-571-22616-0
61. ^ ^{a b} Ethel Rosenberg at the Internet Movie Database
62. ^ Dillon, 2000 front flap

For any who retained doubts as of 1989 as to the Rosenbergs' guilt, we observed then that East Berlin had named one street after Julius and the other after Ethel. At some point the streets crossed, creating an "intersection of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg Boulevards." - Allan Torrey, NYC

Works cited

• Feklisov, Aleksandr, and Kostin, Sergei. The Man Behind the Rosenbergs. Enigma Books (2001). 978-929631-24-7.
• Roberts, Sam. The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case. Random House, 2001. ISBN 0-375-76124-1.
• Schneir, Walter. Invitation to an Inquest. Pantheon Books, 1983. ISBN 0-394-71496-2.
• Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Little, Brown and Company, 1998. ISBN 0-316-77470-7.

Further reading

• Alman, Emily A. and David. Exoneration: The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell — Prosecutorial deceptions, suborned perjuries, anti-Semitism, and precedent for today's unconstitutional trials. Green Elms Press, 2010. ISBN 13: 978-097790583-6 or ISBN 10: 097790583-7.
• Nason, Tema. Ethel: The Fictional Autobiography of Ethel Rosenberg. Delacourt, 1990. ISBN 0-440-21110-7 and by Syracuse, 2002, ISBN 0-8156-0745-8.
• Meeropol, Robert and Michael. We Are Your Sons, The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. University of Illinois Press, 1986. [chapter 15 is a detailed refutation of Radosh and Milton's scholarship.] ISBN 0-252-01263-1.
• Meeropol, Robert Meeropol. An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey. St. Martin's Press, 2003. ISBN 0-312-30637-7.
• Radosh, Ronald and Joyce Milton. The Rosenberg File: A Search for the Truth. Henry Holt (1983). ISBN 0-03-049036-7.
• Wexley, John. The Judgment of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ballantine Books, 1977. ISBN 0-345-24869-4.
• Trahair, Richard C.S. and Robert Miller. Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. Enigma Books, 2009. ISBN 978-1-929631-75-9.
• Yalkowsky, Stanley. The Murder of the Rosenbergs. Crucible Publications (July 1990). ISBN 978-0-9620984-2-0.
• Meeropol, Michael, ed. The Rosenberg Letters: A Complete Edition of the Prison Correspondence of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg NY, Garland Publishing, 1994 ISBN 0-8240-5948-4
• Zinn, A People's History of the United States, page 434
• Roberts, Sam. The Brother: The Untold Story of the Rosenberg Case, Random House, 2003, ISBN 0375761241.
• Schneir, Walter. Final Verdict: What Really Happened in the Rosenberg Case, Melville House, 2010. ISBN 1935554166.
• Hornblum, Allen M. The Invisible Harry Gold: The Man Who Gave the Soviets the Atom Bomb, Yale University Press 2010. ISBN 0300156766. wang

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rosenberg trial

• An Interactive Rosenberg Espionage Ring Timeline and Archive
• Timeline of Events Relating to the Rosenberg Trial.
• Rosenberg trial transcript (excerpts as HTML, and the entire 2,563 page transcript as a PDF file)
• Ethel's brother says he trumped up evidence.
• Documents relating to the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Case, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
• Project Venona messages.
• Rosenberg FBI files (summary only)
• Heir to an Execution — An HBO documentary by Ivy Meeropol, the granddaughter of Ethel and Julius.
• A statement by the Rosenberg's sons in support of their exoneration
• An Interview with Robert Meeropol about the adoption
• National Committee to Reopen the Rosenberg Case
• Annotated bibliography for Ethel Rosenberg from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Annotated bibliography for Julius Rosenberg from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Ethel Rosenberg at Find a Grave
• Julius Rosenberg at Find a Grave
• The Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) for Alexander Vassiliev's Notebooks
• Rosenberg Son: "My Parents Were Executed Under the Unconstitutional Espionage Act"—video report by Democracy Now!
• History on Trial: The Rosenberg Case in E.L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel by Santiago Juan-Navarro from The Grove: Working Papers on English Studies, Vol 6, 1999).
• Julius Rosenberg at court sentenced to death

v d e Soviet and Russian spies In the US 1940s and before Mihail Gorin Harry Gold Joel Barr Whittaker Chambers Lona Cohen Morris Cohen Judith Coplon Flora Wovschin Klaus Fuchs George Koval David Greenglass Theodore Hall William Malisoff Isaiah Oggins William Perl Julius Rosenberg Alfred Sarant Saville Sax Morton Sobell Bill Weisband Anatoli Yatskov 1950s and 1960s Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher Jack Soble Myra Soble Robert Soblen Jack Dunlap Robert Lee Johnson 1970s and after Andrew Daulton Lee Aldrich Ames Christopher John Boyce David Sheldon Boone Robert Hanssen John Anthony Walker Thomas Patrick Cavanaugh James Hall III Edward Lee Howard Clayton J. Lonetree Richard Miller Harold James Nicholson Ronald Pelton Earl Edwin Pitts Illegals Program Robert Thompson George Trofimoff Maria Wicher In the UK Cambridge Five Donald Maclean Kim Philby Guy Burgess Anthony Blunt John Cairncross Portland Spy Ring Ethel Gee Harry Houghton Konon Molody Lona Cohen Morris Cohen Michael Bettaney George Blake David Crook Klaus Fuchs Melita Norwood Alan Nunn May John Peet Geoffrey Prime Goronwy Rees Michael John Smith Dave Springhall John Alexander Symonds John Vassall Arthur Wynn In Canada Sam Carr Fred Rose Elsewhere Dieter Gerhardt Vitaly Shlykov

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