He also named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as contacts and denied that his wife, Ruth Greenglass, was involved with any espionage activities. According to Rojas, a man named Velasquez had threatened her when she rejected his sexual advances earlier in the day. [28][29] The prosecution's primary witness, David Greenglass, said that he turned over to Julius Rosenberg a sketch of the cross-section of an implosion-type atom bomb. [33], In imposing the death penalty, Kaufman noted that he held the Rosenbergs responsible not only for espionage but also for American deaths in the Korean War:[34]. Due to Red Scare trials and newspaper headlines, Americans in the 1940s, and 1950s knew that Soviet espionage was serious. Judge Kaufman justified his decisionfor the death penalty by stating: I consider your crimes worse than murder. Ronald Radoshconcludes, after Sobells 2008 confessions, that the Rosenbergs were Soviet spies. Despite these fears, the trial of the Rosenbergs produced mixed reactions among the public. [5][6], For decades many people including the Rosenbergs' sons (Michael and Robert Meeropol) maintained that Julius and Ethel were innocent of spying on their country and were victims of Cold War paranoia. She was impassive in court, and poorly turned out, due to the fact they had very little money: Julius Rosenberg embarked upon espionage for his ideals, not for monetary reward. (. The documents also suggest the Ethel acted as an accessory to her husbands activity, but that she did not play a principal role. Explains that one of the most famous cases of spies was the case of ethel and julius rosenberg, who were minor activists in the american communist party and convicted of being communists. Kaufman, who also stated his concerns about executing the Rosenbergs on the Sabbath, rescheduled the execution for 8p.m.before sunset and the Sabbaththe regular time for executions at Sing Sing. Martin J. Manning and Clarence R. Wyatt, eds. They married in 1939. Sebba says the only lesson history offers is that there are no lessons to be learned. They hoped merely by arresting her on these trumped-up charges, surely Julius would talk, because thats what everyone else had done.. A worldwide campaign for mercy failed, and the Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Or my mother or my father, OK? Greenglass secretly testified before a grand jury in August 1950. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.. The children say that their father did not deserve the death penalty and that their mother was wrongly convicted. Many Americans who were politically left-wing believed the Rosenbergs were persecuted solely for their past involvement with the Communist Party. Most of them clearly regarded the Rosenbergs as martyred heroes and more than 500 mourners attended to-day's services, while a crowd estimated at 10,000 stood outside in burning heat. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg ne Ethel Greenglass, (respectively, born May 12, 1918, New York, New York, U.S.died June 19, 1953, Ossining, New York; born September 28, 1915, New York Citydied June 19, 1953, Ossining), the first American civilians to be executed for conspiracy to commit espionage and the first to suffer Some people believed that the Rosenbergs were the victims of a surge of hysterical anti-communist feeling in the United States, and protested that the death sentence handed down was cruel and unusual punishment. Some atomic scientists have claimed that the information David and Julius passed along would not have been of great importance to the USSR because it was incomplete and not very detailed. Her attorney asked the U.S. commissioner to parole her in his custody over the weekend, so that she could make arrangements for her two young children. After learning about the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, read about the Lavender Scare, the U.S. government's anti-gay purge. [65], The Rosenbergs' two sons, Michael and Robert, spent years trying to prove the innocence of their parents. [37], Others, including non-Communists such as Jean Cocteau and Harold Urey, a Nobel Prize-winning physical chemist,[38] as well as Communists and left-leaning figures such as Nelson Algren, Bertolt Brecht, Albert Einstein, Dashiell Hammett, Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera, protested the position of the American government in what the French termed the U.S. Dreyfus affair. On March 6, 1951 their trial began in New Yorks Southern District federal court. He was discharged when the U.S. Army discovered his previous membership in the Communist Party. By 1944, Julius had recruited him to spy for the Soviets. [15] However, the head official of the Soviet nuclear project, Lavrentiy Beria, used foreign intelligence, which he did not trust by default, only as a third-party check, rather than giving it directly to the design teams, who he did not clear to know about the espionage efforts, and the development was indigenous; considering that the pace of the Soviet program was set primarily by the amount of uranium that it could procure, it is difficult for scholars to judge accurately how much time was saved, if any. 2006. "[59], The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. Due to the Greenglass August 1950 testimony, and no tangible evidence, there was a weak case against Ethel for her alleged involvement. READ MORE: Why Were the Rosenbergs Executed? The documents were not declassified until 1995. The arrests of Greenglass and Julius Rosenberg followed quickly in June and July, and Ethel was arrested in August. Nickelodeons (named for a read more, Francesca Rojas two young children are killed in their home in the small town of Necochea, Argentina. [61] For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's husband David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband. Some reports claim that the Rosenbergs were offered a plea deal, where admittance of their guilt would grant them a prison sentence. In February 1950, Fuchs was arrested in the United Kingdom. A native of Belgium, De Smet came to the United States in 1821 at the age of 20. This April 5, 1951, Universal Newsreel reports on the death penalty for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. [73][24], After Morton Sobell's 2008 confession, they acknowledged their father had been involved in espionage, but said that whatever atomic bomb information he passed to the Russians was, at best, superfluous, that the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, that their mother was convicted on flimsy evidence to place leverage on her husband, and that neither deserved the death penalty. In her re-interview, Ruth Greenglass expanded on her husband's version: Julius then took the info into the bathroom and read it and when he came out he called Ethel and told her she had to type this information immediately Ethel then sat down at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge table in the living room and proceeded to type the information that David had given to Julius. In this testimony he named Julius and claimed he was recruited to join the Soviet spy ring by him. This declassified information included a trove of decoded Soviet cables (code-name: Venona), which detailed Julius's role as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets, and information about Ethel's role as an accessory who helped recruit her brother David into the spy ring and did clerical tasks such as typing up documents that Julius then passed to the Soviets. Or was he more likely to get off by pleading innocence for both of them? In 1940, Julius joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a civilian engineer. The FBI arrested Greenglass for espionage in June of 1950. In 1990, he founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a nonprofit foundation that provides support for children of targeted liberal activists, and youth who are targeted as activists. They provided top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs. Some sections of the popular media of the day revelled in lurid coverage of Ethel: the female spy. [35], Across the world, especially in Western European capitals, there were numerous protests with picketing and demonstrations in favor of the Rosenbergs, along with editorials in otherwise pro-American newspapers, and a plea for clemency from the Pope. Both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were indicted, as were David Greenglass and Anatoli Yakovlev. [11], Rosenberg provided thousands of classified reports from Emerson Radio, including a complete proximity fuse. How much does Sebba think that Ethel knew? (The former was released as the motion picture Daniel in 1983.) Judge Irving Kaufman presided over the trial, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Irving Saypol leading the prosecution and criminal defense lawyer Emmanuel Bloch representing the Rosenbergs. read more, When the clock struck midnight on June 19, 2014, King Juan Carlos I of Spains nearly 40-year reign came to an end. it is believed that he made his accusations out of challenges to his authority. 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. There was proof, which was later produced in court. He escaped prosecution because his involvement was not proven until the Venona documents became unclassified. When questioned, Greenglass admitted to spying. That stay resulted from intervention in the case by Fyke Farmer, a Tennessee lawyer whose efforts had previously been scorned by the Rosenbergs' attorney, Emanuel Hirsch Bloch. Myles Lane, a member of the prosecution team, said that the case against Ethel Rosenberg was "not too strong", but that it was "very important that she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. Theodore Hallis one example. But they would have been better advised to have said straight up, yes we are communists, but no, we are not spies.. Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (ne Greenglass; September 28, 1915 June 19, 1953) were an American couple who spied for the Soviet Union. Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (1915-1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918-1953) were 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 and appeared to indicate . In the scant three years between her arrest and. President Eisenhower, supported by public opinion and the media at home, ignored the overseas demands. [65][63][64], The messages decoded by the Venona project were not made public during the Rosenbergs' trial, which relied instead on testimony from their collaborators. She didnt cry in public, and the media gleefully judged her unfeeling and, by implication, guilty of the accused crime, as a result. The Rosenbergs turned over this information to Harry Gold, a Swiss-born courier for the espionage ring, who then passed it to Anatoly A. Yakovlev, the Soviet Unions vice-consul in New York City. Deputy Attorney General of the United States William P. Rogers, who had been part of the prosecution of the Rosenbergs, discussed their strategy at the time in relation to seeking the death sentence for Ethel. Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University. They were married in 1939, by which time they were already active in the Communist Party. Many of these decoded messages identified Soviet spies within the Manhattan Project. Julius Rosenberg, arrest photograph, 17th of July, 1950. David originally had said that he had passed the atomic data he had collected to Julius on a New York street corner. [24], 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 had received too harsh a sentence, particularly Ethel. The second son of read more. The son of working-class read more. By killing the Rosenbergs, you have quite simply tried to halt the progress of science by human sacrifice. He believed the execution of Ethel, a young mother, would reflect negatively on both the FBI and the Justice Department. The project aimed to gather and decode messages sent by Soviet military intelligence (KGB and GRU) to the U.S. Venona would also help the government locate spy rings. 32), executed by the federal government of the United States, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Capital punishment by the United States federal government, List of people executed by the United States federal government, "What the K.G.B. [71], In 2009, extensive notes collected from KGB archives were made public in a book published by Yale University Press: Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev; Vassiliev's notebooks included KGB comments concerning Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. He left the Communist Party to avoid suspicions. [60], In 1995, the U.S. government made public many documents decoded by the Venona project, showing Julius Rosenberg's role as part of a productive ring of spies. Ethel's brother says he trumped up evidence. [47] The defense's strategy backfired. The Venona project documents were still highly classified at the time of the trial and therefore could not be used as evidence. Ethel Greenglass worked as a clerk for some years after her graduation from high school in 1931. "Injustice", Sutton Publishing. The family moved to the Lower East Side by the time Julius was 11. All 119 References in We Didnt Start the Fire, Explained, Spies Like Us: 10 Famous Names in the Espionage Game, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Rosenberg-and-Ethel-Rosenberg, Atomic Heritage Foundation - The Rosenberg Trial, Spartacus Educational - The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Famous Trials - Trial Of The Rosenbergs: An Account, Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Communist Party of the United States of America. Were already active in the Communist Party, but that she did not a. 1950, Fuchs was arrested in the day not deserve the death penalty by stating I... Says the only lesson history offers is that there are no lessons to be learned involvement was not proven the! 1940S, and valuable nuclear weapon designs Rosenbergs ' two sons, Michael Robert! Arrests of Greenglass and Anatoli Yakovlev active in the 1940s, and no tangible evidence, was. 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