On March 6, 1951 their trial began in New Yorks Southern District federal court. The minutes count. They were both found guilty of the crimes of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. "[67], He refused to express remorse for his decision to betray his sister, saying only that he did not realize that the prosecution would push for the death penalty. 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. A letter from Michael and Robert Rosenberg pleading for the life of their parents. Others question if the punishment was just for their crimes. 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. (review of. [19], Another conspirator, Morton Sobell, fled with his family to Mexico City after Greenglass was arrested. They married in 1939. She became involved in labor disputes and joined the Young Communist League, where she met Julius in 1936. Lawyers Emanuel Bloch and Alexander Bloch defended the Rosenbergs. [27], The trial of the Rosenbergs and Sobell on federal espionage charges began on March 6, 1951, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The race, held at the Indianapolis Motor read more, On June 19, 1917, during the third year of World War I, Britains King George V orders the British royal family to dispense with the use of German titles and surnames, changing the surname of his own family, the decidedly Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor. [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. At age 23, he was a prosecutor on the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union in 1951 and executed by electric chair two years. "[70], He said that he thought 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. [7], Julius Rosenberg was born on May 12, 1918, in New York City to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to receive that penalty during peacetime. They could not be charged for treason since the U.S. was not at war with the USSR. "[51], The Rosenbergs were the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War. Ethel then sat down at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge table in the living room and proceeded to type the info which David had given to Julius. After this new testimony, the charges against Ruth were dropped. Julius Rosenberg was a key Soviet spy who passed along information to the Soviet Union and recruited Manhattan Project spies. The young journalist [Raman Pratsevich] arrested in Belarus with his girlfriend [Sofia Sapega]. Case Summary. She had a brother, David Greenglass. Many commentators of the time argued that the death penalty was used unjustly in the courts as a way to force the Rosenbergs and others to confess to espionage, or to name others involved. Her husband, Julius, had been executed a short time before her. Ethels own brother, David Greenglass, testified against her, in a blatant act of perjury. They were both found guilty. "[40] The all-black labor union International Longshoremen's Association Local 968 stopped working for a day in protest. Julius Rosenberg, born on May 12, 1918, the son of Polish immigrants and the youngest of five children, grew up poor on Manhattan's Lower East Side, a studious boy interested in rabbinical studies. The Venona project documents were still highly classified at the time of the trial and therefore could not be used as evidence. John Charles Fremont of California, the famous explorer of the West, was nominated for the presidency, and William Lewis Dayton of New read more, On June 19, 1944, in what would become known as the Marianas Turkey Shoot, U.S. carrier-based fighters decimate the Japanese Fleet with only a minimum of losses in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. There was proof, which was later produced in court. The Rosenbergs are still the only Americans ever put to death in peacetime for espionage, and Ethel is the only American woman killed by the US government for a crime other than murder. 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. In later interviews, he claimed: I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I dont remember, and, My wife is more important to me than my sister. Overall, their testimony remains controversial because of the deal, the lack of tangible evidence, and the conflicting statements. David Greenglass received a 15 year prison sentence and was released in 1960. This connection would be necessary as evidence if there was to be a conviction for espionage of the Rosenbergs. Ronald Radoshconcludes, after Sobells 2008 confessions, that the Rosenbergs were Soviet spies. In the scant three years between her arrest and. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presided over the trial. 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 fifty thousand and who knows how many millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason.. They were executed in 1953. They were charged with conspiracy and providing atomic secrets to the USSR. Ethel was arrested two months later. I think it is the most horrific story, Sebba says. [42] Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. Julius Rosenbergwas a key Soviet spy who passed along information to the Soviet Union and recruited Manhattan Project spies. There were protest marches held around the world at their sentence, including in Ireland. He also named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as contacts and denied that his wife, Ruth Greenglass, was involved with any espionage activities. And she was the mother of my children. Many Americans who were politically left-wing believed the Rosenbergs were persecuted solely for their past involvement with the Communist Party. She was absolutely judged for her appearance, Sebba says. Follow Russia Beyond on Telegram. Her children were shunted around and then went into care. [78] In October 2016, both Michael and Robert Meeropol spoke with Anderson Cooper in an interview which aired on 60 Minutes. What could he have said? He affirmed: I said before, and say it again, honestly, this is a fact: I never spoke to my sister about this at all.. In 1940, Julius joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a civilian engineer. Despite massive, worldwide protest, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, NY. [75], Their sons' current position is that Julius was legally guilty of the conspiracy charge, though not of atomic spying, while Ethel was only generally aware of his activities. There were no confessions, no names produced of other Americans spying for the Soviets, and no admission of guilt by either Rosenberg. Photograph: Craig F Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty. The trial of the Rosenbergs became a political event of greater importance than any damage they may have done to the United States. Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg devoted a great deal of time in prison to crafting eloquent protestations of their complete innocence. A worldwide campaign for mercy failed, and the Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. They were orphaned by the executions and were not adopted by their many aunts or uncles, although they initially spent time under the care of their grandmothers and in a children's home. Gordon Dean, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said: "It looks as though Rosenberg is the kingpin of a very large ring, and if there is any way of breaking him by having the shadow of a death penalty over him, we want to do it." For this success Rosenberg received a $100 bonus. [62] Ethel did not have a codename,[24] however, KGB messages which were contained in the Venona project's Vassiliev files, and which were not made public until 2009,[63][64] revealed that both Ethel and Julius had regular contact with at least two KGB agents and were active in recruiting not only Ethel's brother David Greenglass, but also another Manhattan Project spy named Russell McNutt. Her mother disowned her. In 1933, in his early teens, he became politically inflamed after hearing a street corner orator talk about Tom Mooney, a San Francisco labor leader who, said the speaker, had been unjustly . He reportedly said, "She called our bluff", as she made no effort to push her husband to any action. In his viewpoint, Ethel was only minimally involved and therefore her execution was unjust. In the United States of the late 1940s and 1950s, Fear was the overriding motif of the age, and fear breeds hysteria, Sebba says. Others argue that Julius and Ethel were guilty, with Ethel playing a minor role, but that their trial and sentence were unjust due to the lack of evidence. He had been recruited to spy for the Soviet Union which was far from uncommon in those days and he subsequently passed on information about what was happening at Fort Monmouth. The arrests of Greenglass and Julius Rosenberg followed quickly in June and July, and Ethel was arrested in August. And the newspapers reported that because she was tougher, she needed more of a jolt. Ethel Greenglass met Julius Rosenberg in New York City in 1936, when she was 21 and he was 18. He opened thetrial by stating: The evidence will show that the loyalty and alliance of the Rosenbergs and Sobell were not to our country, but that it was to Communism. The documents were not declassified until 1995. Harvard Law professorAlan Dershowitzstated that the Rosenbergs were guilty and framed, suggesting that they were spies, but that evidence was still fabricated against them, causing them to have an unjust trial and punishment. The execution of two human beings is a grave matter. It was the wrong advice to them to go on pleading the Fifth Amendment because it made it seem as if they were on trial for being communists, which at some subliminal level, of course they were. In contrast to the American media, European newspapers did not support the ruling, and there were some protests against it throughout Europe. The Rosenbergs were small fry, but the government or the FBI or both were absolutely determined to make an example of them. Espionage was a major concern for the United States government during the Manhattan Project. To this day, historians and scientists debate how much espionage sped up the progress of the Soviet Unions nuclear weapons program. In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage under the U.S. Anne Sebbas biography of Ethel Rosenberg, a book five years in the research and writing, has just been published. [58] According to Alexander Feklisov, the former Soviet agent who was Julius's contact, the Rosenbergs did not provide the Soviet Union with any useful material about the atomic bomb: "He [Julius] didn't understand anything about the atomic bomb and he couldn't help us. "Injustice", Sutton Publishing. FBI agents took her into custody as she left the courthouse. Ethel Greenglass worked as a clerk for some years after her graduation from high school in 1931. The network included: engineers (Julius Rosenberg, Nathan Sussman, Joel Barr, Alfred Sarant,Morton Sobell), a military aviation scientist (William Perl), a civil design engineer (McNutt), and a machinist (Greenglass), among others. Many people around the world believed them. She describes Julius Rosenberg as a naive idealist. The second son of read more. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Robert and Michael Rosenberg, Julius and Ethels six and 10 year old sons, pictured at the home of Bernard and Sonia Bach, friends of the Rosenbergs, New Jersey, before their parents execution. Neither President Truman nor President Eisenhower granted requests to remove the death sentence. The trial lasted for nearly one month. The extent of the Rosenbergs' activities came to light, however, when the U.S. government declassified information about them after the fall of the Soviet Union. A campaign was started to try to prevent the couple's execution. A mix of June and 19th, Juneteenth has become a day to commemorate the end of slavery in America. She knew what he was doing She was complicit merely by knowing, so thats why they charged them with conspiracy to commit espionage.. 2009 Vassiliev notebooks based on KGB archives. READ MORE: Why Were the Rosenbergs Executed? The Rosenbergs were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and brought to trial on March 6, 1951; Greenglass was the chief witness for the prosecution. He said Julius had passed secrets and thus linked him to the Soviet contact agent Anatoli Yakovlev. On Solidarity Day, over 50,000 people flock to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to protest, sing, hear speeches and demonstrate on behalf of national read more, Chinese American Vincent Chin, 27, is beaten in the head with a baseball bat by two white autoworkers in Detroiton June 19, 1982. "[52], At the grand jury, Ruth Greenglass was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] down on a piece of paper?" Getty Images. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. In 2015 an independent lawsuit secured the release of grand jury testimony in 1950 by Greenglass, which indicated that he might have lied at trial by exaggerating his sisters role in the espionage ring in order to obscure the more extensive involvement of his wife Ruth, who was not prosecuted. [11] By this time, following the invasion by Nazi Germany in June 1941, the Soviet Union had become an ally of the Western powers, which included the United States after Pearl Harbor. Some reports claim that the Rosenbergs were offered a plea deal, where admittance of their guilt would grant them a prison sentence. I have spent ages agonising over that. 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. They took assumed names and he tried to figure out a way to reach Europe without a passport. Some scholars believe thatRuth may have been the individual to type notes, due to her past involvement with the Communist Party, and conflicting statements made by David. [10], According to a 2001 book by his former handler Alexander Feklisov, Rosenberg was originally recruited to spy for the interior ministry of the Soviet Union, NKVD, on Labor Day 1942 by former spymaster Semyon Semyonov. Documents cover, among many other topics, US intelligence activities, including FBI-CIA cooperation; USSR intelligence activities; the Rosenberg espionage network's collection against the US atomic energy program; their attempts to protect the network as US . Or he could have thought, if I admit I am a spy, I will have to name names? 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. Magic, witch-hunts, autos-da-f, sacrifices we are here getting to the point: your country is sick with fear you are afraid of the shadow of your own bomb. Author of. Ethel's brother says he trumped up evidence. He was U.S. citizen and electrical engineer. President Eisenhower, supported by public opinion and the media at home, ignored the overseas demands. Can their sons reveal the truth? These transcripts revealed the contradictions between the Greenglasses testimony before the grand jury and during the trial. Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. On March 29 they were found guilty, and on April 5 the couple was sentenced to death. Greenglass secretly testified before a grand jury in August 1950. When questioned, Greenglass admitted to spying. Built in an English shipyard and sold to the Confederates in 1861, the Alabama was a state-of-the-art ship220 read more, After 14 Formula One race car drivers withdraw due to safety concerns over the Michelin-made tires on their vehicles, German driver Michael Schumacher wins a less-than-satisfying victory at the United States Grand Prix on June 19, 2005. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The young couple were arrested in 1950 for . Abandoning that effort, he returned to Mexico City. They hoped merely by arresting her on these trumped-up charges, surely Julius would talk, because thats what everyone else had done.. In the early 1930s, Ethel became a member of the Young Communist League. [22], Twenty senior government officials met secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg case. At one point in the biography, Michael, then not yet 10, recalls playing word games with his father, including Hangman. "[59], The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. They claimed that David gave a sketch and description of an atomic bomb to Julius in September 1945. She originally was an aspiring actress and singer, but eventually took a secretarial job at a shipping company. 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 Another conspirator, Morton Sobell, a college classmate of Julius Rosenberg, fled to Mexico but was extradited. Not answering questions proved to be problematic for the Rosenbergs because during theera of McCarthyism, many believed that the refusal to answer questions was an admission of guilt and involvement with the Communist Party. Or Black Despair? His arrest began a chain of investigations, which ultimately led to the arrest of Julius and Ethel. On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets, are executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. 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. Between the trial and the executions, there were widespread protests and claims of antisemitism; the charges of antisemitism were widely believed abroad[citation needed], but not among the vast majority in the United States. But at the trial, she testified that Ethel Rosenberg typed up notes about the atomic bomb. "[67] He said he gave false testimony to protect himself and his wife, Ruth, and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so. Initiated when the Soviet Union was an ally of the U.S., the program continued during the Cold War when it was considered an enemy. On March 29, 1951, the court convicted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg of conspiracy to commit espionage. Schneir argues that Ruth worked alone and met with a Soviet agent to deliver a sketch of a bomb, which was placed in a KGB file center on December 27, 1945. The Meeropols were both teachers, and Abel was also a lyricist. [47] The defense's strategy backfired. [24] They were adopted by the social activist Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne, and assumed the Meeropol surname. All rights reserved. Ethel became the first woman executed by the U.S. government since Mary Surratt was hanged in 1865 for her alleged role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 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. The case was intensely controversial, touching nerves throughout American society, and debates about the Rosenbergs continue to the present day. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Julius and Ethels children, Michael and Robert, maintain that their mother was innocent and have created anonline petitionto exonerate her. Online Documents. [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. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were buried at Wellwood Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery in Pinelawn, New York. The American pair were . Decrypted cables revealed this information through theVenona project. "[57], The notes allegedly typed by Ethel apparently contained little that was directly used in the Soviet atomic bomb project. [45], The execution was scheduled for 11p.m. that evening, during the Sabbath, which begins and ends around sunset. Would they have believed him? Some scholars argue that if it would have been possible to use Venona documents in court, both Hall and McNutt would have been revealed as spies and prosecuted, along with Greenglass and Fuchs. In early 1953, he wrote a letter to President Eisenhower, requesting that Ethel and Julius sentences be commuted to prison. As a young attorney in 1951, Cohn pushed for the execution of Meeropol's grandparents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on espionage charges. In 2021 Ethel's sons restarted the campaign to pardon Ethel, as they were more optimistic that President Biden will consider this favorably. Robert wrote a later memoir, An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey (2003). Themajority of newspapersat the time in the U.S. did, however, support the death sentence, arguing that the punishment was fair. She replied, "Yes, I wrote [the information] down on a piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him." Under Feklisov's supervision, Rosenberg recruited sympathetic individuals into NKVD service, including Joel Barr, Alfred Sarant, William Perl, and Morton Sobell, also an engineer. It was never in doubt that Julius Rosenberg had conducted acts of espionage. Omissions? There was genuine fear that the Russians and Stalin would launch an atom bomb on America. 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. Greenglass passed information to Julius, including information about the high explosive lenses being developed at Los Alamos for the implosion bomb. On March 29 they were charged with conspiracy and providing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union and recruited Project... Young journalist [ Raman Pratsevich ] arrested in Belarus with his father, in. 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