Sebba says the only lesson history offers is that there are no lessons to be learned. [76][24], In 2015, following the most recent grand jury transcript release, Michael and Robert Meeropol called on U.S. President Barack Obama's administration to acknowledge that Ethel Rosenberg's conviction and execution was wrongful and to issue a proclamation exonerating her. [22], Twenty senior government officials met secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg case. In 1940, Julius joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a civilian engineer. Copyright 2022 by the Atomic Heritage Foundation. I have spent ages agonising over that. Harry Gold, a lab chemist and Soviet spy, passed this information to the USSR. 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. 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. Greenglass served in the ArmysSpecial Engineer Detachment (SED), and was a machinist at Los Alamos. Ethels execution was botched. Files Show About Ethel Rosenberg", "The New York Times Gets Greenglass Wrong", "Greenglass, in Prison, Vows to Kin He Told Truth about Rosenbergs", "National Archives of the United States of America", "Rosenberg Atomic Espionage Spy Case Chronology", "The Rosenbergs were executed for spying in 1953. Her children were shunted around and then went into care. Their time at high school intersected briefly - Ethel was nearly. I believe there should be., Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy,by Anne Sebba, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, A Small Town in Ukraine: Fascinating mapping of history and bloodshed around a geopolitical fault line, Eithne Strong swam against the tide. Tender. During his bachelor party at a club on the night of June 19, Chin and three friends were read more, On June 15, 2006, on the remote island of Spitsbergen halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland lay the ceremonial first stone of the Global Seed Vault. Would they have believed him? 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. [69], In 2008, Morton Sobell was interviewed after the revelations from grand jury testimony. [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. [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. A campaign was started to try to prevent the couple's execution. Or he could have thought, if I admit I am a spy, I will have to name names? (review of. The Rosenbergs were small fry, but the government or the FBI or both were absolutely determined to make an example of them. He believed the execution of Ethel, a young mother, would reflect negatively on both the FBI and the Justice Department. The Soviet Union secretly conducted its first atomic weapons test on August 29, 1949. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, following their arrest by the FBI in New York city for espionage, 1950. Many people around the world believed them. He was a physicist at Los Alamos, and a valuable source to the Soviets. By 1944, Julius had recruited him to spy for the Soviets. They were charged with conspiracy and providing atomic secrets to the USSR. "You sat the Rosenbergs in the electric chair for nothing", he said. I find innocence quite a difficult word to use with Ethel, she says. [21][22] The U.S. 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. He also claimed that his sister Ethel's husband Julius Rosenberg had convinced David's wife Ruth to recruit him while visiting him in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1944. READ MORE: Why Were the Rosenbergs Executed? 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. 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. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [66], In 2001, David Greenglass recanted his testimony about his sister having typed the notes. FBI agents took her into custody as she left the courthouse. She originally was an aspiring actress and singer, but eventually took a secretarial job at a shipping company. Photograph: Kypros/ Getty. Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, installed as emperor of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864, is executed on the orders of Benito Juarez, the president of the Mexican Republic. J. Edgar Hooverpublicly opposed the trial. 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. (. [1][2][3][4], Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who had made a plea agreement), Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell. [52][53][54], 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. The minutes count. She became involved in labor disputes and joined the Young Communist League, where she met Julius in 1936. On June 19, 1968, a long-term anti-poverty demonstration known as Resurrection City reaches its high-water mark. In the United States of the late 1940s and 1950s, Fear was the overriding motif of the age, and fear breeds hysteria, Sebba says. Some reports claim that the Rosenbergs were offered a plea deal, where admittance of their guilt would grant them a prison sentence. Corrections? [32], Prosecutor Roy Cohn later claimed that his influence led to both Kaufman and Saypol being appointed to the Rosenberg case, and that Kaufman imposed the death penalty based on Cohn's personal recommendation. This love of Communism and the Soviet Union soon led them into a Soviet espionage ring.. By killing the Rosenbergs, you have quite simply tried to halt the progress of science by human sacrifice. 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. She was viewed as a co-conspirator and never indicted. 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. Important research on electronics, communications, radar and guided missile controls was undertaken at Fort Monmouth during World War II. In exchange for this new testimony, Ruth was permitted to remain with their children and care for them. Many hundreds of people filed past the biers. She had the unhappy distinction of being the first woman in the US to be executed for a crime other than murder. 2009 Vassiliev notebooks based on KGB archives. 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. The execution of New York City couple Ethel and Julius Rosenberg after their conviction for being Soviet spies was a major news event of the early 1950s. Venona documentsproved that Julius Rosenberg helped lead a productive ring of Soviet spies. Two more electric shocks were applied, and at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose from her head. There was genuine fear that the Russians and Stalin would launch an atom bomb on America. Harry Truman in 1952 and Pres. Case Summary. 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. Ethels own brother, David Greenglass, testified against her, in a blatant act of perjury. John Philip Jenkins; 3 1952, -, , ) , Much has been written of Julius Rosenberg, but little about his doomed wife. Many of these decoded messages identified Soviet spies within the Manhattan Project. A letter from Michael and Robert Rosenberg pleading for the life of their parents. [42] Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. In the early 1930s, Ethel became a member of the Young Communist League. 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. [46] The Times reported that 500 people attended, while some 10,000 stood outside:[50], The bodies had been brought from Sing Sing prison by the national "Rosenberg committee" which undertook the funeral arrangements, and an all-night vigil was held in one of the largest mortuary chapels in Brooklyn. It was known that some communists, such as Fuchs, had spied for the Soviets. The cable also makes clear that the sister's husband is involved enough in espionage to have his own codename ("Antenna" and later "Liberal"). Gold paidGreenglass $500 in exchange for information about the implosion lens in the atomic bomb. 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. It was never in doubt that Julius Rosenberg had conducted acts of espionage. Despite some public outrage and failed appeals, the Rosenbergs were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on June 19, 1953. The case against Ethel in particular was rather . Her husband, Julius, had been executed a short time before her. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. The constitutionality and applicability of the Espionage Act of 1917, under which the Rosenbergs were tried, as well as the impartiality of the trial judge, Irving R. Kaufmanwho in pronouncing sentence had accused them of a crime worse than murderwere key issues during the appeals process. Ethel and Julius denied all allegations of espionage, and refused to provide any names. On July 17, 1950 the FBI arrested Julius, and one month later Ethel was arrested. [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. They provided top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs. There was proof, which was later produced in court. Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. "[52], At the grand jury, Ruth Greenglass was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] down on a piece of paper?" He then claimed that he passed this information to Julius on a New York street corner, and that Ethel was not involved. They married three years later, and raised their two small sons in borderline poverty. There was international outrage at her death. 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. He also named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as contacts and denied that his wife, Ruth Greenglass, was involved with any espionage activities. Chin died in a hospital four days later, on June 23. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.. [18][19], On July 17, 1950, Julius Rosenberg was arrested on suspicion of espionage[20] based on David Greenglass's confession. His parents worked in the shops of the Lower East Side as Julius attended Seward Park High School. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. 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. Her death was so barbaric. Her husband, Julius, had been executed a short time before her. Abandoning that effort, he returned to Mexico City. 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. Nevertheless, these decryptions formed the background of U.S. government investigation and prosecutions of American communists during the Cold War period. He later served 10 years in prison. "[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. "Injustice", Sutton Publishing. Trial and Execution. Julius Rosenberg was discharged by the army in 1945 for having lied about his membership in the Communist Party. [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. Except that is not what happened. They married in 1939. I ask if she can think of a modern equivalent of Ethels predicament: incarceration by association. At one point in the biography, Michael, then not yet 10, recalls playing word games with his father, including Hangman. In 1861, the liberal Mexican Benito Juarez became president of a country in financial read more, In Music Fund Hall in Philadelphia, the first national convention of the Republican Party, founded two years before, comes to its conclusion. According to Rojas, a man named Velasquez had threatened her when she rejected his sexual advances earlier in the day. Ethel, at Julius's request, had taken his notes and "typed them up." He wrote Strange Fruit, a song made famous by Billie Holiday, and the royalties from that and other songs kept the family comfortable. Will there ever be a pardon for Ethel Rosenberg? [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. He stated that Julius asked him to help provide secrets about atomic weapons so that Julius could pass on the information to the USSR. [80][81] Ethel was arrested two months later. Follow Russia Beyond on Telegram. There was no compassion.. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. David originally had said that he had passed the atomic data he had collected to Julius on a New York street corner. The storefront theater boasted 96 seats and charged each patron five cents. Give Bomb Data to Soviet Is Laid to His Sister Here", "Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg (American spies) Britannica Online Encyclopedia", "Judge Kaufman's Sentencing Statement in the Rosenberg Case", "The trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg", "Nashville now and then: A lawyer's last gamble", "Funeral Tributes To Rosenbergs: Execution Denounced", "Never Losing Faith for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg", "False testimony clinched Rosenberg spy trial", "50 years later, Rosenberg execution is still fresh", "Khrushchev on Rosenbergs: Stoking Old Embers", "K.G.B. Others question if the punishment was just for their crimes. In 2008, the National Archives of the United States published most of the grand jury testimony related to the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. All other appeals were also unsuccessful. [73], Michael and Robert co-wrote a book about their and their parents' lives, We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1975). When questioned, Greenglass admitted to spying. In his viewpoint, Ethel was only minimally involved and therefore her execution was unjust. "[59], The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. He said the implosion lens in the US to be executed for crime. In 1936 absolutely determined to make an example of them in history straight from your.. Claimed that he had collected to Julius on a New York street corner, and the. York on May 12, 1918, Twenty senior government officials met on... 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ethel and julius rosenberg definition