Rosenbergs

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

A perfect storm of Cold War antagonism, paranoia, and an atmosphere of McCarthyism and related anti-communist sentiment converged in 1950. During this time Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of spying for the Soviet Union, revealing sensitive military information to America's archenemy, the biggest red menace of them all in the eyes of the feds: the Soviet Union.

The story began with Klaus Fuchs, a theoretical physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project developing weapons of mass destruction, i.e., nuclear weapons, during World War II. Fuchs confessed to espionage, bringing down his right-hand man, one Harry Gold. Gold in turn gave away his source, a David Greenglass, who claimed to have been recruited via his brother-in-law, Julius Rosenberg. Ethel was Julius's wife and was also culpable in the espionage activities.

The Rosenbergs, it turned out, had connections with Anatoli Yakovlev, Soviet counsel to the USSR in New York. In June 1950, Rosenberg was arrested. Two months later, his wife, Ethel Rosenberg, followed.

An Inside Track

Rosenberg had worked as an engineer in the US army during World War II. The lab was located in Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey. There Rosenberg worked on technology critical to U.S. military defense strategy including missile control and radar. However, Julius Rosenberg was fired for having been a member of the Communist party.

While with the military, Rosenberg had smuggled classified information to the Soviets via radio. He shared information on jet engines and even the Manhattan Project. Further, he recruited agents into Stalin's secret police.

Gordon Dean, Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, decided that in order to glean as much information as possible from Rosenberg during the trial, at minimum he would have to be threatened with the death penalty. In addition to this indictment, his wife Ethel Rosenberg would also be charged.

Rosenberg Trial

Fig 1: The atomic bomb.

Early during the grand jury proceedings, David Greenglass changed his testimony. As part of a deal to give his own wife Ruth immunity, Greenglass testified that he had seen his sister Ethel typing up incriminating notes for her husband. These notes included the blueprints for the "Fat Man" atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Still, the Rosenbergs never gave up information on anyone else in association with the espionage, and they pled the fifth. They were found guilty of treason. Infamous attorney Roy Cohn, who had been one of Joseph McCarthy's cronies, was among those who pushed for the death penalty.

Fig 2. US Constitution

A Critical Moment

The Rosenbergs maintained their innocence in the face of all this scrutiny. There was a sizeable public outcry when The National Guardian newspaper published a serial regarding their case. Readers across the country and globe began to look at how strong of a case the US government really had. Seeds of doubt were sown. Soon there were major overtures toward clemency on the part of the public. Many felt that the case itself was at heart anti-Semitic. Many celebrities, from Albert Einstein to the Pope, led the outcry.

Rosenberg Trial Date

The Rosenberg trial commenced on March 6, 1951, despite the public outcry from all over the world in their favor. On March 29, the Rosenbergs were found guilty of espionage. On April 5, the couple were sentenced to death. Judge Irving R. Kaufman defended the sentence of death and stated that he believed their crimes had been "worse than murder", owing to the fact that they had essentially put the atomic bomb into the hands of the Soviets. The judge believed that this had led to the conflict on the Korean Peninsula, in effect causing in excess of 33,000 casualties.

Rosenberg Execution

Despite the public's hue and cry over the case, the Feds stuck to their guns. The Rosenbergs were executed via electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, on June 19, 1953.

Davis Greenglass was sentenced to 15 years in prison and was released in 1960. While in prison, he wrote a letter to President Dwight D. Eisenhower requesting that the Rosenbergs' death sentence be commuted to life in prison. His request was unequivocally denied.

Fig 3. Electric chair

Rosenberg Case

The Rosenberg case continued to elicit controversy after their executions. Their innocence or guilt was highly debated over subsequent years. The media continued to question their guilt, and some fictionalized accounts of their story attempted to get to the heart of the matter. Was this couple really engaged as spies for the Soviets? Was this not a cut and dry case of Cold War fear, paranoia, and angst steeped in misguided McCarthyite theorizing? In the early 1990s, however, the Soviets released information seemingly confirming Julius Rosenberg's participation in espionage.

Later, in 2015, however, grand jury testimony was released that revealed that Stephen Greenglass had possibly played up his sister Ethel Rosenberg's involvement in espionage in order to obfuscate his own wife's involvement.