Ethel & Rosenberg, Julius 1915-1953 - 1918-1953

ETHEL & ROSENBERG, JULIUS 1915-1953 - 1918-1953

Executed "atomic spies

Convicted by Circumstance,

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for their alleged roles in passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. No hard evidence against them was offered at their trial, although they had been implicated by several of their coconspirators, including Ethel's brother David Greenglass and Max Elitcher, a college classmate of Julius's. The Rosenbergs maintained their innocence throughout their trial. The fact that they were convicted on circumstantial evidence and the severity of their sentence indicate how seriously Americans took two of the greatest fears of the 1950s: communism and the atomic bomb.

A Communist Couple

Julius Rosenberg met his future wife, Ethel Greenglass, at a 1936 New Year's Eve benefit for the International Seamen's Union. Ethel was a strong union sympathizer, and she found that she and Julius held many political views in common. Julius, a student in electrical engineering at City College of New York, had joined the Young Communist League in 1934. After he graduated college in 1939, the couple married and moved into a small Brooklyn apartment. Soon Julius found work as an engineer inspector for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. For a while the Rosenbergs were active participants in the Communist party. They brought Ethel's younger brother David into the party and, later, David's wife Ruth. But after Ethel had a child in 1943, the Rosenbergs dropped out of the party and appeared to fall into a simple, domestic life.

A Spy Ring Discovered

David Greenglass was stationed as a machinist at Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site of the first atomic bomb test, during the Manhattan Project. On 15 June 1950 Greenglass confessed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he had passed information about the project to Harry Gold, a Swiss immigrant. Gold had already confessed to conspiring with Dr. Karl Fuchs, a high-level atomic scientist on the Manhattan Project, to pass atomic secrets to the Soviets. Greenglass also claimed that he had handed over documents to his twenty-six-year-old sister, Ethel, and her husband Julius Rosenberg. The next day FBI agents showed up at the Rosenbergs' apartment.

The Noose Tightens

Julius Rosenberg told the agents that his brother-in-law was a liar. His refusal to cooperate convinced the FBI that he was hiding something and that they were about to uncover a spy ring of unprecedented importance. Intensifying and broadening its investigation, the bureau found Max Elitcher, who told agents that Rosenberg had approached him various times during the mid 1940s attempting to obtain classified information to which Elitcher had access through his work with air force and navy contracts. The FBI felt it now had its case.

Questionable Procedures

On 17 August 1950 a federal grand jury indicted the Rosenbergs for conspiracy to commit espionage. Lack of direct evidence kept them from being charged with the more serious crime, treason. Their trial began on 6 March 1951 with Morton Sobell, who had been implicated by Elitcher as Rosenberg's accomplice, as the third defendant. The hysterical publicity and questionable procedures of prosecutor Irving Saypol compromised the fairness of the trial. Saypol told the jury that "the evidence of the treasonable acts of these three defendants you will find overwhelming," even though the defendants were not accused of treason. During the trial the prosecutor announced in a national news conference that he had secured sworn affidavits from an old friend of the Rosenbergs's, William Perl, which conclusively proved the conspiracy. Saypol decided against putting Perl on the stand, however, when Perl admitted to lying in his affidavits.

Incriminating Flights

One by one, Greenglass, his wife, Gold, and Elitcher took the stand and testified that the Rosenbergs were involved in a spy ring, although Elitcher admitted that he never actually passed any documents to Julius Rosenberg. Sobell never took the stand. The Rosenbergs denied any wrongdoing on their part. When Saypol questioned them about their past affiliations with the Communist party, they pleaded the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer. A large part of Saypol's case rested on Sobell's flight to Mexico and Julius Rosenberg's attempt to obtain a passport after Fuch's confession. The defendants' attempted flight damned them in the eyes of the jury. After a day of deliberating, the jury found all three defendants guilty of conspiracy.

"Worse Than Murder."

Now Judge Irving Kaufman had the responsibility of imposing the punishment. Although the defendants had not been convicted of treason, the judge appeared to pass sentence on unproven acts and an uncharged crime. Announcing that their crime was "worse than murder," he explained that "putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but what that millions more innocent people may pay the price of your treason." On 5 April 1951 Kaufman sentenced the Rosenbergs to die in the electric chair and Sobell to thirty years in prison.

International Protests

The Rosenbergs unsuccessfully appealed their convictions for two years, eventually taking their case to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the public interest in their case reached international proportions. There were many demonstrations urging the commutation of their death sentences. Some chivalrous supporters were against the idea of executing a woman, but most protested the hysteria of the trial and the extreme severity of the punishment. On 18 June 1953 there were demonstrations in support of the couple in Paris and New York. The following evening, shortly before 8:00 P.M., the Rosenbergs were electrocuted in Sing Sing prison in New York.

Sources:

Alvin H. Goldstein, The Unquiet Death of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (New York: Hill, 1975);

Joseph F. Sharlitt, Fatal Error: The Miscarriage of Justice That Sealed the Rosenbergs' Fate (New York: Scribners, 1989).