Rosenberg, Ethel

Rosenberg, Ethel (1915–53) spy. Raised on the Lower East Side in her native New York, Rosenberg held clerical jobs and was a union organizer before marrying Julius Rosenberg in 1939. In the years that followed, she devoted herself to raising her children. In August 1950 Ethel Rosenberg was arrested and charged with spying for the Soviet Union along with her husband; the two were accused of passing on information related to the atomic bomb. Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, provided damaging testimony against the Rosenbergs, placing them at the center of a spy ring. The Rosenbergs' attorney provided a weak defense, and the two were convicted and sentenced to death on April 5, 1951. Despite pleas from around the world that the sentences be commuted, the anti-Communist fervor of the times, along with latent anti-Semitism, prevailed, and the two were executed on June 19, 1953. In the decades that followed, serious questions about aspects of the government's case and the reliability of its witnesses were raised; evidence provided by the Russians after the fall of the Soviet Union and by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, while tending to confirm Julius Rosenberg's guilt, leave open the question of his wife's involvement. The authenticity of this evidence has been challenged by the Rosenbergs' sons.