They took assumed names and he tried to figure out a way to reach Europe without a passport. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Ethels own brother, David Greenglass, testified against her, in a blatant act of perjury. 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. After being interviewed this second time, he said that he had given this information to Julius in the living room of the Rosenbergs' New York apartment. A campaign was started to try to prevent the couple's execution. She originally was an aspiring actress and singer, but eventually took a secretarial job at a shipping company. 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. [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. All rights reserved. "[56], Boris V. Brokhovich, the engineer who later became director of Chelyabinsk-40, the plutonium production reactor and extraction facility that the Soviet Union used to create its first bomb material, alleged that Khrushchev was a "silly fool". [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. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. [5][6], For decades many people including the Rosenbergs' sons (Michael and Robert Meeropol) maintained that Julius and Ethel were innocent of spying on their country and were victims of Cold War paranoia. He worked for a time at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where research was going on into radar, missile controls and electronics. The cable also makes clear that the sister's husband is involved enough in espionage to have his own codename ("Antenna" and later "Liberal"). "[57], The notes allegedly typed by Ethel apparently contained little that was directly used in the Soviet atomic bomb project. The US government offered to spare the lives of both Julius and Ethel if Julius provided the names of other spies and they admitted their guilt. [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. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.. The attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court nine times, but the Court never reviewed the record. [22], Twenty senior government officials met secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg case. did not give her a code name, and evidently did not consider her a spy; and the prosecutions strategy was to use Ethel to coerce her husband to confession.. The storefront theater boasted 96 seats and charged each patron five cents. They stated Ethel was present during all meetings, typing notes for Julius. Rosenberg had been introduced to Semyonov by Bernard Schuster, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party USA and NKVD liaison for Earl Browder. In the years after the Rosenbergs executions, there was significant debate about their guilt. They were accused of sending a rough sketch of the atomic bomb to Russia. Her children were shunted around and then went into care. [73][24], After Morton Sobell's 2008 confession, they acknowledged their father had been involved in espionage, but said that whatever atomic bomb information he passed to the Russians was, at best, superfluous, that the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, that their mother was convicted on flimsy evidence to place leverage on her husband, and that neither deserved the death penalty. Greenglass passed information to Julius, including information about the high explosive lenses being developed at Los Alamos for the implosion bomb. On April 5, Judge Kaufman sentenced them to death, and sentenced Sobell to 30 years in prison. There was no compassion.. Walter Schneir, inFinal Verdict, argues that evidence against Ethel was fabricated by the Greenglasses. A country prepared to flout the law, to instil fear, and to also arrest his girlfriend: does that not strike you as terrifying?, She was removed from the electric chair after three charges, only for it to be discovered her heart was still beating. Robert wrote a later memoir, An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey (2003). Due to the Greenglass August 1950 testimony, and no tangible evidence, there was a weak case against Ethel for her alleged involvement. Ethel, at Julius's request, had taken his notes and "typed them up." 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. 2006. Do not let this crime against humanity take place. The children say that their father did not deserve the death penalty and that their mother was wrongly convicted. They married in 1939. In August of 1950, a grand jury indicted the Rosenbergs for espionage. Highly sympathetic portraits of the Rosenbergs were offered in major novels, including E.L. Doctorows The Book of Daniel (1971) and Robert Coovers The Public Burning (1977). He then claimed that he passed this information to Julius on a New York street corner, and that Ethel was not involved. [13][14], The USSR and the U.S. were allies during World War II, but the Americans did not share information with, or seek assistance from, the Soviet Union regarding the Manhattan Project. Ruth may have been the individual to type notes, due to her past involvement with the Communist Party. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/rosenbergs-executed. Many Americans who were politically left-wing believed the Rosenbergs were persecuted solely for their past involvement with the Communist Party. On August 11, 1950, Ethel Rosenberg was arrested after testifying before a grand jury (see section, below). Despite these fears, the trial of the Rosenbergs produced mixed reactions among the public. They provided top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs. 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. Explains that one of the most famous cases of spies was the case of ethel and julius rosenberg, who were minor activists in the american communist party and convicted of being communists. He wrote Strange Fruit, a song made famous by Billie Holiday, and the royalties from that and other songs kept the family comfortable. [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. Julius Rosenberg was discharged by the army in 1945 for having lied about his membership in the Communist Party. 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 . Would they have believed him? 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." The Rosenbergs were small fry, but the government or the FBI or both were absolutely determined to make an example of them. According to Rojas, a man named Velasquez had threatened her when she rejected his sexual advances earlier in the day. Harry Gold, a lab chemist and Soviet spy, passed this information to the USSR. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. In 1951, Julius and his wife Ethel were tried and convicted of espionage for providing the Soviet Union with classified information. [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. [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. Rhoda Laks, another attorney on the Rosenbergs' defense team, also made this argument before Judge Kaufman. 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. There are some conflicting assessments among historians regarding the outcome of the Rosenberg trial. The Rosenbergs supported communism Ethel Greenglass was born to a Jewish family in 1915 in New York. The second son of read more. Her mother disowned her. 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. Communism in this country and Communism throughout the world. He stated, I can only say that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world. This love of Communism and the Soviet Union soon led them into a Soviet espionage ring.. To this day, historians and scientists debate how much espionage sped up the progress of the Soviet Unions nuclear weapons program. Soviet cables were deciphered, revealing Julius codename to be LIBERAL. LIBERAL was mentioned in numerous documents. They were both found guilty. 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. I have spent ages agonising over that. Timeline of Events Relating to the Rosenberg Trial. [61] For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's husband David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband. She had a brother, David Greenglass. [41] Cinema artists such as Fritz Lang registered their protest. A mix of June and 19th, Juneteenth has become a day to commemorate the end of slavery in America. J. Edgar Hooverpublicly opposed 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.. But this testimony was not shown to lawyers during the Rosenbergs trial. David Greenglass, who was assigned as a machinist to the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, provided the Rosenbergs with data on nuclear weapons. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, orig. Sebba says the only lesson history offers is that there are no lessons to be learned. Mr. Bloch [their counsel], who delivered one of the main orations, bitterly exclaimed that America was "living under the heel of a military dictator garbed in civilian attire": the Rosenbergs were "Sweet. But when he was arrested, his wifes arrest also followed soon after, although there was no proof of any active espionage involvement on her part. J. It was never in doubt that Julius Rosenberg had conducted acts of espionage. Case Summary. [11], In February 1944, Rosenberg succeeded in recruiting a second source of Manhattan Project information, engineer Russell McNutt, who worked on designs for the plants at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The three-year Rosenberg case culminated in their execution on Friday, 19 June, 1953, just minutes before the onset of the Jewish Sabbath. What could he have said? Kaufman, who also stated his concerns about executing the Rosenbergs on the Sabbath, rescheduled the execution for 8p.m.before sunset and the Sabbaththe regular time for executions at Sing Sing. Getty Images. David originally had said that he had passed the atomic data he had collected to Julius on a New York street corner. The debate over her involvement is ongoing. I ask Sebba how culpable she thinks Julius Rosenberg was in his wifes death sentence. I think she was clearly innocent of the charges but, on the other hand, I think she was supportive of Julius. There was genuine fear that the Russians and Stalin would launch an atom bomb on America. Ethels execution was botched. She knew what he was doing She was complicit merely by knowing, so thats why they charged them with conspiracy to commit espionage.. Her death was so barbaric. Julius Rosenberg, arrest photograph, 17th of July, 1950. "Injustice", Sutton Publishing. He stated, "I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister. They claim:The Greenglasses lies were necessary to obtain Ethels conviction; the K.G.B. Their trial remains controversial today. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only spies executed during the Cold War and some question whether their sentence was fair. They were convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Espionage in one of the most hotly-debated trials in U.S. history. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, following their arrest by the FBI in New York city for espionage, 1950. Sobell and Julius Rosenberg, classmates together in college, dedicated themselves to the cause of Communism. All Rights Reserved. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg sitting in police van after being convicted of espionage. They also defendedSobell, who was put on trial with the Rosenbergs. Or he could have thought, if I admit I am a spy, I will have to name names? Except that is not what happened. In the scant three years between her arrest and. [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. Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy by Anne Sebba was published by Orion Books on 24 June 2021.[24][82]. The Venona project documents were still highly classified at the time of the trial and therefore could not be used as evidence. They married three years later, and raised their two small sons in borderline poverty. Their time at high school intersected briefly - Ethel was nearly. [63][65][64] Though the public release of Vassiliev's notebooks did not occur until 2009, the notebooks had in fact been originally intercepted during the Venona decryptions. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In the United States of the late 1940s and 1950s, Fear was the overriding motif of the age, and fear breeds hysteria, Sebba says. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. Her husband, Julius, had been executed a short time before her. [17], On June 15, 1950, David Greenglass was arrested by the FBI for espionage and soon confessed to having passed secret information on to the USSR through Gold. In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage under the U.S. Updates? In early 1953, he wrote a letter to President Eisenhower, requesting that Ethel and Julius sentences be commuted to prison. Decrypted cables revealed this information through theVenona project. He admitted that he had given documents to the Soviet contact, but said these had to do with defensive radar and weaponry. Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University. In 2014, five historians concluded thatSoviet documents show Ethel was actively involved and attended meetings with Julius and his sources, but that there is no evidence to suggest she typed specific notes. 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. The Greenglasses now claimed that Julius, with help from Ethel, recruited David into the atomic spy ring in 1944. [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. Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist working in Los Alamos, was convicted in the United Kingdom. [43][44], The execution was delayed from the originally scheduled date of June 18, because Supreme Court Associate Justice William O. Douglas had granted a stay of execution on the previous day. Some scholars suggest that the chances of Ethel being executed would have been less likely had Venona documents been unclassified and used in the trial. Despite massive, worldwide protest, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, NY. Julius became a leader in the Young Communist League USA while at City College of New York during the Great Depression. 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. [47] The defense's strategy backfired. During the trial, both Ethel and Julius pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked repeated questions related to espionage, and when questioned about being members of the Communist Party. 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 . 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. Espionage Act of 1917. (review of. They claimed that David gave a sketch and description of an atomic bomb to Julius in September 1945. "[59], The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. He stated that he and Julius passed military and industrial information to the Soviet Union, hoping it would help them defeat the Nazis in World War II. Timeline of Events Relating to the Rosenberg Trial. Themajority of newspapersat the time in the U.S. did, however, support the death sentence, arguing that the punishment was fair. The Rosenbergs made a public statement: "By asking us to repudiate the truth of our innocence, the government admits its own doubts concerning our guilt we will not be coerced, even under pain of death, to bear false witness". Robert and his brother, Michael, asked president Obama to pardon their mother. 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. Well yes, she replies. Ethel Rosenberg was 37 and the mother of two small sons when she was executed in New York in 1953. Many individuals still question whether or not there was enough valid evidence used during the trial to convict and execute the Rosenbergs. [80][81] The American pair were . Nickelodeons (named for a read more, Francesca Rojas two young children are killed in their home in the small town of Necochea, Argentina. Ethel Greenglass and Julius Rosenberg were both born into immigrant Jewish families in New York City during World War I. Ethel was arrested two months later. The trial of the Rosenbergs became a political event of greater importance than any damage they may have done to the United States. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/ AFP via Getty. They continue to campaign for Ethel to be posthumously legally exonerated. Others question if the punishment was just for their crimes. Neither offered any further information. 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. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! This declassified information included a trove of decoded Soviet cables (code-name: Venona), which detailed Julius's role as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets, and information about Ethel's role as an accessory who helped recruit her brother David into the spy ring and did clerical tasks such as typing up documents that Julius then passed to the Soviets. [77], In March2016, Michael and Robert (via the Rosenberg Fund for Children) launched a petition campaign calling on President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to formally exonerate Ethel Rosenberg. 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 Rosenbergs vigorously protested their innocence, but after a brief trial that began on March 6, 1951, and attracted much media attention, the couple was convicted. All 119 References in We Didnt Start the Fire, Explained, Spies Like Us: 10 Famous Names in the Espionage Game, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Rosenberg-and-Ethel-Rosenberg, Atomic Heritage Foundation - The Rosenberg Trial, Spartacus Educational - The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Famous Trials - Trial Of The Rosenbergs: An Account, Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Communist Party of the United States of America. [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. He was U.S. citizen and electrical engineer. 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. Moynihan found that in 1945, physicist Hans Bethe estimated that the Soviets would be able to build their own bomb in five years. For all questions, she asserted her right to not answer as provided by the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. The young journalist [Raman Pratsevich] arrested in Belarus with his girlfriend [Sofia Sapega]. forces. 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. I find innocence quite a difficult word to use with Ethel, she says. She was absolutely judged for her appearance, Sebba says. Two more electric shocks were applied, and at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose from her head. Online Documents. Since the Rosenbergs were being charged with conspiracy, no tangible evidence was required. [18][19], On July 17, 1950, Julius Rosenberg was arrested on suspicion of espionage[20] based on David Greenglass's confession. Conspiracy to commit espionage (50 U.S.C. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. This collection provides interesting Agency insights on this post-WWII spy case. A member of the Young Communist League in the early 1930s, it was through her activism with the Communist Party that she met Julius Rosenberg in 1936. Despite some public outrage and failed appeals, the Rosenbergs were executed by electric chair at Sing Sing Prison on June 19, 1953. In 2021 Ethel's sons restarted the campaign to pardon Ethel, as they were more optimistic that President Biden will consider this favorably. Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. The West was shocked by the speed with which the Soviets were able to stage their first nuclear test, "Joe 1", on August 29, 1949. In exchange for this new testimony, Ruth was permitted to remain with their children and care for them. Ethel Rosenberg was 37 and the mother of two small sons when she was executed in New York in 1953. Many people around the world believed them. [70], In a subsequent letter to The New York Times, Sobell denied that he knew anything about Julius Rosenberg's alleged atomic espionage activities, and that the only thing he knew for sure was what he himself did in association with Julius Rosenberg. In her re-interview, Ruth Greenglass expanded on her husband's version: Julius then took the info into the bathroom and read it and when he came out he called Ethel and told her she had to type this information immediately Ethel then sat down at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge table in the living room and proceeded to type the information that David had given to Julius. Rosenberg executed for espionage, 1950 thinks Julius Rosenberg had been introduced to Semyonov by Schuster... Espionage, 1950 argument before Judge Kaufman sentenced them to death, and that father. Of espionage supported communism Ethel Greenglass was born to a Jewish Family in 1915 in New York for... Were absolutely determined to make an example of them a secretarial job a. The Great Depression the Venona project documents were still highly classified at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke from! 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