Adam C. Heese
Julius & Ethel Rosenberg One of the most fascinating and compelling espionage cases in the history of the United States began on March 6, 1951, The United States versus Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, and Morton Sobell. The trail which winds through this case is very complex and has twisted through many side trials and stories. Many in the world today still proclaim that the Rosenbergs were innocent. To this day, most of the facts against Ethel & Julius Rosenberg still stand as they did back in the 1950s.
As is the case with any trial, the backgrounds of the defendants are very important to setting the stage for that which they are accused. Julius Rosenberg’s communist ties date back to when he was enrolled at the City College of New York. There he became a member of the Steinmetz Club, the campus branch of the Young Communist League. In 1940, Julius was hired as an engineer with the US Signal Corps where he was later promoted to the position of inspector. By this time, Julius was a full member of the American Communist Party. It is believed that around 1943 he dropped out of the Communist Party to pursue espionage activities. In 1945, Julius was fired form the Signal Corps for his prior membership in the Communist Party.
Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg’s past is quite similar to that of her husband’s. After graduating high school, she went to work as a clerk for a shipping company. She was later fired for her role as organizer of a strike of women workers. Ethel was a member of the Young Communist League and later a full member of the American Communist Party. Ethel and Julius were married in the summer of 1939. The couple had two sons, Michael and Robert born in 1943 and 1947, respectively.
Morton Sobell attended the Community College of New York along with Julius Rosenberg and another man by the name of Max Elichter. All were friends during their time at CCNY as well as members of the Steinmetz Club and later the American Communist Party.
The path which led the US Government to indict the Rosenbergs, Morton Sobell and many others is very long and rather convoluted. It all begins with the discovery of a KGB codebook and several documents by the FBI. The documents contained reports about the progress of the Manhattan Project from a British physicist who worked on the project named Klaus Fuchs. Fuchs was later charged and convicted under Britain’s Official Secrets Act. In his trial, Fuchs indicated he had passed the documents to a Chemist / Soviet spy named Harry Gold. Harry Gold was sentenced to thirty years in prison for his role. Subsequently, Gold named David Greenglass, an American soldier working at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project as an accomplice who transferred secret documents from Fuchs to himself before being delivered to Russian agents. In an interview with the FBI, Greenglass not only confesses to his role, he implicated his wife Ruth, his sister Ethel and his brother-in-law Julius Rosenberg as having played key roles in espionage in many instances. On July 17, 1950, Julius Rosenberg was arrested. Three weeks following, on August 11, 1950 his wife, Ethel Rosenberg was arrested.
The political climate of the United States was not in favor of the Rosenberg’s during their trial. Many dramatic public events had occurred prior to the Rosenberg’s arrest and trial. Just under a year prior to the arrest of Julius Rosenberg, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics detonated its first atomic bomb. In January of 1950, Alger Hiss, a high-ranking member of the State Department was convicted of perjury after being accused by Whittaker Chambers of being a Communist spy. Furthermore, in February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his campaign to rid the State Department, and the whole country of Soviet spies and subversives. Next, but certainly not least the Korean War began in earnest during June of the same year.
The trial of the Rosenbergs and Morton Sobell began on March 6, 1951. Each was charged with the capital crime of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were accused of providing the USSR with national secrets about the atomic bomb. The trial was presided over by Judge Irving R. Kaufmann, known for being a stickler in the rule of his courtroom. The prosecution was lead by Irving Saypol. Saypol was already well known for his role in the prosecution of Alger Hiss. The Rosenbergs were defended by Emanuel Hirsch Bloch who had previously defended several people accused of being Communists.
The case against Morton Sobell was based largely on accusations made by former college friend Max Elichter. Elichter had been recruited for espionage work by Sobell. Elichter testified that he had accompanied Sobell on many occasions in his work in delivering documents and film to Julius Rosenberg.
The case against Ethel and Julius Rosenberg was based mainly on the testimony of David and Ruth Greenglass and that of Harry Gold. David Greenglass testified that Julius had pressured him to provide descriptions of Manhattan Project research through his job at Los Alamos. He also testified that some of the information passed to Rosenberg related to a highly explosive lens mold being developed at the laboratory. This testimony was later confirmed by other witnesses. He stated that there had been the burning of secret notes in a frying pan, the use of a cut up Jell-o box as a means of identification, and various meetings to exchange details of the project. A final piece of his testimony related to Julius urging David to take his family and leave the country as he feared through information received from Soviet spies that the FBI had information about their operation.
The testimony of Ruth Greenglass followed the testimony of her husband. Ruth was instrumental in the prosecution’s case against Ethel. Ruth provided the main link to Ethel’s espionage activity, that of typing David’s notes from Los Alamos on one occasion.
The only witnesses provided by the defense team were that of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Sobell did not testify. The Rosenbergs pleaded the Fifth Amendment to any questions regarding their involvement with the Communist Party. This provided the jury with an instant air of guilt. Julius naturally denied much of the testimony of the Greenglasses and other witnesses. Ethel followed in her testimony exactly what her husband had done as well as denying her own involvement in espionage activities. The Rosenberg’s testimony displayed a level of contempt for the court proceedings as well as providing no doubt as to their efforts to conceal information.
It took the jury only a few hours to deliberate the proceedings of the month long trial. The jury found the Rosenbergs and Sobell guilty as charged. Judge Kaufmann, in his sentencing, blamed the Rosenbergs for the deaths of 50,000 Americans in Korea, as well as placing all the citizens of the nation in grave danger. Kaufmann sentenced Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to death in the electric chair. After two years of failed appeals and attempts for a permanent stay of execution, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing Prison in New York State a little after 8pm on June 19, 1953.
A few of the other characters in this trial did receive stiff sentences for their part in the espionage ring. Morton Sobell received a thirty-year prison sentence. David Greenglass received a lesser sentence of fifteen years in prison for his cooperation. His wife, Ruth Greenglass was considered a co-conspirator and subsequently not tried.
In the past fifty years, very little has changed concerning the trial of the Rosenbergs. The Rosenberg’s will named their attorney, Emanuel Bloch as the children’s attorney. Robert and Michael were placed with Abel and Anne Meeropol. The couple legally adopted the children in 1957 and raised them to adulthood. Robert attended Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana and Michigan State. Michael attended Swarthmore followed by King’s College in Cambridge, England. Both children became interested and heavily involved in leftist politics following in their parent’s footsteps. In 1975, Michael and Robert co-authored a book entitled We Are Your Sons. The book was the story of the children of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg during the trial and the years following. It also analyzed information newly uncovered by the sons that they felt proved their parents innocence.
The most startling of any new accounts of the story of the Rosenbergs comes from the main prosecution witness himself, David Greenglass. In a new book by Sam Roberts, The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent his Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair, David admits to committing perjury under pressure from the prosecution team. David Greenglass admits that he lied in court to save his wife from prosecution. Greenglass now claims that he did not have any specific proof that his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, played any part in the espionage ring. He claims she never typed any documents from Los Alamos as he and his wife had previously testified.