The Rosenbergs were small fry, but the government or the FBI or both were absolutely determined to make an example of them. The race, held at the Indianapolis Motor read more, On June 19, 1917, during the third year of World War I, Britains King George V orders the British royal family to dispense with the use of German titles and surnames, changing the surname of his own family, the decidedly Germanic Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, to Windsor. [78] In October 2016, both Michael and Robert Meeropol spoke with Anderson Cooper in an interview which aired on 60 Minutes. Communism in this country and Communism throughout the world. Author of. 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. Photograph: Kypros/ Getty. [36], Jean-Paul Sartre, a Marxist existentialist philosopher and writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, described the trial as, a legal lynching which smears with blood a whole nation. The arrests of Greenglass and Julius Rosenberg followed quickly in June and July, and Ethel was arrested in August. [26] Julius and Ethel were put under pressure to incriminate others involved in the spy ring. He later served 10 years in prison. The Rosenbergs were implicated by David Greenglass, Ethels younger brother and a former army sergeant and machinist at Los Alamos, the secret atomic bomb lab in New Mexico. Two weeks after abdicating the Spanish throne amidst sagging approval ratings, Juan Carlos symbolically removed his red sashsignifying his status as leader of the read more, On June 19, 2013, James Gandolfini, the actor best known for his role as New Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano on the TV series The Sopranos, which debuted in 1999 and ran for six seasons, dies of a heart attack while vacationing in Rome, Italy. "[57], The notes allegedly typed by Ethel apparently contained little that was directly used in the Soviet atomic bomb project. [21][22] The U.S. government claimed Sobell was arrested by the Mexican police for bank robbery on August 16, 1950, and extradited the next day to the United States in Laredo, Texas. Fuchs was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act, and he confessed to spying for the Soviet Union. He said Julius had passed secrets and thus linked him to the Soviet contact agent Anatoli Yakovlev. Whether it was fair or not, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only two American civilians who were executed for espionage-related crimes during the entire Cold War. She describes Julius Rosenberg as a naive idealist. He affirmed: I said before, and say it again, honestly, this is a fact: I never spoke to my sister about this at all.. ", Deborah Friedell, "How Utterly Depreaved!" The vault, which now has the capacity to hold read more, In what is nowknownas Juneteenth, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrive in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War is over and slavery in the United States is abolished. They were sentenced to death on April 5 under Section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917,[31] which provides that anyone convicted of transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government "information relating to the national defense" may be imprisoned for life or put to death. "We got nothing from the Rosenbergs. Others question if the punishment was just for their crimes. Her mother disowned her. The trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was certainly dramatic. He was discharged when the U.S. Army discovered his previous membership in the Communist Party. "[67], He refused to express remorse for his decision to betray his sister, saying only that he did not realize that the prosecution would push for the death penalty. But they would have been better advised to have said straight up, yes we are communists, but no, we are not spies.. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to receive that penalty during peacetime. On August 11, 1950, Ethel Rosenberg was arrested after testifying before a grand jury (see section, below). Greenglass served in the ArmysSpecial Engineer Detachment (SED), and was a machinist at Los Alamos. Many hundreds of people filed past the biers. "[52], At the grand jury, Ruth Greenglass was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] down on a piece of paper?" Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, American communists, executed after having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. Decrypted cables revealed this information through theVenona project. They were both found guilty of the crimes of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. In the United States of the late 1940s and 1950s, Fear was the overriding motif of the age, and fear breeds hysteria, Sebba says. Tender. He stated that Julius asked him to help provide secrets about atomic weapons so that Julius could pass on the information to the USSR. She had the unhappy distinction of being the first woman in the US to be executed for a crime other than murder. READ MORE: Why Were the Rosenbergs Executed? This connection would be necessary as evidence if there was to be a conviction for espionage of the Rosenbergs. He confirmed that Julius Rosenberg was "in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information [on] the atomic bomb," and "He never told me about anything else that he was engaged in. "[67] He said he gave false testimony to protect himself and his wife, Ruth, and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so. Robert and Michael Rosenberg, Julius and Ethels six and 10 year old sons, pictured at the home of Bernard and Sonia Bach, friends of the Rosenbergs, New Jersey, before their parents execution. "Plain, deliberate, contemplated murder is dwarfed in. He also explains that Rosenberg was fired from the Army Corps of Engineers in January of 1945, and that KGB files state his espionage activities ended by 1945, so the meeting David Greenglass mentioned could neverhave occurred. Nickelodeons (named for a read more, Francesca Rojas two young children are killed in their home in the small town of Necochea, Argentina. The young couple were arrested in 1950 for . Harry Truman in 1952 and Pres. Anne Sebbas biography of Ethel Rosenberg, a book five years in the research and writing, has just been published. Myles Lane, a member of the prosecution team, said that the case against Ethel Rosenberg was "not too strong", but that it was "very important that she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence. The family moved to the Lower East Side by the time Julius was 11. And Intelligent" and the course they took was one of "courage and heroism. Ethel Greenglass met Julius Rosenberg in New York City in 1936, when she was 21 and he was 18. "[59], The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program to decrypt messages transmitted by the intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union. In 1990, he founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a nonprofit foundation that provides support for children of targeted liberal activists, and youth who are targeted as activists. They claim:The Greenglasses lies were necessary to obtain Ethels conviction; the K.G.B. Historian John Earl Hayness AHF Interview. The subsequent trial of the Rosenbergs made news all over the world. Nevertheless, these decryptions formed the background of U.S. government investigation and prosecutions of American communists during the Cold War period. [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. 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. He opened thetrial by stating: The evidence will show that the loyalty and alliance of the Rosenbergs and Sobell were not to our country, but that it was to Communism. Or my mother or my father, OK? They hoped merely by arresting her on these trumped-up charges, surely Julius would talk, because thats what everyone else had done.. They were convicted and executed in 1953. I think there could be some kind of exoneration, in that she was convicted on the basis of perjury, and for someone convicted on the basis of perjury, there should be a form of pardon. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. Through her activism with the Communist Party, she met Julius Rosenberg in 1936. [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. In 2008, the National Archives of the United States published most of the grand jury testimony related to the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. Some of the individuals who worked on the Manhattan Project were spies and provided valuable information on the design of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. She was impassive in court, and poorly turned out, due to the fact they had very little money: Julius Rosenberg embarked upon espionage for his ideals, not for monetary reward. The Venona project documents were still highly classified at the time of the trial and therefore could not be used as evidence. Cohn would go on later to work for Senator Joseph McCarthy, appointed as chief counsel to the investigations subcommittee during McCarthy's tenure as chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee. The children say that their father did not deserve the death penalty and that their mother was wrongly convicted. Well yes, she replies. 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. Her death was so barbaric. Julius Rosenberg was discharged by the army in 1945 for having lied about his membership in the Communist Party. "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. They were accused of sending a rough sketch of the atomic bomb to Russia. John Philip Jenkins; 3 1952, -, , ) , Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. He also stated that he believed Ethel was only guilty of being Julius wife and was not an active participant in the espionage ring. He also worked withKlaus Fuchs, a physicist at Los Alamos and Soviet spy, to pass on atomic research secrets. She and David met in the YCL, and married in 1942. Fuchs identified his courier as American Harry Gold, who was arrested on May 23, 1950. [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. 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". Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ethel then sat down at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge table in the living room and proceeded to type the info which David had given to Julius. After this new testimony, the charges against Ruth were dropped. The attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court nine times, but the Court never reviewed the record. 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. 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. [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. The engineers worked at top electronic firms, and they passed on confidential and useful information to the Soviet Union. All Rights Reserved. This was the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, as opposed to a bomb with the "gun method" triggering device used in the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Timeline of Events Relating to the Rosenberg Trial. 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. Moynihan found that in 1945, physicist Hans Bethe estimated that the Soviets would be able to build their own bomb in five years. [27], The trial of the Rosenbergs and Sobell on federal espionage charges began on March 6, 1951, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Due to the Greenglass August 1950 testimony, and no tangible evidence, there was a weak case against Ethel for her alleged involvement. Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Julius Rosenbergwas a key Soviet spy who passed along information to the Soviet Union and recruited Manhattan Project spies. The documents were not declassified until 1995. Browse pg9767.kgb resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of teachers for original educational resources. [8], Ethel Greenglass was born on September 28, 1915, to a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City. Perl contributed to the development of the first jet fighter in the U.S. The trial continues to be controversial today. The constitutionality and applicability of the Espionage Act of 1917, under which the Rosenbergs were tried, as well as the impartiality of the trial judge, Irving R. Kaufmanwho in pronouncing sentence had accused them of a crime worse than murderwere key issues during the appeals process. Copyright 2022 by the Atomic Heritage Foundation. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. On March 29 they were found guilty, and on April 5 the couple was sentenced to death. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presided over the trial. Greenglass secretly testified before a grand jury in August 1950. There was a fear of communism.. Meeropol, Michael, " 'A Spy Who Turned His Family In': Revisiting David Greenglass and the Rosenberg Case,", This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 07:05. [33], In imposing the death penalty, Kaufman noted that he held the Rosenbergs responsible not only for espionage but also for American deaths in the Korean War:[34]. After she was given the normal course of three electric shocks, attendants removed the strapping and other equipment only to have doctors determine that Ethel's heart was still beating. 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. On March 6, 1951 their trial began in New Yorks Southern District federal court. It was there, working in a cubicle with a piano, staff paper and tape recorder that read more, On June 19, 1905, some 450 people attend the opening day of the worlds first nickelodeon, located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and developed by the showman Harry Davis. (Sobell and Gold received 30-year prison terms, and Greenglass, who was tried separately, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.) David Greenglass received a 15 year prison sentence and was released in 1960. [42] Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. Ethel and Julius denied all allegations of espionage, and refused to provide any names. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, following their arrest by the FBI in New York city for espionage, 1950. [80][81] [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. J. Edgar Hooverpublicly opposed the trial. [72], The notebooks make clear that the KGB considered Julius Rosenberg an effective agent and his wife Ethel an enthusiastic supporter of his work. Despite these fears, the trial of the Rosenbergs produced mixed reactions among the public. (. He also said that he believed Ethel Rosenberg was aware of her husband's deeds, but took no part in them. They married in 1939. I believe there should be., Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy,by Anne Sebba, is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, A Small Town in Ukraine: Fascinating mapping of history and bloodshed around a geopolitical fault line, Eithne Strong swam against the tide. The documents suggest his involvement was with military and industrial espionage, rather than atomic espionage, as previously believed. Schneir argues that Ruth worked alone and met with a Soviet agent to deliver a sketch of a bomb, which was placed in a KGB file center on December 27, 1945. In 1951, Julius and his wife Ethel were tried and convicted of espionage for providing the Soviet Union with classified information. He was U.S. citizen and electrical engineer. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were American Communists who captured and maintained world attention after being accused and convicted of spying for the Soviet Union.. John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev. National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. Espionage Act of 1917. Venona documentsproved that Julius Rosenberg helped lead a productive ring of Soviet spies. Rosenberg had been introduced to Semyonov by Bernard Schuster, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party USA and NKVD liaison for Earl Browder. Sobell and Julius Rosenberg, classmates together in college, dedicated themselves to the cause of Communism. 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." "Great Importance World-Wide: Presidential Decision-Making and the Executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ruth may have been the individual to type notes, due to her past involvement with the Communist Party. [48], On June 19, 1953, Julius died after the first electric shock. At a time when American fears about communism were high, the Rosenbergs did not receive support from mainstream Jewish organizations. 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. The trial lasted for nearly one month. The Rosenbergs were the first American civilians to die for spying. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death and the pair was taken to Sing Sing to await execution. Online Documents. The trial of the Rosenbergs became a political event of greater importance than any damage they may have done to the United States. "[40] The all-black labor union International Longshoremen's Association Local 968 stopped working for a day in protest. Or was he more likely to get off by pleading innocence for both of them? During the next two years, the couple became the subject of both national and international debate. "[51], The Rosenbergs were the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War. Ethel, at Julius's request, had taken his notes and "typed them up." 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. Ethel's execution did not go smoothly. He provided classified documents and led an espionage network within the Manhattan Project, recruiting spies, most notably Russell McNutt and Ethels brother,David Greenglass, along with his wifeRuth. Okay, I am a spy, but my wife isnt? She knew what he was doing She was complicit merely by knowing, so thats why they charged them with conspiracy to commit espionage.. [35], Across the world, especially in Western European capitals, there were numerous protests with picketing and demonstrations in favor of the Rosenbergs, along with editorials in otherwise pro-American newspapers, and a plea for clemency from the Pope. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.. "[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". [45], The execution was scheduled for 11p.m. that evening, during the Sabbath, which begins and ends around sunset. They were convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Espionage in one of the most hotly-debated trials in U.S. history. 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. 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 . [46] Bloch asked for more time, filing a complaint that execution on the Sabbath offended the defendants' Jewish heritage. 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. There was proof, which was later produced in court. The case was intensely controversial, touching nerves throughout American society, and debates about the Rosenbergs continue to the present day. Ethel was arrested to put pressure on Julius and they didnt want to kill her. Ethel Rosenberg was 37 and the mother of two small sons when she was executed in New York in 1953. This April 5, 1951, Universal Newsreel reports on the death penalty for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Ethel Greenglass, (respectively, born Sept. 28, 1915, New York, N.Y., U.S.died June 19, 1953, Ossining, N.Y.; born May 12, 1918, New York, N.Y., U.S.died June 19, 1953, Ossining, N.Y.), U.S. spies. [25], On August 11, Ethel Rosenberg testified before a grand jury. Not answering questions proved to be problematic for the Rosenbergs because during theera of McCarthyism, many believed that the refusal to answer questions was an admission of guilt and involvement with the Communist Party. 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. [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. They were the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War. The extent of the Rosenbergs' activities came to light, however, when the U.S. government declassified information about them after the fall of the Soviet Union. And she was the mother of my children. Important research on electronics, communications, radar and guided missile controls was undertaken at Fort Monmouth during World War II. "You sat the Rosenbergs in the electric chair for nothing", he said. Sebba, who lives in Surrey, dug into archives containing Ethels letters written during the three years she spent in prison, and grand jury testimony papers of the trial. Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy by Anne Sebba, W&N 20, 304 pages/St Martin's Press $28.99, 304 pages Rebecca Abrams is the author of 'The Jewish Journey: 4,000 Years in 22 Objects . 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.. Here's the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ethel was arrested two months later. David originally had said that he had passed the atomic data he had collected to Julius on a New York street corner. They were both found guilty. McNutt's employment provided access to secrets about processes for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium. He said, "I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I don't remember. For all questions, she asserted her right to not answer as provided by the U.S. Constitution's Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. Decryptions formed the background of U.S. government investigation and prosecutions of American communists during the Cold War a case! Rosenberg, classmates together in college, dedicated themselves to the Greenglass August 1950 8,! And Intelligent '' and the Executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, following their arrest the. Okay, I am a spy, to a Jewish family in,! To incriminate others involved ethel and julius rosenberg definition the Communist Party, she asserted her right to not as. Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of Teachers for educational... Political event of greater Importance than any damage they may have been the individual type... 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