September 13, 2008
So the Red-baiters and the witch-hunters were right, after all.
For more than half a century, it's been an article of faith among
progressives that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were framed for their
political beliefs and executed in 1953 as Soviet spies.
But now the Rosenbergs' 91-year-old co-defendant, Morton Sobell, has
confessed all to The New York Times.
Yes, he and the Rosenbergs were devout communists, says Sobell. And
yes, he and Julius Rosenberg did pass atomic secrets to Moscow.
Of course, Sobell, who served 19 years, adds his own little twists to
the story. He never thought of it as espionage, he says, because the
secrets he stole were strictly defensive and there's a big
difference between giving that and stuff that could be used to attack
our country.
And he insists that Ethel Rosenberg, while aware of her husband's
espionage, was guilty only of being Julius's wife.
But, even if Sobell's contentions were all true, he and his co-
defendants were legally culpable of the crime with which they were
charged and convicted: conspiracy to commit espionage.
So this much is now clear from Morton Sobell's belated confession: The
verdict of history agrees completely with that of the court.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
On Sep 13, 5:18 am, Frank [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Declassified grand jury transcripts confirm frame-up of Ethel
Rosenberg
By Tom Eley
13 September 2008
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The recent release of previously secret grand jury transcripts has
revealed that crucial testimony was perjured in the conviction and
1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for conspiracy to commit
espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.
The Rosenbergs were accused of planning to provide the Soviet Union
with intelligence that would assist in the development of its atomic
bomb project. They were tried and convicted in 1951, and executed in
1953 at the height of the post-World War II Red Scare, orphaning two
young children. The execution was a savage act by the US government
calculated to terrorize the population.
The transcripts, which had been sealed for 55 years, became available
through the National Archives and Records Administration after a
lawsuit by historians and an independent archive. A New York court
ordered that the testimony of all but four of 45 grand jury witnesses
be released. This included both the testimony of Ethel Rosenberg
herself and that of Ruth Greenglass, the wife of David Greenglass,
Ethel’s brother.
It is the testimony of Ruth Greenglass that strongly suggests that at
least Ethel Rosenberg was convicted based on perjured testimony.
During the Rosenberg trial, Ruth Greenglass claimed that Ethel
Rosenberg typed up secrets stolen by David Greenglass, who was a
machinist at Los Alamos in New Mexico, the center of the US atomic
bomb project. The Greenglasses claimed that Ethel then passed the
typed sheets via Julius Rosenberg to Soviet intelligence. The
assertion was instrumental in the conviction and execution of Ethel.
The newly released grand jury testimony completely contradicts the
version of events Ruth Greenglass presented at the subsequent trial.
After stating to the grand jury that she had assisted Julius Rosenberg
with espionage, prosecutors asked Greenglass, “Didn’t you write [the
atomic bomb information] down on a piece of paper?” “Yes,” she
answered, “I wrote [the atomic bomb information] down on a piece of
paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him.”
This grand jury testimony confirmed the account given by former Soviet
intelligence officials, who said that the information they received
was written in longhand.
According to the anticommunist historian Ronald Radosh, “The grand
jury documents cast significant doubt on the key prosecution charge
used to convict Ethel Rosenberg at the trial and sentence her to
death.”
In 2001, David Greenglass, who spent 10 years in prison for espionage,
disavowed his own testimony. He said the government blackmailed him by
threatening to execute his wife. Ruth Greenglass was never tried, and
died this past April at the age of 84.
Historical context
There is little doubt that Julius Rosenberg conveyed intelligence to
the Soviet Union. It is likely that Ethel Rosenberg was aware of this,
but did not participate actively. Both were members of the Stalinist
Communist Party USA (CPUSA).
The charges of atomic espionage against the Rosenbergs, however, were
sensationalized. There is no evidence to suggest that information
gathered by Rosenberg through Greenglass at Los Alamos played any role
in the successful completion of the Russian atomic bomb. According to
Morton Sobell, who was convicted along with the Rosenbergs and who
recently confessed to carrying on espionage for the Soviet Union, the
intelligence that Julius gathered “was junk.” Alexander Feklisov, the
Soviet agent who was Rosenberg’s contact,
