Rosenberg Case

ROSENBERG CASE. The Rosenberg-Sobell “atom spy” case, one of the most famous political trials in American history, began with the arrest of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell in 1950. Charged with conspiracy to commit espionage in time of war (that is, World War II), the Rosenbergs were widely seen as stealing the “secret” of the atomic bomb on behalf of the Soviet Union. Five years had passed by this time, the Cold War grown into a shooting war in Korea and the Russians building their own atomic weapons. Americans could easily be convinced that espionage placed the nation’s very survival in jeopardy.

After a fourteen-day trial in 1951, and all three defendants convicted, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg faced sentences of death while Sobell was sentenced to thirty years in prison for non-atomic espionage. The case became a cause celebre tor the Left, with the weekly National Guardian making the strongest public case for their innocence. Two years and two months after the conclusion of the trial, on June 19, 1953, and in the face of a world-wide campaign to win clemency from President Eisenhower, the Rosenbergs were executed. Sobell would serve nineteen years in prison.

The original Committee to Secure Justice in the Rosenberg Case became the Committee to Secure Justice for Morton Sobell. For the duration of Sobell’s incarceration, supporters worked to win the defendant a new trial and to publicize evidence that called into question the original convictions. Beginning in 1974, Rosenbergs’ two sons (Michael and Robert Meeropol who took the name of their adoptive parents) joined with a newly created National Committee to ReOpen the Rosenberg Case in an effort to vindicate their parents. Numerous books published from 1954 to 2020 present arguments for the guilt or innocence of the Rosenbergs in particular, and also for the “extent” of guilt of one or more of the three defendants. Other books focused on the legitimacy of the various judicial proceedings. Still others focused on the Rosenbergs and Sobell themselves. Novels and plays also appeared on the case, and two television documentaries as well.

The prosecution of the Rosenbergs had essentially put the Left on trial, on the basis that Communism itself constituted the true conspiracy. The judge allowed such testimony, insisting that their having been Communists established motive for the commission of espionage.

Both Rosenbergs availed themselves of the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination when asked if they were Communists (Sobell did not take the stand in his own defense). Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, in fact Communists, had been working-class children of Eastern European Jewish immigrants growing up in poverty on the lower east side of Manhattan and coming of age during the Great Depression. Julius, a graduate electrical engineer and his wife Ethel, a secretary, singer, union organizer and, after the birth of her first child, a full-time homemaker, had been drawn to the Communist Party during their youth and maintained that political perspective for the rest of their lives.

The insistence that Communism constituted the real motive of the crime pointed to the conclusion that anyone who is a Communist, or who supports the goals of Communists, even unwittingly, has placed him or herself beyond the pale of "responsible dissent.” During the 1950s, the actions of such spies seemed horrendous and almost inexplicable, if also somehow suspiciously connected to Jewish identity. Judge Irving Kaufman, sentencing the Rosenbergs to death, claimed that the successful theft of the atomic bomb secret had somehow caused the Korean War. When President Eisenhower denied clemency in 1953, he likewise argued that the Rosenbergs’ espionage had potentially condemned millions to death in a future atomic war.

Between the end of the trial and the first release (in 1975) of previously secret US government documents, the issues of the case revolved around the fairness of the trial, perjury on the part of prosecution witnesses, and the appropriateness of the death penalty. The only primary source available prior to 1975 had been the transcript of the original trial. Despite numerous appeals, the US Supreme Court never reviewed the case, and, despite a variety of motions for a new hearing, no judge or appeals court granted subsequent defense attorneys the right to re-examine the original trial witnesses under oath. After the executions, Morton Sobell filed three motions for a new hearing based on newly discovered evidence. All were denied.

Beginning in 1975, primary sources about the case began to be released. Each new release of material prompted re-examinations of the case by writers and activists. The closest reading suggested that, first, Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy. She knew about her husband’s work but did not participate. The FBI files, the Grand Jury transcripts, and the Venona decryptions affirm that Ethel Rosenberg was arrested in order to use her as a “lever” against her husband.

In the case of Julius Rosenberg, the evidence is clear that between late 1941 and 1945, he engaged in recruiting friends to supply technical information to the Soviet Union and helping to transmit some himself. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg thus confronted an almost impossible choice. To be absolutely truthful, Julius Rosenberg would have had to partially confess to the charges against him, while vigorously denying the “atom bomb” part of the story, and attempt to convince the jury that his wife was totally innocent. Ethel Rosenberg would have had to admit at least some knowledge of her husband’s activities while continuing to assert her innocence. Both would have had to name names. Given the significant perjuries from the prosecution witnesses, and that a guilty plea without what the government called “full cooperation” (meaning naming names) would not have been acceptable to the government, they opted to plead not guilty and to deny all charges, hoping that they could win a new trial. Absent that, they hoped for clemency so they could at least live even as they endured incarceration for what both Rosenbergs undoubtedly believed was a “political” crime. Recent research by a group at Seton Hall Law School has added still more evidence on the role of Ethel Rosenberg as the government’s hostage.

Based on the accumulation of information specifically related to Ethel Rosenberg, the Meeropol brothers filed a request with President Barack Obama in November, 2016 asking that he issue a proclamation exonerating her. Despite massive documentation and more than 55,000 signatures on an accompanying petition, the Obama Administration did not even acknowledge receiving the request. The 200,000 pages of US government documents had been released as a result a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Meeropol brothers. Buried in this archive is evidence of judicial misconduct that actually led to death. The Rosenberg case revealed how politics had corrupted the highest court of the land as well as the FBI, prosecutors and the district court judge.

Two full length biographies of Ethel Rosenberg have been written and a short biography of both Rosenbergs, published back in 1954. Edited versions of their prison correspondence appeared soon after their executions. A larger selection appeared in 1975 as part of the Rosenberg sons’ efforts to publicize their vindication efforts. The complete prison correspondence was published in 1994. In 2003, one of the Rosenberg grandchildren, Ivy Meeropol, directed a documentary (“Heir to an Execution”) that featured interviews with people who knew them. The Rosenberg sons published a joint memoir and the younger son, Robert Meeropol, published his own story. These works constitute the only sources that give at least a partial picture of who Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were as individuals.

Historians will never know for sure exactly what motivated Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Their supporters continue to believe that the government’s behavior against them constituted a much greater crime and did more damage to American society than any espionage activity of Julius Rosenberg, and that the government’s behavior towards Ethel Rosenberg most resembled that of a terrorist who kills a hostage. The campaign to exonerate Ethel Rosenberg resumed with the inauguration of President Joe Biden in January, 2021.

Clune, Lori. Executing the Rosenbergs: Death and Diplomacy in a Cold War World. NY: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Denbeaux, Mark and Shannon Dolan, Robert Graber, Elizabeth Mancuso, Theodore Tanzer, “The Government’s Hostage: The Conviction and Execution of Ethel Rosenberg,” Seton Hall Center for Policy and Research, Seton Hall University School of Law (December 22, 2016) available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2885448

Meeropol, Robert. An Execution in the Family. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003.

Meeropol, Robert and Michael. We Are Your Sons, The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, 2nd Ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986.

Meeropol, Michael, ed. The Rosenberg Letters, A Complete Edition of the Prison Correspondence of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. New York: Garland Publishing Company, 1994.

Sebba, Anne. Ethel Rosenberg, An American Tragedy. NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2021.