2024-03-31 10:42:09
Exactly 71 years ago, on March 29, 1953, the court found the Rosenbergs guilty. Three months later they were executed for espionage. They died a few minutes after each other in the electric chair. Only information published decades later helped unravel the case.
“I consider your crime to be worse than murder. By giving the Russians (plans for) an atomic bomb years before they could produce it themselves, in my opinion, you were responsible for the communist aggression in Korea. (…) By your betrayal you they effectively disrupted the course of history to the detriment of our country.” With these words, American judge Irving Kaufmann sentenced the couple to death in 1951.
Although the Cold War was beginning and people were afraid of the Soviet threat, an international campaign was launched to pardon the Rosenbergs. It was joined by a number of important personalities, including the physicist Albert Einstein, the painter Pablo Picasso and Pope Pius XII. However, US President Dwight Eisenhower rejected the requests.
In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in quick succession in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison. They went down in history as the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War.
According to historians, it was enough for the couple to confess to espionage, and they did not have to be executed. The death penalty was intended to serve as a deterrent and a means of coercion to reveal the names of other spies to the US Secret Service. This was done, for example, by the scientist Klaus Fuchs, who served only less than 10 years in Britain, as well as other people from the Rosenbergs’ circle. But Julius and Ethel refused to testify and repeated that they were innocent. And even in the last goodbye letters.
The secret of the atomic bomb
Both were born in New York – Julius in 1918 and Ethel in 1915 – to Jewish families who had emigrated from Eastern Europe. They met in a youth communist organization in 1936 and married three years later.
Julius worked as a civilian engineer in the army laboratories from 1940, Ethel was a secretary. Julius probably became an agent of the Soviet NKVD secret service in 1942. A few years later, he handed over secret information to the Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Feklisov, which was supposed to contain data on the components needed to build a nuclear bomb. But experts agree that Julio’s main talent was to create a well-connected network of people around him.
Former KGB agent Alexander Feklisov at the grave of Julius and Ethel Rosenberger in New York. | Photo: DVTV
Later analyzes by historians tend to suggest that Rosenberg divulged little valuable information to the Soviets to assist them in the production of air-to-surface missiles. Even Feklisov himself declared years later that Julius Rosenberg did not help them with the nuclear bomb, but admitted that he had provided the Soviets with other valuable military information. It is possible that they were related to the production of weapons that were then used against the US Air Force in the Korean War and later in Vietnam.
“Important data about the bomb, specifically the plutonium that destroyed Nagasaki, was supplied to the Soviets by Klaus Fuchs. This German communist fled from Hitler to Britain, where he was invited to work on the bomb. Once Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to do the project together, he was among about a dozen Britons who came to Los Alamos,” journalist Karel Pacner, who has written several books on espionage, told Aktuálně.cz.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in a 1951 archive photo during their trial. | Photo: CTK
When the Soviet Union announced a successful atomic bomb test in August 1949, the United States and Britain were shocked. The American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) then discovered the leak of secret materials about the production of a nuclear weapon from Los Alamos, New Mexico, the seat of American research.
David Greenglass, who worked here on the Manhattan Project, was supposed to give the secret information to the Rosenbergs. Meanwhile, Greenglass was Ethel’s brother. The spy Harry Gold then took the data from the Rosenbergs, who delivered it to the Soviet vice-consul Anatoly Yakovlev.
Among the first caught was Fuchs, who helped capture Gold. He in turn betrayed Greenglass. After Greenglass’s interrogation, FBI officials were convinced they had enough evidence against the Rosenbergs – Julius was arrested on July 17, 1950, Ethel a month later.
Hidden evidence that could not be used
But why were so many people convinced of their innocence? An important role was played by Soviet propaganda, which brought up the case of the Rosenbergs whenever the Eastern Bloc was accused of violating human rights. But the entire court process was also problematic.
Julius Rosenberg – Coming to trial. Reprophoto from a period film recording. | Photo: Reuters
The American secret services arrested the Rosenbergs on the basis of the statements of Klaus Fuchs and David Greenglass, but also on partially deciphered Soviet ciphers. However, they could not use them in court because they did not want the Soviets to learn that the Americans could decode their messages. The so-called Venom action was declassified only in 1995, when the public first learned on the basis of which materials the couple had been convicted.
Another piece of evidence that could not be used in court is the testimony of Jerome Tartakow, a former communist who began working for the FBI. She put him in Julius Rosenberg’s cell to get information from him. According to him, Rosenberg was the head of one group, the other was led by Joel Barr and Alfred Sarant, who managed to escape in time.
Without this evidence, the Rosenbergs’ accusation seemed implausible to some of the public. More did not surface until many years after the couple’s death. After their release from prison, their “fellow spies” also spoke.
For example, Morton Sobell, who tried to flee to Mexico before his arrest, admitted in 2008 that he and Julius Rosenberg had stolen classified documents related to the US nuclear program and that he had leaked military secrets to the Soviets.
At the same time, he claimed that although Ethel knew about her husband’s espionage, she herself did not actively participate in it, which Feklisov also said. This is also indicated by information released in 2015. New documents then showed that Greenglass did not present any evidence of the involvement of his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, during the first interrogation. He then allegedly testified falsely against her in court to protect his own wife, Ruth. It was she, not Ethel Rosenberg, who apparently participated in the espionage, the documents state.
The adult Michael Meeropol, son of Julia and Ethel, adopted the surname of his adoptive parents, as did his younger brother. | Photo: Profimedia.cz
That is why both Rosenberg’s sons, Michael and Robert, tried to clear their mother’s name. After many years, they stopped doubting the father’s guilt when they saw all the published documents. Robert even founded a foundation to protect the children of persecuted political activists.
As conspirator Morton Sobell later said in an interview with the New York Times, Julius Rosenberg probably never confessed because he didn’t think he had done anything wrong. He was a staunch communist. He also passed on information to the Soviets until 1945, when they were America’s allies in the war against Nazi Germany. “Yes, it was probably espionage, but we didn’t see it that way at the time,” Sobell said years later.