Rosenberg Case Overview
Published on Rosenberg Fund for Children (http://www.rfc.org)
Rosenberg Case Overview [1]
Julius Rosenberg was arrested in July 1950, a few weeks after the Korean War began. He was
executed, along with his wife, Ethel, on June 19, 1953, a few weeks before it ended. The legal charge
of which the Rosenbergs were convicted was vague: “Conspiracy to Commit Espionage.” But in a
practical sense they were held accountable for giving the so-called “secret of the atomic bomb” to
the USSR.
The Rosenbergs’ trial took place in March 1951. Federal Judge Irving R. Kaufman pronounced the
death sentence in early April. The Rosenbergs’ attorneys worked for over two years to have the
verdict overturned. They appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court nine times, but the Court refused to
review the record. Neither President Truman nor President Eisenhower granted their requests for
clemency.
Because the charge was conspiracy, the Rosenbergs’ conviction required no tangible evidence that
they had stolen anything or given it to anybody. The key government witnesses – (Ethel’s brother
and sister-in-law, David and Ruth Greenglass) – were charged with the same conspiracy and received
more favorable treatment in return for testifying that the Rosenbergs were guilty.
The Greenglasses testified that Julius, with Ethel’s help, recruited David into an atomic spy ring in
1944 while David worked as a machinist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where
the first atomic was being built. On the stand in the Rosenbergs’ trial, the Greenglasses swore that
David provided a sketch and an accompanying theoretical description of the bomb, to Julius
Rosenberg in September 1945, and that Ethel was present and typed up David’s notes. In return for
their cooperation, David received a sentence of 15 years in prison and served 10 before being
released; and Ruth Greenglass, who testified that she helped steal what the prosecution called “the
most important scientific secret ever known to mankind,” was never even indicted.
During the trial, David Greenglass also testified that he gave another set of sketches to Harry Gold,
who used the recognition signal “I come from Julius” to identify himself to David when they first met.
Gold testified that he was a spy courier transmitting information from atomic scientist Klaus Fuchs to
the Soviet Union, but that on this one occasion he received information from Greenglass.
FBI documents first made public in the late 1970’s show that David Greenglass originally claimed
Gold identified himself as “Dave from Pittsburgh,” while Gold first said he identified himself to
Greenglass as “Ben from Brooklyn.” One FBI file shows that after several months in prison, but
before the trial, prosecutors brought Gold and Greenglass together to iron out this discrepancy. It
was at that meeting that Gold and Greenglass suddenly “remembered” the name “Julius” in the
recognition signal.
The Rosenbergs testified in their own defense at their trial and denied all charges. They invoked their
Fifth Amendment rights and refused to answer repeated prosecution questions about their political
affiliations. During the McCarthy period, many felt that such a refusal to answer was an admission of
Communist Party membership and that all Communists were spies for the Soviet Union.
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Rosenberg Case Overview
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Following the three week trial, both Rosenbergs were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage,
as was their co-defendant Morton Sobell. Sobell received a 30-year sentence while the Rosenbergs
were given the death penalty. Judge Kaufman justified the death sentence as follows: “I consider
your crimes worse than murder…. I believe your conduct in putting into the hands of the Russians
the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already
caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding
fifty thousand and who knows how many millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your
treason.” He concluded that the Rosenbergs’ “[l]ove for their cause dominated their lives – it was
even greater than their love for their children.”
Despite Kaufman’s assertion about the supposed value of the information the Rosenbergs allegedly
passed to the Soviets, a chorus of leading scientists including Harold Urey and J. Robert
Oppenheimer stated that there was no “secret” of the Atomic Bomb. Years later, many Atomic
scientists agreed with a colleague’s assessment that the Greenglass material was, “too incomplete,
ambiguous and even incorrect to be of any service or value to the Russians in shortening the time
required to develop their nuclear bombs.”
Decades later, the 1995 release by the CIA of the “VENONA” transcriptions of KGB files, caused the
mainstream media to renew prior conclusions that the Rosenbergs were guilty. The transcriptions,
however, do not point to the Rosenbergs’ involvement in atomic espionage. The name “Julius
Rosenberg” is never mentioned. According to these documents, the spy code-named “Antenna” and
later “Liberal,” whom the U.S. Government claims was Julius Rosenberg, was engaged in
military/industrial rather than atomic espionage. One transmission reports that this code-named spy
was “ignorant” of the atomic bomb project. Even more remarkably, the key reference to
Antenna/Liberal’s wife states that she was not an espionage agent.
Another significant development in the Rosenberg Case came in 2008, when the transcripts of the
testimony of 43 of the 46 witnesses who appeared before the grand jury that indicted the
Rosenbergs, were released to the public.
This material included the testimony of Ruth Greenglass, who was deceased at that point, but not
that of David Greenglass, who was still alive. David’s testimony was not released until 2015,
following his death.
At the time of the first release of grand jury material in 2008, Morton Sobell, then in his 90’s,
acknowledged publicly that he, along with Julius Rosenberg, passed non-atomic, military-industrial
information to the USSR. He said the primary purpose of this work was to help the USSR defeat the
Nazis during World War II.
Despite this fact, these transcripts reveal startling contradictions between Ruth and David
Greenglass’ sworn testimony before the grand jury and at trial. Before the grand jury, neither
Greenglass mentioned:
the allegedly crucial September 1945 meeting
the supposed atomic bomb sketch that they later said David gave to Julius at that meeting
any hand-written notes from David, about the sketch or bomb
Ethel Rosenberg doing any typing of these supposed notes
or Ethel’s presence at the alleged meeting.
These contradictions between the Greenglasses’ sworn testimony at trial and before the grand jury,
coupled with FBI files indicating that Ethel was only arrested to use as a “lever” to coerce Julius into
“disgorging” information, has led to growing calls for Ethel’s exoneration.
The book Final Verdict, published in 2010, gave further weight to the argument that Ethel Rosenberg
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Rosenberg Case Overview
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was wrongfully convicted and that Julius’ espionage in the 1940’s for the USSR, did not include any
transmission of atomic information. The authors’ meticulous research, in fact reveals even more
information that corroborates the claim that evidence against Ethel was fabricated.
The book details the finding that when Julius Rosenberg was fired from the Army Corp of Engineers in
January 1945, the USSR suspended him from all ongoing activities because they feared that the U.S.
had discovered Julius was spying. The KGB files indicate Julius engaged in no further espionage
activities in 1945. Thus, the supposed espionage meeting between the Rosenbergs and David
Greenglass, which the Greenglasses testified took place in September 1945, would not have
occurred.
Instead, Final Verdict concludes (with supporting evidence from KGB files) that Ruth Greenglass, on
her own, without the Rosenbergs’ involvement, met with a Soviet agent on December 21, 1945 and
delivered the sketch the government called “the secret of the atomic bomb.” That sketch was
logged into the main KGB file center in Russia on December 27th, 1945.
This information in consistent with the failure of either Greenglass to mention the September 1945
meeting in their grand jury testimony. It supports this summary of the case:
Julius Rosenberg engaged in non-atomic espionage for the Soviet Union during the 1940's.
At least nine months after the Soviets suspended their relationship with Julius, the
Greenglasses delivered atomic information of relatively little value to the Soviet Union
without the Rosenbergs’ assistance.
Neither Rosenberg was a member of an atomic spy ring that stole the secret of the Atomic
Bomb.
The United States government knew all along that Ethel Rosenberg was not an espionage
agent, and that Julius was not an atomic spy, but executed them both anyway.
© Robert Meeropol 2015
Check out press coverage about the case [2].
Read the proclamations honoring Ethel Rosenberg by the New York City Council [3] and the
Manhattan Borough President [4], issued on Ethel Rosenberg's 100th birthday, September 28, 2015.
Download the Case Summary [5], Case Fact Sheet [6], and summary of evidence that Ethel
Rosenberg was not a spy [7].
Read The New York Times Op-Ed by Robert and Michael Meeropol [8] calling for the exoneration of
their mother, Ethel Rosenberg.
Read Robert Meeropol's blog posts (including "Surprise Ending," Parts 1,2,3) [9]for more information
on Final Verdict [10], by Walter and Miriam Schneir.
Listen to a public radio interview with co-author Miriam Scneir, and Rosenberg son Michael Meeropol.
[11]
Tweet [12]
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Rosenberg Case Overview
Published on Rosenberg Fund for Children (http://www.rfc.org)
Source URL: http://www.rfc.org/caseoverview
Links:
[1] http://www.rfc.org/caseoverview
[2] http://www.rfc.org/recentpresscoverage/
[3] http://www.rfc.org/sites/rfc.org/files/nyc_council_proclamation_text_and_signers_09.28.15_0.pdf
[4] http://www.rfc.org/sites/rfc.org/files/ethel_rosenberg_day_of_justice_in_the_borough_of_manhatta
n_text_09.28.15_0.pdf
[5] http://www.rfc.org/sites/rfc.org/files/rosenberg_case_summary_updated_12.01.15_0.pdf
[6] http://www.rfc.org/sites/rfc.org/files/casefactsheet.12.10.15.pdf
[7] http://www.rfc.org/sites/rfc.org/files/ethel_not_a_spy.12.10.15.pdf
[8] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/10/opinion/the-meeropol-brothers-exonerate-our-mother-ethel-r
osenberg.html?_r=0
[9] http://www.rfc.org/blog/cat/Final%20Verdict
[10] http://mhpbooks.com/book.php?id=378
[11] http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/3566/0/1714417/WAMC.Speak
ers.Corner/Alan.Chartock...In.Conversation.with.Miriam.Schneir.and.Michael.Meeropol
[12] http://twitter.com/share
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