His wife, born Ethel Greenglass, also in New York, on September 28, 1915, worked as a. 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. Decrypted cables revealed this information through theVenona project. Ethel Greenglass worked as a clerk for some years after her graduation from high school in 1931. T he case of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the young Jewish American couple executed in June 1953 at the height of the cold war for allegedly passing atomic secrets to the Russians, has weighed . There was genuine fear that the Russians and Stalin would launch an atom bomb on America. These transcripts revealed the contradictions between the Greenglasses testimony before the grand jury and during the trial. "[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". The case against Ethel in particular was rather . That same year, Sobell participated in an interview with theNew York Times. [13][14], The USSR and the U.S. were allies during World War II, but the Americans did not share information with, or seek assistance from, the Soviet Union regarding the Manhattan Project. Venona Documents from the National Security Archive. (review of. Both were members of the Communist Party, with Julius being the far more active member. Robert wrote a later memoir, An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey (2003). Her death was so barbaric. 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. At this time, Greenglass worked at Los Alamos. McNutt was an engineer who worked at theKellexdesign bureau in New York City. By 1944, Julius had recruited him to spy for the Soviets. Feklisov learned through Rosenberg that Ethel's brother David Greenglass was working on the top-secret Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory; he directed Julius to recruit Greenglass. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg devoted a great deal of time in prison to crafting eloquent protestations of their complete innocence. 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. In 2021 Ethel's sons restarted the campaign to pardon Ethel, as they were more optimistic that President Biden will consider this favorably. In 1939, he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. They were convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Espionage in one of the most hotly-debated trials in U.S. history. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presided over the trial. Rosenberg had been introduced to Semyonov by Bernard Schuster, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party USA and NKVD liaison for Earl Browder. The attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court nine times, but the Court never reviewed the record. [1][2][3][4], Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who had made a plea agreement), Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell. Greenglass, who himself had confessed to providing nuclear secrets to the Soviets through an intermediary, testified against his sister and brother-in-law in court. 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. The Rosenbergs turned over this information to Harry Gold, a Swiss-born courier for the espionage ring, who then passed it to Anatoly A. Yakovlev, the Soviet Unions vice-consul in New York City. And the newspapers reported that because she was tougher, she needed more of a jolt. [46] The Times reported that 500 people attended, while some 10,000 stood outside:[50], The bodies had been brought from Sing Sing prison by the national "Rosenberg committee" which undertook the funeral arrangements, and an all-night vigil was held in one of the largest mortuary chapels in Brooklyn. [55], Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, said in his posthumously-published memoir that he "cannot specifically say what kind of help the Rosenbergs provided us" but that he learned from Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov that they "had provided very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb. 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. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death and the pair was taken to Sing Sing to await execution. In contrast to the American media, European newspapers did not support the ruling, and there were some protests against it throughout Europe. Copyright 2022 by the Atomic Heritage Foundation. He then claimed that he passed this information to Julius on a New York street corner, and that Ethel was not involved. Espionage was a major concern for the United States government during the Manhattan Project. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only spies executed during the Cold War and some question whether their sentence was fair. [24] They were adopted by the social activist Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne, and assumed the Meeropol surname. "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. Harry Truman in 1952 and Pres. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg were American citizens executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Some atomic scientists have claimed that the information David and Julius passed along would not have been of great importance to the USSR because it was incomplete and not very detailed. For this success Rosenberg received a $100 bonus. The debate over her involvement is ongoing. After Semyonov was recalled to Moscow in 1944 his duties were taken over by Feklisov. His arrest began a chain of investigations, which ultimately led to the arrest of Julius and Ethel. Due to Red Scare trials and newspaper headlines, Americans in the 1940s, and 1950s knew that Soviet espionage was serious. She was removed from the electric chair after three charges, only for it to be discovered her heart was still beating, so, gruesomely, she had to be strapped back into it. Ethel was arrested two months later. [48], On June 19, 1953, Julius died after the first electric shock. She had a brother, David Greenglass. Chin died in a hospital four days later, on June 23. [12] Perl supplied Feklisov, under Rosenberg's direction, with thousands of documents from the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, including a complete set of design and production drawings for Lockheed's P-80 Shooting Star, the first U.S. operational jet fighter. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/rosenbergs-executed. [41] Cinema artists such as Fritz Lang registered their protest. This new testimony, now against Julius and Ethel, was part of a deal granted to the Greenglasses. [74], Michael's daughter, Ivy Meeropol, directed a 2004 documentary about her grandparents, Heir to an Execution, which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country. All rights reserved. According to Rojas, a man named Velasquez had threatened her when she rejected his sexual advances earlier in the day. [62] Ethel did not have a codename,[24] however, KGB messages which were contained in the Venona project's Vassiliev files, and which were not made public until 2009,[63][64] revealed that both Ethel and Julius had regular contact with at least two KGB agents and were active in recruiting not only Ethel's brother David Greenglass, but also another Manhattan Project spy named Russell McNutt. The three-year Rosenberg case culminated in their execution on Friday, 19 June, 1953, just minutes before the onset of the Jewish Sabbath. Corrections? The security of the Marianas Islands, in the western Pacific, were vital to read more, Attempting to convince local Native Americans to make peace with the United States, the Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet meets with the Sioux leaderSitting Bull in present-day Montana. [79] In January 2017 Senator Elizabeth Warren sent Obama a letter requesting consideration of the exoneration request. He had been recruited to spy for the Soviet Union which was far from uncommon in those days and he subsequently passed on information about what was happening at Fort Monmouth. 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. Members of the communist party, the Rosenbergs were convicted of passing secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union in 1945. [7], Julius Rosenberg was born on May 12, 1918, in New York City to a family of Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. forces. I have spent ages agonising over that. 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. In his viewpoint, Ethel was only minimally involved and therefore her execution was unjust. Ethel, at Julius's request, had taken his notes and "typed them up." That stay resulted from intervention in the case by Fyke Farmer, a Tennessee lawyer whose efforts had previously been scorned by the Rosenbergs' attorney, Emanuel Hirsch Bloch. His parents worked in the shops of the Lower East Side as Julius attended Seward Park High School. Julius (1918-1953) and Ethel (1915-1953) Rosenberg were a nondescript couple accused in 1950 by the United States government of operating a Soviet spy network and giving the Soviet Union plans for the atomic bomb. Harris, Brian. Her attorney asked the U.S. commissioner to parole her in his custody over the weekend, so that she could make arrangements for her two young children. This collection provides interesting Agency insights on this post-WWII spy case. And, in fact, the Rosenbergs themselves essentially believed that they had done nothing wrong in the grand scheme of things. O n June 19, 1953, Ethel Rosenberg was electrocuted, having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. He was U.S. citizen and electrical engineer. Both refused to admit any wrongdoing and proclaimed their innocence right up to the time of their deaths, by the electric chair. Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. McNutt's employment provided access to secrets about processes for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium. During his bachelor party at a club on the night of June 19, Chin and three friends were read more, On June 15, 2006, on the remote island of Spitsbergen halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland lay the ceremonial first stone of the Global Seed Vault. She replied, "Yes, I wrote [the information] down on a piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him." By 1942, Julius was heavily involved with espionage activities for the Soviet Union. Since the Rosenbergs were being charged with conspiracy, no tangible evidence was required. How much does Sebba think that Ethel knew? The storefront theater boasted 96 seats and charged each patron five cents. President Eisenhower, supported by public opinion and the media at home, ignored the overseas demands. Gold was arrested on May 23, 1950, in connection with the case of the British spy Klaus Fuchs, who had been arrested for giving U.S. and British nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. Would they have believed him? The Rosenbergs supported communism Ethel Greenglass was born to a Jewish family in 1915 in New York. [10], According to a 2001 book by his former handler Alexander Feklisov, Rosenberg was originally recruited to spy for the interior ministry of the Soviet Union, NKVD, on Labor Day 1942 by former spymaster Semyon Semyonov. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg ne Ethel Greenglass, (respectively, born May 12, 1918, New York, New York, U.S.died June 19, 1953, Ossining, New York; born September 28, 1915, New York Citydied June 19, 1953, Ossining), the first American civilians to be executed for conspiracy to commit espionage and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime. All 119 References in We Didnt Start the Fire, Explained, Spies Like Us: 10 Famous Names in the Espionage Game, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Julius-Rosenberg-and-Ethel-Rosenberg, Atomic Heritage Foundation - The Rosenberg Trial, Spartacus Educational - The Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Famous Trials - Trial Of The Rosenbergs: An Account, Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Communist Party of the United States of America. Some reports claim that the Rosenbergs were offered a plea deal, where admittance of their guilt would grant them a prison sentence. He stated, "I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister. There were no confessions, no names produced of other Americans spying for the Soviets, and no admission of guilt by either Rosenberg. Their case against Ethel Rosenberg was resolved 10 days before the start of the trial, when David and Ruth Greenglass were interviewed a second time. Or was he more likely to get off by pleading innocence for both of them? Anne Sebbas biography of Ethel Rosenberg, a book five years in the research and writing, has just been published. 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. 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. [49], The funeral services were held in Brooklyn on June 21. "[57], The notes allegedly typed by Ethel apparently contained little that was directly used in the Soviet atomic bomb project. Or my mother or my father, OK? [16], In January 1950, the U.S. discovered that Klaus Fuchs, a German refugee theoretical physicist working for the British mission in the Manhattan Project, had given key documents to the Soviets throughout the war. J. Edgar Hooverpublicly opposed the trial. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. Her mother disowned her. "[70], He said that he thought the hand-drawn diagrams and other atomic-bomb details that were acquired by David Greenglass and passed to Julius were of "little value" to the Soviet Union, and were used only to corroborate what they had already learned from the other atomic spies. Red Resurrection? The second son of read more. The Rosenbergs were the first American civilians to die for spying. Will there ever be a pardon for Ethel Rosenberg? The American pair were . Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, American communists, executed after having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. They provided top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and valuable nuclear weapon designs. [11], Rosenberg provided thousands of classified reports from Emerson Radio, including a complete proximity fuse. To this day, historians and scientists debate how much espionage sped up the progress of the Soviet Unions nuclear weapons program. [25], On August 11, Ethel Rosenberg testified before a grand jury. Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. [9], Julius Rosenberg joined the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, in 1940, where he worked as an engineer-inspector until 1945. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Ronald Radoshconcludes, after Sobells 2008 confessions, that the Rosenbergs were Soviet spies. 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. The young couple were arrested in 1950 for . The direct evidence of the Rosenbergs involvement came from the confessions and testimonies of David and Ruth Greenglass. Judge Kaufman justified his decisionfor the death penalty by stating: I consider your crimes worse than murder. 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 . Magic, witch-hunts, autos-da-f, sacrifices we are here getting to the point: your country is sick with fear you are afraid of the shadow of your own bomb. The trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was certainly dramatic. 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. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! He worked for a time at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where research was going on into radar, missile controls and electronics. It was known that some communists, such as Fuchs, had spied for the Soviets. 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. From Emerson Radio, including a complete proximity fuse degree in electrical.... 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