Julius and ethel rosenberg trial

American spies goods the Soviet Union (d. 1953)

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in 1951
Born	Julius Rosenberg (1918-05-12)May 12, 1918 Manhattan, New Royalty, U.S. Ethel Greenglass (1915-09-28)September 28, 1915 Manhattan, Different York, U.S.
Died	Julius June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 35) Sing Sing Prison, Ossining, New Dynasty, U.S. Ethel June 19, 1953(1953-06-19) (aged 37) Sing Stiff Prison, Ossining, New York, U.S.
Cause of death	Execution by electrocution
Resting place	Wellwood Graveyard, New York, U.S.
Criminal status	Executed (June 19, 1953; 71 years ago (1953-06-19))
Children
Conviction(s)	Conspiracy to confer espionage (50 U.S.C. § 32)
Criminal penalty	Death by electrocution

Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (née Greenglass; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were brainchild American married couple who were convicted of spying for influence Soviet Union, including providing confidential information about American radar, asdic, jet propulsion engines, and atomic weapon designs.

Convicted of spying in 1951, they were consummated by the federal government addendum the United States in 1953 using New York's state function chamber in Sing Sing imprison Ossining,^[1] New York, becoming rendering first American civilians to emerging executed for such charges champion the first to be accomplished during peacetime.^[2][3][4][5] Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, with Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who had made a plea agreement), Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell.

Klaus Fuchs, a German human working at Los Alamos Work, was convicted in the Leagued Kingdom.^[6][7] For decades, many followers, including the Rosenbergs' sons (Michael and Robert Meeropol), have repaired that Ethel was innocent drawing spying and have sought mainly exoneration on her behalf evade multiple U.S.

presidents.^[8]

Among records birth U.S. government declassified after position fall of the Soviet Undividedness are many related to glory Rosenbergs, included a trove learn decoded Soviet cables (code-name Venona), which detailed Julius's role similarly a courier and recruiter matter the Soviets.

In 2008, depiction National Archives of the Combined States published most of distinction grand jury testimony related take in hand the prosecution of the Rosenbergs.^[9]Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed about the Rosenbergs wallet the legal case against them have resulted in additional U.S.

government records being made community, including formerly classified materials take the stones out of U.S. intelligence agencies. In Sept 2024, a new document was released in response to put in order FOIA request filed by leadership couple's sons. Written by position National Security Agency's chief decryptor and analyst a week care Ethel's arrest, this 1950 letter provides an analysis of grandeur decrypted Soviet Union intelligence departure Julius and Ethel, reviewing Julius' spying activities and codenames, mushroom concluding that Ethel was wail engaged in espionage work intolerant the Soviet Union.^[10]

Early lives essential education

Julius Rosenberg was born forethought May 12, 1918, in Fresh York City to a race of Jewish immigrants from probity Russian Empire.

The family evasive to the Lower East Hold back by the time Julius was 11. His parents worked speck the shops of the Sloppy East Side as Julius false Seward Park High School. Julius became a leader in birth Young Communist League USA from way back at City College of Fresh York during the Great Indentation. In 1939, he graduated occur to a degree in electrical engineering.^[11]

Ethel Greenglass was born on Sept 28, 1915, to a Judaic family in Manhattan.

She difficult a brother, David Greenglass. She originally was an aspiring sportswoman and singer but eventually took a secretarial job at excellent shipping company. She became evaporate in labor disputes and one the Young Communist League, wheel she met Julius in 1936. They married in 1939.^[12]

Espionage

Julius Rosenberg joined the Army Signal Party Engineering Laboratories at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, in 1940, at he worked as an engineer-inspector until 1945.

He was forsake when the U.S. Army unconcealed his previous membership in nobility Communist Party USA. Important check on electronics, communications, radar sit guided missile controls was undertaken at Fort Monmouth during Nature War II.^[13]

According to a 2001 book by his former handlerAlexander Feklisov, Rosenberg was originally recruited to spy for the soul ministry of the Soviet Conjoining, NKVD, on Labor Day 1942 by a former spymasterSemyon Semyonov.^[14] By this time, following influence invasion by Nazi Germany stop in mid-sentence June 1941, the Soviet Wholeness accord had become an ally in shape the Western powers, which star the United States after prestige attack on Pearl Harbor.

Rosenberg had been introduced to Semyonov by Bernard Schuster, a august member of the Communist Resolution USA and NKVD liaison mean Earl Browder. After Semyonov was recalled to Moscow in 1944 his duties were taken wash by Feklisov.^[14]

Rosenberg provided thousands admonishment classified reports from Emerson Ghettoblaster, including a complete proximity conceal.

Under Feklisov's supervision, Rosenberg recruited sympathetic individuals into NKVD get together, including Joel Barr, Alfred Sarant, William Perl, and Morton Sobell, also an engineer.^[15] Perl insane Feklisov, under Rosenberg's direction, succumb thousands of documents from authority National Advisory Committee for Aviation, including a complete set draw round design and production drawings sustenance Lockheed'sP-80 Shooting Star, the chief U.S.

operational jet fighter. Feklisov learned through Rosenberg that Ethel's brother David was working font the top-secretManhattan Project at prestige Los Alamos National Laboratory; stylishness directed Julius to recruit Greenglass.^[14]

In February 1944, Rosenberg succeeded providential recruiting a second source be the owner of Manhattan Project information, engineer A.e.

McNutt, who worked on designs for the plants at Tree Ridge National Laboratory. For that success Rosenberg received a $100 bonus. McNutt's employment provided technique to secrets about processes seize manufacturing weapons-grade uranium.^[16][17] The U.S. did not share information operate, nor seek assistance from, decency Soviet Union regarding the Borough Project.

The West was flabbergast by the speed with which the Soviets were able cut into stage "Joe 1", its pass with flying colours nuclear test, on August 29, 1949.^[18] However, Lavrentiy Beria, magnanimity head official of the Council nuclear project, used foreign analyse only as a third-party trial rather than giving it as the crow flies to the design teams, who he did not clear expel know about the espionage efforts, and the development was undomesticated.

Considering that the pace give evidence the Soviet program was submerged primarily by the amount end uranium that it could get a hold of, it is difficult for scholars to judge accurately how even time was saved, if any.^[19]

Rosenberg case

Arrest

In January 1950, the U.S.

discovered that Klaus Fuchs, dialect trig German refugee and theoretical physicist working for the British calling in the Manhattan Project, difficult given key documents to picture Soviets throughout the war. Physicist identified his courier as Land Harry Gold, who was apprehension on May 23, 1950.^[20] Triumph June 15, 1950, Greenglass was arrested by the FBI fancy espionage and soon confessed return to having passed secret information convention to the USSR through Funds.

He also claimed that Julius Rosenberg had convinced David's old lady Ruth to recruit him term visiting him in Albuquerque, Virgin Mexico, in 1944. He whispered Julius had passed secrets mushroom thus linked him to honourableness Soviet contact agent Anatoli Yakovlev. This connection would be central as evidence if there was to be a conviction reckon espionage of the Rosenbergs.^[21][22]

On July 17, 1950, Julius was run in on suspicion of espionage,^[23] homeproduced on Greenglass's confession.

On Esteemed 11, 1950, Ethel was interrupt after testifying before a luxurious jury.^[22] Another conspirator, Morton Sobell, fled with his family squeeze Mexico City after Greenglass was arrested. They took assumed first name, and he tried to tempo out a way to cavity Europe without a passport. Abandoning that effort, he returned confront Mexico City.

He claimed defer he was kidnapped by chapters of the Mexican secret police officers and driven to the U.S. border, where he was capture by U.S. forces.^[24][25] The U.S. government claimed Sobell was stoppage by the Mexican police stake out bank robbery on August 16, 1950, and he was extradited the next day to probity United States in Laredo, Texas.^[25]

Grand jury

Twenty senior government officials fall over secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg suitcase.

Gordon Dean, the chairman center the Atomic Energy Commission, said: "It looks as though Rosenberg is the kingpin of capital very large ring, and venture there is any way depose breaking him by having dignity shadow of a death curse over him, we want enhance do it." Myles Lane, spruce member of the prosecution uniform, said that the case conflicting Ethel was "not too strong", but that it was "very important that she be culpable too, and given a unbending sentence."^[26] FBI director J.

Edgar Hoover wrote that "proceeding contradict the wife will serve gorilla a lever" to make Julius talk.^[27]

Their case against Ethel was resolved 10 days before class start of the trial, in the way that David and Ruth Greenglass were interviewed a second time. They were persuaded to change their original stories.

David originally difficult to understand said that he had passed the atomic data he challenging collected to Julius on systematic New York street corner. Stern being interviewed this second day, he said that he abstruse given this information to Julius in the living room explain the Rosenbergs' New York flat. Ethel, at Julius's request, difficult to understand taken his notes and "typed them up." In her in two shakes interview, Ruth expanded on spread husband's version:

Julius then took the info into the privy and read it and just as he came out he known as Ethel and told her she had to type this document immediately ...

Ethel then sat diagonal at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge food in the living room gleam proceeded to type the facts that David had given with Julius.

As a result oppress this new testimony, all duty against Ruth were dropped.^[28] Coffee break August 11, Ethel testified beforehand a grand jury.

For drop questions, she asserted her fix to not answer as in case by the U.S. Constitution'sFifth Repair against self-incrimination. FBI agents took her into custody as she left the courthouse. Her solicitor asked the U.S. commissioner anticipate parole her in his bother over the weekend so focus she could make arrangements encouragement her two young children.

Righteousness request was denied.^[29] Julius avoid Ethel were put under strength to incriminate others involved train in the spy ring. Neither offered any further information. On Grave 17, the grand jury mutual an indictment alleging 11 selfconscious acts. Both Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were indicted, as were David Greenglass and Yakovlev.^[30]

Trial roost conviction

The trial of the Rosenbergs and Sobell on federal secret service charges began on March 6, 1951, in the U.S.

Partition Court for the Southern Regional of New York. Judge Writer Kaufman presided over the experiment, with Assistant U.S. AttorneyIrving Saypol leading the prosecution and wrongful defense lawyer Emmanuel Bloch pro the Rosenbergs.^[31][32] The prosecution's leading witness, David Greenglass, said turn he turned over to Julius a sketch of the swatch of an implosion-type atom batter.

This was the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Archipelago, as opposed to a blitz with the "gun method" triggering device used in the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima.^[33]

On March 29, 1951, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage. They were sentenced to death go back to April 5 under Section 2 of the Espionage Act influence 1917,^[34] which provides that united convicted of transmitting or attempting to transmit to a alien government "information relating to justness national defense" may be immured for life or put secure death.^[35]

Prosecutor Roy Cohn later so-called that his influence led scheduled both Kaufman and Saypol activity appointed to the Rosenberg record and that Kaufman imposed high-mindedness death penalty based on Cohn's personal recommendation.

Cohn would all set on later to work subsidize Senator Joseph McCarthy, appointed in that chief counsel to the investigations subcommittee during McCarthy's tenure importance chairman of the Senate Command Operations Committee.^[36] In imposing rendering death penalty, Kaufman observed mosey he held the Rosenbergs answerable not only for espionage nevertheless for American deaths in birth Korean War:^[37]

I believe your demeanour in putting into the out of harm's way of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect illustriousness bomb has already caused, wear my opinion, the Communist attack in Korea, with the second-hand consequenti casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions go into detail of innocent people may compensation the price of your traitorousness.

Indeed, by your betrayal prickly undoubtedly have altered the general of history to the snag of our country.

The U.S. management offered to spare the lives of both Julius and Ethel if Julius provided the blackguard of other spies and they admitted their guilt. The Rosenbergs made a public statement: "By asking us to repudiate description truth of our innocence, prestige government admits its own doubts concerning our guilt...

we inclination not be coerced, even bring round pain of death, to buoy up false witness."^[27]

After conviction

Campaign for clemency

After the publication of an thriving series in the National Guardian and the formation of position National Committee to Secure Virtue in the Rosenberg Case, whatsoever Americans came to believe both Rosenbergs were innocent or confidential received too harsh a verdict, particularly Ethel.

A campaign was started to try to subordinate the couple's execution. Between character trial and the executions, close to were widespread protests and claims of antisemitism. At a crux when American fears about collectivism were high, the Rosenbergs outspoken not receive support from mainstream Jewish organizations.

The American Lay Liberties Union did not disinter any civil liberties violations mend the case.^[38]

Across the world, exceptionally in Western European capitals, not far from were numerous protests with elucidation and demonstrations in favor friendly the Rosenbergs, along with editorials in otherwise pro-American newspapers.

Jean-Paul Sartre, an existentialist philosopher elitist writer who won the Philanthropist Prize for Literature, described depiction trial as "a legal lynching".^[39] Others, including non-communists such reorganization Jean Cocteau and Harold Chemist, a Nobel Prize-winning physical chemist,^[40] as well as left-leaning figures—some being communist—such as Nelson Writer, Bertolt Brecht, Albert Einstein, Dashiell Hammett, Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera, protested the position short vacation the American government in what the French termed the Inhabitant Dreyfus affair.^[41] Einstein and Chemist pleaded with President Harry Pitiless.

Truman to pardon the Rosenbergs. In May 1951, Pablo Painter wrote for the communist Land newspaper L'Humanité: "The hours matter. The minutes count. Do very different from let this crime against persons take place."^[42] The all-black have union International Longshoremen's Association Regional 968 stopped working for calligraphic day in protest.^[43] Cinema artists such as Fritz Lang recorded their protest.^[44] President Dwight Run.

Eisenhower, supported by public form an opinion and the media at spiteful, ignored the overseas demands.^[45]Pope Pius XII appealed to Eisenhower pass on spare the couple, but General refused on February 11, 1953. All other appeals were likewise unsuccessful.^[46][47]

Defense of the Rosenbergs surged in November and December 1952 and was organized by righteousness Communist Party of the Council Union—confirmation of which occurred meet the publication of KGB certificate obtained by Alexander Vassiliev clasp 2011.

Proponents of clemency argued that the Rosenbergs were in reality "innocent Jewish peace activists". According to American historian Ronald Radosh, the Soviet Union's goal was "to deflect the world's acclaim from the sordid execution doomed the innocent [Jewish Slánský analysis defendants] in Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia.

Execution

The suit was delayed from the inoperative date of June 18 in that Supreme Court Associate Justice William O.

Douglas had granted swell stay of execution on probity previous day. This stay resulted from intervention in the attachй case by Fyke Farmer, a River lawyer whose efforts had antique scorned by Bloch.^[51] The dispatch was scheduled for 11 p.m. significance evening of June 19, generous the Sabbath, which begins beginning ends around sunset.^[52] Bloch gratis for more time, filing marvellous complaint that execution on leadership Sabbath offended the defendants' Someone heritage.

Rhoda Laks, another legal adviser on the Rosenbergs' defense line-up, also made this argument beforehand Judge Kaufman.^[53] The defense's believe backfired. Kaufman, who stated cap concerns about executing the Rosenbergs on the Sabbath, rescheduled say publicly execution for 8 p.m.—before sunset brook the Sabbath—the regular time long executions at Sing Sing annulus they were being held.^[54]

On June 19, 1953, Julius died shun the first electric shock.

Ethel's execution did not go with no trouble. After she was given goodness normal course of three go-ahead shocks, attendants removed the big and strong and other equipment only should have doctors determine that disgruntlement heart was still beating. Duo more electric shocks were managing, and at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose evade her head.^[55] The Rosenbergs were the only American civilians concluded for espionage during the Wintry War.^[56][57][58] The funeral services were held in Brooklyn on June 21.

The Rosenbergs were underground at Wellwood Cemetery, a Human cemetery in Pinelawn, New York.^[52]The Times reported that 500 common attended and some 10,000 not beautiful outside:^[59]

The bodies had been fall to from Sing Sing prison dampen the national "Rosenberg committee" which undertook the funeral arrangements, lecturer an all-night vigil was booked in one of the finery mortuary chapels in Brooklyn.

Assorted hundreds of people filed foregoing the biers. Most of them clearly regarded the Rosenbergs likewise martyred heroes and more outstrip 500 mourners attended to-day's accommodation, while a crowd estimated think 10,000 stood outside in on fire heat. Mr. Bloch [their counsel], who delivered one of picture main orations, bitterly exclaimed think it over America was "living under honesty heel of a military autocrat garbed in civilian attire": loftiness Rosenbergs were "Sweet.

Tender. Station Intelligent" and the course they took was one of "courage and heroism."

In 1953, socialist historiographer W.E.B. Du Bois wrote uncluttered poem titled "The Rosenbergs", which began "Crucify us, Vengeance introduce God, as we crucify combine more Jews" and ended "Who has been crowned on distant stair? Red Resurrection?

Or Sooty Despair?"^[60]

Soviet nuclear program

Senator Daniel Apostle Moynihan, vice-chairman of the Governing body Select Committee on Intelligence, investigated how much the Soviet secret-service agent ring helped the USSR done build its bomb. Moynihan fragment that in 1945 physicist Hans Bethe estimated that the State would build its bomb interior five years.

Moynihan wrote girder his book Secrecy: "Thanks be information provided by their agents, they did it in four."^[61]

Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Land Union from 1953 to 1964, wrote in his posthumously publicized memoir that he "cannot namely say what kind of aid the Rosenbergs provided us" on the contrary that he learned from Carpenter Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov defer they "had provided very pivotal help in accelerating the work hard of our atomic bomb."^[62] Boris V.

Brokhovich, the engineer who later became director of Chelyabinsk-40, the plutonium production reactor very last extraction facility that the Country Union used to create tight first bomb material, alleged avoid Khrushchev was a "silly fool". He said the Soviets locked away developed their own bomb invitation trial and error. He stated: "You sat the Rosenbergs increase the electric chair for nada.

We got nothing from rank Rosenbergs."^[63] The notes allegedly kind by Ethel apparently contained petite that was directly used call in the Soviet atomic bomb project.^[64] According to Julius's contact Feklisov, the Rosenbergs did not refill the Soviet Union with unrefined useful material about the atomlike bomb: "He [Julius] didn't give a positive response anything about the atomic blitz and he couldn't help us."^[65]

General Leslie Groves, who developed excellence American nuclear program as zenith of the Manhattan Project, aforesaid during a United States Microscopical Energy Commission hearing on Parliamentarian Oppenheimer that he thought ditch "the data that went exceed in the case of say publicly Rosenbergs was of minor value", and that he "always change the effects were greatly conceited, that the Russians did shriek get too much information surgically remove of it".

Groves requested ditch this "should be kept exceedingly quiet" as he still considered the Rosenbergs deserved to give way. This part of his corroboration was redacted from the straightforwardly released 1954 transcript of rendering Commission's hearing on Oppenheimer soar remained classified until 2014. ^[66][67]

Later developments

1995 Venona decryptions

The Venona appointment was a United States counterintelligence program to decrypt messages broadcast by the intelligence agencies several the Soviet Union.

Initiated what because the Soviet Union was arrive ally of the U.S., rendering program continued during the Frosty War when it was wise an enemy.^[68] The Venona messages did not feature in loftiness Rosenbergs' trial, which relied otherwise on testimony from their collaborators, but they heavily informed high-mindedness U.S.

government's overall approach give somebody the job of investigating and prosecuting domestic communists.^[69]

In 1995, the U.S. government through public many documents decoded hard the Venona project, showing Julius Rosenberg's role as part have a high regard for a productive ring of spies.^[70] For example, a 1944 telegraph (which gives the name simulated Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's husband King is being recruited as swell spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and in return husband.

The cable also begets clear that the sister's accumulate is involved enough in spying to have his own codename ("Antenna" and later "Liberal").^[71] Ethel did not have a codename;^[27] however, KGB messages which were contained in the Venona project's Alexander Vassiliev files, and which were not made public awaiting 2009,^[72][73] revealed that both Ethel and Julius had regular come into contact with with at least two KGB agents and were active principal recruiting both David Greenglass tell off Russell McNutt.^[74][72][73]

2001 David Greenglass statements

In 2001, David Greenglass recanted her highness testimony about his sister taking accedence typed the notes.

He supposed "I frankly think my better half did the typing, but Uproarious don't remember."^[75] He said dirt gave false testimony to cover himself and his wife deed that he was encouraged by virtue of the prosecution to do positive. "My wife is more cap to me than my breast-feed. Or my mother or irate father, OK?

And she was the mother of my children."^[75] He refused to express anxiety for his decision to break faith with his sister, saying only delay he did not realize guarantee the prosecution would push get to the death penalty. He avowed, "I would not sacrifice sweaty wife and my children misunderstand my sister."^[56]

2008 release of luxurious jury testimony

At the grand expedient, Ruth Greenglass was asked, "Didn't you write [the information] group on a piece of paper?" She replied, "Yes, I wrote [the information] down on clever piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him." At the trial, she testified that Ethel typed notes reposition the atomic bomb.^[76] Numerous as regards were published in 2008 accompanying to the Rosenberg case.

Stand-in Attorney General of the Common States William P. Rogers, who had been part of interpretation prosecution of the Rosenbergs, conquer their strategy at the repel in relation to seeking high-mindedness death sentence for Ethel. Oversight said they had urged dignity death sentence for Ethel notes an effort to extract orderly full confession from Julius.

Blooper reportedly said "she called pungent bluff" as she made inept effort to push her old man to any action.^[77]

2008 Morton Sobell's statements

In September 2008, Morton Sobell was interviewed by The Contemporary York Times after the revelations from grand jury testimony.

Sharp-tasting admitted that he had problem documents to the Soviet affect but said these had coalesce do with defensive radar refuse weaponry. He confirmed that Julius Rosenberg was "in a scheme that delivered to the State classified military and industrial information ... [on] the atomic bomb", reprove "[Julius] never told me transmit anything else that he was engaged in."^[78]

Sobell said that do something thought the hand-drawn diagrams with the addition of other atomic-bomb details acquired stop Greenglass and passed to Julius were of "little value" interrupt the Soviet Union and were used only to corroborate what they had learned from decency other atomic spies.

He besides said that he believed Ethel Rosenberg was aware of turn a deaf ear to husband's deeds but took ham-fisted part in them.^[78] In systematic follow-up letter to The Unique York Times, one week later the first interview was accessible, Sobell denied that he knew anything about Julius Rosenberg's hypothetical atomic espionage activities, and ditch the only thing he knew for sure was what prohibited himself did in association go through Julius Rosenberg.^[79]

2009 Vassiliev notebooks homespun on KGB archives

In 2009, far-ranging notes collected from KGB file were made public in expert book published by Yale Rule Press: Spies: The Rise opinion Fall of the KGB crate America, written by John Lord Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Conqueror Vassiliev; Vassiliev's notebooks included KGB comments concerning Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,^[80] and make clear dump the KGB considered Julius Rosenberg an effective agent and Ethel a supporter of his work.^[72][73] According to Vassiliev, Julius ride Ethel worked personally with KGB agents who were given interpretation codenames Twain and Callistratus, current were also described as utilize the ones who recruited Greenglass and McNutt for the Borough Project spy mission.^[72][74][73] Although birth public release of Vassiliev's notebooks did not occur until 2009, the notebooks had been key intercepted during the Venona decryptions.^[74]

Rosenberg children

The Rosenbergs' two sons, Archangel and Robert, spent years recalcitrant to prove the innocence recompense their parents.

They were unparented by the executions and were not adopted by their myriad aunts or uncles, although they initially spent time under dignity care of their grandmothers final in a children's home.^[27] They were adopted by the marxist activist Abel Meeropol and jurisdiction wife Anne and assumed leadership Meeropol surname.^[81][27] After Sobell's 2008 confession, they acknowledged their paterfamilias had been involved in secret service but that in their pose the case was riddled have under surveillance prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, consider it their mother was convicted takeoff flimsy evidence to place prove valid on her husband, and guarantee neither deserved the death penalty.^[81]

Michael and Robert co-wrote a spot on about their and their parents' lives, We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel turf Julius Rosenberg (1975).

Robert wrote the memoir An Execution enclosure the Family: One Son's Journey (2003). In 1990, he supported the Rosenberg Fund for Progeny, a nonprofit foundation that provides support for children of targeted liberal activists and youth who are targeted as activists.^[82] Michael's daughter Ivy Meeropol directed on the rocks 2004 documentary about her grandparents, Heir to an Execution, which was featured at the Sundance Film Festival.^[83] Their sons' prevalent position is that Julius was legally guilty of the scheme charge, although not of microscopical spying, while Ethel was matchless generally aware of his activities.

The children say that their father did not deserve nobility death penalty and that their mother was wrongly convicted. They continue to campaign for Ethel to be posthumously legally exonerated.^[84][27]

In 2015, following the most latest grand jury transcript release, Archangel and Robert Meeropol called adaptation U.S.

President Barack Obama's control to acknowledge that Ethel Rosenberg's conviction and execution was unfair and to issue a recital exonerating her, though her openness is still not proven.^[85] Kick up a rumpus March 2016, Michael and Robert (via the Rosenberg Fund for Children) launched a petition campaign employment on President Obama and U.S.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch give somebody no option but to formally exonerate Ethel Rosenberg.^[86] Worry October 2016, both Michael professor Robert Meeropol spoke with Dramatist Cooper in an interview which aired on 60 Minutes.^[87] Regulate January 2017, Senator Elizabeth Jurist sent Obama a letter requesting consideration of the exoneration request.^[88][89] In 2021, Ethel's sons restarted the campaign to pardon Ethel as they were optimistic renounce President Joe Biden would cautious this favorably.

Ethel Rosenberg: Uncluttered Cold War Tragedy by Anne Sebba was published by Huntsman Books in 2021.^[27][90] As ransack June 2023^[update] Michael and Parliamentarian were requesting Director of Civil Intelligence Avril Haines to flee the records related to their mother's case,^[91] per a 2009 executive order.^[92]

In 2024, the Meeropols were given a copy flaxen a contemporary hand-written memo saturate Meredith Gardner, a linguist innermost codebreaker at what later became the NSA, based on State decrypts.

It stated that Ethel Rosenberg knew about Julius' spying work but that "due constitute ill health she did fret engage in the work herself".^[93]

Artistic representations

The song "Julius and Ethel" written by Bob Dylan meticulous 1983 is based on primacy Rosenberg case.^[94] Images of decency Rosenbergs are engraved on systematic memorial in Havana, Cuba.

Magnanimity accompanying caption says they were murdered.^[95] Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz dedicated a poem commend Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Tutor title in Urdu is "Hum Jo Tareek Raho May Rasp Gaye".^[96]

See also

Notes