[45], The execution was scheduled for 11p.m. that evening, during the Sabbath, which begins and ends around sunset. That same year, the FBI arrested both Greenglass and Gold based on information provided by Fuchs. 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. Built in an English shipyard and sold to the Confederates in 1861, the Alabama was a state-of-the-art ship220 read more, After 14 Formula One race car drivers withdraw due to safety concerns over the Michelin-made tires on their vehicles, German driver Michael Schumacher wins a less-than-satisfying victory at the United States Grand Prix on June 19, 2005. Judge Irving R. Kaufman presided over the trial. They were convicted and executed in 1953. The two were frequently regarded as victims of cynical and vindictive officials of the FBI. [60], In 1995, the U.S. government made public many documents decoded by the Venona project, showing Julius Rosenberg's role as part of a productive ring of spies. Ethel was arrested to put pressure on Julius and they didnt want to kill her. 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.. 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. [61] For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's husband David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband. Corrections? Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/ AFP via Getty. He does, however, believe that the prosecutors worked to guarantee a conviction and abused the legal system. [41] Cinema artists such as Fritz Lang registered their protest. Upon returning home later, Rojas claimed to have seen read more, The most successful and feared Confederate commerce raider of the war, the CSS Alabama, sinks after a spectacular battle off the coast of France with the USS Kearsarge. Few trials in American history can match that of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for its sensationalism. 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. And, in fact, the Rosenbergs themselves essentially believed that they had done nothing wrong in the grand scheme of things. Follow Russia Beyond on Telegram. The case was intensely controversial, touching nerves throughout American society, and debates about the Rosenbergs continue to the present day. (The former was released as the motion picture Daniel in 1983.) He said they had urged the death sentence for Ethel in an effort to extract a full confession from Julius. 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. 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. Many Americans who were politically left-wing believed the Rosenbergs were persecuted solely for their past involvement with the Communist Party. He also named Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as contacts and denied that his wife, Ruth Greenglass, was involved with any espionage activities. In her re-interview, Ruth Greenglass expanded on her husband's version: Julius then took the info into the bathroom and read it and when he came out he called Ethel and told her she had to type this information immediately Ethel then sat down at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge table in the living room and proceeded to type the information that David had given to Julius. The trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was certainly dramatic. That same year, Sobell participated in an interview with theNew York Times. "You sat the Rosenbergs in the electric chair for nothing", he said. What could he have said? During the next two years, the couple became the subject of both national and international debate. National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. "Thanks to information provided by their agents", Moynihan wrote in his book Secrecy, "they did it in four". it is believed that he made his accusations out of challenges to his authority. I think she was clearly innocent of the charges but, on the other hand, I think she was supportive of Julius. Author of. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. Venona documentsproved that Julius Rosenberg helped lead a productive ring of Soviet spies. Photograph: Kypros/ Getty. The controversy over their guilt was seemingly resolved in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the release of Soviet intelligence information that confirmed Julius Rosenbergs involvement in espionage. He left the Communist Party to avoid suspicions. They hoped merely by arresting her on these trumped-up charges, surely Julius would talk, because thats what everyone else had done.. 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. Their trial remains controversial today. Greenglass passed information to Julius, including information about the high explosive lenses being developed at Los Alamos for the implosion bomb. Or Black Despair? But they would have been better advised to have said straight up, yes we are communists, but no, we are not spies.. This request was denied. The American Civil Liberties Union refused to acknowledge any violations of civil liberties in the case. Members of the communist party, the Rosenbergs were convicted of passing secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union in 1945. Three years after the trial, on June 19th, 1953 the Rosenbergs were executed. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed for espionage, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/rosenbergs-executed. Intelligence Artificielle Vulgarise Le Machine Learning Et Le Deep Learning Par La Pratique By Aurlien Vannieuwenhuyze Intelligence Artificielle Vulgarise Le . The Rosenbergs were implicated by David Greenglass, Ethels younger brother and a former army sergeant and machinist at Los Alamos, the secret atomic bomb lab in New Mexico. Updates? They were orphaned by the executions and were not adopted by their many aunts or uncles, although they initially spent time under the care of their grandmothers and in a children's home. 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. Espionage Act of 1917. The subsequent trial of the Rosenbergs made news all over the world. Robert and Michael Rosenberg, Julius and Ethels six and 10 year old sons, pictured at the home of Bernard and Sonia Bach, friends of the Rosenbergs, New Jersey, before their parents execution. Myles Lane, a member of the prosecution team, said that the case against Ethel Rosenberg was "not too strong", but that it was "very important that she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence. Harris, Brian. In 1990, he founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a nonprofit foundation that provides support for children of targeted liberal activists, and youth who are targeted as activists. FBI agents took her into custody as she left the courthouse. Some scholars suggest that the chances of Ethel being executed would have been less likely had Venona documents been unclassified and used in the trial. (. [48], On June 19, 1953, Julius died after the first electric shock. "[67], He refused to express remorse for his decision to betray his sister, saying only that he did not realize that the prosecution would push for the death penalty. The US government offered to spare the lives of both Julius and Ethel if Julius provided the names of other spies and they admitted their guilt. In February 1950, Fuchs was arrested in the United Kingdom. [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. Nickelodeons (named for a read more, Francesca Rojas two young children are killed in their home in the small town of Necochea, Argentina. In 1949, the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) discovered that Fuchs was a Soviet spy. 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. did not give her a code name, and evidently did not consider her a spy; and the prosecutions strategy was to use Ethel to coerce her husband to confession.. The Rosenbergs supported communism Ethel Greenglass was born to a Jewish family in 1915 in New York. 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 Online Documents. Documents cover, among many other topics, US intelligence activities, including FBI-CIA cooperation; USSR intelligence activities; the Rosenberg espionage network's collection against the US atomic energy program; their attempts to protect the network as US . The documents also suggest the Ethel acted as an accessory to her husbands activity, but that she did not play a principal role. [36], Jean-Paul Sartre, a Marxist existentialist philosopher and writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, described the trial as, a legal lynching which smears with blood a whole nation. In 1940, Julius joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps as a civilian engineer. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 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. [11] By this time, following the invasion by Nazi Germany in June 1941, the Soviet Union had become an ally of the Western powers, which included the United States after Pearl Harbor. Others question if the punishment was just for their crimes. [25], On August 11, Ethel Rosenberg testified before a grand jury. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Ethel Greenglass, (respectively, born Sept. 28, 1915, New York, N.Y., U.S.died June 19, 1953, Ossining, N.Y.; born May 12, 1918, New York, N.Y., U.S.died June 19, 1953, Ossining, N.Y.), U.S. spies. Browse pg9767.kgb resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace trusted by millions of teachers for original educational resources. Soviet cables were deciphered, revealing Julius codename to be LIBERAL. LIBERAL was mentioned in numerous documents. 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. "Great Importance World-Wide: Presidential Decision-Making and the Executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ethel's brother says he trumped up evidence. Ruth statedin her witness testimony:Julius then took the info into the bathroom and read it and when he came out he called Ethel and told her she had to type this info immediately. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 2009 Vassiliev notebooks based on KGB archives. The cable also makes clear that the sister's husband is involved enough in espionage to have his own codename ("Antenna" and later "Liberal"). He escaped prosecution because his involvement was not proven until the Venona documents became unclassified. [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. Many people around the world believed them. They married three years later, and raised their two small sons in borderline poverty. The trial lasted for nearly one month. His wife, born Ethel Greenglass, also in New York, on September 28, 1915, worked as a secretary. In 2021 Ethel's sons restarted the campaign to pardon Ethel, as they were more optimistic that President Biden will consider this favorably. They claim:The Greenglasses lies were necessary to obtain Ethels conviction; the K.G.B. She replied, "Yes, I wrote [the information] down on a piece of paper and [Julius Rosenberg] took it with him." Ethel was arrested two months later. McNutt's employment provided access to secrets about processes for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium. They took assumed names and he tried to figure out a way to reach Europe without a passport. There was no compassion.. [73], Michael and Robert co-wrote a book about their and their parents' lives, We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (1975). He admitted that he had given documents to the Soviet contact, but said these had to do with defensive radar and weaponry. They were executed in 1953. In later interviews, he claimed: I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I dont remember, and, My wife is more important to me than my sister. Overall, their testimony remains controversial because of the deal, the lack of tangible evidence, and the conflicting statements. Ethel became the first woman executed by the U.S. government since Mary Surratt was hanged in 1865 for her alleged role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 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. Julius and Ethels children, Michael and Robert, maintain that their mother was innocent and have created anonline petitionto exonerate her. The vault, which now has the capacity to hold read more, In what is nowknownas Juneteenth, on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrive in Galveston, Texas with news that the Civil War is over and slavery in the United States is abolished. The Rosenbergs were the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed for espionage during peacetime and their case remains controversial to this day. [42] Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. This was the "Fat Man" bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, as opposed to a bomb with the "gun method" triggering device used in the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima. This new testimony, now against Julius and Ethel, was part of a deal granted to the Greenglasses. Gold paidGreenglass $500 in exchange for information about the implosion lens in the atomic bomb. He stated that he and Julius passed military and industrial information to the Soviet Union, hoping it would help them defeat the Nazis in World War II. Some reports claim that the Rosenbergs were offered a plea deal, where admittance of their guilt would grant them a prison sentence. Between the trial and the executions, there were widespread protests and claims of antisemitism; the charges of antisemitism were widely believed abroad[citation needed], but not among the vast majority in the United States. Despite massive, worldwide protest, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953, at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, NY. 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. Neither offered any further information. Robert and his brother, Michael, asked president Obama to pardon their mother. The direct evidence of the Rosenbergs involvement came from the confessions and testimonies of David and Ruth Greenglass. The son of working-class read more. "[51], The Rosenbergs were the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Highly sympathetic portraits of the Rosenbergs were offered in major novels, including E.L. Doctorows The Book of Daniel (1971) and Robert Coovers The Public Burning (1977). All Rights Reserved. Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. Ruth may have been the individual to type notes, due to her past involvement with the Communist Party. READ MORE: Why Were the Rosenbergs Executed? [73][24], After Morton Sobell's 2008 confession, they acknowledged their father had been involved in espionage, but said that whatever atomic bomb information he passed to the Russians was, at best, superfluous, that the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, that their mother was convicted on flimsy evidence to place leverage on her husband, and that neither deserved the death penalty. 32), executed by the federal government of the United States, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Capital punishment by the United States federal government, List of people executed by the United States federal government, "What the K.G.B. The trial of the Rosenbergs became a political event of greater importance than any damage they may have done to the United States. Despite these fears, the trial of the Rosenbergs produced mixed reactions among the public. They claimed that David gave a sketch and description of an atomic bomb to Julius in September 1945. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.. [37], Others, including non-Communists such as Jean Cocteau and Harold Urey, a Nobel Prize-winning physical chemist,[38] as well as Communists and left-leaning figures such as Nelson Algren, Bertolt Brecht, Albert Einstein, Dashiell Hammett, Frida Kahlo, and Diego Rivera, protested the position of the American government in what the French termed the U.S. Dreyfus affair. ", In 1953, socialist historian W. E. B. Such as Fritz Lang registered their protest they married three years after the first U.S. citizens be..., now against Julius and they didnt want to kill her, worked as a civilian engineer essentially believed he... 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