Executing the Rosenbergs

Executing the Rosenbergs Executing the Rosenbergs Death and Diplomacy in a Cold War World LORI CLUNE 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Clune, Lori, author. Title: Executing the Rosenbergs : death and diplomacy in a Cold War world / Lori Clune. Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015040550 | ISBN 978–0–19–026588–5 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Rosenberg, Julius, 1918–1953—Trials, litigation, etc. | Rosenberg, Ethel, 1915–1953—Trials, litigation, etc. | Trials (Espionage)—New York (State)—New York. | Trials (Conspiracy)—New York (State)—New York. | United States—History—1945-1953. | BISAC: HISTORY / United States / 20th Century. Classification: LCC KF224.R6 C58 2016 | DDC 345.73/0231—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040550 Portions of Chapters 3 and 4 have appeared in a previously published form in “Great Importance World-Wide: Presidential Decision-Making and the Executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,” American Communist History 10, no. 3 (2011): 263–284, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14743892.2011.631822. 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan, USA To the memory of Anthony Salvatore Scimeca CONTENTS Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 10 1. Truman 42 2. Transition 67 3. Eisenhower 100 4. Execution 129 5. Reverberations Conclusion 159 Abbreviations 169 Notes 171 Bibliography 241 Index 251 PREFACE My research into the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg began as a minor detour. I was writing— or thought I was writing— a book about international percep- tion of various high- profile Cold War security cases. Singer Paul Robeson, actor Charlie Chaplin, Senator Joseph McCarthy, atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer: they were the main subjects of my investigations. It was their cases that led me to the State Department archives when I discovered the per- plexing case of the missing Name Cards. Whenever an American diplomat abroad reports back to Washington, D.C., the State Department keeps a record of the communication. In the 1950s, when a Foreign Service officer stationed overseas wrote to the State Department in Washington, officials labeled and catalogued the correspondence and created a Name Card for anyone referenced in the message. Though sometimes prob- lematic in terms of objectivity and translation accuracy, these diplomatic com- munications included foreign policy considerations and sensitivities that were carefully considered back in Washington.1 Diplomats sent dispatches from their posts to alert Washington of issues and controversies, often asking for clarification or guidance, and occasionally offer- ing policy suggestions. The resulting Name Card Index consists of hundreds of boxes packed with thousands of tissue-thin pieces of three- by- five paper. Each of these “cards” contains cross- referenced document numbers and is alphabet- ized under the last name of everyone mentioned in the communication. This index is indispensable for researchers delving into State Department Cold War documents. For example, in the State Department Name Card Index for 1950– 1954, located in National Archives II in College Park, Maryland, there are more than fifty Name Cards for Senator Joseph McCarthy.2 That means that diplomats sent at least fifty telegrams or memos to Washington, each documenting international reaction to the senator and his anti- Communist tactics. The immigration ix x Preface case of Charlie Chaplin garnered international attention, prompting a handful of Name Cards. When the State Department rescinded J. Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance, a half a dozen Name Cards resulted. Paul Robeson and his suspended passport generated about twenty Name Cards. The case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had attracted even more international attention than those of Chaplin and Robeson. FBI agents arrested thirty- two- year- old Julius Rosenberg in New York City in 1950 and officially charged him with conspiracy under the Espionage Act of 1917. Specifically, officials accused Julius of using his military spy ring to pass the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. A few weeks later, agents arrested his wife, Ethel. The Communist Party members claimed their innocence and refused to name names; they were convicted and sentenced to death. Appeals and protests lasted more than two years before their grisly executions in 1953 made orphans of their two young sons. In 2008, Rosenberg codefendant Morton Sobell (who had served eighteen years in prison) admitted that he and Julius had indeed passed military secrets to the Soviet Union.3 FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover went so far as to claim the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg affair was the “crime of the century.”4 As I continued my research, I decided to look at the State Department documents on the international response to the Rosenberg case. Historians had told small pieces of the overseas reaction, but I was hoping there was more.5 I was confident that diplomatic officials stationed overseas wrote at least a handful of telegrams concerning the Rosenberg case. So I looked for Julius and Ethel’s Name Cards. There were none. As I thumbed through the Name Card Index for 1950–1954, I discovered it jumped from “Rosenberg, Bertha” to “Rosenberg, Ludwig.”6 I pulled the box for 1955– 1959, thinking interest remained in the years following the executions. Still there was nothing. Surprised, I asked College Park archivist Edward Barnes what he thought had happened. He was perplexed, saying he had never seen any- thing like this before. If the Cards existed, he explained, the State Department could have removed them before the boxes were shipped to the archive or after being housed with the National Archives. But he believed neither of these pos- sibilities likely. State Department archivist David Pfeiffer, also stumped, agreed to keep looking.7 Historians frequently cite one particular document describing foreign protest over the executions: Ambassador to France C. Douglas Dillon’s May 1953 telegram to Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Since Secretary Dulles forwarded this cable to the White House, a copy can be found in the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas.8 Ambassador Dillon wrote of the “long term damage” he believed the “execution of the Rosenbergs would do to foreign opinion of the U.S. and of our whole democratic process.”9 Yet the State Department Name Card Index shows the government did not receive any evidence of international Map 1 World Protest Map— Embassies, Consulates, and Legations that Documented Rosenberg Case Protest to the State Department, 1952– 1954. Courtesy of Ben Emerzian. xii Preface protest, not even this Dillon telegram. How could this be? And if more diplomatic cables did exist, how could they be found without Name Cards? It was like trying to find buried treasure without a map.10 A few weeks after my visit to the National Archives in College Park, archivist David Pfeiffer wrote to say that after conducting additional searches in areas where the documents could have been, he had located two boxes. He thought it looked “like very good material,” but the boxes had not been referenced in the Name Card Index and had never been seen before.11 I was excited but cau- tious; I knew that two boxes could mean just a few files and only a handful of documents. Stuck in California at the start of a semester of teaching, I asked my Maryland- based sister if she would consider spending an hour or so taking digital photos of the documents in College Park. She graciously agreed. An hour turned into fifteen, and as the deluge of digital documents flooded my inbox, I knew David Pfeiffer had found the treasure chest full of gold. More than nine hundred gold pieces, actually. These boxes contain newly unearthed documents from more than eighty cities in forty- eight countries around the world: newspaper clippings, edito- rial comments, petitions, and placards, all attached to detailed correspondence from embassies, consulates, and legations, spanning 1952 to 1954. They show that protests extended from Argentina to Australia, from Iceland to India, and from Switzerland to South Africa (Map 1). These documents prove that the May 1953 Dillon memo was far from unique; on nearly a dozen separate occasions the American ambassador to France himself wrote to complain about the government’s handling of the Rosenberg case. We may never know why the State Department hid these sources. A handful of officials declassified most of the documents in late 1973.12 Did these indi- viduals know that the Name Cards were missing, or did they even remove them themselves? Whoever was responsible decided in this case that the need for secrecy trumped any desire for government transparency. In pulling the Name Cards they buried the documents, making them all but impossible for archivists to find and historians to use.

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