September 17, 2008 Ronald Radosh, Ronald Radosh, an Emeritus Professor of History at City

The Rosenberg’s: Guilty or Innocent

September 17, 2008 Ronald Radosh, an To this day, this received wisdom emeritus professor of history at City permeates our educational system. A University of New York and an adjunct recent study by historian Larry Schweikart senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is of the University of Dayton has found that the coauthor of "The Rosenberg File." very few college history textbooks say simply that the Rosenbergs were guilty; Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed according to Schweikart, most either state 55 years ago, on June 19, 1953. But last that the couple were innocent or that the week, they were back in the headlines trial was "controversial," or they "excuse when Morton Sobell, the co-defendant in what [the Rosenbergs] did by saying, 'It their famous espionage trial, finally wasn't that bad. What they provided wasn't admitted that he and his friend, Julius, had important.' " both been Soviet agents. Indeed, Columbia University professor It was a stunning admission; Sobell, now Eric Foner once wrote that the Rosenbergs 91 years old, had adamantly maintained were prosecuted out of a "determined his innocence for more than half a century. effort to root out dissent," part of a broader After his comments were published, even pattern of "shattered careers and the Rosenbergs' children, Robert and suppressed civil liberties." In other words, Michael Meeropol, were left with little it was part of the postwar McCarthyite hope to hang on to -- and this week, in "witch hunt." comments unlike any they've made previously, the brothers acknowledged But, in fact, Schweikart is right, and Foner having reached the difficult conclusion is wrong. The Rosenbergs were Soviet that their father was, indeed, a spy. "I don't spies, and not minor ones either. Not only have any reason to doubt Morty," Michael did they try their best to give the Soviets Meeropol told Sam Roberts of the New top atomic secrets from the Manhattan York Times. Project, they succeeded in handing over top military data on sonar and on radar With these latest events, the end has that was used by the Russians to shoot arrived for the legions of the American left down American planes in the Korean and wing that have argued relentlessly for Vietnam wars. That's long been known, more than half a century that the and Sobell confirmed it again last week. Rosenbergs were victims, framed by a hostile, fear-mongering U.S. government. To many Americans, Cold War espionage Since the couple's trial, the left has cases like the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss portrayed them as martyrs for civil cases that once riveted the country seem liberties, righteous dissenters whose chief irrelevant today, something out of the crime was to express their constitutionally distant past. But they're not irrelevant. protected political beliefs. In the end, the They're a crucial part of the ongoing left has argued, the two communists were dispute between right and left in this put to death not for spying but for their country. For the left, it has long been an unpopular opinions, at a time when the article of faith that these prosecutions Truman and Eisenhower administrations showed the essentially repressive nature of were seeking to stem opposition to their the U.S. government. Even as the guilt of anti-Soviet foreign policy during the Cold the accused has become more and more War. clear (especially since the fall of the Soviet Union and the release of reams of

1 The Rosenberg’s: Guilty or Innocent historical Cold War documents), these was the government for which the "anti anti-communists" of the intellectual Rosenbergs gave up their lives, that of the left have continued to argue that the former Soviet Union. prosecutions were overzealous, or that the crimes were minor, or that the This week, the Meeropols made it clear to punishments were disproportionate. the New York Times that they still believe the information their father passed to the The left has consistently defended spies Russians was not terribly significant, that such as Hiss, the Rosenbergs and Sobell as the judge and the prosecutors in their victims of contrived frame-ups. Because a parents' case were guilty of misconduct, demagogue like Sen. Joseph McCarthy and that neither Julius nor Ethel should cast a wide swath with indiscriminate have been given the death penalty for their attacks on genuine liberals as "reds" (and crimes. even though McCarthy made some charges that were accurate), the anti anti- On the subject of their mother, the communists came to argue that anyone Meeropols have a point. In another accused by McCarthy or Richard Nixon or development last week, a federal court J. Edgar Hoover should be assumed to be judge in New York released previously entirely innocent. People like Hiss (a sealed grand jury testimony of key former State Department official who was witnesses in the case, including that of accused of spying) cleverly hid their true Ruth Greenglass, Julius' sister-in-law. It espionage work by gaining sympathy as turns out that a key part of her testimony just another victim of a smear attack. for the prosecution -- that Ethel had typed up notes for her husband to hand to the But now, with Sobell's confession of guilt, Soviets -- was most likely concocted. that worldview has been demolished. That doesn't mean that Ethel was innocent -- In the 1990s, when it was more than clear indeed, the preponderance of the evidence that the Rosenbergs had been real Soviet suggests she was not. But what is clear is spies -- not simply a pair of idealistic left- that in seeking to get the defendants to wingers working innocently for peace with confess to Soviet espionage, the prosecutors the Russians -- one of the Rosenberg's overstepped bounds and enhanced testimony sons, Michael, expressed the view that the to guarantee a conviction. Americans should reason his parents stayed firm and did not have no problem acknowledging when such cooperate with the government was judicial transgressions take place, and in concluding that the execution of Ethel was a because they wanted to keep the miscarriage of justice. government from creating "a massive spy show trial," thereby earning "the thanks of Nevertheless, after Sobell's confession of generations of resisters to government guilt, all other conspiracy theories about the repression." Rosenberg case should come to an end. A pillar of the left-wing culture of grievance Today, he and his brother Robert run a has been finally shattered. The Rosenbergs fund giving grants to the children of those were actual and dangerous Soviet spies. It is they deem "political prisoners," such as time the ranks of the left acknowledge that convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. the United States had (and has) real enemies Ironically, if there was any government and that finding and prosecuting them is not that staged show trials for political ends, it evidence of repression.

2 The Rosenberg’s: Guilty or Innocent