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The Rosenberg Ring Revealed Industrial-Scale Conventional and Nuclear Espionage

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The Rosenberg Ring Revealed Industrial-Scale Conventional and Nuclear Espionage UsThdein Rosenberg Ring Revealed The Rosenberg Ring Revealed Industrial-Scale Conventional and Nuclear Espionage ✣ Steven T. Usdin Recent leaks from the archives of the former Soviet Committee on State Security (KGB) have ªnally made it possible to assemble a nearly complete picture of Julius Rosenberg’s espionage career.1 The new informa- tion not only illuminates aspects of his career that were previously unknown; it also removes the shadows that have cloaked many of Rosenberg’s activities and those of his comrades. The image that emerges is that of a Soviet agent who was far more involved in nuclear espionage than federal prosecutors or his most persistent critics over the last 60 years could have known. The reassessment is made possible by notes that Alexander Vassiliev took in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) archive, including many verbatim transcriptions of cables to and from Rosenberg’s Soviet handlers in New York. Although Vassiliev, a former KGB ofªcer, had permission from the Russian government to make the notes, they were not supposed to be released and are available today only because Vassiliev decided to make them public in deªance of the Russian government. The notes’ provenance and reliability are detailed by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr in this issue of the Journal of Cold War Studies. The accuracy and reliability of the notes are conªrmed by a thorough review and a comparison with information about the Rosenberg ring from the Venona decrypts of World War II KGB cables released by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), from declassiªed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ªles, and from other sources.2 1. The KGB, formed in 1954 from the Ministry of State Security, was known by several other names in the period covered here. For the sake of clarity and consistency, the familiar acronym KGB is used throughout this article. The same applies to the Soviet military intelligence agency (GRU), which was known by several other names prior to 1949. The familiar acronym GRU is used throughout. 2. Alexander Vassiliev was not given access to Rosenberg’s KGB ªle. Rather, the information about the Rosenberg ring in the Vassiliev notebooks was gleaned from other ªles that mentioned its activities. Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 11, No. 3, Summer 2009, pp. 91–143 © 2009 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 91 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jcws.2009.11.3.91 by guest on 27 September 2021 Usdin The newly available Soviet intelligence records show that the espionage disclosed during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobell, and later in declassiªed FBI and NSA documents, only hinted at the size of Rosenberg’s network and the scope of its activities. Combined with the rich variety of sources from both sides of the former Iron Curtain that have be- come available to scholars over the last two decades, Vassiliev’s notes conªrm the Rosenberg ring’s status as one of the most effective industrial espionage operations in history. The Rosenbergs’ prosecution was based on espionage committed by Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, in a machine shop near the New Mexico sites where the ªrst nuclear bombs were designed and tested. The Vassiliev documents show that Rosenberg also directed the penetration of a massive, secret facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where the U.S. military spent billions of dollars to develop technologies for enriching uranium used in the ªrst nu- clear weapons and to experiment with plutonium production technology. In addition to revealing the true scope of the Rosenberg ring, the KGB ªles help answer some of the most compelling questions about the Rosenberg case: why a group of young Americans was willing to risk everything to spy for a foreign government; the extent of Ethel’s participation in its espionage activ- ities; and why the Rosenbergs chose stoic deaths when a few words of confes- sion could have saved their lives. Members of the Rosenberg ring were devout Communists who strongly identiªed with an idealized view of a utopian Soviet state. One of Julius’s So- viet intelligence handlers, Aleksandr Feklisov, has written that Julius imagined he was a Soviet partisan, living and ªghting behind enemy lines. A February 1947 note in a KGB ªle that Vassiliev recorded supports that assessment, as- serting that Rosenberg “is deªnitely a person who is completely devoted to us” and “views working with us as the main purpose of his life.”3 Ethel was fully aware of and supported her husband’s espionage activities. She helped recruit her brother and sister-in-law, David and Ruth Greenglass, as spies. According to a decrypted KGB cable, Ethel knew that at least two of her husband’s friends were members of the ring. Vassiliev’s notes from KGB ªles also indicate that Ethel met two of Julius’s Soviet case ofªcers. Soviet of- ªcials not only trusted Ethel to maintain silence about her husband’s and brother’s spying; they also considered assigning her more active tasks, includ- See Original Notes from KGB Archives by Alexander Vassiliev (1993–1996), translation by Steven Shabad (1993–1996), reviewed and edited by Alexander Vassiliev and John Earl Haynes (2007). Final page numbers in all subsequent citations from Vassiliev’s notebooks refer to the 2007 English transla- tion. 3. “Report by ‘Callistratus,’” 27 February 1947, KGB File 40129, v. 4., p. 353, in Alexander Vassiliev, White Notebook #1, p. 120. 92 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jcws.2009.11.3.91 by guest on 27 September 2021 The Rosenberg Ring Revealed ing working as a courier. The arrest of David Greenglass and the subsequent unraveling of the network rendered those plans irrelevant. Ethel may not have typed her brother’s notes, as Ruth Greenglass testiªed in court, but Ethel al- most certainly provided logistical assistance during the years that Julius pho- tographed thousands of pages of classiªed documents and met with his Amer- ican agents and Soviet case ofªcers in the couple’s cramped apartment. The Rosenbergs’ silence in the face of the death penalty can be explained in part by the fact that they were protecting a number of agents whom they correctly believed the FBI had not identiªed, men and women who had trusted Julius with their lives and who might be able to continue their clan- destine work after his death. Admitting their espionage would have meant not only betraying the ideology that had been the organizing principle for their entire adult lives, but also imperiling comrades who might otherwise live unmolested—and perhaps continue their work for the USSR. The Rosen- bergs must have understood that any confession, no matter how limited, could have started unraveling threads that connected them to scores of Soviet agents, exposing comrades to grave danger and harming the Soviet cause. Jul- ius’s jailhouse conversations with an FBI informant indicate that he expected his network to continue its work regardless of his fate.4 The new KGB ªles disclose the names of individuals the Rosenbergs died to protect. As Julius and Ethel undoubtedly hoped, several of these agents en- joyed prosperous lives undisturbed by punishment for—or even the need to acknowledge—their espionage. Some continued to serve the Communist cause, although thereis no evidence in Vassiliev’s notebooks that the KGB was foolhardy enough to deploy any of Rosenberg’s recruits for espionage after Rosenberg’s arrest. The most startling revelation about Rosenberg in the new KGB docu- ments is that he recruited Russell Alton McNutt, the son and brother of prominent members of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), to inªltrate Oak Ridge. The FBI and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) brieºy investigated McNutt, an engineer, in 1950–1951 as part of a broad re- view of individuals associated with Rosenberg, but they failed to uncover any evidence of his espionage. The FBI knew from decryptions of Soviet intelligence cables accom- plished under the Venona program that an American whom the Russians referred to by the cover names “Fogel” and “Pers” (or “Persian”) had compro- mised Oak Ridge security.5 The U.S. intelligence community—and, follow- 4. “Jerome Eugene Tartakow’s report to the FBI on conversations with Julius Rosenberg,” 18 January 1951, in FBI File # NY 65–15348, Section 1B–285–1B634. FBI ªle obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and available in the FBI FOIA Reading Room, Washington, DC. 5. Venona, New York to Moscow, 11 February 1944. 93 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jcws.2009.11.3.91 by guest on 27 September 2021 Usdin ing the 1995 public release of the Venona decryptions, academic experts— expended enormous energy attempting to identify “Fogel”/“Pers.” The KGB and its foreign intelligence successor, the SVR fueled this activity by launch- ing an elaborate disinformation campaign involving the identity of “Fogel”/ “Pers.” Although, in retrospect, evidence from the Venona decrypts and McNutt’s biographical details match perfectly, prior to the release of the Vassi- liev notebooks apparently no one in the West had thought to compare clues about “Fogel”/“Pers” with information known about McNutt. Beyond disclosing the identity of McNutt and other previously uniden- tiªed Rosenberg recruits, the new KGB documents make it possible to assem- ble a detailed chronology of the ring’s espionage operations and to use the timeline to place its activities into historical context. Sympathizers have ar- gued that Julius Rosenberg and the men he recruited were principled anti- fascists, that their violations of U.S.
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