A Brief History of the 
Murder of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg

Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass both grew up in the lower working class neighborhoods of the lower east side of Manhatten. During the depression, like many progressive thinking people at the time, they became active in the growing Labor and Communist movement of the time. The two of them met at a party for a local union in 1936 and were married three years later over the summer of ’39. Still committed communists, when the war began they slowed down their official affiliations with the CP and began to raise a family. In the coming years they would have two boys, Michael and Robert.

In 1949, the USSR had completed and tested their first atomic bomb, becoming the second government to fully develop the technology. This sent shockwaves throughout the US government and launched a new “Red Scare” with Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon leading the witch hunt. It was soon discovered that Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass had possibly passed secrets to his brother-in-law Julius while he was in the army. David Greenglass, a former army sergeant that worked at the government’s atomic laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, testified that Julius and Ethel had lured him and his wife Ruth into an “Atomic Spy Ring.” He told investigators that he had passed on to Julius a few sketches and a theoretical description of the bomb. A few weeks after the Korean War began, Julius Rosenberg was arrested for “Conspiracy to Commit Espionage.” Ethel was arrested shortly after on similar charges.

The government was used to people doing exactly as they said, but ran into resistence in the case of the Rosenbergs. The government, not only knew that they had a flimsy case against the two, but also that the information that was supposedly passed was useless. What they wanted was a show of capitulation of which Ethel and Julius would not do. They swore their innocence and refused to indict others by giving them names of other communists, even as the government was holding their two children basically as bait. The two both invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to answer repeated questions about their political affiliations, which many felt was basically an admission of CP membership. And that all communists were spies for the USSR.

Judge Kaufman, the provide judge who had worked closely with the prosecution to ensure a conviction, found Julius and Ethel Rosenberg guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. In his sentencing speech, he made his political convictions very clear. “I consider your crimes worse than murder…. 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.”

In March of 1951, David Greenglass, for his cooperation with prosecutors in the attempt to murder his sister and brother-in-law, was given ten years in federal prison. Ruth, who swore she helped steal what the prosecution called “the most important scientific secret ever known to mankind,” was never indicted. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were sentenced to death.

A world-wide campaign to free the Rosenbergs followed their sentencing and divided the nation. The Left looked at them as martyrs, while the Right looked at them as traitors. The Jewish community was also divided in where they stood with the Rosenbergs. Many felt that what they were witnessing was a case of anti-semetism on the heels of World War II. Other members of the Jewish community wanted to disassociate themselves from the two and radicalism in general in an attempt to show their loyalty to the US government.

After repeated refusals from both Presidents Truman and Eisenhower and the US Supreme Court, a death warrant had been issued. The night of the execution, a crowd of 5,000 supporters gathered at Union Square in New York City to protest the execution, while hoping for a last minute reprieve from Eisenhower. The reprieve never came. On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed leaving two children orphaned.

Michael and Robert Rosenberg were initially given to the custody of Manny Bloch, the Rosenberg’s defense attorney. After his sudden death shortly afterward the Rosenberg exectution, the children were adopted by Anne and Abel Meeropol. Both Anne and Abel Meeropol were a school teachers, communists, activists, and songwriters. Abel Meeropol is well known as the man who wrote the anti-lynching anthem “Strange Fruit”, made famous by Billie Holiday.

Robert Meeropol became a lifelong activist and started the Rosenberg Fund For Children in 1990, a fund designed to give support to children of activists targeted for repression by the state.

In 1995, the CIA released formerly secret transcripts of decrypted Soviet messages from supposedly from spies in the US to the USSR known as the VENONA transcripts. While the CIA stated that the release of VENONA would end the controversy over their guilt, it actually did the opposite. The documents first, only say that Julius was engaged in military industrial espionage, and not the atomic spying that was told to the public. And they also admit that the government knew that Ethel was not involved in any way as a spy, yet still she was found guilty and executed

In 2001, David Greenglass, who is now living in hiding under a pseudonym, admitted that he lied and cut a deal with the prosecution to save his life and spare his wife from prosecution.

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