How on earth did they triumph over such a traumatic childhood? Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a Jewish-American couple with two young sons, were arrested by the FBI in 1950 for conspiracy to commit espionage. WebEthel Rosenberg, convicted in 1953 alongside her husband for conspiracy to divulge atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, became the second woman in the United States to be (modern). If we set aside what we know now about the case and turn back the clock to 1951, when the trial occurred, what can we say about Kaufmans conduct in Rosenberg? The killing of the Rosenbergs was so shocking at the time and is so resonant of a specific period in American history that it has become part of popular culture. While Julius had a close relationship with his mother, Sophie, Ethel and her mother, Tessie, had a difficult one. "You sat the Rosenbergs in the electric chair for nothing", he said. [1][2][3][4], Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who had made a plea agreement), Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell. We press you close and kiss you with all our strength. Mithilfe von Links kann man seine Webseiten klein halten und trotzdem alles aufschreiben, was man fr wichtig hlt, ohne das die Webseite unntig grer werden muss. - Sei es der notwendige VorOrt-Termin beim Kunden - Sei es Ihre creative Ideenarbeit oder die Gestaltung Through interviews and access to family files, photos, and correspondence, Siegel also describes Kaufmans private life, providing a portrait of the man beneath the robe. They had been convicted in 1951 for passing secretes to the Soviet Union and, and their sentencing, judge in the case, Irving Kaufman, issued an angry statement, claiming that their activities had had abundant negative consequences. The Rosenberg Espionage Case First, given that she was a true believer in communism, why didnt she join her husband, brother and sister-in-law in spying? Siegel considers the possibility that the judges jurisprudence shifted to make amends for the Rosenberg case but ultimately does not endorse this explanation. JULIE ETHEL, "What the RFC does is totally unique, lending financial and in many ways spiritual support to the people who lay everything on the line for the betterment of our world. [42] Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. Kaufmans jurisprudence tracked (and contributed to) the zeitgeist of liberalism, which evolved from deferring to the state to challenging it in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, urban riots, and Watergate. I mean, I dont sleep with my sister, you know. He added, I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I dont remember. It is possible that Ethel helped to recruit Ruth and David, but they needed little encouragement. As Cohn later recounted, He wanted the case as much he wanted the judgeshipand when Irving wants something, he doesnt stop, he doesnt leave you alone until you do what he wants. (After quoting Cohn, Siegel comments, While Cohns lifetime of lying puts his credibility in question, his account [of Cohns call to the clerk] rings true and perfectly captures Kaufmans modus operandi.). [58] According to Alexander Feklisov, the former Soviet agent who was Julius's contact, the Rosenbergs did not provide the Soviet Union with any useful material about the atomic bomb: "He [Julius] didn't understand anything about the atomic bomb and he couldn't help us. (The most recent entry is Anne Sebbas biography of Ethel, published in 2021.). WebOn August 11, Ethel Rosenberg testified before a grand jury. Du Bois wrote a poem titled "The Rosenbergs", which began "Crucify us, Vengeance of God, as we crucify two more Jews" and ended "Who has been crowned on yonder stair? Fuchs identified his courier as American Harry Gold, who was arrested on May 23, 1950. When their parents were arrested, Michael, always a challenging child (Thats putting it kindly, he says), acted out even more, whereas Robert withdrew into himself. The trial court judge, Irving R. Kaufman, called their crime worse than murder and sentenced the Rosenbergs to death. Kaufman had the support of New Yorks Republican Senators (Jacob Javits and Kenneth Keating), Attorney General Robert Kennedy knew Kaufman from his presiding over a school desegregation case in New Rochelle and well-known organized crime trial involving more than twenty criminal defendants, and even Judge Hand supported his nomination. But my wife put her in it. After World War II ended, Greenglass was discharged from the Army in 1946 and returned to civilian life in Manhattan, where he and Julius ran a machine shop. But in 2008 he finally accepted them when Morton Sobell who had been convicted for espionage along with the Rosenbergs and served 18 years in Alcatraz and other prisons gave an interview to the New York Times. Robert says that when he thinks of his family before his parents were arrested he has, this feeling of a golden age, of a wonderful loving family before it was ripped apart. Always remember that we were innocent and could not wrong our conscience. She gave up activism when her children were born. The Judge Who Sentenced the Rosenbergs | Washington Monthly Julius and Ethel Rosenberg | Biographies & Facts | Britannica The same qualities that enabled Kaufman to become a federal judge at a young agerestless ambition, domineering assertiveness that sometimes reflected insecurity rather than its absenceexacted a toll on his family. Recent research corroborates their argument: Soviet sources state that Julius stopped working for them in February 1945. The governments views were muddled, Siegel notes. Like a lot of Jews, they became interested in the movement in the 1930s when it seemed like a means to fight against fascism. On June 19, 1953, hours before their execution, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg wrote one final letter to their two young sons: Michael, age 10 and Robby, age six. Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy by Anne Sebba was published by Orion Books on 24 June 2021.[24][82]. Abandoning that effort, he returned to Mexico City. [47] The defense's strategy backfired. [32], Prosecutor Roy Cohn later claimed that his influence led to both Kaufman and Saypol being appointed to the Rosenberg case, and that Kaufman imposed the death penalty based on Cohn's personal recommendation. On March 29 they Ethel Rosenberg by Anne Sebba is published by Orion at 20. [35], Across the world, especially in Western European capitals, there were numerous protests with picketing and demonstrations in favor of the Rosenbergs, along with editorials in otherwise pro-American newspapers, and a plea for clemency from the Pope. In its obituary, The New York Times described the case as a landmark. Kaufmans opinion, the Times summarized, ruled that a company was entitled to protect its dominant position in the market by normal competitive methods; that the purpose of the antitrust law was to encourage competition, and not to insulate companies from competition, and that activity that resulted in lower prices and better products for the consumer was to be favored, even if that activity was harmful to individual competitors. Although the court ruled in favor of Kodak, the defendant, it reiterated that there were limits to the ways in which a monopolist may use its monopoly power. Yale Law School Professor Harold Hongju Koh calls the latter decision, in Filrtiga v. Pea-Irala, the Brown v. Board of Education of human rights litigation. He claimed that he was kidnapped by members of the Mexican secret police and driven to the U.S. border, where he was arrested by U.S. The bomb threats and the letters and the stress helped corrode his family and private life. Kaufmans judicial record follows the path of liberalism from the statist-centered philosophy of the early days of the Cold War to the individual-oriented 1960s and 70s to its defensive posture after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. Debate continues to this day as to how guilty they were, of what, and what punishment their actions deserved. They were the only American civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War. 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. "[67] He said he gave false testimony to protect himself and his wife, Ruth, and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so. He continued to serve on the district court and twice sought to be elevated to the Second Circuit, which President John F. Kennedy did in 1961, and where Kaufman would serve for more than three decades. [63][65][64] Though the public release of Vassiliev's notebooks did not occur until 2009, the notebooks had in fact been originally intercepted during the Venona decryptions. Stock stories about Kaufman and the case abound: Kaufman sentenced the Rosenbergs to death to boost his candidacy for the Jewish seat on the Supreme Court. ", Deborah Friedell, "How Utterly Depraved!" I ask how it would have been if he had gone through it all on his own. But the proof against his wife [22], Twenty senior government officials met secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg case. The judge also engaged in improper ex parteprivate, one-sideddiscussions with prosecutors during the trial. None of their many aunts or uncles would take them, either because they sided with David and Ruth, or they were scared. Only three and seven when their parents were arrested, six and 10 when they were killed, they are now grandfathers with grey beards and known as Michael and Robert Meeropol, having long ago taken the surname of the couple who adopted them after the US government orphaned them. They were sentenced to death on April 5 under Section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917,[31] which provides that anyone convicted of transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government "information relating to the national defense" may be imprisoned for life or put to death. [49], The funeral services were held in Brooklyn on June 21. Abel Meeropol was a songwriter whose biggest hit was Strange Fruit, so the boys were raised on the royalties from the most famous song of the civil rights era. He stated, "I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister. Kalkulation verfgbar. They wrote a memoir, We Are Your Sons, and sued the FBI and CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, obtaining more than 300,000 once secret documents which they believed proved their parents innocence. We are all talking by video chat, and when I ask where Robert is, he replies that hes at home in Massachusetts, in a town 90 miles west of Boston and 150 miles north-east of New York City. He is, he says, more focused on his mother than his father. David quickly admitted his guilt, and his lawyer advised him that the best thing he could do for himself, and to give his wife immunity, would be to turn in someone else. [19], Another conspirator, Morton Sobell, fled with his family to Mexico City after Greenglass was arrested. Ethel was executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, on June 19, 1953, just minutes after her husband was put to death. [70], In a subsequent letter to The New York Times, Sobell denied that he knew anything about Julius Rosenberg's alleged atomic espionage activities, and that the only thing he knew for sure was what he himself did in association with Julius Rosenberg. Nevertheless, these decryptions formed the background of U.S. government investigation and prosecutions of American communists during the Cold War period. In handcuffs and bound for separate cells, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg share a final kiss in a prison van outside court after their arrest in New York in 1950. ichael and Robert never saw the Greenglasses again after the trial, and all Michael remembers of them is: David looked like a nondescript schlub and Ruth was a cold fish. In 2008, the National Archives of the United States published most of the grand jury testimony related to the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. Politically, the trial occurred during the Korean War, when it would have been challenging for any judge to resist the pressure to harshly sentence defendants charged with and convicted of conspiring to share atomic secrets with the Soviet Union. Rhoda Laks, another attorney on the Rosenbergs' defense team, also made this argument before Judge Kaufman. Ethels innocence raises more questions than it settles. Deputy Attorney General of the United States William P. Rogers, who had been part of the prosecution of the Rosenbergs, discussed their strategy at the time in relation to seeking the death sentence for Ethel. Siegels biography also is a sobering reminder, in the era of ideology, that judges are human. Fuchss disclosures helped federal investigators unravel Rosenbergs spy ring in the United States. I think it would have been very, very hard, he says eventually. His parents worked in the shops of the Lower East Side as Julius attended Seward Park High School. - jede Sonderleistungen wird ebenso ein Artikel! She had a brother, David Greenglass. [46] Bloch asked for more time, filing a complaint that execution on the Sabbath offended the defendants' Jewish heritage. I like exposure, grins Michael. He died later that year. In a draft of written remarks addressed to friends, Kaufman commented, My dream came true and sounded a patriotic note: This can only happen in America.. WebSat 20 Jun 1953 11.01 EDT Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed early this morning at Sing Sing Prison for conspiring to pass atomic secrets to Russia in World War II.
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