Ethel Rosenberg was killed by the U.S. government because of her spouse. Without evidence or proof that she committed treasonous acts worthy of death, the U.S. government executed her and her husband on June 19, 1953, “to prove a point,” to play bluff with her and Julius, her husband, trying to get each to rat on the other.
But they had nothing to give.
The Soviets said later they didn't need the little information Julius had about the development of the atom bomb. They scoffed at the idea that it was because of them that the Rosenbergs were executed.
Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, later admitted he lied during testimony, words which sent his sister to the electric chair. He said he lied to protect his wife, also involved in the scheme but never charged. David Greenglass played a much larger role than Ethel Rosenberg, yet he got less than 10 years in prison.
In Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy, Anne Sebba furnishes a well-documented, gripping story of the first woman executed by the U.S. government since 1865 when Mary Surratt was hanged for the death of President Abraham Lincoln.
Ms. Sebba's accounting is an engrossing biography about Ms. Rosenberg and her long love affair with Julius.
The ending is based on original letters the Rosenbergs exchanged while in prison and what appears to an infatuation Ethel had with a psychotherapist.
Ethel's chief desire was to be a good mother for the couple's two sons, Michael, 7, and Robert, 3, who were forced into a children's home when their parents were taken to jail, after their grandmother, Ethel's mother, and other relatives refused to take the boys in.
Ethel questioned her own motherly abilities.
She wanted to be an opera singer and during her prison confinement, entertained guards and other prisoners with her singing. Because she was considered "dangerous" (?), the government forced her into solitary confinement the last two years of her life.
Presiding at their trial, Judge Irving Kaufman became a witness for the prosecution. Roy Cohn, a friend of Donald Trump and chief legal counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, was a chief prosecutor who prided himself on the Rosenbergs' executions, claiming the judge followed his recommendations.
The Rosenbergs' bail had been set at $100,000 which today is equivalent to one million dollars.
Because of their clients' notoriety, the Rosenbergs' two attorneys, lacking the skills and experience for a death trial, were unable to recruit other practiced lawyers to help them.
Three million letters from around the world poured in, pleading for reduced sentencing for the couple; thousands protested at the White House.
Albert Einstein and Pope Pius XII pleaded for reduced sentencing for the couple, but not President Eisenhower, not President Truman, not Eleanor Roosevelt, nor the U.S. Supreme Court (with Justice Hugo Black dissenting) would relent.
And the "civil rights" organization, the ACLU which boasts today about its "attorneys nationwide" who help "handle thousands of cases each year on behalf of clients whose rights have been violated" ignored the pleas to come to the aid of Ethel Rosenberg.
This is a sad story of a couple, deeply in love, caught in the wave of the 1950s Red hysteria, the only civilians killed by the U.S. government for espionage-related activity during the Cold War.
It's an important story in the annals of American history which proves judges, juries, and the U.S. Supreme Court are swayed by events of the times.
Ethel Rosenberg is not dead. She lives on, proof that the American justice system is not just.
Thank you, Ms. Sebba.
For the next edition, may I suggest a simple family tree and a two-sentence biographical identification about the major players.
patricialesli@gmail.com
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