READ MORE: Why Were the Rosenbergs Executed? Just ten days before the start of the Rosenbergs trial in February 1951, David Greenglass re-testified, and changed his original statements. By 1945, the Soviets considered Rosenberg and his espionage network to be providing valuable information. Ethel's brother says he trumped up evidence. There are some conflicting assessments among historians regarding the outcome of the Rosenberg trial. The minutes count. In exchange for this new testimony, Ruth was permitted to remain with their children and care for them. Between the trial and the executions, there were widespread protests and claims of antisemitism; the charges of antisemitism were widely believed abroad[citation needed], but not among the vast majority in the United States. [42] Pope Pius XII appealed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower to spare the couple, but Eisenhower refused on February 11, 1953. A country prepared to flout the law, to instil fear, and to also arrest his girlfriend: does that not strike you as terrifying?, She was removed from the electric chair after three charges, only for it to be discovered her heart was still beating. [49], The funeral services were held in Brooklyn on June 21. Her husband, Julius, had been executed a short time before her. The couple were the only two American civilians to be executed for the crime of espionage during the Cold War.. Their case has been at the center of the controversy over communism in the United States ever since, with supporters . [47] The defense's strategy backfired. On July 17, 1950 the FBI arrested Julius, and one month later Ethel was arrested. Robert Meeropol poses for a portrait at the Rosenberg Fund For Children in Easthampton, Massachusetts in 2016. Because of the Venona documents, they now believe that Julius was a Soviet spy. The documents suggest his involvement was with military and industrial espionage, rather than atomic espionage, as previously believed. Julius Rosenberg was an engineer for the U.S. Army Signal Corps who was born in New York on May 12, 1918. read more, When the clock struck midnight on June 19, 2014, King Juan Carlos I of Spains nearly 40-year reign came to an end. The Rosenbergs were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and brought to trial on March 6, 1951; Greenglass was the chief witness for the prosecution. Some people believed that the Rosenbergs were the victims of a surge of hysterical anti-communist feeling in the United States, and protested that the death sentence handed down was cruel and unusual punishment. A worldwide campaign for mercy failed, and the Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. How. Chin died in a hospital four days later, on June 23. Nickelodeons (named for a read more, Francesca Rojas two young children are killed in their home in the small town of Necochea, Argentina. Some of the individuals who worked on the Manhattan Project were spies and provided valuable information on the design of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. He was a physicist at Los Alamos, and a valuable source to the Soviets. The Rosenbergsaccused of participating in a complex plot to sell American atomic secrets to the Sovietswere arrested in the summer of 1950, Julius on July 17 and Ethel slightly less than one month later. At this time, Greenglass worked at Los Alamos. Some scholars suggest that the chances of Ethel being executed would have been less likely had Venona documents been unclassified and used in the trial. Corrections? David Greenglass, who was assigned as a machinist to the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, provided the Rosenbergs with data on nuclear weapons. In 2008, the National Archives of the United States published most of the grand jury testimony related to the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [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. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Since the Rosenbergs were being charged with conspiracy, no tangible evidence was required. Most of them clearly regarded the Rosenbergs as martyred heroes and more than 500 mourners attended to-day's services, while a crowd estimated at 10,000 stood outside in burning heat. At age 23, he was a prosecutor on the trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union in 1951 and executed by electric chair two years. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! 2006. National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. They stated Ethel was present during all meetings, typing notes for Julius. In the early 1930s, Ethel became a member of the Young Communist League. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg were American citizens executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, relating to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Sebba says the only lesson history offers is that there are no lessons to be learned. Ethels execution was botched. [66], In 2001, David Greenglass recanted his testimony about his sister having typed the notes. They could not be charged for treason since the U.S. was not at war with the USSR. Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, installed as emperor of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864, is executed on the orders of Benito Juarez, the president of the Mexican Republic. The American Civil Liberties Union refused to acknowledge any violations of civil liberties in the case. [19], Another conspirator, Morton Sobell, fled with his family to Mexico City after Greenglass was arrested. Robert wrote a later memoir, An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey (2003). Here's the story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. [11], In February 1944, Rosenberg succeeded in recruiting a second source of Manhattan Project information, engineer Russell McNutt, who worked on designs for the plants at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. [46] The Times reported that 500 people attended, while some 10,000 stood outside:[50], The bodies had been brought from Sing Sing prison by the national "Rosenberg committee" which undertook the funeral arrangements, and an all-night vigil was held in one of the largest mortuary chapels in Brooklyn. Julius Rosenberg was a key Soviet spy who passed along information to the Soviet Union and recruited Manhattan Project spies. [60], In 1995, the U.S. government made public many documents decoded by the Venona project, showing Julius Rosenberg's role as part of a productive ring of spies. [75], Their sons' current position is that Julius was legally guilty of the conspiracy charge, though not of atomic spying, while Ethel was only generally aware of his activities. [26] Julius and Ethel were put under pressure to incriminate others involved in the spy ring. She and David met in the YCL, and married in 1942. She was removed from the electric chair after three charges, only for it to be discovered her heart was still beating, so, gruesomely, she had to be strapped back into it. The FBI arrested Greenglass for espionage in June of 1950. The case was intensely controversial, touching nerves throughout American society, and debates about the Rosenbergs continue to the present day. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death and the pair was taken to Sing Sing to await execution. They claim:The Greenglasses lies were necessary to obtain Ethels conviction; the K.G.B. Two more electric shocks were applied, and at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose from her head. Meeropol, Michael, " 'A Spy Who Turned His Family In': Revisiting David Greenglass and the Rosenberg Case,", This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 07:05. [61] For example, a 1944 cable (which gives the name of Ruth Greenglass in clear text) says that Ruth's husband David is being recruited as a spy by his sister (that is, Ethel Rosenberg) and her husband. Her children were shunted around and then went into care. During the trial, both Ethel and Julius pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked repeated questions related to espionage, and when questioned about being members of the Communist Party. All Rights Reserved. He had been recruited to spy for the Soviet Union which was far from uncommon in those days and he subsequently passed on information about what was happening at Fort Monmouth. That stay resulted from intervention in the case by Fyke Farmer, a Tennessee lawyer whose efforts had previously been scorned by the Rosenbergs' attorney, Emanuel Hirsch Bloch. [73][24], After Morton Sobell's 2008 confession, they acknowledged their father had been involved in espionage, but said that whatever atomic bomb information he passed to the Russians was, at best, superfluous, that the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, that their mother was convicted on flimsy evidence to place leverage on her husband, and that neither deserved the death penalty. He also explains that Rosenberg was fired from the Army Corps of Engineers in January of 1945, and that KGB files state his espionage activities ended by 1945, so the meeting David Greenglass mentioned could neverhave occurred. [71], In 2009, extensive notes collected from KGB archives were made public in a book published by Yale University Press: Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, written by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev; Vassiliev's notebooks included KGB comments concerning Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ethel Rosenberg was 37 and the mother of two small sons when she was executed in New York in 1953. Rosenberg had been introduced to Semyonov by Bernard Schuster, a high-ranking member of the Communist Party USA and NKVD liaison for Earl Browder. The Rosenbergs were the first American civilians to die for spying. They married in 1939. [46] Bloch asked for more time, filing a complaint that execution on the Sabbath offended the defendants' Jewish heritage. This request was denied. This collection provides interesting Agency insights on this post-WWII spy case. She had the unhappy distinction of being the first woman in the US to be executed for a crime other than murder. Ethel then sat down at the typewriter which she placed on a bridge table in the living room and proceeded to type the info which David had given to Julius. After this new testimony, the charges against Ruth were dropped. 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ethel and julius rosenberg definition