David
Greenglass, the brother of Ethel
Greenglass, was born in New York
in 1922. He married in 1942 and soon afterwards joined the United
States Army. Promoted to the rank of sergeant, he was transferred
to Los Alamos, where attempts were being made to develop the atom
bomb.
After the Second World War Greenglass left the
army and open a small machine shop in Manhattan with his brother-in-law,
Julius Rosenberg. However, the business
did badly and Greenglass left the partnership.
In July, 1950, Greenglass was arrested by the FBI
and accused of spying for the Soviet Union. On evidence provided by
Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg and Julius
Rosenberg, were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. Greenglass
claimed that Rosenberg had given atom bomb secrets that he in turn
passed to Harry Gold, a convicted Soviet
spy. The Rosenberg's defense attorney, Emmanuel Bloch, argued that
Greenglass was lying in order to gain revenge because he blamed Rosenberg
for their failed business venture.
The jury believed the evidence of Greenglass and both Ethel
Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg,
were found guilty and executed. As a reward for his co-operation,
Greenglass was only sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was released
after only serving ten years.
(1)
Judge Irving Kaufman, sentencing Ethel
Greenglass and Julius
Rosenberg to death
(5th April, 1951)
The
evidence indicated quite clearly that Julius Rosenberg was the prime
mover in this conspiracy. However, let no mistake be made about the
role which his wife, Ethel Rosenberg, played in this conspiracy. Instead
of deterring him from pursuing his ignoble cause, she encouraged and
assisted the cause. She was a mature woman - almost three years older
than her husband and almost seven years older than her younger brother.
She was a full-fledged partner in this crime.
Indeed the defendants Julius and Ethel Rosenberg placed their devotion
to their cause above their own personal safety and were conscious
that they were sacrificing their own children, should their misdeeds
be detected - all of which did not deter them from pursuing their
course. Love for their cause dominated their lives - it was even greater
than their love for their children.
The sentence of the Court upon Julius and Ethel Rosenberg is, for
the crime for which you have been convicted, you are hereby sentenced
to the punishment to death, and it is ordered upon some day within
the week beginning with Monday, May 21st, you shall be executed according
to law.
(2)
The
National World (7th March, 1997)
Breaking decades of silence on
perhaps the most sensational espionage case of the Cold War, a retired
Soviet spy says Julius Rosenberg helped organize a 1940s espionage
ring for Moscow but was not directly involved in stealing U.S. secrets
about the atomic bomb.
Rosenberg
and his wife Ethel were executed in the Sing Sing electric chair in
1953 for what FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover called the "crime
of the century" - helping the Soviet Union get their hands on
blueprints for the atomic bomb in World War II. The Rosenbergs went
to their deaths, the only Americans ever executed for spying, insisting
they were innocent.
The new twist in the long-argued
story of treachery comes from Alexander Feklisov, 83, a retired KGB
officer who has stepped forward with a detailed account of the Rosenbergs'
role. Feklisov said he held clandestine meetings with Julius Rosenberg
in New York from 1943 to 1946 and claims to be the only Soviet intelligence
officer alive with first-hand knowledge of the Rosenberg case.
He told The Washington Post
and The New York Times that Rosenberg passed valuable secrets
about U.S. military electronics but played only a peripheral role
in Soviet atomic espionage. And he said Ethel Rosenberg did not actively
spy but probably was aware that her husband was involved.
He said neither he nor any other
Soviet intelligence agent met Ethel Rosenberg. "She had nothing
to do with this. She was completely innocent," Feklisov said
in an interview with The New York Times in Moscow. The retired
KGB officer also told his story to The Washington Post.
The Rosenbergs were convicted of
spying and conspiracy mainly on the testimony of Ethel Rosenberg's
brother, David Greenglass, and his wife, Ruth, who were arrested for
conspiracy and confessed. Greenglass named Julius Rosenberg as his
recruiter and also implicated Rosenberg's wife.
Feklisov said Julius Rosenberg recommended
David Greenglass to him as a possible recruit in 1944. Greenglass
worked as a mechanic at Los Alamos, N.M., where the first atomic bombs
were assembled. Feklisov insists that Greenglass provided little of
use to Moscow, which had other valuable spies at Los Alamos.
Feklisov says the principal contributions
by Rosenberg were secrets about U.S. military electronics. He cited
Rosenberg's passing of a fully functioning proximity fuse, a secret
World War II U.S. innovation that enables an anti-aircraft missile
to bring down its target without hitting it. Rosenberg assembled a
duplicate proximity fuse from discarded spare parts and smuggled it
out of the Emerson Radio Factory in New York City in December 1944.
(3)
Michael Ellison, The Guardian,
(6th December, 2001)
One of the most enduring controversies
of the cold war, the trial and executions of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
as Soviet spies, was revived
last night when her convicted brother said that he had lied at the
trial to save himself and his wife.
"As a spy who turned his family in, I don't care," David
Greenglass, 79, said on his first public appearance for more than
40 years.
"I sleep very well.
I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister."
Mr Greenglass, who lives
under an assumed identity, was sentenced to 15 years and released
from prison in 1960.
He said in a taped interview
on last night's CBS television programme 60 Minutes that he,
too, gave the Russians atomic secrets and information about a newly
invented detonator.
He said he gave false testimony
because he feared that his wife Ruth might be charged, and that he
was encouraged by the prosecution to lie.
He gave the court the most
damning evidence against his sister: that she had typed up his spying
notes, intended for transmission to Moscow, on a Remington portable
typewriter.
Now he says that this testimony
was based on the recollection of his wife rather than his own first-hand
knowledge.
"I don't know who
typed it, frankly, and to this day I can't remember that the typing
took place," he said last night. "I had no memory of that
at all - none whatsoever."
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