(1) Judge Irving Kaufman, sentencing Ethel Rosenberg 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) Ethel Rosenberg, letter to Julius Rosenberg, on hearing that their conviction had been upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court (26th February, 1952)

Last night at 10.00 o'clock, I heard the shocking news. At the present moment, with little or no detail to hand, it is difficult for me to make any comment, beyond the expression of horror at the shameless haste with which the government appears to be pressing for our liquidation.

 

(3) Julius Rosenberg, letter to Ethel Rosenberg (13th April, 1952)

Keep your chin up Ethel if we must suffer through this nightmare then in the manner we conduct ourselves we will contribute to the general welfare of the people by serving notice on the tyrants that they cannot get away with political frame-ups such as ours. It takes a lot of time and hard work to get them to overcome their inertia but now that grass root sentiments are aroused public opinion will have its effect. We've left a big chunk of suffering behind us these last two years and we are coming closer to our emancipation from all this torture.

 

(4) Julius Rosenberg, letter to Ethel Rosenberg (31st May, 1953)

What does one write to his beloved when faced with the very grim reality that in eighteen days, on their 14th wedding anniversary, it is ordered that they be put to death?

Over and over again, I have tried to analyze in the most objective manner possible the answers to the position of our government in our case. Everything indicates only one answer - that the wishes of certain madmen are being followed in order to use this case as a coercive bludgeon against all dissenters.

I know that our children and our family are suffering a great deal right now and it is natural that we be concerned for their welfare. However, I think we will have to concentrate our strength on ourselves. First, we want to make sure that we stand up under the terrific pressure, and then we ought to try to contribute some share to the fight.

 

(5) Alice Hamilton, letter to Felix Frankfurter, a member of the Supreme Court (15th July, 1959)

Why are we the only western country that lives in terror of native Communists. All the European countries have open and above-board political Communist parties some even have members of Parliament or whatever, and they do not have Un-Dutch Activities Committee. Look at the contrast between the English treatment of Klaus Fuchs and our treatment of the Rosenbergs. Fuchs is a scientist (which Rosenberg was not) he gave valuable atomic secrets to the Russians (Urey testified that Rosenberg did not know enough to do that) he confessed (the Rosenbergs refused to, though offered their lives as reward) Fuchs acted during the war, the Rosenbergs during peace.

 

(6) 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."

 

(7) William A. Reuben, review of The Secret World of American Communism in the journal Rights (1995).

As if progressives had not in recent years been battered and bludgeoned enough already, we now learn that J. Edgar Hoover, Senator Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, Elizabeth Bentley, Whittaker Chambers & company really got it right: all Communists are/were actual, or wannabee, Russian spies. We also learn that during the Cold War years (and even before) hordes of leftists were abroad in the land, stealing "our" atomic secrets (and God only knows what else) for delivery to Joseph Stalin.

In recent days, this message has been dunned into our ears by such opinion-makers as William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Theodore Draper, Michael Thomas, Edward Jay Epstein and David Garrow in the pages of The New York Times, The New Republic, Commentar, Wall Street Journal, The National Review, the "McNeil-Lehrer NewsHour," and lots more (without a dissenting voice to be heard anywhere).

This all-out blitz has been fueled by The Secret World of American Communism, written by Professor Harvey Klehr, of Emory University, John Earl Haynes, of the Library of Congress, and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov, formerly of the Comintern Archives in Moscow at the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents in Recent History. The authors claim to have put together a "massive documentary record" from the hitherto secret Comintern archives, revealing "the dark side of American communism." These documents establish, they say, proof both of "Soviet espionage in America" and of the American Communist Party's "inherent" connection with Soviet espionage operations and with its espionage services; and that such spy activities were considered, by both Soviet and the American CP leaders, "normal and proper."

Such assertions are not all that different from what J. Edgar Hoover (and his stooges) were saying half a century ago. But what reinforces the authors' statements are not only the documents from the Russian archives they claim to have uncovered, but also the imposing editorial advisory committee assembled to give this project an eminent scholarly cachet. This editorial advisory committee consists of 30 academics whose names are listed opposite the title page. They include seven Yale University professors, along with professors from Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, Chicago, Brandeis, Southern Methodist, Pittsburgh and Rochester universities. There are also an equal number of members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and of officials of various Russian archives.

Reproduced in the book are 92 documents offered by the authors as evidence of what they say is the United States Communist Party's continuous history of "covert activity." These documents, according to Professor Steven Merrit Minor in The New York Times Book Review, reveal that American Communists "relayed atomic secrets to the Kremlin" and also support the testimony of Whittaker Chambers and others that the American Communist Party was engaged in underground conspiracies against the American Government. The authors also say that the documents suggest that those "who continued to claim otherwise were either willfully naive or, more likely, dishonest."

In actuality, many of the documents are ambiguously worded or in some sort of code known only to the senders and recipients. They often contain illegible words, numbers and signatures; relate to unidentifiable persons, places and events; and are preoccupied with bookkeeping matters, inner-party hassles or with protective security measures against FBI and Trotskyite spies. Most importantly, not a single document reproduced in this volume provides evidence of espionage. Ignoring all evidence that contradicts their thesis, the authors attempt to make a case relying on assumption, speculation, and invention about the archival material and, especially, by equating secrecy with illegal spying.

The book's high points are sections relating to what the authors call atomic espionage and the CP Washington spy apparatus. As someone who has carefully examined the archives at the Russian Center, and who over the past four decades has studied the trial transcripts of the major Cold War "spy" cases, I can state that "The Secret World of American Communism," notwithstanding its scholarly accouterments, is a disgracefully shoddy work, replete with errors, distortions and outright lies. As a purported work of objective scholarship, it is nothing less than a fraud.

In this context, certain facts ought to be noted:

* The Moscow archives contain no material relating to these key figures in the Cold War "spy" cases: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Morton Sobell, Ruth and David Greenglass, Harry Gold, Klaus Fuchs, Elizabeth Bentley, Hede Massing, Noel Field, Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, Whittaker Chambers, Colonel Boris Bykov and J. Peters. In my possession is a document, responding to my request, and dated October 12, 1992, signed by Oleg Naumov, Deputy Director of the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History, attesting that the Center has no files on, or relating to, any of the above-named persons.

* Despite the authors' assertion that the documents in this volume show that the CPUSA's elaborate underground apparatus collaborated with Soviet espionage services and also engaged in stealing the secrets of America's atomic bomb project, not one of the 92 documents reproduced in this book supports such a conclusion.

* The authors claim the documents corroborate Whittaker Chambers' allegations about a Communist underground in Washington, D.C. in the 1930s, and while the authors concede that Alger Hiss's name does not appear in any of the documents, they assert that the "subsequent documentation has further substantiated the case that Hiss was a spy." Yet, not one document from the Russian archives supports any of these damning statements.

A total of 15 pages in "Secret World" have some reference either to Hiss or Chambers. By my count, these contain 73 separate misrepresentations of fact or downright lies. For example, the authors claim that J. Peters "played a key role in Chambers' story" that Hiss was a Soviet spy. Peters played no role in Chambers' story about espionage. Chambers said that the key figure in his espionage activities with Hiss was a Russian named "Colonel Boris Bykov," a character whose identity the FBI spent years futilely trying to establish.

The authors claim Chambers testified he worked in the Communist underground in the 1930s with groups of government employees who "provided the CPUSA with information about sensitive government activities." In fact, Chambers testified to the exact contrary on 12 separate occasions.

References to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and their case can be found on five pages. In those pages, by my tally, are 31 falsehoods or distortions of evidence. For example, the authors say the Rosenbergs' conviction was for "involvement in...atomic espionage." In fact they were convicted of conspiracy, and no evidence was ever produced that they ever handed over any information about anything to anyone.

The authors also say the Rosenbergs were arrested as a result of information the authorities obtained from Klaus Fuchs, which led to Harry Gold, who led them to David Greenglass, who implicated the Rosenbergs. All of these statements are based on an FBI press release. In fact, no evidence has ever been produced that indicates that Fuchs, Gold or Greenglass ever mentioned the Rosenbergs before their arrests.

Discussing one other "spy" case, that of Judith Coplon, against whom all charges were dismissed, the authors in typical contempt of official court records write that "there was not the slightest doubt of her guilt." In comments running no less than half a page, they invent a scenario of the Coplon case that contains 14 outright lies and distortions. For instance, the authors say she "stole" an FBI report and she was arrested when she handed over' the stolen report "to a Soviet citizen." All these statements are false; in her two trials, no evidence was ever adduced that she ever stole anything or that she ever handed over anything to anyone.

 

(8) Eric Alterman, The Nation (29th April, 1996)

Here we go again. New York Post editor Eric Breindel, writing in The New Republic and The Wall Street Journal, insists that the recent release by the National Security Agency of an encrypted document sent by a Soviet spy in Washington to his superiors in Moscow on March 30, 1945, constitutes "the smoking gun in the Hiss case," proving "beyond doubt" that Hiss "was still a Soviet agent in 1945."

Since I am writing in what Breindel (who has died since this article was written) preemptively calls "America's leading forum for Alger Hiss apologia," one could be forgiven for expecting yet another plea for justice for Hiss. Sorry. I take no position on guilt or innocence (in truth, I still can't make up my mind). Today's lesson deals instead with a disturbing nexus of scholarship, journalism and Cold War fanaticism that, based on either a careless or a deliberately malicious reading of declassified national security documents, threatens our ability ever to make sense of the past half-century of our history.

The drill has become a familiar one: Hitherto secret documents or ex-spy confessions, often backed up by a major publishing campaign, reveal that so-and-so was a spy all along. Journalists trumpet the charge, calling on "respected" academics to either endorse or debunk the charges. Depending on the usually predictable political orientation of the academic in question, a person's reputation is either destroyed or merely damaged. The story then goes away until the next batch of documents appears or the next spy gets religion.

The latest cycle began back in 1990 with a book co-written by KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky, and Christopher Andrew, a respected British intelligence historian, titled KGB: The Inside Story. Though he did not endorse the charge himself, Gordievsky argued, in Andrew's words, that as a young agent he had been reliably informed by many important Soviet intelligence officials that Harry Hopkins, FDR's most trusted adviser, had been a Soviet "agent of major significance."

Time trumpeted the charges in a much-publicized excerpt but, owing to both the unbelievability of the charges and the authors' unwillingness to stand by them, they did not cause much of a stir. Most reviewers were decidedly unimpressed with the work. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. scored Time for publishing the excerpt and said "the whole Hopkins passage smells of sensationalism on the part of the book's authors." The great military historian Sir Michael Howard noted that nothing in the book was likely to surprise Western intelligence services, though "there is probably much that they know not to be true." The only reputations to suffer significant damage were those of Time and Andrew. (Being a KGB defector, Gordievsky did not have much to lose, reputation-wise.)

Recently, it is U.S. intelligence releases that have been making news. After classifying its intercepts as top secret for decades and refusing all scholars' entreaties for access, the National Security Agency called a press conference in July 1995 to announce the release of forty-nine intercepts, dubbed the Venona papers, that dealt with the case of the Rosenbergs. Sanho Tree, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, had applied for these same documents under the Freedom of Information Act in 1993 but was informed that they were properly classified as top secret. Tree received the documents by Federal Express just hours before the press conference began. Apparently, the NSA decided it would endanger national security if an IPS scholar saw the material before it had a chance to invite favored journalists to a screening, complete with fancy booklets and brochures.

This first batch of transcripts convinced many (including me) that Julius Rosenberg was indeed a spy. Even committed Rosenberg partisans Walter and Miriam Schneir were convinced. But Ronald Radosh, transformed from obscure New Left historian to well-funded, right-wing hatchetman during the Reagan era, crowed that the documents proved "the Rosenbergs were not only Communists" but "were recruited right out of the party for Soviet espionage." Radosh, however, only proved once again his ability to read into documents what he wished to believe in the first place. The intercepts did nothing to prove Ethel's espionage involvement or mitigate the accusation that the government executed an innocent woman in a failed attempt to extract a confession from her husband. (Radosh and Joyce Milton, his coauthor of "The Rosenberg File," had contended that "it seems almost certain that (Ethel) acted as an accessory.") Nor did the intercepts prove that Julius operated a spy ring on the order necessary to have carried out the plot for which he was executed, though this may have been the case.

 

(9) 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.