Mt. Airy activist trying to exonerate the Rosenbergs

Posted 6/3/16

Ethel Rosenberg and her husband, Julius, were the only Americans ever executed for espionage in the U.S. in peacetime. Since the 1953 executions, many people have been trying to clear their names, …

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Mt. Airy activist trying to exonerate the Rosenbergs

Posted
Ethel Rosenberg and her husband, Julius, were the only Americans ever executed for espionage in the U.S. in peacetime. Since the 1953 executions, many people have been trying to clear their names, especially Ethel, who many believe was the victim of a hysterical wave of anti-communism and anti-Semitism in the U.S. Ethel Rosenberg and her husband, Julius, were the only Americans ever executed for espionage in the U.S. in peacetime. Since the 1953 executions, many people have been trying to clear their names, especially Ethel, who many believe was the victim of a hysterical wave of anti-communism and anti-Semitism in the U.S.

by Arlene Tyner

Ed. Note: Arlene Tyner, 74, long-time Mt. Airy resident, has been a passionate social and political activist her entire adult life. For decades she has done extensive research into the highly controversial case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 by the U.S. government during the anti-Communist hysteria of the early Cold War era. Here are more thoughts from Tyner:

New York's City Council recognized Ethel Rosenberg's 100th birthday on Sept. 28, 2015, and the petition campaign her children and grandchildren initiated to exonerate her. Their stunning proclamation in Ethel's honor stated in part, "...the government wrongfully executed Ethel Rosenberg; now therefore BE IT KNOWN: That we, the undersigned members of the New York City Council, honor the life and memory of Ethel Rosenberg in observance of the 100th anniversary of her birth.”

The nature of the FBI's frame-up was exposed in the 1980s when FBI documents were released. Since then there has been a campaign by people who write books about the Cold War era to convict the couple for non-atomic espionage based on the “Venona Documents,” which are incomplete and cannot be interpreted as proof of anything. They are fragments of sentences from encrypted telegrams in Russian, which necessitated several layers of decrypting by the NSA. Missing words can change the entire meaning of a sentence. FBI people filled in the blanks based on the "official story," so these documents are highly unreliable.

I've read many books written since the 1990s, and footnote trails contain interpretations based solely on anti-communist prejudices. Without these biases, no case against Julius or Ethel could be sustained in a court of law.

In fact, the American Bar Association conducted mock retrials of the couple in 1992 or 1993 based on the original court transcripts. Both were exonerated by New York juries. I believe these exonerations were one of the reasons the Venona decrypts were selectively declassified and released in 1995…

I'm also suspicious of the timing because the Venona program was shut down in 1980, and during the following decade the Rosenberg sons traveled all over the country to reopen their parents' case. The FBI files started dribbling out in 1985.

The powers-that-be have a lot at stake in justifying the 1953 executions, which they have been doing for more than 20 years. But the case has come unraveled. David Greenglass' fabrications at trial have been exposed, which exonerated Ethel. Harry Gold, the only trial witness the FBI could link to Julius via Greenglass, did not even know the Rosenbergs, but unfortunately, the defense lawyer did not cross-examine him.

It came out in another trial in Ohio several years later. I have that testimony. Under federal law in 1953, conspirators did not have to know one another to get convicted of conspiracy, as astounding as that sounds. The recognition signals between strangers whom the FBI said were spies were entirely made up by the FBI, something proven in the 1970s when 500,000 pages of FBI files on the case were released to the Meeropol brothers. I did research in that archive, too.

Following is just a part of what Robert and Michael Meeropol, the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, recently wrote to Attorney General Lynch and President Obama in an attempt to persuade them to exonerate their mother:

“Our parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed on June 19, 1953, during the anti-communist hysteria of the Cold War Era. They had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage, in what was called ‘the crime of the century.’ We were 6 and 10 years old when they were killed.

“Our mother was not a spy, and her execution was wrongful. Her conviction was based on perjured testimony and prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. The charges against our mother and the threat of the death penalty were meant to intimidate her and our father into cooperating. The U.S. government wanted Julius to falsely confess to passing ‘the secret of the atomic bomb’ to the Soviet Union and to name others involved.

“Their trial took place during a time of widespread panic about communism. The sentencing judge went so far as to blame our parents for the Korean War. In denying clemency, President Eisenhower accused them of causing future nuclear wars. These outrageous statements and our parents’ execution helped fuel a dangerous climate of fear and intolerance in our country that permitted political opportunists like Senator Joseph McCarthy to poison our society. Today, we face a similar climate of hatred, which targets immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQI individuals and others.

“A formal acknowledgement of the wrong done to our mother and our family will help prevent similar injustices in the future. A healthy democracy requires that the government acknowledge and correct its transgressions. The government cannot return our mother to her loving family, but it can admit this miscarriage of justice…

“The evidence presented against our mother at her trial consisted of testimony by David Greenglass and his wife, Ruth. They stated that Ethel took part in two meetings between the Rosenbergs and Greenglasses in 1945 (including one at which David gave Julius a sketch of a cross-section of the bomb), and that our mother’s participation included typing notes. Our mother’s conviction hinged on these alleged actions of hers.

“The record now refutes these claims. David’s grand jury testimony made no mention of Ethel’s presence at either meeting, much less her typing. Instead, responding to questions about spying, David told the grand jury: ‘My sister has never spoken to me about this subject,’ and ‘I never spoke to my sister about this at all.’

“Despite this testimony, prosecutors developed a plan to use our mother against our father. An assistant attorney general told the FBI that there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to charge Ethel, but that she could be used ‘as a lever against her husband.’ Furthermore, a month before the trial, a prosecutor told a congressional committee: ‘The case is not too strong against Mrs. Rosenberg, but for the purpose of acting as a deterrent, I think it is very important that she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence.’

“At our parents’ trial, David contradicted his sworn grand jury testimony and suddenly implicated our mother in the alleged spy ring by describing Ethel’s presence at the meetings. Decades later, David admitted on national television that this testimony was a lie.  Therefore, Ethel’s conviction, which hinged on this story, was wrongful.”

“Based on these revelations … now is the time for the federal government to acknowledge this terrible injustice.”

locallife, mt-airy