Rosenberg evidence kept secret

[IndianaGreen]

Source: BBC News

Rosenberg evidence kept secret

Page last updated at 01:46 GMT, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 02:46 UK

A New York judge has ruled against releasing secret testimony from the spy trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

The couple were convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union and executed by electric chair in 1953.

Campaigners have sought to challenge the evidence used to convict Ethel Rosenberg after a key witness admitted he fabricated details.

Supporters of the Rosenbergs said the trail was set up amid anti-communist hysteria at the height of the Cold War.

The Rosenbergs' children believe that the US government always held information that raised doubts about the credibility of their convictions.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7520701.stm

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The Rosenbergs were executed because they were Jews and they were progressive. Soviets got the secrets to the atom bomb thru Klaus Fuchs, the head of the British science team at Los Alamos.

[Catch22Dem]

1. The Soviets didn't get their secrets from a single source

They got information from lots of places. Fuchs was only one of many.

[TheMightyFavog]

12. Including an American named Ted Hall.

If anyone should have been punished for treason it should have been him. He ended up getting away pretty well much scot-free.

[question everything]

16. And George Koval

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/us/12koval.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[The Wizard]

2. That the prosecution

got a jury to believe the secret pass words were "I come from Julius" speaks volumes about how the nation was gripped with the red scare hysteria. Jews were closely linked to the labor movement that was linked to the Communist Party by the big money interests. Executing a couple of Jews for spying for the communists fit the needs of major industrialists and cheap political gain by the likes of Joseph McCarthy and Nixon.
There's a dark comedy about the Rosenberg's trial and execution called "The Public Burning" by Robert Coover. The two narrators in the book are Richard Nixon and Uncle Sam who converge at the end when Nixon comes to understand that in order to be President the candidate must get sodomized by Uncle Sam with the Washington Monument.

[stillcool]

3. I read books about them..

when I was in high school. Theirs is a story that is haunting. I feel for their children, and admire their tenacity in trying to find the truth. I can't imagine how hard it was to grow up with that stigma.

[kskiska]

4. Russia was our ally at that time.

And David Greenglass' wife Ruth actually met with a Russian agent in New Mexico to pass information. She never served prison time.

[defendandprotect]

5. This is another notorious case to be questioned . . . .

and it doesn't seem likely that anything like this actually went down ---

It was also extraordinary to kill a woman at the time ---

I've seen a documentary, I think, which featured their sons ---

and I hope one day that this case will be reinvestigated -- files opened.

[OutNow]

6. One of my favorite charities - The Rosenberg Fund For Children

There was (and is) plenty to be ashamed about how the Rosenbergs were convicted and executed. The main reason Ethel was convicted was to leverage Julius into a guilty plea. Even at the last minute they offered a deal to save Ethel from the electric chair if her husband would confess that he was the spy that "stole" the secret of the atom bomb. The fact that Ethel never committed any of the crimes and should have never been arrested is often lost in the hysteria around the case.

Among the victims of this travesty were the two sons, Robert and Michael. As adults they helped form the Rosenberg Fund For Children (RFC).

The Rosenberg Fund for Children was established to provide for the educational and emotional needs of children whose parents have suffered because of their progressive activities and who, therefore, are no longer able to provide fully for their children. The RFC also provides grants for the educational and emotional needs of targeted activist youth. Professionals and institutions will be awarded grants to provide services at no or reduced cost.

The Fund has done excellent work and is one of my favorite charities. Check it out.

http://www.rfc.org/

[ck4829]

7. Some say the Venona files are fake

You know, the files that said the Rosenbergs were guilty.

Maybe this adds weight to that theory.

[Zorro]

10. Who says the Venona files are fake?

I mean, besides you.

[ck4829]

13. You're right, it's just me who is saying this

No, just joking.

William Kunstler, lawyer
Victor Navasky, editor and publisher of The Nation (Files in the Venona project are “time bombs of misinformation”)
Ellen Schrecker, professor of American history at Yeshiva University ("Too many gaps in the record to use these materials with complete confidence")

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. kick

[fascisthunter]

9. another reason the death penalty is a bad idea

[mopinko]

11. anyone think we will ever get the true story of 9/11? we still don't have the

true story of the rosenbergs! really, really disappointing. didn't clinton declassify all this shit?

[Judi Lynn]

14. Look at this info. from 2001, in a link from the original article:

~snip~
At the trial in 1951, he said his sister typed up notes containing US nuclear secrets that were later turned over to the KGB, the Soviet intelligence service.

The notes - typed on a portable Remington typewriter - apparently contained little that was new to the Soviets, but for the prosecution they clinched the case against Ethel Rosenberg.

No recollection

However, in this week's television interview, Mr Greenglass said his testimony was not based on first-hand knowledge:

"I don't know who typed it, frankly, and to this day I can't remember that the typing took place. I had no memory of that at all - none whatsoever."

He said he gave false testimony to protect himself and his wife, Ruth, and that he was encouraged by the prosecution to do so.

"I would not sacrifice my wife and my children for my sister."



David Greenglass admitted to spying for the Soviets


Mr Greenglass, who worked on the atomic bomb at the top-secret Manhattan Project in Los Alamos during the Second World War, was himself convicted of giving the Soviets information about nuclear research - but was spared execution in exchange for his testimony.

He spent 10 years in prison and was released in 1960. Today, he and his wife live under an assumed name in the New York area.

Asked whether his false testimony against his sister still haunted him 50 years later, Mr Greenglass said: "Every time I am haunted by it, my wife says 'Look, we are still alive.'"
~snip~

~~~~~~~~~~
Any sane person would want to think about this long and hard.

Thanks, IndianaGreen.

[sofa king]

15. The guy who interests me is Richard Feynman.

According to James Gleick's biography of Feynman, he was pals with Klaus Fuchs, and spent many free hours hiking alone with Fuchs. Feynman also made a widespread and apparently humorous attempt to crack every lock and safe he could find at Los Alamos. Feynman occasionally borrowed Fuchs' car to visit his sick wife in Albuquerque, following the same route Fuchs took to deliver documents to his Soviet handlers.

Most researchers of the subject dismiss the relationship between America's greatest home-grown physicist and Fuchs as coincidental, which makes it one of the more fascinating coincidences in espionage history, right up there with the death of Christopher Marlowe.

[Zhade]

17. Yet another black mark against this country.

Disgusting!