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I NOW BELIEVE ETHEL ROSENBERG WAS INNOCENT  
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Lori Clune
November 26, 2024
The Conversation
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_ I wrote a book on the execution of the Rosenbergs for Cold War
spying – and a recently declassified document has convinced me that
Ethel was innocent _

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg during their 1951 trial on charges of
conspiracy to commit espionage. , AP Photo

 

The sons of an American woman executed for spying on the United States
during the Cold War want President Joe Biden to clear her name
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he leaves office.

Ethel Rosenberg and her husband, Julius, were executed
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conspiracy to commit espionage. They were accused of giving “the
secret” of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, meaning they
supposedly passed vital technological information to help the Soviets
develop their own bomb.

As the author of a book on the Rosenberg case
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I know that there was no “secret,” and that while Julius was a
spy, Ethel was not.

Yet generations of Americans have learned
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the Rosenbergs – both of them – betrayed their country
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later, we know that an innocent woman was killed, how can the
government rectify this?

A miscarriage of justice that orphaned two boys

In 2015, Rosenberg sons Michael and Robert Meeropol – they took the
last name of the couple who adopted them after their parents’ deaths
– argued in The New York Times
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their mother was wrongfully convicted and executed. They urged
then-President Barack Obama to exonerate Ethel, which would officially
declare her not guilty of the crime for which she was killed.

Many were sympathetic to their plea. Executing the Rosenbergs orphaned
the two boys – 6-year-old Robert and 10-year-old Michael. But theirs
wasn’t just an emotional plea. The facts were on their side.

[Two small boys pose for a portrait]
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The Rosenberg boys in 1953. Michael, 10, sent a letter asking
President Dwight Eisenhower to free his parents. AP Photo/John Lent
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Documents from the case reveal that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover knew
Ethel was not an active spy. FBI agents arrested her only as leverage
to pressure Julius
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name his dozen or so collaborators.

An electrical engineer and devoted communist, Julius gained access to
classified information while working with Emerson Radio Corp. and the
U.S. Army Signal Corps. He recruited and managed a spy ring that
provided whatever military information it could to the Soviet Union.

The pressure on Julius didn’t work, and he never named names. He and
Ethel were electrocuted after a trial riddled with problems such as
perjured testimony and an incompetent defense team
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The trial also featured inappropriate communications between the
presiding judge and federal prosecutors.

Judge Irving Kaufman had lobbied to preside over the Rosenberg case,
and Justice Department officials supported his selection to further
pressure Julius: Kaufman was open to imposing the death penalty.

After the jury found the couple guilty, Kaufman consulted with the
prosecuting attorneys to determine whether both Rosenbergs should get
the same sentence. Prosecutors were reluctant to support Ethel’s
execution. Judge Kaufman decided to sentence both Ethel and Julius to
death
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Getting it wrong

The crime for which they died was not spying but conspiracy to commit
espionage. Prosecutors argued that since Ethel was cognizant of her
husband’s espionage activities, she was involved in the conspiracy.

I used to think that, too.

“In all likelihood Ethel’s role in the spy ring was at least that
of an aware spectator,” I wrote in a 2015 opinion piece
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the Rosenberg sons requested her exoneration, “placing her inside
the fluid category of conspiracy in the eyes of the law.”

I concluded that imposing the death penalty on Ethel was a “cruel
and unjust act” for which the U.S. government should apologize –
but not exonerate.

I was wrong.

I now believe that a presidential exoneration is appropriate and
necessary because it will correct the view that Ethel was an active
spy. It will address the serious flaws in her trial and conviction.
And it will set right the historical record.

Many popular books, textbooks
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news sites get the case wrong. They incorrectly lump Julius and Ethel
together, labeling both as spies for the Soviet Union, and claim they
were convicted of espionage. Time magazine once ranked the couple
among America’s “Top 10 Crime Duos
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[Ethel and Julius stand side by side, separated by a wire fence]
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Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in prison transport after their March 1953
conviction. AP Images, file
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For decades, the U.S. government has gotten the facts of its own
criminal case wrong, too.

The National Security Agency
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stated in a 2018 publication that the couple were executed for
treason. Even the FBI’s website
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claims Julius and Ethel together ran an espionage ring that passed
atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union.

Correcting the record

A newly declassified document
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the truth.

In August 2024, the Rosenberg sons obtained
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memo
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August 1950 authored by the NSA’s chief analyst, Meredith Gardner.
He wrote that, based on Soviet intelligence, Ethel knew about
Julius’ espionage work but “due to illness she did not engage in
the work herself.”

This document confirms what other sources
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as the FBI had already indicated: Ethel was not a spy and “did not
engage in the work” of espionage and – most importantly – U.S.
government officials knew it.

They knew it when FBI agents arrested Ethel on Aug. 11, 1950. They
knew it when the jury convicted her nine months later. They knew it
when the judge sentenced her to death on April 5, 1951. And they knew
it when prison officials executed her on Friday, June 19, 1953.

Now, Michael and Robert Meeropol
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the declassified memo to urge Biden “to exonerate (Ethel) Rosenberg
by issuing a formal presidential proclamation saying that she was
wrongly convicted and executed.”

[Two men in suits stand in front of the White House with their backs
facing the camera, holding a black-and-white photo of two boys doing
the same thing]
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Michael and Robert Meeropol outside the White House on Dec. 1, 2016. 
 AP Photo/Alex Brandon
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Full exoneration

I, too, have come to believe Ethel Rosenberg’s killing was a morally
repugnant miscarriage of justice.

That’s why a presidential pardon by Biden, who is now contemplating
his end-of-term pardon list
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would not be sufficient redress. A pardon forgives someone for a crime
they committed. Ethel Rosenberg did not commit the crime for which she
was convicted, so it’s the U.S. government that should beg
forgiveness from Ethel’s descendants.

“President Biden has the power to right this historic injustice,”
said Jennifer Meeropol, Ethel’s granddaughter and director of
the Rosenberg Fund for Children [[link removed]], on Sept. 10,
2024. Only a full exoneration, Meeropol argued, could “redress the
harm done to my family and bring peace to my father and uncle in their
lifetimes.”

This almost surely will not happen under President-elect Donald Trump.

Roy Cohn, Trump’s late personal lawyer, was an important member of
the Rosenberg trial prosecutorial team. Cohn claimed in interviews
throughout his life that Ethel “alone was the ringleader, who led
Julius around by a leash.” He was wrong
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but Trump won’t likely contradict his mentor.

We historians know that our understanding of the past is always
evolving. When new facts cast light on a past injustice, I think we
should learn from those mistakes and correct the injustices that we
can.

Exonerating Ethel would be an important step toward truth. And it
would correct the historical record.

_Lori Clune is a Professor of History at California State University_

* Ethel Rosenberg
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* wrongful conviction
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* new document
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