communist conspiracy
When the USSR tested the atomic bomb for the first time on August 29, 1949, the United States was very and unpleasantly surprised, if not shocked. There were reasons for this. Russian science of the 1930s and 1940s had a valued place in the world, but among the Soviet nuclear physicists of the 40s, few could compare with scientists such as Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi and Ernest Lawrence, and the heyday of Lev Landau’s career There was. their contribution dropped in the 50s. The US government knew that the nuclear project would require a combination of extraordinary intellectual effort and huge material costs, so it believed that the atomic bomb would not appear in the USSR until the late 1950s.
Therefore, as soon as the West learned about the Soviet tests, suspicions arose that the secret had been stolen. An intense investigation began, and in September 1949 the British decrypted Soviet radio messages, revealing that physicist Klaus Fuchs was an NKGB agent.(People’s Commissariat for State Security, predecessor of the KGB) USSR. Fuchs was a minor participant in the Manhattan Project during the war, and in January 1950, after several interrogations, he admitted that he had passed information on nuclear developments to the Soviets because of his communist views.
Fuchs’ confession and surrender of his spy contacts became the first link in a chain of revelations that led to the arrest of Julius Rosenberg on July 17, 1950. A month later, the FBI took his wife, Ethel, into custody, and their trial began on March 6, 1951, in the Southern District of New York court.
Unusually for American justice, the trials passed quickly, and on April 5 the couple were found guilty and sentenced to death in the electric chair.
During the war, Julius was a mid-level employee of the American Signal Corps, unknown to anyone before his arrest and involved in the case as one of the elements in a long chain of transfer of secrets to the USSR. Despite this, his case became one of the most notorious cases in 20th century history.
family business
The process was made public for political reasons. In the late 1940s, a campaign to persecute communists began in the United States; this campaign would later be known as McCarthyism (after Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy), and the Rosenbergs had been members of communist organizations since before the war. Therefore, for some, the espionage case looked like repression of political opponents, and this is exactly how the process was handled in the USSR and social bloc countries. Following the decision, demonstrations began around the world demanding amnesty.
In addition to the “cadre” communists for whom rallies and pickets came in handy, the following people also defended the couple: Pope Pius XII, physicist Albert Einstein, philosopher and writer Jean-Paul Sartre, writer Nelson Algren, famous crime story writer Dashiell Hammett (He wrote The Maltese Falcon, Bloody Harvest, and The Glass Key, among others)and dozens of other cultural figures. Artist Pablo Picasso requested amnesty, he wasn’t shy In their statement: “Minutes count. “Do not allow this crime against humanity to be committed.”
There’s a reason why the campaign has gained so much coverage. First, the Rosenbergs were accused of conspiracy and this article does not require any physical evidence. As a result, the investigation relied almost entirely on the testimony of a witness, David Greenglass, who was also accused of espionage. Greenglass described giving Julius classified materials during a meeting at the Rosenbergs’ New York apartment and then asking his wife, Ethel, to type them up immediately.
Secondly, the accusation of Ethel, a mother of two children, the eldest of whom is only nine years old, outraged the public. Even assuming Greenglass was telling the truth, writing down some of her husband’s words does not constitute espionage and certainly does not merit the death penalty. The prosecution itself understood this, but according to plan words FBI Director John Hoover was simple: “The case against his wife will serve as leverage to force Julius to talk.”
Third, the Rosenbergs were Jewish. Anti-Semitism was never part of the mainstream in the United States, but some people, including prominent politicians and businessmen, were wary and distrustful of Jews. This became Julius’ main line of defense: He stated that the case was fabricated from start to finish, that he was not working for Soviet intelligence, and that everything that happened to him was an anti-communist act and another slander against the Jews.
Finally, the entire process was somewhat reminiscent of the speedy trial typical of totalitarian regimes. It is enough to mention the later confession of Roy Cohn, an influential American prosecutor and close friend of Joseph McCarthy: Cohn was alleged to have personally contributed to the appointment of prosecutor Saipaul and Judge Kaufman to this case, and he was also given the death penalty. suggestion(Radosh Ronald. Rosenber File) . In other words, the main organizer of the persecution of communists was acting as the judge-prosecutor in the case.
The Real Green Mile
Neither the flaws in the criminal case, nor the Pope’s intercession, nor appeals to the new President Eisenhower helped the Rosenbergs. The prosecutor offered the defendant a deal: a confession in exchange for life and the surrender of his accomplices. The Rosenbergs said they would not bear false witness against themselves despite the death penalty: “Our respect for truth, conscience and human dignity is not for sale. “If we are executed, it will be a killing of innocent people and an embarrassment to the US government.”
The execution was scheduled for July 19, 1953 at 23:00. According to the Jewish calendar, it was Saturday, a holy day for Jews at that time, and therefore the lawyer requested that the execution of the sentence be postponed. As a result, the court agreed to respect the Sabbath and moved the date back three hours. Julius died immediately, and Ethel’s execution was reminiscent of a scene from The Green Mile. (Feature film about the painful execution of an innocent man by electric chair due to the sadism of the executioner):
He survived the standard three shocks, and his heart stopped only after two shocks, and smoke was already coming from his head.
In their farewell letter to their children, the Rosenbergs wrote: “Of course, you will feel sorry for us at first, but remember that you are not alone. <…> We want to live life by your side and get all the joy and satisfaction from it. Your father, who is with me in these last hours, transfers his heart and all the love within him to his dear children. Always remember that we are innocent and we cannot go against our conscience.”
The Rosenbergs’ adult children claimed their parents’ innocence for many years, but as it turned out later, they lied to them. In the 1990s, the United States declassified materials from the Venona project to decipher Soviet radio communications; Accordingly, it was revealed that the couple were active members of a spy network and regularly contacted the NKGB. These materials were not used in court, but the content of the intercepts was familiar to senior US leaders, which influenced the decision. Declassified KGB documents also clearly show their secret activities. (collected, for example, in the book “Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America”). But in the military-political circles of the United States there has never been an attitude towards killing spies and traitors at any cost – then why did the court make such a decision?
Judge Kaufman explained this himself. text sentence.
“Your actions in placing the atomic bomb in the hands of the Russians several years before they built it themselves, in my opinion, caused communist aggression in Korea. As a result, our losses exceeded 50,000 people, and who knows how many millions more innocent people will pay the price for your betrayal. “With your betrayal, you undoubtedly changed the course of history and not in favor of our country.”
Since then, historians have debated for years about the significance of the documents the Rosenbergs turned over and the role of the Soviet bomb in containing World War III. But the execution of the Rosenbergs became a symbol of American policy in the incipient Cold War: the United States made it clear that the fight against communism would be a fight to the death.