As is the case with many famous trials, it is also the story of a particular time: the early 's with its cold war tensions and headlines dominated by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his demagogic tactics. The Manhattan Project was the name given to the top secret effort of Allied scientists to develop an atomic bomb. Twice in Fuchs met with a Soviet agent named Raymond and provided notes on the working design for the atomic bomb.
She was an aspiring actress and singer, but eventually took a secretarial job at a shipping company. She became involved in labor disputes and joined the Young Communist League, where she first met Julius. The Rosenbergs had two sons, Robert and Michael. By , however, the Rosenbergs dropped out of the Communist Party to pursue Julius's espionage activities.
Early in , Julius was fired from his job with the Signal Corps when his past membership in the Communist Party came to light.
On June 17, , Julius Rosenberg was arrested on suspicion of espionage after having been named by Sgt. On August 11, , Ethel was arrested. Making little attempt to portray himself as impartial, Judge Irving R. Kaufman opened the proceedings by declaring: "The evidence will show that the loyalty and alliance of the Rosenbergs and Sobell were not to our country, but that it was to Communism.
The case against the Rosenbergs largely hinged on the testimonies of Gold and Greenglass. Greenglass testified that the Rosenbergs began lobbying his wife, Ruth, to get her husband involved in the espionage ring by November He returned to New York City on furlough in January , at which point he showed Julius his notes and a sketch of a high-explosive lens. Even more damning, Greenglass described another meeting at the Rosenbergs' New York City apartment in September , during which time Ethel typed up his shoddy, hastily scribbled notes.
To this point, the government's case against Ethel was largely nonexistent; now, her brother had portrayed her as a willing co-conspirator. Chief prosecutor Irving H. Saypol leaped all over this account, dramatically telling the jury how she "sat at that typewriter and struck the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interests of the Soviets. Julius and Ethel took the stand in their defense, but other than denying the charges, they largely evoked the Fifth Amendment on matters of espionage and their involvement in the Communist Party, their silence amplifying the testimony against them.
On March 29, , the jury returned a verdict of guilty against the trio charged. Judge Kaufman imposed the death penalty on Julius and Ethel, telling them, "I consider your crimes worse than murder. A death sentence, especially for the parents of two young boys, became a major source for debate, with Albert Einstein and Pope Pius XII among the influential figures who urged the U.
However, the legal appeals and requests for clemency, to President Truman and then- President Eisenhower , all fizzled. After a last-minute stay of execution was overturned, on June 19, , Julius and Ethel were electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, making them the first American civilians to be executed for espionage during peacetime.
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