This June marks the 50th anniversary of the execution of Julius and Etel Rosenberg, accused of spying for the USSR. Their trial took place during the years when the Cold War was unfolding, when Senator McCarthy's commission saw America's enemies everywhere - the communists, and the American army was fighting the communists in Korea. This political situation could not help but influence the trial, which largely explains his harsh sentence, as well as the denial of an appeal and two rejected requests to President Eisenhower for clemency.
Dozens, if not hundreds of books have been written about the trial with numerous arguments for and against the Rosenbergs, with emotional “crossing of swords” between their ardent defenders and no less ardent accusers. Today, according to new, as well as long-declassified documents, it has been established that Julius was indeed a spy: he convinced Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, to convey “certain information about the atomic project” to the Soviets, which he did (once), with the help of American - Soviet courier Harry Gold. At the same time, a serious scientific and technical (and investigative) examination established that the information that was conveyed by a technician from one of the Los Alamos Greenglass laboratories (several hand-written sketches with handwritten explanations) did not contain any special secrets, but only served as indirect confirmation , that the Americans are developing a second, more advanced version of the bomb (“plutonium”, a similar bomb was then dropped on Nagasaki), the principle of operation and basic design of which had previously been reported to Soviet representatives by Klaus Fuchs, a scientist and idealist, an opponent of the monopoly on the possession of atomic weapons.
Ethel’s fault was that she knew about Julius’s proposal to her brother and the subsequent transfer of information to them, but did not report this to the authorities.
True, in relation to Julius, in addition to the indicated guilt, there was something else: Julius may have been a “link” between several of his engineer friends and a Soviet agent, to whom they could, through Julius, communicate other (non-atomic) military information. of a technical nature.
Ever since his student years at the City College of New York, Julius was distinguished by his outgoing nature and was actively involved in social activities (although he was far from a brilliant student: he graduated 79th out of 85 graduates from the institute). He communicated with fellow students and like-minded friends who, like him, joined the Communist Party (in party cell 16 B) in the late 30s. Together they were interested in photography and travel, argued, discussed current events, and had family picnics. Several people from this company, including electrical engineers Joel Barr and Al Sarant, ended up being Julius's wartime colleagues in the Army's Signal Corps, a military technical unit. Barr worked there with radar systems - after the war he ended up at the Sperry high-tech company; in addition, he was a talented amateur musician. In 1948, Barr left for Europe, intending to improve himself at the technical institutes of Stockholm and Delft - and at the same time take up music. After the war, Sarant was associated with shipbuilding equipment.
On June 16, 1950, the FBI arrested Greenglass - as reported in the newspapers; then they took on Julius, not forgetting about his friends - this is how the FBI came to Barr and Sarant. Along the way, it was possible to establish that in the KGB documents (war years) deciphered by the Americans in 1948, the name of Barr is mentioned. Representatives of the American embassy were sent to Barr's Paris address, received from his American relatives, who learned from the owner of the house that her guest had disappeared in mid-June, leaving behind his books, clothes, and a recently purchased brand new motorcycle... The search came to a dead end.
In July, Sarant, who was living in Ithaca, New York at the time, was summoned by the FBI for an interview, asking about his contacts with Julius. Sarant replied that they used to see Julius often, but after Sarant got married and moved, their meetings came to naught. As for work, Sarant recently organized a small company of his own, hoping to receive an order from the maritime department; At the FBI's request, Sarant even gave written permission to search his home.
Julius was arrested on July 17, and Sarant continued to be summoned for interviews (without, obviously, information for the arrest). Sarant gave the impression of a respectable, well-settled family man with two small children, and the FBI was not alarmed by the message that he was going to New York for a week to visit relatives. And then this is what happened: Sarant, together with Carol Dayton, the neighbor’s wife, who also had two small children, went to New York, from where, having eluded FBI surveillance, he headed to Arizona (the route was established later) and from there, as “the Dayton couple ", they proceeded to Mexico. Then their trail, like Barra’s, was lost.
It is appropriate to mention another friend of Julius, Morton Sobell. Sobell, who worked in New York at a tech firm, asked for a leave of absence (on the very day of Greenglass's arrest) - and immediately went to Mexico with his wife and two children, and after arriving there, he tried to leave with his family for Europe. In this case, the FBI was on alert: Sobell was “kidnapped” in Mexico and brought to the United States as an accomplice of the Rosenbergs. There were no grounds for suspicion other than his nervousness and hasty departure - but he was nevertheless tried and sentenced to 30 years (!), despite the complete lack of material evidence of espionage. Sobell served 17 years.
The American press later reported that after the death of “Staros”-Sarant, his widow (Carol Dayton - “Anna”) and one of their sons born in the USSR met in 1982 in Czechoslovakia with their American relatives, and her “ American son...
Is there any reason to consider Barr and Sarant to be Soviet spies - or was it a case when the USSR simply managed to get good, maybe even outstanding specialists? At the same time, one of them decided for himself a “personal issue” - he left for the woman he loved, while both Sarant and Carol Dayton left their little children without hope of seeing them again. There is no evidence of the espionage activities of Sarant and Barr, and that they had reason to fear then for their freedom and life (connection with the Rosenbergs!) can be seen in the example of Sobell.
In Sing Sing Prison, Julius, placed on death row, was sometimes allowed to play chess with another prisoner named Tartakow, with whom he only talked. This prisoner regularly reported to the FBI on the content of the conversations, and he reported the following phrase, allegedly uttered by Julius: “Sarant was one of “my guys”.” But can we trust this Tartakow, who hoped to save his own prison term by active “collaboration”?
Here's another addition to this story. In 1995, D. Granin’s novel entitled “Flight to Russia” was published. The main characters in it were “Joseph Brook” and “Andrei Georgievich Kartos”, and the main outline of their American life coincided with the events of the life path of Barr and Sarant. When describing, however, the Czechoslovak and Soviet periods, the author gave free rein to his imagination and depicted such “espionage passions” that the king of this genre, John Le Carré himself, could have envied. The narration begins in the first person, this gives it an element of trust, but here and there the author has problems with authenticity. He reports, for example, that Klaus Fuchs, a real person, "was sentenced to life imprisonment and was exchanged for a Soviet spy." In fact, Fuchs was given 14 years, which was the maximum sentence under British law for wartime espionage for an ally; Fuchs served about 10 years, after which he was released. In short, the result was an “anti-Soviet novel” of average quality, but it came out when only the lazy did not “trample” everything Soviet. It's a shame - what material was at hand!
But I still liked two things there: how Kartos unexpectedly and wittily used Russian sayings (a lively detail: maybe Granin really knew him - and noted this?) and the assessment of the Rosenberg trial, which the author put into the mouth of a certain Soviet scientist: “The CIA has uncovered its communist spy ring. Thus, it explained that the Russians themselves could not do anything, the Americans made the bomb, and the communists stole it for the Russians. The CIA exposed the spies. Glory to the CIA! Ours created a huge network overseas, obtained secrets for our physicists, and they did it. Glory to the security officers! Without them, the bomb would not have existed; the security officers saved our country and the whole world from atomic blackmail. The Rosenbergs, as spies, are beneficial to both.”
My advice to the inquisitive: you should not determine the “circle of culprits” of this process and the nature of their guilt based on the notes of various figures close to the GRU and KGB that appeared in the post-Soviet era - most of them, for reasons not far from those given by the hero of D. Granin’s novel, are ready to be recorded as Soviet spies of anyone: a high-ranking employee of the American State Department A. Hiss, and the closest friend of President F. Roosevelt Harry Hopkins, and many others. And Julius Rosenberg himself became a spy for them back in 1938, when he was a 21-year-old student...
And it’s a pity for the young idealists Julius and Ethel, devoted to the idea of justice, naive and persistent...
On June 19, 1953, the death sentence imposed on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg by the US Supreme Court on charges of atomic espionage for the USSR was carried out in Sing Sing Prison (New York). The couple was executed despite a widespread campaign of protest against the cruelty of the sentence in the United States and abroad.
Beginning of work
Julius Rosenberg was born in New York on May 12, 1918, his family once immigrated to America from Russia. In 1939, he graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering. His wife, Ethel Rosenberg (maiden name Greenglass), is also from New York. Only her father was from Russia; Ethel’s mother was a native of Austria. The family was disliked by the American government, if only because they both held communist views. While still at university, the couple attended communist meetings, where they met.
Already by that time, American intelligence agencies considered citizen Ethel Greenglass unreliable. In 1939, Julius and Ethel married and had two children, Robert and Michael. And in 1942, both spouses joined the Communist Party, thus earning themselves the stigma of an unreliable family. Julius Rosenberg began working for the intelligence service of the Soviet Union in 1940, and a little later it was he who recruited new agents - his wife’s brother David, along with his wife Ruth, and Ethel herself. Julius himself worked as an electrical engineer, and his wife was a secretary, while being a talented actress and singer.
According to the prosecution, the whole crime was as follows: American Army Sergeant David Greenglass (Ethel's brother) gave the Rosenbergs drawings of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, as well as reports on his work at the Los Alamos nuclear center, where he worked mechanic. These valuable materials were allegedly transferred through Harry Gold, a liaison who also worked for Soviet intelligence.
In fact, there are still active disputes over the materials that were transferred to the Rosenbergs. Thus, the drawing was just a poorly drawn detail of an atomic bomb, which many physicists laughed at because it was of no real value. The US National Security Agency actively studied transcripts of messages transmitted by agents to the Soviet Union.
First betrayal
In 1943, Rosenberg began dating Alexander Feklisov, the Soviet intelligence resident in the United States. It was during these meetings that Julius passed on classified information about American military weapons. It was Alexander Feklisov who was given information about the bombs dropped on Nagasaki, at the production plant of which Ethel’s brother David Greenglass worked. In 1950, American intelligence became aware of Klaus Fuchs, a British scientist who several years ago moved to America, namely to Los Angeles. It was during Fuchs' interrogation that America's National Security Agency received vital information about the Soviet Union's intelligence operation. Fuchs, unable to withstand the pressure, spoke about his connection with Harry Gold, who was a signalman.
During interrogation, Gold also spoke about all his actions in favor of Soviet intelligence. This is exactly how the NSA found David Greenglass, although he turned out to be less accommodating than previous spies. During interrogations, Greenglass did not answer questions and generally simply remained silent. But the investigation, in order to force David to talk, also arrested his wife Ruth. At that time, the Greenglass couple had two children, who were left completely alone after the arrest of their wife. Fear for their fate, as well as concern for his wife, influenced David's decision; he told everything about his sister Ethel and her husband Julius. From his testimony it followed that it was Julius who recruited him into the spy network of the Soviet Union, David also said that he transferred secret drawings and diagrams to the Rosenberg family that were related to the production of atomic bombs. His sister Ethel acted as a secretary; she typed all the secret information received on a typewriter, and after that Julius Rosenberg passed on all the information received to Soviet intelligence.
Charge and arrest
Following the testimony of David Greenglass, on July 17, 1950, Julius Rosenberg was arrested in his own home. Julius' wife Ethel was arrested a month later, on August 11, 1950. Ethel was arrested in the courtroom after she, following her husband's example, refused to testify. The trial began on March 6, 1951, with Ethel and Julius completely denying and refusing to accept the testimony of David Greeglass. To make a decision in the case, a jury trial was held; on March 28, they unanimously found all three defendants in the case guilty. And on April 5, the couple was sentenced to death by Judge Irving Kaufman.
This was the first time in American history that civilians accused of espionage were sentenced to death. Typically, such a verdict must be personally approved by the President of the United States, but Harry Truman avoided making a decision, he explained this by the fact that his term of office would expire in the near future and the decision would have to be made by the new President of America. As a result, the death sentence for the Rosenberg spouses was signed by the new president, Dwight Eisenhower, who was adamant in his decision, despite the violent reaction of the public. He justified his decision with the following words: “The crime of which the Rosenbergs were found guilty is much worse than the murder of another citizen... This is a malicious betrayal of an entire nation, which could well have resulted in the death of many, many innocent citizens.”
However, formally there was no direct evidence of the spouses’ guilt, which means that the decision to find them guilty was unlawful. There were only two pieces of evidence in the case: a cookie box, on the back of which some contacts were written, as well as a drawing of Greenglass, his so-called drawings. Most physicists did not take these drawings seriously. And physicist Philip Morrison, who himself took part in the development of the Manhattan Project atomic bomb, called Greenglass's drawing only a "crude caricature" that could not be valuable for intelligence.
Death Sentence
During the death sentence, the entire world press wrote: “This death penalty has smeared the whole country with blood.” Julius and Ethel awaited the entry into force of the sentence in the Sing Sing federal prison. The spouses did not give up, they filed appeals in court, challenged the court decision, and filed petitions to defer the sentence, which, however, were immediately rejected. Many representatives of the world community came to the defense of the Rosenberg spouses, among whom were such famous personalities as the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein; the Pope also opposed the death penalty.
In France, the Rosenbergs were protected by President Charles de Gaulle. Famous writers Martin Du Gard and Thomas Mann also protested. Numerous demonstrations were held, in which the couple's sons Michael and Robert participated, they walked with posters, the inscription on which read: “Don't kill our dad and mom!” But on June 18, despite all the protests, the final verdict was pronounced, which had to be carried out immediately. But in order to prevent the execution from taking place on Shabbat (Saturday, a holy day for Jews), it was moved to eight o’clock in the evening, when, according to Jewish traditions, Sunday had already arrived. The execution was to take place in the electric chair; next to the spouses was an agent of the US intelligence service, next to him there was a telephone. The spouses were promised that as soon as they named at least one name, at least one organization was handed over, the execution would be immediately cancelled. But Ethel and Julius remained adamant even in the face of death. By their action they saved the life of one of the intelligence officers, Henry Steingart, who lived a long life.
After Julius's death, Ethel was also asked to give a name, reminding her that she could stay with two children without leaving them orphans. However, she also refused to reveal the name of the “accomplice,” saying that she did not know any names and did not plead guilty to espionage. Julius was killed after the first start of the current, and Ethel's heart still continued to beat. Only after the second electrical discharge did she die.
On July 21, 1953, the Rosenberg couple were buried. To this day, many historians and lawyers believe that the case was fabricated. And David Greenglass, sentenced to only a few years in prison, later said that he was in collusion with the prosecutor's office and testified in order to mitigate his sentence.
On June 19, 1953, in the cell at Sing Sing Federal Prison, where she was kept Ethel Rosenberg, the prison rabbi entered.
— Julius“dead,” he turned to the woman, “but you can still be saved.” Just say any name. Think about it, you are leaving your sons orphans! “I don’t have any names,” the woman answered, “I’m innocent.” I'm ready to die.
When this small and fragile woman was put in the electric chair, even the seasoned jailers' hearts sank. The first start of the current could not kill Ethel Rosenberg; she was killed only on the second attempt.
“They handed the tyrant Stalin an atomic bomb”
The execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was the only time such a penalty was applied to civilians for espionage during the Cold War.
Even today in the United States they do not like to talk about the case of the Rosenberg spouses, limiting themselves to remarks like “They handed the tyrant Stalin atomic bomb."
At the beginning of September 1949, on the table US President Harry Truman an intelligence report. It reported that analysis of air samples from the Kamchatka region showed the presence of isotopes in them, indicating an atomic bomb test in the USSR.
It was a shock for America. Analysts convinced the American leadership that at least in the next 5-6 years the Soviets would not have their own “atomic baton”.
The Americans were confident that the Russians were able to significantly reduce the time it took to create atomic weapons thanks to the work of their intelligence.
The US intelligence services knew that Soviet intelligence was trying to get close to the carriers of American atomic secrets even before the first test of the Soviet atomic bomb. But the Americans did not know how far the Soviet residency was able to advance.
Confessions of Mr. Greenglass
In May 1950 he was arrested Harry Gold, who worked for many years for Soviet intelligence as a liaison. By the time of his arrest, Moscow no longer worked with Goldom, since he had repeatedly grossly violated security standards.
Gold admitted his guilt and pointed to David Greenglass as a person who is also a liaison for Soviet intelligence.
Greenglass remained stubbornly silent during interrogations, and then the investigators changed their tactics. Greeglass's wife was also sent to prison. Ruth. David was made to understand that his two young children would most likely remain orphans, never see their father and mother, and would be raised either in an orphanage or in a foster family.
This tactic worked. David Greenglass admitted guilt and said that his sister Ethel and her husband Julius Rosenberg involved him in espionage.
Julius was arrested on July 17, 1950. Ethel was sent to prison in August 1950 after she refused to answer grand jury questions, citing the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution.
Convinced communists
The Rosenberg couple, from the point of view of the mood that reigned in the United States in the early 1950s, were ideal candidates for spies.
Julius was born in New York in 1918 to Russian immigrants. While studying at the university, he joined a local communist circle, where he met Ethel Greenglass. The girl was three years older than Julius, but this did not stop Rosenberg from falling in love with her. In 1939 they got married.
Common views and sympathy for the Soviet Union led the couple to the ranks of the Communist Party of the USA. In 1942, at the height of the war, the American authorities somewhat softened their attitude towards the communists, so such an act was not something out of the ordinary.
But after the end of World War II the situation changed dramatically. America began to perceive yesterday's ally as a future enemy in a new war, and communists and sympathizers as agents of the enemy.
Despite everything, the Rosenbergs did not give up their views.
Help Moscow from the bottom of my heart
But communist views and working for foreign intelligence are still different things. The Rosenbergs categorically denied all accusations. The evidence from the investigation was mainly based on the testimony of David Greenglass, and this was clearly not enough for a harsh sentence.
For several decades, the Soviet Union insisted that the Rosenbergs had nothing to do with Soviet intelligence. It was only in the early 1990s that it became known that Julius Rosenberg had been working for the Soviet Union since the early 1940s. He worked for the idea, relying on the same left-wing idealists who were ready to help the first state of workers and peasants for free.
Rosenberg was in touch with Alexander Feklisov, a Soviet foreign intelligence officer who in 1996 became one of those who was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation for his work on the “atomic project.”
There is no doubt that Julius not only transferred a large number of military secrets to the Soviet Union, but also showed considerable organizational skills, creating a whole network of like-minded people.
But did he really reveal America's "atomic secret"?
The trouble with evidence
Not only Russian, but also American researchers seriously doubt this. Julius Rosenberg was a talented electrical engineer, but did not understand atomic physics. Rosenberg’s source of information on the “atomic project” was Greenglass, who worked as a mechanic at an enterprise that was part of the American atomic bomb production system.
But when the diagrams and drawings that Greenglass prepared and handed over to Rosenberg were shown to American physicists working on the “atomic project,” the scientists called them a “cartoon,” explaining that they did not contain key things without which it was impossible to reveal the secret of atomic weapons.
And the situation with the evidence of Ethel Rosenberg’s guilt is no longer at all important. She was a professional typist, and, according to investigators, she typed secret documents. However, there is no evidence that Julius’s wife could have been privy to the secrets of the atomic bomb. Some historians believe that her participation in work for Soviet intelligence was limited only to moral support for her husband.
Ethel Rosenberg. Source: Public Domain
“It was necessary to explain to all those dissatisfied that the government now has the right to finish them off”
But on April 5, 1951 Judge Irving Kaufman, relying on the jury's guilty verdict, sentenced both spouses to death.
“I think that what you did, the fact that you handed the Russians an atomic bomb several years before, according to the predictions of our best scientists, they could bring it to condition on their own, entailed, from my point of view, communist aggression in Korea,” the judge said.
“I am not surprised by the verdict - the government so needed someone who would answer for all its miscalculations: both for the death of our soldiers in Korea, and for the general poverty caused by excessive defense spending. Again, it was necessary to explain to all those dissatisfied that the government now has the right to finish them off. It seems that we are destined to become the first victims of American fascism,” said Julius Rosenberg in his last word.
The death sentence was supposed to be approved by President Harry Truman, but he unexpectedly avoided this, leaving the right to put an end to the case to the next occupant of the White House.
“The thought of millions of dead is sad”
Truman's action extended the lives of Julius and Ethel. But new President Dwight Eisenhower signed the verdict, noting: “The execution of two people is a sad and difficult matter, but even more terrible and sad is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths can be directly attributed to what these spies did. I will not interfere in this matter...”
What kind of dead was Eisenhower talking about? Could it be the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroyed by atomic bombings on the orders of Harry Truman? Or about the millions of Soviet people who were supposed to be destroyed by 300 atomic bombs dropped on 100 Soviet cities as part of the Dropshot plan approved in 1949 by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff?
No, Eisenhower was talking about the unfortunate Americans whom the Rosenbergs allegedly doomed to death from Stalin's atomic bombs.
Decades pass, but nothing changes - the bombings carried out by the US military are considered a “struggle for democracy”, and a possible attack on resistance to the US military is considered an incredible atrocity.
What prevented the stubbornness of the Rosenberg couple
Protests from the world community, petitions from Nobel Prize laureates and even the Pope did not help - the sentence was carried out.
The rest of those arrested received long prison sentences. David Greenglass was released after ten years, Harry Gold, sentenced to 30 years, was released after serving half of his sentence.
Until the last moment, the Rosenberg spouses were offered a deal - they had to give up the names of their “accomplices.” The intelligence services were interested in people from the leadership of the Communist Party of the USA. Julius and Ethel didn’t even need to know them by sight - the investigators simply offered to point their finger at an already prepared list. Then they promised to replace the death penalty with imprisonment.
Perhaps the grandiose “tribunal over communism” was supposed to begin with the testimony of the Rosenberg spouses in the United States.
But Julius and Ethel, without admitting to anything and without betraying anyone, broke this game.
1953 - US President Dwight Eisenhower, despite a powerful international campaign that included physicist Albert Einstein, writer Thomas Mann and Pope Pius XII, rejected the Rosenbergs' final pardon request.
On June 19 they were executed. However, on August 22, 1966, an examination in the United States showed that the evidence of guilt of the Rosenberg spouses, executed for spying for the USSR, was fake.
Today in our photo collection is the story of the only civilians executed in the United States for espionage during the Cold War. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Greenglass (pictured center) met at Hebrew school and married in 1939 after Julius graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering. They are believed to have been active in the Communist Party USA from a young age.
Photo: AP/Jacob Harris
Julius Rosenberg worked for Soviet intelligence since the early 1940s. He recruited his wife Ethel, her brother David Greenglass (pictured) and his wife Ruth. Greenglass, a US Army sergeant, was a mechanic at the Los Alamos nuclear center and passed on valuable information through Soviet intelligence liaison Harry Gold. US intelligence agencies have established that Greenglass gave Rosenberg working drawings of the bomb dropped on Nagasaki and a 12-page report on his work at Los Alamos
Photo: U.S. National Archives and Record Administration
In February 1950, after the failure of the Soviet intelligence network as a result of the NSA deciphering the Soviet code as part of the Venona project, theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs, the main atomic intelligence officer of the USSR, was arrested in England. Fuchs betrayed Harry Gold, who, in turn, admitted that he was a liaison for Soviet intelligence and betrayed David Greenglass. And Greenglass betrayed the Rosenbergs
In the photo: arrested Ethel Rosenberg Photo: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, unlike the others arrested in the case of espionage for the USSR, refused to admit their guilt and stated that their arrest was an anti-communist and anti-Semitic provocation. Allegations about the anti-Semitic background of the Rosenberg trial, widely disseminated by the Soviet side, did not find a response from the world community, since in the high-profile espionage trial both the chief judge Kaufman and the state prosecutor Saipol were Jews
Photo: AP
At the trial, opened in New York on March 6, 1951, the Rosenbergs were charged with “pre-planned conspiracy with accomplices to provide the Soviet Union with information and weapons that it could use to destroy us.” On April 5, 1951, the defendants were sentenced to death
In the photo: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the photo was taken immediately after the verdict.
Photo: Roger Higgins/Library of Congress
Despite a strong international campaign for clemency for the Rosenbergs, which included physicist Albert Einstein, writer Thomas Mann and Pope Pius XII, seven pardon requests were rejected. US President Dwight Eisenhower said: “The execution of two men is a sad and painful matter, but even more terrible and sad is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths can be directly attributed to what these spies did. I won't interfere in this matter."
Photo: A rally organized by communists at the Palais des Sports in Paris on February 18, 1953, to protest the death sentence of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
Photo: AP/Gerard Yvon Cheynet
On June 19, 1951, in Sing Sing Prison, the death sentence of the Federal District Court of New York imposed on Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for spying for the USSR was carried out. The couple were executed in the electric chair: they received a shock of 2700 volts. 
Photo: AP
The text of the verdict to the Rosenberg spouses said: “The espionage that we heard about in this room (the courtroom - Kommersant’s note) is a vile and dirty job, no matter how idealists it was done... Your crime is a much worse act, than murder. You handed over the atomic bomb to the Soviets, and this alone predetermined the aggression of the Communists in Korea." 
Photo: Sophie Rosenberg with her grandchildren Robert and Michael during a demonstration organized at the White House in Washington asking for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, June 14, 1953
Photo: AP
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were the only civilians executed in the United States for espionage during the Cold War.
Photo: AP
Decades later, declassified Project Venona materials have proven Julius Rosenberg's involvement in espionage, but questions about his guilt in the specific crimes for which he was convicted, as well as Ethel's guilt, remain unclear. The full list of information conveyed by Julius Rosenberg continues to remain secret. Photo: Rosenberg's sons Robert (left) and Michael read a newspaper dated June 18, 1953 with the headline "Spies got another day", which states that the US Supreme Court extended life by one day to their parents. On the day of the Rosenbergs' execution, the boys were at the home of their parents' friends in New Jersey. 
Photo: AP/Daily News
It is believed that the main information provided by the so-called Rosenberg group under the leadership of Julius Rosenberg concerned chemistry and radar. However, the matter was blown out of proportion by both the American and Soviet sides due to the communist beliefs of the spouses
Pictured: The Rosenberg sons, Robert (left) and Michael, grew up to teach in Springfield (February 1974) Photo: AP/Jerry Mosey
Alexander Feklisov pays his last respects to the Rosenberg spouses (photo taken in 1997)
Photo from the book "Atomic Affairs".
They were intended to be executed on Friday 10 minutes before the onset of Saturday according to the Jewish calendar. They were Jews, and the tradition of the American judicial system, even at the point of death of prisoners, requires respect for the laws of their faith. But no matter how much the executioners rushed, the condemned sat in the electric chair only on Saturday evening, when, according to the ideas of the Jews, Sunday had already arrived.
Today, few doubt that the spouses Julius (Julius) and Ethel Rosenberg, executed on June 21, 1953, worked for Soviet intelligence. And yet, it is highly doubtful that the Rosenbergs, who knew nothing about nuclear physics, could find out and understand the “secrets” that shortened the path for Moscow to mastering nuclear weapons. Most likely, the spouses were deliberately set up to cover up the true “atomic spies.”
FAITH IN A BRIGHT FUTURE
Apparently, during the era of the so-called McCarthyism, which dominated the United States in the early 50s of the last century, the authorities could not forgive Ethel and Julius for their love for the Soviet Union and belief in communist ideals.
And today it is difficult to understand why, more than half a century ago, the Supreme Court of democratic America sent to the electric chair a man and a woman, a husband and a wife, whose specific guilt has still not been proven.
Julius was born in 1918 in New York. While studying at the university, he attended communist meetings, where he met Ethel Greenglass, who was three years older than him. By that time, Ethel was considered politically unreliable. She often found herself among the instigators of strikes and organizers of political demonstrations. Ethel openly demanded improved working conditions and increased wages for workers and employees. In the documentary about the Rosenbergs, which was filmed by their granddaughter Evie Meeropol, there is an episode in which one of the members of the American Communist Party, now a man of very respectable age, admits: “In the 30s, everyone who had a head on their shoulders and a warm heart “Whoever wanted a better life for the working people could not help but join the communists.”
Ethel and Julius married in the summer of 1939, and on September 1, World War II began. Julius volunteered for the American army. He served in the Signal Corps. The war became a turning point in the life of the Rosenbergs. They believed in the Soviet Union, dreamed of a socialist state without exploitation of man by man, without discrimination based on race and nationality. The Rosenbergs knew nothing about the bloody Stalinist purges, the lawlessness of the Soviet security services, or the Gulag, which crushed millions of human lives.
RESIDENT GOT IN CONTACT
At the beginning of 1943, Julius Rosenberg contacted the resident of Soviet intelligence in the United States, Alexander Feklisov. Regular meetings began, during which the American passed on secret information regarding equipping the American army with the latest weapons at that time. Julius could have received information about atomic weapons from David Greenglass, his wife’s younger brother, who worked at the plant where bombs had already been tested in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were produced.
The Rosenbergs’ collaboration with the Soviet station could have forever remained a secret to the FBI if, in 1949, a Soviet intelligence officer who fled to the West had not spoken about his connections with the British scientist Klaus Fuchs, who moved to Los Angeles. Then the “matchbox effect” happened. Fuchs handed over his contact Harry Gold, who led American counterintelligence agents to David Greenglass, who remained silent for a long time during interrogations. To force Ethel Rosenberg's brother to testify, his wife Ruth was arrested and their two young children were left unattended. Fear for the fate of the children broke David, and he testified against his sister and her husband.
He told investigators that Julius and Ethel involved him in a spy ring. According to David, he gave his brother-in-law and sister various diagrams, diagrams and drawings related to the production of atomic weapons. Ethel typed secret information on a typewriter, and Julius passed it on to the residents of Soviet intelligence.
The Rosenberg couple were arrested, but during interrogation they rejected all of David Greenglass's testimony. However, the trial, which began on March 6, 1951, did not believe them, but David. On March 28, the jury found them guilty. After a week of deliberation, on April 5 of the same year, Judge Irving Kaufman (1910–1992) announced the death sentence to the Rosenberg spouses, which had to be approved by the President of the United States. However, the then 33rd President Harry Truman, citing the fact that his term of office was expiring, avoided making a decision. The 34th American President, Dwight Eisenhower, who soon took his post, rejected all petitions and approved the death sentence of the Rosenbergs. Explaining his decision, Eisenhower said: “The crime of which the Rosenbergs have been found guilty is far worse than the murder of another citizen... It is a gross betrayal of an entire nation, which could well have resulted in the death of many, many innocent citizens.”
However, from a legal point of view, the recognition of the Rosenberg couple as guilty was not legal. After all, the majority of physicists who were familiar with the drawings that came from David Greenglass to the “atomic spies” ridiculed them. Philip Morrison, one of the developers of the Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bomb, called the Greenglass blueprints "a crude caricature... full of errors and lacking the detail necessary to understand and reproduce it."
WAITING FOR DEATH
The Rosenbergs were awaiting execution at the Sing Sing federal prison. They didn't give up. Appeals followed one after another. Various public and political organizations spoke out in support of the convicts. Such world celebrities as Albert Einstein and Jean-Paul Sartre, the Pope, the head of the Party of the French People, the future President of France Charles de Gaulle, writers Thomas Mann, Francois Mauriac, Martin Du Gard called for mercy towards the Rosenbergs. The young sons of those sentenced to death also took part in numerous demonstrations. They carried shields with the words: “Don’t kill our dad and mom!”
According to Avey Meeropol's version in the film, her great-grandmother Tasi Greenglass sided with her son David and "felt anger toward her daughter for putting her children in mortal danger." Moreover, all members of the Greenglass family were angry with Ethel, who got involved in the “spy story.”
David Greenglass was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was released after 10 years. The fate of his sister and brother-in-law was decided on Friday, June 18, 1953. Appeals and protests did not help. The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence for the couple and ordered it to be carried out on the same day, at 11 pm. But in order “not to desecrate the coming Sabbath,” the time of execution was moved to 8 o’clock in the evening the next day, when, according to Jewish law, Sunday was already coming.
THEY PREFERRED DEATH TO BETRAYAL
Julius was the first to sit in the electric chair. Henry Steingart, now 105 and a longtime resident of a nursing home, tearfully told Avey Meeropol that he owed his life to the Rosenbergs. To save themselves from execution, they were offered a “simple way” - to choose the name of an “accomplice” from a list of 25 active members of the American Communist Party. Henry was also on this list. He is still convinced that if the couple had pointed him out, they would have doomed him to the inevitable death penalty.
Evie Meeropol met with the widow of the prison rabbi Erwin Kuslov, who remained with his fellow believers and fellow tribesmen until the last hour. According to the story of Kuslov's widow, after Julius was executed, her husband came to Ethel and said: “Julius is dead. Remember that you are leaving two of your children orphans in this world. Give one name, any name, even a fictitious one, and it will save you.” Ethel’s answer was categorical: “I don’t have any names. I am not guilty of the crime of which I am accused. I'm ready to die."
Ethel Rosenberg was put in the electric chair. She was thin and small, and the electrodes were short. The first start of the current did not kill her - her heart continued to beat. Only the second turning on of the switch stopped this woman’s torment forever.
LOVE UNTIL THE LAST BREATH
Many American Jews, fearing accusations of disloyalty to the state, turned away from the Rosenbergs. The Jewish cemetery in New York refused to bury the executed spouses. With great difficulty, the family, whose members were members of the Rosenberg Rescue Commission, managed to find a place in one of the small cemeteries. And even then, at first, the cemetery management believed that the victims of the car accident would be buried. When more than 10 thousand people came to the funeral ceremony of the executed spouses and it became obvious to everyone who was being buried, no one decided to cancel the burial. The atheist Rosenbergs were buried according to religious rites.
Avey Meeropol says her grandmother was long portrayed in the American press as "an insensitive and heartless woman who loved the Soviet Union more than her children." But the Rosenbergs’ granddaughter categorically disagrees with this point of view. She believes that Ethel Rosenberg “died not in the name of the Soviet Union, but because of devotion to her husband, in whom she saw a friend and loved one.” Evie is convinced that her “grandparents were a sophisticated and loving couple and they were together until the end, because otherwise their grown children would not have forgiven them for their betrayal of each other.”
Their prison correspondence also testifies to the touching attitude of the Rosenberg spouses towards each other. Julius wrote to Ethel: “My dear... Tears come to my eyes as I try to pour out my feelings on paper. I can only say that life had meaning because you were next to me... All the dirt, the heap of lies and slander of this grotesque political staging not only did not break us, but, on the contrary, instilled in us the determination to hold fast until we completely justified... I hug you tenderly and love you..."
“Dear Julie,” Ethel wrote to her husband, “after our date, you, of course, experience the same torment as I do. And yet, what a wonderful reward just to be together! Do you know how madly in love I am with you?..”
They, of course, could not live without a friend.
