58 years later, Rosenberg spy case gets another look

[IndianaGreen]

Source: CNN

58 years later, Rosenberg spy case gets another look

updated 5:28 p.m. EDT, Wed July 23, 2008

By Ronni Berke
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- After 58 years, historians and journalists will have a chance to examine the secret grand jury testimony of witnesses in the espionage case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

The couple was investigated in 1950, tried in 1951 for conspiracy to commit espionage and convicted and sentenced to death in 1953.

Cold War scholars are hoping the grand jury transcripts will shed light on some nagging questions about the case: primarily, just how strong the case was against Ethel Rosenberg.

The National Security Archive, the American Historical Association, the Georgetown University Law Center and others have petitioned to have the transcripts of 46 witnesses released to the public.

In an unusual move, federal authorities have said that because of the historic significance of the case, they do not oppose releasing the transcripts of testimony from witnesses who have died or who do not object to their release.

Of the 46 grand jury witnesses, 36 are deceased or do not object to releasing the transcripts. Three others are thought to have died; four have not been found.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/23/rosenberg.hearing/index.html

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Related story posted yesterday:

Rosenberg evidence kept secret
Source: BBC News

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3405652&mesg_id=3405652

[aquart]

1. My dad worked for him during the war. Swore he was innocent.

Said that he loved this country but made powerful enemies among the military brass for not approving dangerous items intended for our soldiers during the war.

[Bozita]

2. more ... please!

[aquart]

7. I know very little.

My sister remembers a bit more because my father talked about it fairly often. She says the unit of inspectors they worked in (which could readily be identified from Rosenberg's work history, I would assume) was disbanded and the people fired or transferred...but whether that was punishment or simply the end of the war, I don't know.

Both my parents were inspectors so I get confused between their stories. I recall one item that was rejected because it was shiny...but there were many things they tried to sell our government that would have gotten our men killed. During World War II, we had inspectors looking at all of it...and they were people with friends and relatives off fighting. This war? We didn't inspect a damn thing.

Rosenberg had my father's respect until the day he died at the age of 82. Understand, I found a copy of Das Kapital with a brown paper cover in the back of my father's closet after he died. My mother told me there were other books...but during the 50s they put those books in a suitcase, drove out to a friend's farm in Connecticut, dug a hole and buried the suitcase of dangerous books. Things were that bad back then.

One reason I know so little is that my family never said a word about any of this, or my grandfather's arrest by the FBI, my uncle's blacklisting, until after I was 18 and pretty much out of the house and estranged from my dad.

[Bozita]

9. Thank you.

Very interesting.

Actually fascinating, to tell the truth.

[Hydra]

3. I saw something on the History Channel about the real spy

Amazing that the dope was working in Los Alamos and leaked the whole thing to the USSR believing it would bring some sort of World Nuclear Balance.

The road to hell truly IS paved with good intentions.

[suston96]

5. I saw that too. He was never prosecuted. Theodore Hall.......

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2904_venona.html

[cascadiance]

4. Marc Grossman, are you paying attention? They likely did LESS than you did!

And they DIED for their actions!

[IndianaGreen]

8. Amerika rejoiced at frying two Jews!

Quite frankly, it was rampant anti-Semitism (which was always connected to anti-Soviet and anti-Socialist propaganda) that led a hysterical and paranoid nation to rejoice at the execution of two Jews. The ruling class knew that Ethel Rosenberg was completely innocent an unaware of what was going on. This innocent woman was sent to the gallows to blackmail Julius into giving names.

Today the Rosenbergs would have been waterboarded at Guantanamo concentration camp in the hopes they would give names. It didn't matter whether the names given were of spies or of innocent citizens.

[David__77]

6. Even if they weren't innocent of the charges, they didn't deserve to be punished.

Nuclear balance between the two alliances helped maintain world peace for four decades. Vietnam and Korea were but blips on the map compared with what could have been, had the US warmaniacs felt unconstrained by Soviet response.