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Part II- Ethel, Julius, their friends, and the Grand Jury
Aug 27, 2009

I ended my last post (Aug 25) by posing a question about why the Grand Jury investigating my parents’ case was so interested in Helene Elitcher’s recollection of the social lives of my parents and their friends: what did this have to do with stealing the secret of the atomic bomb?

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Ethel, Julius, their friends, and the Grand Jury
Aug 25, 2009

On September 11th, 2008 my email inbox was flooded with files containing almost 1000 pages from the National Security Archive. This material was the long-awaited release of the testimony of 43 of the 46 witnesses subpoenaed by the Grand Jury that investigated my parents’ case.

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Unintended Consequences
Aug 18, 2009

I recently was contacted by Lori Styler who is working on a documentary film entitled Dreamers and Fighters, about the New York City teacher purges during the McCarthy period. I’d been part of a panel entitled “Children of the Blacklist” at a conference some years earlier commemorating the New York Teachers Union. Lori remembered my participation and asked if I would contribute a short statement to the website they are building to promote the film: www.DreamersandFighters.com.

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19 Years!
Aug 11, 2009

Monday, September 4th, 1990 was the first day I spent as the Executive Director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children. As September 4th approaches each year, I find myself reflecting on one of the biggest turning points of my life.

At the time it seemed like a leap into the unknown. And it also felt like a terrifying responsibility. A small group of financial backers, a portion of whom were also friends had placed their faith in my ability to build a progressive public foundation that would provide for the educational and emotional needs of the children of targeted activists.

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David & Emily Alman tell their story
Aug 04, 2009

I was too young to remember the first time I met David and Emily Alman, but I know that by the time I was five years old they were two of my favorite people. Emily died in 2004 at the age of 86, after a distinguished career that led her first to Chair the Sociology Department at Douglass College of Rutgers University, before “retiring” to practice law for 25 more years. David, a novelist, businessman and social activist is still with us at 91.

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