Press Coverage [1]
To the editor:
I am writing to applaud reporter James Lowe for his Sept. 25 stories [3] on the Rosenberg Fund for Children's upcoming 20th Anniversary Gala [4] in Northampton, featuring Ray Levasseur as keynote speaker.
As one of the organizers of Levasseur's thwarted lecture [5] at the University of Massachusetts last fall, I am pleased that Valley residents denied the opportunity last year will have a chance to hear one of New England's most articulate voices of political dissent.
As a graduate student studying U.S. social movements and state repression in the UMass Department of History, I am also glad that the gala will provide attendees with a glimpse into a half-century of political history that they are unlikely to encounter elsewhere. As we saw last fall, press coverage of radicals like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Ray Levasseur has tended to be overwhelmingly negative, with politically loaded terms like "communist" and "terrorist" obscuring these activists' humanity, idealism and devotion to their children.
Lowe's recent articles and the upcoming RFC Gala offer welcome opportunities for deeper reflection on the lives of targeted activists and their families.
Daniel Chard
Amherst
By James Lowe, staff writer
Saturday, September 25, 2010
NORTHAMPTON - When militant activist Raymond Luc Levasseur was locked up in some of the country's highest-security prisons, the Easthampton-based Rosenberg Fund for Children helped pay for his three daughters to attend counseling and go to summer camp.
The girls were some of the earliest beneficiaries of the Rosenberg Fund. So it is fitting that when the fund celebrates its 20th anniversary next month Levasseur, a former member of a radical group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings three decades ago, will be keynote speaker. The gala event will be Oct. 17 at the Northampton Center for the Arts from 4 to 7 p.m.
Follow the link for the rest of the story...
By James Lowe, staff writer
Saturday, September 25, 2010
NORTHAMPTON - Protests and parole restrictions thwarted Raymond Luc Levasseur's last planned visit to the Pioneer Valley, but won't prevent his next.
Released from parole in March, Levasseur now is free to travel whenever and wherever he wants.
Levasseur and organizers of the Rosenberg Fund for Children 20th anniversary gala, which he will keynote next month, said they don't anticipate protests this time.
Follow the link to learn more...
viernes, 09 de julio de 2010 15:55, Teresa Bouza
Washington, 9 jul (EFE).- Robert Meeropol tenía seis años cuando sus padres fueron ejecutados por entregar, supuestamente, el secreto de la bomba atómica a la entonces Unión Soviética, una experiencia que revive estos días al pensar en los niños de los espías canjeados con Moscú... Más aquí: http://noticias.latino.msn.com/politica/articulos.aspx?cp-documentid=24829124 [8]
Ricardo Lourenço, correspondente nos EUA (www.expresso.pt [10])
21:44 Sexta feira, 16 de Julho de 2010
Os espiões russos expulsos dos EUA na semana passada ficarão afastados dos filhos, em alguns casos, para sempre. Esta semana, o Expresso apresenta na edição impressa os primeiros passos destas crianças na sua nova vida... Mais: http://aeiou.expresso.pt/filhos-dos-espioes-russos-deixados-para-tras=f594232 [9]
July 8, 2010 radio interview with Robert Meeropol on BBC Newshour, regarding what his experience was like when his parents were arrested in the 1950's, and what he thinks the experience might be like for the children of the recently-deported Russian "spy ring." Hear the interview at the 26:30 mark at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p008gs0k [11].
The ten agents who admitted gathering intelligence for Russia have arrived back in Moscow after being deported from the US, but what is the fate of their American-born children?...
Robert Meeropol, Executive Director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, says he identifies with their plight. Read the rest of the article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10579474.stm [12]
By Dugald McConnell, CNN
July 2, 2010 7:10 p.m. EDT
Washington (CNN) -- What will happen to the children of the suspects jailed this week on accusations of spying?
The four couples imprisoned this week all have children, whose ages range from 1 year old to adulthood -- children who now face separation from their parents, as well as allegations that their parents are not who they said they were...
Robert Rosenberg Meeropol has described the difficulties in finding a home for him after his parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. They were executed in the 1950s in a case that was far more serious than this week's allegations.
"My relatives were so frightened of being associated with 'communist spies' that they refused to take me into their homes," Meeropol wrote on the website of The Rosenberg Fund for Children before this week's charges surfaced. "First I lived in a shelter. Later I lived with friends of my parents in New Jersey, but I was thrown out of school after the board of education found out who I was."
Read the rest of the article at http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/07/02/us.russian.spy.children/ [13].
With parents behind bars, kids' lives likely in turmoil
by Elizabeth Chuck and Ryan McCartney
msnbc.com
updated 6/30/2010 7:00:35 PM ET
A pool party on Sunday ended abruptly for 11-year-old Katie Murphy when the FBI swung by and whisked her back to her Montclair, N.J., home. That same night in Yonkers, N.Y., Waldomar Mariscal, 38, returned to the house he shares with his parents to find officers combing through his family’s possessions.
For 10 people alleged to be Russian spies, there is little question they’ll be held in FBI custody. But for their children, the immediate future isn’t quite as clear...
Cases involving the arrests of both parents on spying charges are rare in the U.S. One of the most high-profile cases was Robert Meeropol, who was orphaned as a child after his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed on spy charges during the McCarthy era. Meeropol now runs The Rosenberg Fund for Children, an organization aimed at providing emotional and educational support for children in the U.S. whose parents “have suffered because of their progressive activities,” according to the foundation’s website.
Read the rest of the story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38021300/ns/us_news-security/ [14]...
Seven children belong to the four couples charged with being spies for Russian intelligence services
Chris McGreal in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 June 2010 21.14 BST
Katie Murphy, 11, said goodbye to her parents to go to a a friend's birthday party and sleepover. When she got home next morning, her mother and father had been arrested and FBI agents were turning her bedroom upside down. Neighbours looked on astonished as Katie and her sister Lisa, seven, left the house carrying pillows and backpacks and accompanied by a female FBI agent.
In all, seven children belong to the four couples charged with being spies. Some are too young to understand other than that their parents are gone...
Going back to the real cold war, perhaps the most heart-wrenching case of such children is the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Robert and Michael were six and 10 in 1953 when their parents were put to death for passing atomic secrets to Moscow. They have spent their lives grappling with that.