Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
A Jewish-American woman executed in 1953 for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets may have been innocent, declassified documents show.
Together with her husband Julius, Ethel Rosenberg was executed as a spy in the electric chair at a New York prison after her brother testified against her. However, it now appears that her brother was lying. Read more at the link above.
July 15, 2015 7:20 PM ET
Krishnadev Calamur
Here's what we know: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953 for selling U.S. nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union after one of the most sensational Cold War-era espionage trials. They were convicted in 1951 owing, largely, to the testimony of David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother.
Here's what we don't know: How credible Greenglass' testimony was in court. Read/hear more at the link above.
(NEWSER) – The newly released 1950 grand jury testimony of David Greenglass, who helped cement the executions of his brother-in-law and sister Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, offers new evidence that Ethel was innocent in the most intense spying case of the Cold War. Read more at the link above.
By Eric Tucker Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, who was a star witness against his sister and brother-in-law in a sensational Cold War atomic spying case, minimized his dealings with his sister during an earlier appearance before a grand jury and said they had never discussed her role ‘‘at all,’’ according to court records unsealed Wednesday.
The revelation may heighten public suspicion that Ethel Rosenberg was wrongly convicted and executed in an espionage case that captivated the country at the height of the McCarthy-era frenzy about Communist allegiances. Read more at the link above.
The federal government on Wednesday unsealed decades-old grand jury testimony from the brother of Ethel Rosenberg, who along with her husband, Julius, was put to death in 1953 in a sensational Cold War-era atomic spying case.
Southern District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered the transcripts unsealed in May following the death of David Greenglass at age 92 (NYLJ, May 21). The judge called records "critical pieces of an important moment in our nation's history". Read more at the link above.
Newly unsealed testimony from Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, minimizes her role in the spying operations of her husband, Julius Rosenberg, furthering public incredulity about her actual guilt and subsequent execution.
In the newly released 1950 grand jury testimony, Greenglass said definitively, “I never spoke to my sister about this at all,” when asked about her knowledge of his spying operations, which involved relaying information from Los Alamos laboratories in New Mexico to Julius Rosenberg in New York. Read more at the link above.
- David Greenglass’s 1950 grand jury account does not implicate sister
- Brother changed story before trial that led to Rosenbergs’ execution
Newly released grand jury testimony could upend the notion that Ethel Rosenberg was guilty of espionage.
Ethel and her husband Julius Rosenberg were convicted in the most sensational atomic spying case of the cold war in 1951. They were convicted for conspiring to steal secrets about the atomic bomb for the Soviet Union, and were executed in 1953 at New York’s Sing Sing prison.
David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg’s brother and a key witness in the case against the Rosenbergs, implicated his sister in the conspiracy just 10 days before the trial. Decades later, Greenglass told reporters that he lied on the stand to protect his wife Ruth. Read the rest at the link above.
More than six decades later, the prosecution of Ethel Rosenberg remains one of America’s most controversial criminal cases: Her conviction — and eventual execution — for joining in her husband Julius’s espionage conspiracy rested largely on trial testimony from her younger brother.
But in private testimony to a grand jury seven months before the 1951 trial, Mrs. Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, never mentioned involvement by his sister in Mr. Rosenberg’s delivery of atomic secrets to Soviet operatives, according to a grand jury transcript released Wednesday. Read the full story at the link above.
By LAURIE LOISEL @LaurieLoisel
EASTHAMPTON — The sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the couple infamously convicted of espionage and executed by the government in 1953, believe the release Wednesday of grand jury testimony by Ethel Rosenberg’s brother vindicates their parents. The Rosenbergs were killed by the electric chair when their boys were 6 and 10. Read the full story at the link above.