US 6.3

Case Study: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg To complete the assessment, read the case study about convicted spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Then read Ethel Rosenberg's letter from prison to President Eisenhower. Use this information and content from the lesson to respond to the prompts. Be sure to use key terms from the lesson in your responses. A Case of Espionage Ethel Greenglass (1915–1953) and Julius Rosenberg (1918–1953) were the children of Russian and Austrian immigrants born in New York City, where they grew up. As teens, they joined the Young Communists League USA. They met in 1936 and were married in 1939. Ethel was employed as a secretary at a shipping company. Julius completed a degree in electrical engineering. In 1940, Julius began work for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He began passing research information to the Soviets in 1942. Rosenberg then recruited others to pass information to the Soviets. This included Ethel's brother David Greenglass, who was a U.S. Army machinist working on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. Greenglass agreed and passed information to another spy named Harry Gold at the direction of Julius. Greenglass had not yet met Gold but would know him by a piece of a Jello box that matched what Greenglass held. Julius had given Gold his part of the box he had torn off in front of Greenglass. 132_1422044-w.jpg ¬ Ethel and Julius Rosenberg after arrest In 1945, Julius was discharged from the army because he had lied about being a Communist. In 1950, Gold was arrested in connection, after Klaus Fuchs had identified him as a contact. That arrest led to the arrest of Greenglass, which led to the Rosenbergs. Another friend of Julius's, Morton Sobell, was also arrested in connection with the case. In March 1951, the Rosenbergs and Sobell were tried and convicted of espionage. While the evidence against Julius was strong, it was less so in Ethel's case. However, in April, the Rosenbergs were sentenced to death. Sobell received 30 years in prison. Greenglass and Gold also received prison sentences. The Rosenbergs' case was brought up on appeal seven times, to no avail. There were worldwide protests against their execution, based on the idea that they were made scapegoats in the hysteria during the Red Scare. A final appeal to President Dwight Eisenhower asked that Ethel's life be spared to avoid making orphans of the Rosenbergs' two young sons. Eisenhower refused. In 1953, the Rosenbergs were executed by electric chair. The Rosenbergs were the first civilians in U.S. history to be executed for espionage. ____________________________________________ A Case of Espionage Ethel's Letter to Eisenhower 354 Hunter St., Ossining, N. Y. June 16, 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower White House, Washington, D. C.   Dear Mr. President, At various intervals during the two long and bitter years I have spent in the Death House at Sing Sing, I have had the impulse to address myself to the President of the United States. Always, in the end, a certain innate shyness, an embarrassment almost, comparable to that which the ordinary person feels in the presence of the great and the famous, prevailed upon me not to do so. …It is chiefly the death sentence I would entreat you to ponder. I would entreat you to ask yourself whether that sentence does not serve the ends of "force and violence" rather than an enlightened justice…the steadfast denial of guilt, extending over a protracted period of solitary confinement and enforced separation from our loved ones, makes of the death penalty an act of vengeance. As Commander-in-Chief of the European theatre, you had ample opportunity to witness the wanton and hideous tortures that such a policy of vengeance had wreaked upon vast multitudes of guiltless victims. Today, while these ghastly mass butchers, these obscene racists, are graciously receiving the benefits of mercy and in many instances being reinstated in public office, the great democratic United States is proposing the savage destruction of a small, unoffending Jewish family whose guilt is seriously doubted throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world!… …Surely, too, what single action could more effectively demonstrate this nation's fealty to religious and democratic ideals, than the granting of clemency to my husband and myself. …Take counsel with your good wife; of statesmen there are enough and to spare. Take counsel with the mother of your only son; her heart which understands my grief so well and my longing to see my sons grown to manhood like her own, with loving husband at my side even as you are at hers – her heart must plead my cause with grace and with felicity! And the world must humbly honor greatness!   Respectfully yours, (signed) (Mrs.) Ethel Rosenberg #110-510 Women's Wing - C C