Executing the Rosenbergs

Debate about the politics and morality of the execution of Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953 never ceased, though it has changed over the years. Lori Clune's premises are widely shared: the Rosenbergs' trial was not fair; Julius Rosenberg was part of a spy ring that gave information to the Soviet Union (though not “the secret” of the atomic bomb); and the executions were not justified. Despite the popular belief that the Rosenbergs were tried for treason, they remain the only civilians put to death in the United States for conspiracy to commit espionage. The extent of Ethel Rosenberg's involvement remains unsettled; accusations of her being the mastermind have given way to claims of her innocence—in early 2016 the Rosenberg Fund for Children launched a petition that called on President Barack Obama to exonerate her. Clune comes to these highly charged issues with new information and a fresh angle of vision, having discovered several boxes of files documenting worldwide protests about the trial and execution of the couple (documents she conjectures were hidden by the State Department). Clune argues persuasively that the protests illustrate the failure of the U.S. government to produce a convincing narrative about why the two should be executed. The government was far more successful on the home front, but the U.S. image abroad was tarnished. Putting this issue together with international protests about civil rights in the United States reveals a much fuller picture of the tenuous hold the United States had as the self-appointed leader of the “free world

Commit · Diplomacy · Espionage · Government (linguistics · Innocence · Political science · Politics · State (computer science · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · German History and Society · Intelligence, Security, War Strategy · Law · Philosophy