June 19th, 1953: Another Anniversary of the Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Passes
In the conclusion to the article, I write:
All of this now seems very far away, even farther than sixty years ago. Yet these two events show how the Soviets and their allies in the US ran a propaganda campaign on our own soil that convinced many Americans to adopt its themes and fight on behalf of a couple who indeed were, just as the US prosecutors claimed, spies for the Soviet Union. The KGB was able to use the Rosenbergs to offset the injustice of the Slansky trial and counter the anti-Semitism at its heart while also creating anti-American sentiment in Europe…. Meanwhile, members of the French left, as we now know, not only did and said nothing about the Slansky verdict, but worked hard to make it disappear — almost as hard as they worked to inflate the Rosenberg trial to epic proportions as a way of prosecuting America for exactly the kind of crimes that the Soviets had committed.
And yet, it is always surprising to see how learned people do not comprehend this. Recently, in the web pages of no less than The Jerusalem Post, David Turner actually wrote a blog which he titled “The Rosenberg Show Trial,” in which he asserts that the United States “used the courts to pursue political ends.” According to Mr. Turner, the government knew that the only thing Rosenberg gave to the Soviets was information about radar, “not the bomb.” Of course, none of this is true. Yet ignorance of the facts does not stop someone like Mr. Turner from using the case as a vehicle for his campaign to free Jonathan Pollard.
Next year, the 60th anniversary of their execution, I will undoubtedly once again return to this issue, of which by now, I am rather sick and tired. Michael Meeropol has indicated he is getting ready to give major speeches on the case, and both sons have a steady career touring college campuses where they give this new generation’s students misinformation about the case on a regular basis. Both men have refused to meet me or others in recent forums to which they were extended an invitation, preferring instead to talk only to gullible students who learn about the case from them, or to talk only to their fellow true believers at friendly forums of their own choosing.
The fight to establish the truth of the Rosenberg case, so important for the symbols it reflects, will not come to an end until their dwindling defenders disappear or decide to give up their forlorn effort.
Well done. The Rosenberg trial was a key point in the radicalization of many well-meaning Jews. What could we fear from American communists? They were so ordinary looking, so like us. The communists that we knew were such nice people, concerned about social justice, well-educated, interesting people with so many books on their shelves. They weren’t drug addicts or bums or bomb-throwers, they were like secular rabbis, they had an answer for everything, books to back them up, and so reasonable, too. My party contacts all had warm kitchens and nice cluttered studies. How could Julius and Ethel, such nice people, be spies for Stalin!
I still feel profoundly sad for the old Jewish CP friends I had. Not just sad for them, spending their lives dedicated to such an evil cause while convinced that it was good, but for myself also, who believed, wanted to believe, and woke up later to realize the profound evil that these dedicated nice people were dedicated to. I still have a bookshelf of the old books to show my son what lies look like.
What is dismaying to me is how many people on the Right think being a Communist is reason enough to kill someone. Ever tried arguing about some unpleasant aspects of 20th-century history with a Polish or Lithuanian nationalist? (And, if it’s not just me, nearly every Pole soon reveals himself to be a flag-waving Polish Nationalist.) You would quickly find him trying to justify past murders of Jews on the grounds that, you see, some Jews were Communists (or, alternatively, that some Communists were Jewish).
Of course, that’s not exactly the way they put it. They will typically trot out a list with some of the familiar Jewish villains — Trotsky, Kaganovich, Yagoda, et al. — often while assuming portentous airs, as though they were scoring a rhetorical knockout blow. But once you reframe their arguments into dispassionate logical statements, all you are left with is: “some Jews were Communists”!
On the other hand, I have never seen a Jew seriously arguing that Communist atrocities against (say) Poles or Ukrainians were morally justified because of the peculiar qualities or past actions of those nations. Perhaps there have been such Jews somewhere, but if they exist they must be a tiny minority, even among Communists. There is a significant moral difference in this. For my part, I had rather have a deluded but well-meaning Communist as an acquaintance, than a certain kind of Patriot who thinks that Communists, by being Communists, forfeit their humanity.
What’s even more disturbing is your deliberate refusal to deal with the points made by Ron in the article. Instead you chose to whine about how “the Right” wants to kill all Communists. The Rosenbergs were executed for treason, not for being Communists. If you can’t even deal with that simple fact then you’ve wasted your time and ours with the rest of your rant. Clean out the cobwebs in your mind and try again.
Stan S:
I’m not sure how to address your rant, except to echo Moira’s comment. Please collect your thoughts.
I’m not aware of anyone on the Right that proposes that Communists “forfeit their humanity”. Not even in that most remote and exotic of all terra incognitas, Poland, did the ex-communists forfeit anything. Most seem to have become garden variety bourgeoisie, albeit with peculiar memories.
Allow me to suggest that you acquaint yourself with some facts about this subject:
Norman Davies is an excellent source of information, especially the Introduction to his book “Europe”;
Also, the biographies of Marek Edelman and Witold Pilecki (especially his Report) clarify much of this history, while making no excuses for any actors in this drama.
No one I know has ever contended that Communists aren’t humans. God knows, if they weren’t human they’d have an excuse, of sorts. As it is, they don’t.
Your “deluded but well-meaning Communist” might well be more urbane company than “a certain kind of Patriot.” Of course, the former has innocent blood on his hands that the latter doesn’t. But why be déclassé when picking one’s acquaintances?
Stan, I thank you for your contribution.
Because you illustrate the still-living, yet no-longer-useful idiocy Radosh writes about.
I don’t think all communists should be killed, but I also don’t think everybody who was ever a member of the Nazi party, including “block-leaders” (the nosy neighbor who would “lead” the three buildings in his neighborhood by annoying everybody), should be killed. However, morally speaking, the two demands are equivalent: there is little to choose from, in terms of awfulness, number of victims, or destruction of humanity, between communists and nazis, and I can certainly equally sympathize with both those who want all nazis killed and those who want all communists killed. Certainly I don’t think wanting all communists killed is a sign of moral depravity in itself, any more than wanting all nazis dead is.
Let’s remind thate Rosenbergs were communists not in Brejenve times but in Stalin timesv ie when the communists were killing people by thze millions. Let’s remind they did spy for Soviet Union. Let’s remind yyou don’t seem as concerned for the millions who wer being killed in Soviet Union and for the milllions who would have died had the Rosenberghs had had theiur dream come true.
Let’s see, what political system killed approx. 100 million people in in 20th century? Right! Communism.
Yes, a person being Communist is a sufficient reason to want to kill them; the rule of law is the only reason not to do so.
“I have never seen a Jew seriously arguing that Communist atrocities against (say) Poles or Ukrainians were morally justified because of the peculiar qualities or past actions of those nations.”
So you do admit that communism is a jewish construct, and method for a small, highly organized minority to overthrow governments and gain control of a nation/people….usually with murderous consequences. I agree.
this was no real trial with manufactured evidence and mandated overcharges and media hysteria.
when we pull back the curtain on oz, we can see the fix was in.
Hehe. A communist supporter complains about show trials. Oh, the irony.
Even if it WERE a show trial, which it wasn’t, why would you be against it? After all, show trials to encourage mass hysteria against “the enemies of the people” are part and parcel of every communist country’s rule.
Joffe’s conclusion is stunning because it’s wrong. While Soviet Communism became overtly antisemitic as it gradually mutated into undisguised Russian supremacism, and as the Soviet leadership sought for ways to win over populations lately conquered, Soviet antisemitism might at no point be compared to the Nazi regime’s. There was demented hostility to Israel, and Soviet Jews faced adverse discrimination in all important institutions and professions. But there was no continual incitement to hatred, no pogroms, no officially-sanctioned race theories, no racial mass murder. The Communist ideology in fact had nothing to do with antisemitism. If the Russians had not been antisemitic before the revolution, Soviet Communism would not have been antisemitic either.
I agree. Further, the historical community has gone too far in letting the anti-Semitic Holocaust overwhelm the rest of the Nazis’ crimes during the Second World War. They invaded a bunch of different countries, bombed citizens in unprovoked aerial attacks, slaughtered whole villages in reprisal for partisan attacks, worked millions of “guest” workers to death in arms factories, starved 3 million Soviet POWs to death, and generally were the bad citizens of the world, for all time. Yes, they also killed 6 million Jews, just because they were Jewish, and yes, it was very evil in a very unique fashion. But it wasn’t the end, or even the start really, of their crimes against humanity. They had countless victims.
So did the Soviets, and some of the Soviet victims were Jews. What, I’m supposed to like Stalin right up until I learn that?
No racial mass murder? Ask the Ukrainians about the Holodomor.
More than one rabbi has pointed out that while the Nazis took this world away from millions of Jews, the Soviets took away the World to Come. They condemned the Jews to what the most religious Jews saw as a fate worse than death.
>>>>>>But there was no continual incitement to hatred, no pogroms, no officially-sanctioned race theories, no racial mass murder.
There was indeed racial mass murders — indeed quite a lot of it — in the USSE. Consider the Ukranians, and the total eradication of many smaller ethnic groups by transporation to Sibera. Still, the whole discussion is like arguing whether Ted Bundy was worse or better than Jeffry Dahmer. Clearly “idealists” who make excuses for either one are morally bankrupt.
I fail to see any moral difference between the Rosenbergs and the KKK. If anything the KKK is morally somewhat better, since it at least doesn’t proclaim killing millions of Black people or Jews is necessary to achieve their racist utopia.
Ron,
How many Jews, especially of Russian origin, were attracted to Communism because it was so explicitly anti-Christian? Kaganovich, the dynamiter of so many Russian churches and Cathedrals, admitted (see Wolf of the Kremlin) that part of what motivated him was the pleasure of revenge for the sins of the Orthodox opressors of his villlage? How many in America have passed down those sentiments to their grandchildren? And doesn’t that have a lot to do with why the Communists are still seen as ‘semi-good-guys’ in some quarters? Just wondering.
I suspect there were some. I don’t think it was many, if only because that kind of vengeance seems so petty. Most Jews of the era were too much into themselves to be concerned about what happening to Russian Christians for better OR for worse.
You are on to something with this. A Jewish guy I used to shoot with, a down the line conservative, told me that after Dem party affiliation, the best predictor of which candidate the bulk of Jews would support would be the least devoutly Christian one without regard to actual politics. This came from him unsolicited.
Other examples of this exist, of course. The Boston Irish and their reflexive loathing of Protestants is another example. I’m sure there are others.
Excellent point
much of the orignal efforts of the Bolsheviks was to eliminate ALL aspects of the Orthodox Christian church.. down to turning churcheds into warehouses.
As a Jew.. I know that many Jews still harbor strong resentment against Christians.
It was a common practice to “sit Shiva”.. pray for the dead… when a child married a Christian.
I celebrate June 19 every bit as much as June the 6th (D-Day) and August 6th and 9th (The Atom Bombs).
Dirty work that had to be done, without shirking and without sorrow.
There was an easier way, there’s always an easier way …. acquiescing to lies for our own moral convenience.
But easy, and right aint always the same.
On June 19, Right prevailed, no matter how unwanted or distasteful it happened to be…
And for that, I celebrate
“moral convenience” – one for the books!
Actually, I’d argue that on June 19 some 59 years ago, something else happened as well.
The Rosenberg’s had information that the U.S. Government wanted.
Julius could have easily traded that information for a commutation of the sentence.
The bottom line is that Julius Rosenberg was such a True Believer that he allowed his wife (and himself) to go to the gallows rather than give up any of the people in the network with whom he was working.
Don’t make it sound so baeutiful. What theyb refised to beatry was not their comrades: tyheu would have turened them up or even killed them (many examples of this in Europe during WWII) if they had thought it would benefit Stalin, Soviet Union and the Gulag.
My mother, while not quite a communist herself, traveled in those circles in the early and mid-50′s. My father, a moderate Democrat, was flabbergasted that so many of his soon-to-be-bride’s friends supported the Rosenbergs. He was finally driven to ask the most vocal supporter how she could possibly believe that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg could be innocent.
Aghast, the woman shouted back “Innocent? They’re guilty as hell! That’s why we support them.”
That, I think, sums it all up pretty nicely.
Their uncommon honesty aside, I consider such people to have Holocaust blood on their hands. It was to a large extent because of such communists among Jewish immigrants that countries around the world closed their doors to Jewish refugees in the 1930s (when lives might still have been saved).
How can you be so mean? It’s not their fault.
Hollywood was on the American Side during World War Two.
Hollywood was on the Other Side during the Cold War.
It’s also why Reagan was so comprehensively despised. Fine Screen Actors Guild President HE turned out to be!
The only reason hollywood was on America’s side in WWII was because we had a democrat in office. And the only reason they were mad at hitler was because he invaded their precious USSR. Before that they were squarely in the “don’t get involved” camp.
RR has gotten more mileage out of the Rosenbergs than the Soviets did. He should light yahrzeit candles on the appropriate date.
Would that your first sentence were true. Unfortunately, it simply isn’t–a fact that I, for one, find lamentable. How about you?
Does it bother you Patriot 493 that the co-author of the most accurate detailed account of the Rosenbergs and their crimes might comment on the evolving rationalizations of the true believers of the Marxist cause. As RR said when the book was published, he did not start his search for the truth with the expectation that the facts would contradict his belief that the Rosenbergs were in fact innocent. The good professor’s scholarship was a major contribution to our knowledge of the events of this critical period in our nation’s history.
I’d just be happy if their sons would admit that Julius was offered a deal. Confess and your wife would be spared. He refused to do so, even though he knew he was guilty as sin (and his wife much less so, but still guilty.)
Yep, their ol’ man sent their mama to the death chamber, every bit as much as the US Government did. Peach of a guy, your dad was, Michael and Robert……
The mere fact that the Rosenberg’s sons are around to contest the facts of their parents case indicates an important difference between the justice system in a free society like ours and a massively unfree system like in the Soviet Union.
In Stalin’s day, it was almost as serious an offense to be a RELATIVE of an “Enemy of the State” as it was to be an actual Enemy of the State. Countless spouses, children, parents, in-laws, siblings and other relatives of “Enemies” were routinely sentenced to the Gulag or placed in especially harsh orphanages or just shot outright. There was a specific section of the Soviet justice code for family members of State Enemies.
This is almost inconceivable to us yet the Soviet Union touted itself as the epitome of justice while we were supposedly massively unjust.
It’s unfortunate that the Rosenbergs were executed and that their sons lost their parents but the Rosenbergs were clearly not framed and did what they did knowingly. They were aware of the risk of committing treason and did so anyway. Their sons should thank their lucky stars that they didn’t grow up in the Soviet Union where a similar accusation against their parents would almost certainly NOT have been true and where even the children would be punished for the alleged sins of the parents.
Actually there was a subarticle to the 58th: TchS: realtive of a perseon sentenced. Penalty was the same: 8 years in Gulag laeter 25 years.
I stand corrected: the “almost” in my second paragraph should have been omitted. I was working from memory and my memory was not quite correct
Relatives of “Enemies of the State” were subject to the same penalties as the actual “Enemies” themselves.
They would probably say that the justice of the policy depends on whether or not the policy serves communism.
House Committee Approves Sweeping, Warrantless Electronic Spy Powers By David KravetsEmail Author June 19, 2012
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/06/judiciary-approves-fisa-act/
I think that the Rosenberg case is the entry into a deeply jewish story; One that tracks very closely to the story of Joseph going down to Egypt in the bible.
While stalin was deeply anti semetic, his secret police from the 20’s -40’s was 30+% jewish and russian jews were second only in numbers to russians in the soviet communist party and politburo.
Stalin planned to rectify that with the Doctor’s Plot purge in 1953. (He began to distrust the loyalty of russian jews as he feared that israeli and american jews would team up with russian jews to overturn russian sovereignty—a fear not too dissimilar to modern day Iran—except that the iranians have already pushed out their own Jews.)The camps had already been built, the initial hundred or so jewish plotters had already been killed, russia’s newspapers were baying for jewish blood when stalin died.
In the USA communism was all rage during the 20’s and 30’s in US colleges where many of the recruits for russia’s spy network were recruited through the communist party. (similar things are happening today with the chinese—but not through communist party connections.) Communism was seen as a way up in life for many jewish leftists.
The US counter intelligence cracked the Russian code in 1945. (Just as earlier the German and Japanese codes had been broken.) The Russians had spies even in US counter intelligence so the Russians learned that their codes had been compromised in 1948—and changed them. The numbers of spies in the US government that were deciphered by the venona cables were roughly similar to the number proposed by McCarthy.
The US counter intelligence informed the FBI in 1948 about the the russian spies but told the FBI that they had to find their own evidence against the spies that the venona transcripts identified. In most cases the FBI was unable to do so. When the first several arrests were made in 1948, most of the spies fled the country or simply stepped out of government—so they stopped leaving an evidence trail.
This troubled J Edgar Hoover. So he began weekly talks with Joseph McCarthy that corresponded almost to the day with McCarthy hearings. The problem that J Edgar Hoover presented to McCarthy was the same problem that the NSA presented to the FBI. The NSA fingered the spies but told the FBI they had to find their own evidence. Hoover talked of communists but required of McCarthy that he provide his own evidence. McCarthy could not come up with the evidence in most cases but the kinds of questions that he asked are standard questions that anyone has to answer if they are to get a security clearance today. That is, in the 40’s no security clearances were required to do top secret work.
The the Rosenbergs were among the few communist spies that were nabbed and the only ones executed in 1953. The communists mindful of events in the soviet union and knowledgeable of how stalin worked in the 30’s—took McCarthy’s hearings as a show trial and the rosenburg execution as the preliminary killing to a massive purg/pogrom/holocaust of jews as stalin was set up to do.
Therefor the communists painted the death of the Rosenbergs was an existential threat to the american jewish community. which to american jews made tribal enemies of everyone in america who was not a leftist.
why does the russian jewish experience track so well with the story of Joseph? well remember that joseph interpreted the pharoah’s dream about the seven fat cows and seven skinny cows and how that signaled 7 years of fortune and 7 years of famine. so the pharaoh put joseph in charge of the country. joseph filled the graineries in the seven fat years. but the egyptian people did not store up any grain. so when the 7 famine years came the egyptians first sold their land to the pharoah, then they sold their animals and then they sold themselves as slaves to the pharoah.
The important thing to understand here is that the relationship of the egyptians to the pharoah was the same as the russians relationship to stalin. neither owned property. both worshiped the the god king.(in God’s economy—when you ban God —not nothing is placed on the throne of Grace—no not that. Rather Man is placed on the throne of Grace. Men are elevated to gods as happened with pharoah and stalin. Even the burial ceremonies ceremonies of egypt and the soviet union were even similar. finally in both russia and egypt the god king was served by a jewish administrative class.
the downfall of the jews in egypt and russia is also similar. genesis ends with a cecil b demille fade to black. exodus begins with “and then came a pharoah who did not know joseph” and the tables were turned on the joseph’s people. they were made slaves by the Egyptians. Moses then took them out of egypt back to israel
The russian’s did not carry out Stalin’s doctor’s plot pogrom. However, they remembered. When it became clear that communism would not work in the 1970’s, russia’s jews took the blame. they were driven out of the communist party and
then driven out of the country. many of them went to israel. many were brought out of Russia by the great anti communist Meir Kahane—who was killed by a moslem in 1990 in new york. Why? Well that’s another story but you could also say the times were changing or the worm turned.
In an acknowledgement of the changing times I read a jersusalem post writer a couple years ago talk about a visit he made to Germany. He understood the role that russian jews played in Stalin’s great purges that killed millions. So he wanted to go to Germany to say let’s let bygones by bygones. But he said the Germans just wouldn’t hear of it. They felt their guilt and debt was eternal and unforgivable.
Given the way the USA is unraveling in the face moslem mexican and chinese onslaughts. it might be helpful to get this story right.
The problem the FBI had was most of the evidence came from having partially broken soviet cypher but it could not present this evidence in court withiout revealing to the Soviets where it was on beraling the Soviet code. End result was that many suspects never went to ciourt or were released for lack of eveidence.
While we are at it let(es remind that “horrible MacCarthysim” was 2 (ttwo) detha sentences, a dozen arrests, about five people sentenced to jail and about three hundred people working for the governement or for defence contractors losing their jobs. In the other side Stalin hled during his stary in power an average of two thousand arrests a day
Any chance we could get you to type a little more slowly, JFM? Your posts are excellent but the typos are making them hard to read. I have the impression you’re typing VERY quickly and aren’t proofreading before you press the Submit button…..
The Lost Spy: An American in Stalin’s Secret Service is the story of an American, Isaiah Oggins, child of immigrant Jews, who was seduced by the Soviet illusion and, eventually, after a life of loyally spying for Soviet Communism, was murdered by poison because he knew too much about the Soviet spy apparatus.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Lost-Spy-American-Stalins/dp/0393060977/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340156973&sr=1-1&keywords=secret+spy+oggins
The Rosenbergs, and absolutely everyone associated with them, should have been executed in secrecy as enemy saboteurs, and no information as to their fate should have been recorded.
And that’s that.
The one thing we maintained during the whole of our “Cold War” with the USSR was our own civil order; an American caught spying didn’t die of a 9mm brain hemorrage in a dank basement as was the case with Soviet citizens (and anyone else) in the infamous basement of Lubyanka Prison. The Rosenbergs as American citizens were entitled to and received the due process to which they were entitled under US law. There is really no reason to fight a war if to fight it you become just another version of your enemy.
Indeed, if we’d done that the Soviets would have created a code to be broken, pretended not to know it was broken, and impugn guilt to innocent people to be executed — just to create internal dissension.
You would have done Yagoda proud.
Verona Papers anyone?
I think you mean Venona, not Verona….
I listen to an overall sympathetic interview a while ago on NPR with Michael Meeropol, after the Soviet document declassification. It was all immaterial. The Meeropols’ reason for existence was to prove their parents innocence (whether they believed it or not) and after six decades they will not admit their life’s work has been a complete waste of time.
In a way, it makes them the more presentable versions of the Occupy Wall Street crowd that is still holding out hope that somehow, their discredited movement will find the answer to regain their relevance and prove they were right all along. There’s still a small crowd willing to humor them, but for the past 20 or so years it hasn’t been just the evidence provided by federal prosecutors they have to battle against, it’s the data that came out of the KGB’s files that made all but the die-hard left abandon the Rosenbergs as a lost cause.
>>>>>>>>There is a significant moral difference in this.
Is there?
>>>>>>>For my part, I had rather have a deluded but well-meaning Communist as an acquaintance, than a certain kind of Patriot who thinks that Communists, by being Communists, forfeit their humanity.
How about a deluded but well-meaning Nazi as an aquintance?
Let’s see: He denies the holocaust as Jewish lies to discredit the Nazi ideal — exacly the same thing as deluded and well-meaning communists denying Stalin’s atrocities as capitalist lies.
He grudingly agrees that Hitler’s Germany did certain bad things — killing millions, creating a one-party dictatorship, destroying culture and law and freedom — but it was all FOR THE CAUSE OF A FUTURE UTOPIA, and you can’t make omlettes without breaking eggs. H’m, that sounds familiar: it’s *precisely* what the “deluded but well-meaning communists” say about Stalin’s USSR, isn’t it?
what exactly is the huge moral difference between your “deluded but well-meaning” communist neighbor and a member of the American Nazi party, again? If anything, I prefer the neo-Nazi: at least they usually don’t go on and on about their incredible moral superiority to you because of their “well meaning” support of mass murder.
we know very well who the likes of you, “prefer”.
Yet another “you’re a RAAAAAAAAAAAAACIST” argument from a left-winger — completely oblivious that what “analogy” is, or the point of my post.
I’m Jewish by the way. And even if we ignore the fact that my post is an analogy, whose point is to point out the inescapable similarity between communists and neo-nazis, now that I think of it, I would probably prefer the neo-nazi next door to the “well meaning” communist, even literally. For one thing he’s an open enemy, not a hidden one. That’s more honesty than the “deluded and well meaning” communist is capable of.
True, if the neo-nazi gained power he would send me to die in the concentration camps… but so would the “well meaning” communist. Only the excuse would be different — “Jew” vs. “enemy of the people”. So, in practical terms, not much of a difference.
The Rosenbergs and many, many others were agents, either active or “agents of influence,” in communism’s war against the west and its values.
The proper term for what they do is “Gramscian damage.” See http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=260
After reading the rants of the commies here, I’ve decided that exterminating your likes is in order. You leftist commie tree huggers should be buried in the socialist land fill you call your utopia.