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During the cold war there were many people involved in helping each side gain more of an advantage on the other. Seeing as there were no soldiers this was a war of information and who better to gather information than spies. There were hundreds of Soviet and American spies over the duration of the Cold War. Two of the most infamous spies during the Cold War were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were instrumental in the transmission of information on the atomic bomb as well as other top secret military technology.
In 1951 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and sentenced to death. The Rosenberg’s were the only American Civilians executed for espionage during the Cold War. People debated whether the
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Rosenberg’s were made an example of cruel and unusual punishment of an anti-communist hysteria that existed in the United States, or were they guilty as charged. Julius Rosenberg was born in New York City on May 12th, 1918 the son of Russian immigrants.
After graduating from Seward Park High School in 1934 he went onto City College to study electrical engineering. Ethel Greenglass was born September 28, 1915 in Manhattan. The couple met as members of the Young Communist League in 1936. At this time Ethel was working as a secretary. Three years later they were married. They were parents to two boys Michael and Robert.
For five years Julius worked at Fort Monmouth for the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratory where important research on electronics, radar, and guided missile controls were being produced during World War II. This became an important time in his life because he began to work as an agent for the Soviet Union. When the Army found out about his connection to the Communist Party in 1945 he was fired. Also during this time he convinced his brother-in-law David Greenglass, who worked on the Manhattan Project which created the atomic bomb, to share information with
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him. In 1944 Rosenberg recruited more people who were working on the development of the atomic bomb to give him so much information from the project that he received a one hundred dollar bonus from the Soviet Union. According to a 2001 book by his former handler Alexander Feklisov, Rosenberg was originally recruited by the NKVD on Labor Day 1942. (Feklisov 152) Rosenberg was very busy between 1942 and 1944 during this time he gave information to Feklisov about a weapons part called a proximity fuse. This is of historically significant because the proximity fuse was used in a weapon that shot down a U2 spy plane in 1960 that caused international tension. Other information gathered at this time was top secret radar, sonar and jet propulsion technologies. On August 9th, 1949 the Soviets detonated their first atomic bomb nicknamed “Joe 1” by the Americans for then Russian leader Joseph Stalin.
This was very concerning to the United States because many government officials believed that the Russians would not have this ability this fast. The government started an extensive hunt into how the Russians had acquired this knowledge. Their investigation broke open when the Army Signal Corps broke the Russians code for sending messages. Rosenberg’s ties were discovered during this investigation. David Greenglass was the first to be arrested for espionage. He then told authorities about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg recruiting him. This lead to Julius and Ethel being indicted on August 11th, 1950 along with Morton Sobell a friend of Julius’s from his college and Communist party days. All were being accused of being spies for the Russians. The Rosenberg’s vigorously protested their innocence, but after a brief trial that began on March 6, 1951, and attracted much media attention, the couple was convicted. On April 5, 1951, a judge sentenced them to death. After their trail and conviction the Rosenbergs asked President Eisenhower for clemency. They were ultimately denied. President Eisenhower issued a statement saying, “I can only say that, by immeasurably increasing the chances of atomic war, the Rosenbergs may have condemned to death tens of millions of innocent people all over the world. The execution of two human beings is a
grave matter. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose deaths may be directly attributable to what these spies have done.” ("Rosenbergs Executed.") On June 19th, 1953 both Julius and Ethel were put to death in the electric chair at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York.
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Despite all of the security used by the officials in charge of the “Manhattan Project,” soviet spies managed to leak information to the Soviet Union that allowed them to create a nuclear bomb of their own. Klaus Fuchs, an important scientist to the “Manhattan Project,” managed to move throughout the project and provide crucial information to the Soviets. David Greenglass also provi...
The Significance of the Use of Espionage During the Cold War During the Cold War there was an increase in the amount of funding and resources devoted to espionage which was helpful to both the USA and USSR. Because there was no fighting, spies became the main use in the battle for the supremacy. The definition of espionage is the act or practice of spying or of using spies to obtain secret information, such as about another government. It is whereby governments gain the systematic use of spies to get military or political secrets. It was used to gain information on the enemy as well as to increase the influence upon areas where conflicts of ideologies being fought over.
On March 29, after a much publicized court case, the couple were found guilty and sentenced to be executed in the week of May 21, and their accused co-conspirator, Sobell, got 30 years in jail because he was not explicitly connected to the atom bomb. Many people were against this decision and the president tried to justify such rash actions: "The execution of two human beings is a grave matter. But even graver is the thought of the millions of dead whose death may be directly attributable to what these spies have done." After many failed appeals, Julius and Ethel were electrocuted minutes apart on June 19, 1953. Some of Julius' last words were, ".Never let them change the truth of our innocence." There were many illogical and contradicting statements in the testimonies, especially in Ethel Rosenberg's brother, David Greenglass. David worked for the US Army and for a time in a place where there was work on atomic energy.
Rosenberg Spies In 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of passing information to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) concerning the construction of nuclear weapons. In 1953, the United States Government executed them. Some say, the Rosenbergs received their just punishment. Many historians feel that the trial was unfair, and that international claims for clemency were wrongly ignored. These historians claim that the Rosenbergs were assassinated by the US government.
...hom would have convicted Hoover of the crime. He could not prove that the Soviets planned to over throw the American government. It was not until Melvin Purvis managed to convict 205 members of the Soviet spy ring. Hoover still had a lot to do before he was able to rid America of Stalin's spies (Marc Aronson 84).