Rosenberg Spies

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. This report will be an

analysis of the trial, the events which led up to it, and its

aftermath. What Led to the Arrest? The first clue America

had that a Russian spy ring existed in the US was the

discovery of a KGB codebook on the Finnish battlefield

during World War II. When compared with Germany's

machine-scrambled codes, the code appeared to be

relatively primitive; a certain set of numbers corresponded

to a word, letter, or essential phrase. There was a little

catch though; the codebook was to be read with a

corresponding page that every KGB officer was given.

Because the American ciphers did not have the

corresponding page, there were an infinite number of

possibilities that could have corresponded to the book,

making deciphering it impossible. (Milton 7) Klaus Fuchs

In 1944, the FBI raided the New York offices of the

Soviet Government Purchasing Commission, a known front

for the KGB industrial espionage operations. When the

FBI began to go through what they had taken, they found

that many KGB officers did not adhere to their orders

diligently. They were told to dispose of all their

"corresponding sheets." Many memos and other letters

were carelessly stored away, instead of being destroyed

after their use. After much studying of all the confiscated

letters of the KGB, including the new sheets, the ciphers

were now able to elucidate some of the codebook they had

found earlier. In 1949, a report by Klaus Fuchs was

deciphered. This was America's first solid evidence that

there was a spy ring operating within the US. borders. The

American authorities had some doubts, however. It was

possible that Fuchs was not a spy and somehow the KGB

had obtained his report. After much investigation, the FBI

arrested Fuchs. Along with other evidence, a letter

deciphered by the FBI had a reference to a British atomic

spy, whose sister was att...

... middle of paper ...

...y after a jury's

recommendations. From the day the Rosenbergs were

indicted to three days before their execution, this act was

ignored. Astonishingly, nobody realized, including the

prosecutors, defendants, or any judges, that this was being

ignored. A lawyer from the West Coast raised the issue

that suggested to somebody that the Rosenbergs were

being wrongly executed. Even after the issue was raised,

the Supreme Court ignored it and the Rosenbergs were

executed anyway. Still today, there is an ongoing and bitter

controversy as to why the Rosenbergs were put to death.

(Sharlitt 27)

Bibliography

Allen, Thomas, and Norman

Polmar. Merchants of Treason. New York: Delacorte

Press, 1988. Burkholz, Herbert, and Clifford Irving. Spy

The Story of Modern Espionage. New York: Macmillan

Publishing Company, 1969. Eisenhower, Dwight. Mandate

For Change. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, Inc.,

1963. Milton, Joyce, and Ronald Rodash. The Rosenberg

File. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. Meeropol,

Michael, and Robert Meeropol. We Are Your Sons.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1975. Sharlitt,

Joseph. Fatal Error. New York: Macmillan Publishing

Company, 1989.