The Rosenberg file: what do we really know about the Rosenbergs and the case against them? - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg - 40th anniversary of convicted spies' electrocution

National Review, July 19, 1993 by Jacob Cohen

Far from supporting the notion of a frame-up, it seems to me that the foregoing leads to the very opposite conclusion. Mild conspiracists argue that after David Greenglass falsely named his brother-in-law and later, reluctantly, his sister, the government followed his lead and cooperated in framing two innocent people. But why frame innocent people who could have told them nothing? It is inconceivable that the FBI would not have known had Greenglass lied; he was interrogated for hundreds of hours and would have tripped himself up, and inevitable failures to corroborate details would have humiliated his fabrications. To believe that the FBI followed Greenglass's false accusations knowing they were false, we must believe that they preferred elaborate lies about the Rosenbergs to the truths a guilty Greenglass must have hidden about his real associates in atomic spying.

Dealing with this problem, strong conspiracists argue that Greenglass and Gold (and perhaps Fuchs as well) were lying about everything, including themselves, volunteering to go to jail (and remain silent) for spying they had not done. Indeed, there was no atomic spying. And Tartakow? Lying, coached to lie, in elaborate detail. And Elitcher? Lying, coached, in elaborate detail. And Sobell's sudden disappearance and trip to Mexico? A family vacation (aliases, maildrops, and all). It was, many Rosenberg defenders say, a witch hunt from beginning to end, and the Rosenbergs were the innocent witches. (Why them? They hadn't even been Party members since 1943 or engaged in any political activity.) One wonders further, if that is what happened--and in the view of this writer the charge is ludicrous--why didn't the hunters do a better job of it? Why not, for example, command Elizabeth Bentley, and Gold, to say they had seen and clearly remember working with Julius Rosenberg, improving on the extremely vague associations with him which they produced? Why were there not more indictments, more framings? Perl, an expert on the design of supersonic aircraft, was indicted for perjury in denying he knew Julius, but, if the FBI's hunches about him were correct, he might have given the Soviets important secrets he was clearly in a position to know. Other figures in the case--couriers, photographers, possible suppliers--were never indicted. Far from documenting a massive witch hunt, the record revealed by the Freedom of Information documents and other subsequent materials, indicates an FBI and federal prosecutors frustrated to death by their incapacity to bring more, or more serious, indictments. Historical rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, American rules of law were not in total abeyance in those McCarthy years.

It was Rosenberg's fault, the FBI and prosecutors must have thought. He alone could provide the evidentiary connections necessary for indictments; he was their entree into spy networks as yet unknown but easily intuited. And their fury at him, and eventually his wife, for remaining silent, for pretending total innocence in an elaborate public performance, reveals their sincere and deadly belief in his guilt, and perhaps hers, though the evidence for her involvement was extremely skimpy.