Fatal Error: The Miscarriage of Justice That Sealed the Rosenberg's Fate. - book reviews

National Review, Oct 27, 1989 by Joyce Milton

THE DEFENDERS Of JU]IUS and Ethel Rosenberg once denied their he- roes were Communists, then conceded that fact, but denied they were spies. Now we hear their guilt is irrelevant; they were martyrs to American justice, tried under the wrong law: The requirements of the 1946 Atomic Energy Act, which allowed the death penalty only on the specific recommendation of a jury, were not met. This is not a new theory. It was advanced by activist Irwin Edelman and attorney Fyke Farmer in 1953 and was the basis of Justice William O. Douglas's short-lived stay of execution. And contrary to the claim that this aspect of the case has never been discussed in any previous book, the Douglas stay and how it was overturned after a secret ex parle meeting attended by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Chief Justice Fred Vinson, and Justice Robert Jackson is treated at some length in The Rosenberg File, which I co-authored with Ronald Radosh. Sharlitt adds new details,

but the main thrust of his narrative absolves the Rosenbergs' attorney, Manny Bloch, portrayed here as a gallant but outclassed crusader whose unaccountable blunder in strategy must forever remain a "mystery." In fact, Bloch bumbled his way through the trial because he got no cooperation from his clients, whose chief goal was to protect their unindicted accomplices. Later, he withheld support for the Farmer-Edelman effort until the last possible moment, numbly following the dictates of the Communist line. The Party did not want a new trial; it was pushing for clemency-a demand President Eisenhower could never grant without seeming to concede the Rosenbergs' innocence. This is just another moot-court argument for the Rosenbergs. Vinson and Jackson's actions are painted in the worst possible light, while inconvenient facts about the Rosenbergs and their defenders are sentimentalized or simply ignored. The day the Rosenbergs died was not a proud one for the federal judiciary, but Sharlitt tells only half the story: Julius and Ethel's fatal error was their dogged and pathetic loyalty to a Party that considered them expendable.