The Case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

I was raised in a family which believed explicitly in the wrongness of the outcome but also implicitly in the wrongness of the facts in the case. Later in life, reading Richard Rhodes' work I have come to believe there were material facts in the case which make at least Julius complicit in spying, but it doesn't alter my explicit belief the death sentence was hysteria pour encourager les autres and a sign of how strong anticommunist fear was at the time. Ethel had nothing to do with the mechanics here. She died, for not telling the government what her husband did. Remember the acts of the time before 1950s, are about an Ally, one the US was sending materiel continuously, by boat, train and plane. The flood of information and goods was continuous. Including (according to Rhodes) graphite and uranium which can only have been requested for atomic work.

The Rosenbergs were passers-on. They facilitated information flow. They neither had access to the sources, nor really knew what they were doing. Intermediaries. Harry Gold and Greenglass were as complicit. Yet, it was the Rosenbergs who went to the chair.

At no time in WW2, or subsequenty, was the US "at war" with the USSR, and to kill the Rosenbergs when other choices existed was to me, not a signal of strength, any more than current political crises foment death sentences for individuals caught up in inter-state disputes. I wonder if they had been the individuals on hand when Gary Powers was captured (1960s), if the swap could have been done? Colonel Abel was a high value asset but also a soviet citizen. Rhodes makes a strong case that the russians will walk over hot coals to get their own back, but were prepared to throw foreign nationals who spied in their interests under the bus.

I expect few here agree with me, but none the less, I think Claus Fuchs was a brave, and moral man. I know people have strong views that accepting British citizenship placed him in a duty to his state, but I think his background led him inexorably to needing to do this, in his own moral compass. Fuchs went on to lead peaceful atomic power work in East Germany, and his contribution to the bomb is immense, and should not be minimised: he actively helped make the bomb work. He did the maths on implosions.

Likewise Helen and Peter Kroger. To deliberately construct a life like that, a dual persona, takes a lot of commitment and strength. I doubt I could carry it off.

I don't personally like the word traitor or treason. I think its a very loose term, but that said, it would be hard not to apply it here.