Dan Snow's History Hit - Ethel Rosenberg: Super Spy or Innocent Victim?

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

In June 1953 Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, an American married couple with two young sons, were executed having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. Julius was undoubtedly a spy but Ethel may well not have been. The evidence against her was shaky and was based on what has turned out to be a false statement given by her own brother. The trial was controversial at the time and remains so today and joining Dan to talk about the Rosenbergs is Anne Sebba. Anne is a lecturer, writer and journalist who has written a new biography of Ethel Rosenberg. She takes us through Ethel's life and trial and makes the case as to why, she believes, Ethel was not a spy and should not have been executed. 

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. I'm Dan Snow, good to have you on the pod. In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple with two young sons,

were led to separate prison cells on death row and electrocuted. They'd been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. Julius certainly was a spy. Ethel, though, may well not have been. The evidence against her was shaky. It was based on what has turned out to be perjury by her own brother. This is an extraordinary tale. It was controversial at the time and it's remained controversial ever since. And on to talk to me about the Rosenbergs is Anne Seber. She's been on this podcast before. She's a prize-winning biographer, lecturer, journalist, writer. She's brilliant and she's written a book about these two.

Anne has dug up new evidence and has put forward a convincing argument that Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy and should not have been executed. So coming up on this podcast, you'll be hearing all about what J. Edgar Hoover called the trial of the century, one of the great landmarks of US Cold War history. Just before that, I want to remind you about historyhit.tv. Head over to the world's best history channel, historyhit.tv, where you can watch new lucky things. My documentary, Cat Jammer, about the Great Heathen Army. It's broken the records, I'm glad to say. Finally, I'm involved in a TV show on historyhit.tv, more popular than Eleanor Janneger's Medieval Lives. But it's definitely something going with

all you medievalists out there. Lots of medievalists on historyhit.tv. You're all loving it. So head over there and subscribe for a small subscription. You get all these podcasts without the ads, and you get the world's best digital history channel. You can watch hundreds of documentaries. Basically, it's got everything you need for a lifelong love affair with history. Very handy. In the meantime, though, everyone, here's Anne Seba talking about the Rosenbergs. Enjoy. Anne, thank you very much for coming back on the podcast. It's a great pleasure. I love being Ethel Rosenberg's storyteller. Huge responsibility. Big responsibility. I think you're one of the first guests on the podcast. It's very good to have you back. And you've been working in the

meantime on this book. And it's an absolute smash hit. So well done you. Ethel Rosenberg, why should people have heard of her? It's one of those names people have heard of, but it maybe can't quite place. Let's give it to everyone. Well, she became an American icon because she was electrocuted in 1953. And it was already clear at the time that the evidence against her was weak. And it subsequently become clear that actually it was non-existent or consisted of perjury. But even before that became clear, she was a mother of 37. And because her husband was electrocuted as well, she orphaned two young children. And the reason she's become an American icon is because the evidence was always clouded. And in the

intervening 70 years, because it's 70 years since her death, it is clear that Julius Rosenberg, her husband, was a spy recruiter, if you like, but, you know, let's call a spade a spade. He was a spy. But Ethel was his wife. It's not a crime to have thoughts, beliefs, or even knowledge. What is a crime is positive action. And the American government did not have absolute proof of any of her actions. So she went to her death. And subsequently, they have always been known as the Rosenbergs, the spies. And what I've tried to do is really tell the story of Ethel's life. I'm not relitigating the trial, although I'm happy to talk about anything you want me to talk about, the trial and the evidence and the subsequent evidence against her was the perjury of her brother, David, who was a spy, who said, along with his wife, Ruth, that he had witnessed Ethel typing up information to give the Soviets.

So he was given a lesser sentence, his wife, no sentence at all. And after he came out, he admitted that he didn't remember Ethel typing. Not only that, his grand jury evidence, which was only released in 2015 after his death, made very clear that when he was first picked up by the FBI, he said, my sister had nothing to do with it. Leave Ethel out of it. Not just because she's my sister. She really was not involved.

So this was fabricated evidence that sent Ethel to her death. So she was born in 1915. Both Ethel and Julius were from Jewish immigrant families, weren't they? And they met in the heady days following the Great Depression. They met in the sort of young communist league, I guess, did they? Not quite. So Ethel was born in 1915 and lived in great poverty in a tenement flat on the Lower East Side. To live in a tenement means you have an outside bath, you don't have a loo. Her father was a machine worker with his shop in the front of the tenement block. But it was also the time of the Great Depression in the 30s. So although there was Roosevelt's New Deal and

then a second New Deal, the seminal moment for Ethel was going to this extraordinary school on the Lower East Side, Seward Park High School, which was part of the WPA, Works Association, that money was put in to help people like Ethel. So this opened her eyes. There was an Olympic swimming pool. There was a huge theater. There was a huge library. And Ethel was a very bright child. But when she graduated in 1932, there was no money in the green glass household. And instead of going to college, which she could have done, college was just opening up for women. She had to go out to work. College was just opening up for women. She had to go out to work.

She took a secretarial course. And it was really the leap from school where she had learned to act and sing. And she was very musical. And she taught herself to sing. I mean, that's an extraordinary story how she sang at Carnegie Hall completely self-taught because she picked up a piano off the sidewalk and trained herself. At the second audition, she had to go back. And nonetheless, she could not indulge her love of music. She had to get a job. She worked as a secretary. And she got involved in the idea of a union. She fought for one. She had to go on strike. She lay on the pavement in order to stop the lorries coming

into the packing company where she worked. And this was heady stuff for a young girl, not quite 20. And although she was sacked from her job, the new Labour Relations Board actually reinstated her and gave her her money back. So I think these two points of teaching herself to sing and getting accepted in the prestigious Scuola Cantorum and learning that a strike can have positive actions, they both fired her determination that actually there are things you can do for a better life. And what about her relationship with the man who'd become her husband, Julius? So they met in 1936 because Ethel continued to sing at various communist events, fundraisers mostly. And at the end of 1936, Julius listened to one of those performances and apparently he comforted her because she was nervous. And in the parlance of today, they became an item ever since.

So they were eventually married in 1939. I think what needs to be said here is that Ethel was two years older than Julius. And so Julius still had to qualify from college. And clearly he was a bit lazy and maybe not brilliant. I mean, he was clever, but he was doing an engineering course. Again, not because engineering was his greatest love, but he thought that would be vocational and he'd get a job. But he failed a Spanish degree. So Ethel coached him. And this is where the typing is interesting because she typed up his notes. So clearly the family had seen Ethel help Julius typed up his notes. So clearly the family had seen Ethel help Julius

type up his notes. And that's how the lie, the perjury that I referred to at the beginning, took root, because everyone knew that Ethel was a good typist. So she helped Julius get through his exams. The Rosenberg family were very happy to have Ethel as their daughter-in-law, The Rosenberg family were very happy to have Ethel as their daughter-in-law, and they were married in 1939, just before war broke out. So during the war, he joins up, and then how does he slide into espionage? Okay, so Julius had poor health. He had asthma and bad eyesight, so he wasn't allowed to enlist. But because he's an engineer, he's in demand.

I mean, it should be said, well, two things about their relationship. First of all, it was the most passionate love story. And I really think that's terribly important for what happened subsequently and very physical as well. But Julius couldn't actually join up. So he was taken on when it was so difficult to get work. First of all, they go to Washington because Ethel passes the civil service exams before he does. She's the breadwinner. And then eventually, Julius is taken on by the Army Signal Corps. He goes to Fort Monmouth. And Ethel, like a dutiful wife, follows him back. And they have nowhere to live. And they go from one lot of parents to

another. And they eventually live in a sort of bedsit of their own. And Julius is traveling a lot. So the key years are 1939 to 41, when, of course, Russia was the enemy because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. But everything changes in 1941 when, as you know, Hitler invades Russia and also Pearl Harbor. America enters the war and Russia is an American ally. And then everything changes and suddenly the American people are being told, Russia's a wonderful country. You must go and watch films about the amazing Russian fighters and what the Russians are doing.

So at that point, it was OK to support Russia. And Julius and Ethel were communists. I mean, I really think one needs to make no bones about that. They were communist supporters. And so they went to a number of these rallies. And at one of these rallies, probably in 1942, Julius introduces himself to Russian officials and says, look, I really want to help. Is there something more I can do? So because Julius has a number of friends from CCNY, City College, New York, many of them are left-wing communists, not all Jewish. He's in a good position to introduce a number of people who can pass useful information. And the Russians are very pleased and they give him a code name.

Liberal is his code name that changes a few times, but he's clearly so keen there's nothing they can do to stop him. So that's how it starts. And is he a big player? Does he matter in the history of the Second World War? Well, that's a really difficult question. No, he's not a big player, but I'm trying not to downplay the fact that he didn't pass on major atomic secrets. In some ways, that's not my argument. I don't believe to tell Ethel's story and how she responded to having a husband who I'm quite sure she knew, she approved of, and probably encouraged in this activity insofar as she did anything. I mean, she was looking after two children. Her first son was born in 43 in the middle of war. And that was really difficult for her because he was a difficult child. He didn't sleep. Ethel was not well. She had scoliosis. So they don't have much money. But Julius is happy because he's giving information. But no, it's not important

information, but it's all useful. Now, everything changes, of course, at the end of 1944, Everything changes, of course, at the end of 1944, when Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, the younger brother who was the idol of the family, is sent off to Los Alamos in New Mexico. So Los Alamos is where the Manhattan Project is happening. And the Manhattan Project is called enormous by the Soviets. So they already knew about it in answer to your question, how important was it? But Julius really thought maybe he can help by introducing his brother-in-law, who's a lowly machinist with not enormous intelligence, but he can perhaps say who's working there. He can give ideas about what is at the camp. But this is disputed, because in early 1945, there are documents that indicate Julius was actually let go,

because he had at least eight people who were reporting to him. And the Soviets believed that actually his cover had been blown, and it was not safe to use him. So probably Julius didn't do very much to encourage David other than to report that he was there and indicate that he could be useful. In listening to Dan Snow's history, I've got Anne Sebron. We're talking about the Rosenbergs, the trial of the century. More after this. Imagine a millennium that laid the foundations for the modern world as we know it today, when kingdoms were forged, languages shaped, cultures created.

I'm Dr Kat Jarman, and on Gone Medieval, my co-host Matt Lewis and I will tell you just why the so-called Dark Ages really weren't that dark after all. Subscribe to Gone Medieval by History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us

when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. You say that she was a sort of supporter. I mean, if you look at Ursula Kaczynski, Agent Sonia, it seems clear that at least one of her husbands may not have known what she was up to. I mean, we do think that she was friendly towards his activities. She was friendly and probably knew, but I really don't think she did any more than that. So of the Venona transcripts, which is what much of the post-war information is based on, although as you'll know, it was Venona that really led to Klaus Fuchs, and Klaus Fuchs named Harry Gold, and Harry Gold then named David and Ruth. So, the problem is that the US government did not want to admit they had this information because they thought it could lead to other people. But of the 3,000 transcripts,

only 19 refer to Julius and Ethel, only two sort of mention Ethel. One mentions Ethel by her name, Ethel, and the other refers to her as Julius's wife. So that's the evidence that Ethel is aware of it. And also because they were a close couple and Ethel admired what Julius was doing. But one can dispute the level of her involvement. Ad infinitum, this important Venona Cable says that Julius and his wife recommend Ruth, their sister-in-law. So does that mean that Ethel actively was involved in recommending Ruth? And don't forget, these have been transcribed and they weren't written in English. Or does it mean that Julius recommended Ruth? Oh, and by the way, his wife also thinks she's a clever girl.

Oh, and by the way, his wife also thinks she's a clever girl. It's open to dispute, but I'm actually not disputing the fact that Ethel approved anew. It's just that there is law in America and it's not a crime to have thoughts. It's not a crime even to have knowledge. The crime is taking positive action. So they were charged with conspiracy to commit espionage, which is really interesting because, of course, conspiracy is very easy to prove. Of course, conspiracy just means having a conversation. But during the trial, the word treason was regularly mentioned by the prosecution. And the judge in his summing up also accused them of treason. And had they been charged with treason, it would have been a completely different trial because you need different sort of evidence, certainly two pieces of evidence. evidence, certainly two pieces of evidence. And yet in the oral indictment, this is what the jury was led to believe they were judging this couple on. And there were multiple miscarriages. The

prosecution lawyer, Irving Sapol and Roy Cohn, had ex parte discussions with the judge, which of course is not legal. There was this fake perjury evidence of the typing and the table, but much more basic than that. Ethel never had a code name. Nobody, even the worst enemies, nobody is accusing Ethel of having direct conversations with the KGB. So she went to her death really for being a loyal wife who refused to name names and who clearly was complicit, not legally complicit, not criminally complicit, but complicit to the extent that she stood by her husband. You mentioned Roy Cohn in passing. He was the notorious prosecutor who ended up being disbarred, wasn't he? So he was Joe McCarthy's chief counsel, helped Joe McCarthy with all his witch hunt hearings in the 50s, and then became something of a mentor to Donald Trump as well. So that tells you something about him. Yes, you're absolutely right. And of course, in the play Angels of America,

which helps explain why Ethel has become such an icon in literary terms, Al Pacino plays Roy Cohn and Meryl Streep, Ethel, and she tries to forgive him. But of course, she has the upper hand in all of that. Reminds how they end up getting caught. It's a bit of a tragedy. Oh, it's endless tragedy. I mean, the story is so rich because we've talked about the Depression and the New Deal and then World War II, in which there are two sides to all of that.

And then, of course, the Cold War immediately after the war. And in 1949, when Russia experiments with an atomic bomb and the Americans are horrified, you know, how on earth did they get that information? And then the Chinese Communist Party also explode a bomb. So there is real fear. And that fear is stoked both by Hoover and his increasingly powerful FBI and Joe McCarthy, the senator for Wisconsin. And they're both saying, you know, there are communists everywhere. And this is a real threat to the American way of life. And the reason I wanted to refer to World War II is because the turnaround is so sudden after the war, and the Rosenbergs are positioned as threatening the American way of life. So in other words, everything that America fought to win in World War II is

being jeopardized if we allow communists to take over. So as soon as they had information that there had been many Americans who were supplying information to the Soviets, they had to go after them. And they went after them very thoroughly, and in Ethel's case, clearly vindictively, hoping that they would name other names. Because you see, Fuchs named Harry Gold, Harry Gold named Ruth and David, Ruth and David named the Rosenbergs. It was assumed that the Rosenbergs, to get off the hook, would name other people. So they didn't need to reveal what was in the Venona telegrams, they would name names. And that's why they threatened them with the death penalty, because they felt that by bringing Ethel in, using Ethel as a lever,

that was the FBI words, Julius would surely squeal and name names, and surely Ethel would name names. And they had to go heavy because there was this belief that otherwise the whole American way of life would be at risk. And the proof of this was in 1950 when the Korean War started, and the judge in his summing up actually blamed Ethel for starting the Korean War. Her crime was worse than murder. Hence, it's been referred to as America's Dreyfus affair. Well, that, of course, is why, because it was a miscarriage of justice. You can see why once the clemency campaign got underway, they were desperate to point out why this was so important and that even Hoover did not want Ethel to be killed in the end. She called their bluff because he was very worried that it would redound on the United States,

that it wouldn't look good that they had killed a mother of two young children when the evidence against her was so slight or actually fabricated. I said even Hoover, because the two brains behind deciphering Venona, Lamphere and Gardner, they too made representations at the highest level saying you cannot go ahead with this electrocution of Ethel because they knew there was no concrete evidence pointing to Ethel as a spy. A remarkable collection of people, Frida Kahlo, Einstein, Picasso, the Pope, lobbied aggressively for a stay of execution, didn't they? Well, it was legal in America and many other people on the other side argued, look,

they've had a fair trial. I mean, all of this has trickled out subsequently, which is why it's lived so long in the popular imagination. I mean, there is something about the Rosenberg story, which I've always known. I've had it in the back of my head for a long time, but it somehow triggers enormous venom on both sides. Cast your mind back to Brexit and how that polarized people. The Rosenberg case was the same writ large, and it's still doing it. It makes people very bitterly divided, believing they know the truth and there's only one truth. My view is extremism never wins an argument. But I also think you have to hold more than one idea in your head, which I like to think

I can do. Clearly, Ethel was a communist. Clearly, Ethel loved her husband. Clearly, Ethel knew what he was doing. That does not make her a spy. Julius was guilty. Let's separate Ethel. Once you try and understand her, which is what I've spent the last five years doing, she still believed in communism, but she jettisoned it when it suited her to get married, to see a psychotherapist, all those things. She was self-improving constantly to be a better mother, to take mothering courses. Communism was not her first focus. Trying to be a good mother, a better mother than her own appalling mother, to show her children love and affection and encouragement was really the main focus of her life. And I've had access to the prison letters. And although some of those were written for public consumption, the ones that are written to her children and to her lawyer, and many of those to Julius, are so extraordinary in revealing what was going on in Ethel's mind, that it's actually a much more complex story than this binary version of events. Ethel was a spy, kill her, which I find extraordinary because

we really need to understand here's a woman who came up against some of the most critical moments in world history in the 20th century. And I think history is best understood by looking at an individual and how an individual responds to those events and, of course, is blown off course completely in Ethel's case. And you understand much more about world history. I think as Ethel's storyteller, you can really see what mattered in 20th century history and how different people responded to these key events. If it's not distasteful talk about her execution, your description of that is so moving. What can I say? I mean, the government didn't know who to execute first. They were worried that Ethel was the stronger. There was this myth that grew up around Ethel that because she was three years older, as the judge pointed out in his summing up, she was

therefore the master in some sort of pop psychology and Julius was her slave. So they were worried that if they executed her first and then Julius, he might actually give way at the last moment. And that wouldn't look good. Or as we say today, the optics wouldn't be great for the US government if they killed a mother, but the father relented at the end. So they killed Julius first, which was also arguably more barbaric. Ethel had to go to her death knowing that her husband had been killed moments before. And then, of course, they attached the electrodes to her, but she was much smaller and they didn't fit properly. So they removed her from the chair and found that her heart was still beating. and found that her heart was still beating.

And so they had to restrap her and give her more jolts, so a second time around. And there were reporters waiting outside. And many of them reported she went to her death a lot harder as some kind of indication that she was tougher and stronger and therefore needed more jolts to kill her thoroughly. I was fascinated by your description of the funeral. Thousands of people turned out for her funeral. So there was obviously a different story, certainly in some communities, some sections of the US public. Yes, it was hugely divisive. Several cemeteries refused to take

her body. I mean, there was difficulty in finding a cemetery, but it divided not only opinion, but it divided Jewish opinion. And so there were successful East Coast Waspish Jews who really wanted to disassociate themselves from these non-patriotic, as they called them, commie Jews and the successful Jews who wanted to say, we want nothing to do with these people. So you could argue that that was one reason why the clemency campaign got off to a slow start. Perhaps they should have tried to separate Ethel, but she didn't want that. She didn't want to be given clemency just because she was a woman or a wife. And I think that you have to blame Julius to an extent, who believed that there could be no evidence against him. And therefore, if they carried on blustering and proclaiming their innocence, that they would both get off. And of course, he was wrong because he was tied to Venona.

And that's why the US government argued that the means justified the end. Well, thank you, Anne Seber. You mentioned you've been working this five years. You haven't been on the podcast in the intervening period, but you've made good use of your time. This is a monumental work and congratulations. What's the book called? The book is called Ethel Rosenberg, A Cold War Tragedy. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for letting me tell Ethel's story. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs,

this part of the history of our episode of Dan Snow's History. I really appreciate listening to this podcast. I love doing these podcasts. It's a highlight of my career. It's the best thing I've ever done. And your support, your listening is obviously crucial for that project. If you did feel like doing me a favour, if you go to wherever you get your podcasts and give it a review, give it a rating,

obviously a good one, ideally, then that would be fantastic and feel free to share it. We obviously depend on listeners, depend on more and more people finding out about it, depend on good reviews to keep the listeners coming in. Really appreciate it. Thank you. This is History's Heroes.

People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.