Skip to Content Facebook Feature Image

Declassified memo from US codebreaker sheds light on Ethel Rosenberg's Cold War spy case

News

Declassified memo from US codebreaker sheds light on Ethel Rosenberg's Cold War spy case
News

News

Declassified memo from US codebreaker sheds light on Ethel Rosenberg's Cold War spy case

2024-09-11 03:16 Last Updated At:03:20

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top U.S. government codebreaker who decrypted secret Soviet communications during the Cold War concluded that Ethel Rosenberg knew about her husband's activities but “did not engage in the work herself,” according to a recently declassified memo that her sons say proves their mother was not a spy and should lead to her exoneration in the sensational 1950s atomic espionage case.

The previously unreported assessment written days after Rosenberg's arrest and shown to The Associated Press adds to the questions about the criminal case against Rosenberg, who along with her husband, Julius, was put to death in 1953 after being convicted of conspiring to steal secrets about the atomic bomb for the Soviet Union.

The couple maintained their innocence until the end, and their sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, have worked for decades to establish that their mother was falsely implicated in spying. The brothers consider the memo a smoking gun and are urging President Joe Biden to issue a formal proclamation saying she was wrongly convicted and executed.

Historians have long regarded Julius Rosenberg as a Soviet spy. But questions about Ethel Rosenberg’s role have simmered for years, dividing those who side with the Meeropols and say she had zero role in espionage from some historians who contend there’s evidence she supported her husband’s activities.

The handwritten memo from Meredith Gardner, a linguist and codebreaker for what later became known as the National Security Agency, cites decrypted Soviet communications in concluding that Ethel Rosenberg knew about Julius' espionage work “but that due to ill health she did not engage in the work herself.”

Ethel Rosenberg went on trial with her husband months after the memo was written despite Gardner's assessment, which the Meeropols believe would have been available to FBI and Justice Department officials investigating and prosecuting the case.

“This puts it on both sides of the Atlantic — in other words, both the KGB and the NSA ended up agreeing that Ethel was not a spy," Robert Meeropol said in an interview. "And so we have a situation in which a mother of two young children was executed as a master atomic spy when she wasn’t a spy at all.”

The Meeropols recently obtained the Aug. 22, 1950, memo from the NSA through a Freedom of Information Act request and provided it to the AP.

“This piece of documentation, juxtaposing my father’s work with her not doing the work, it seems to me nails it,” Michael Meeropol said.

The document was written more than a week after Ethel Rosenberg's arrest — her husband was arrested a month earlier — presumably to summarize what was known about a Soviet spy ring operating in the U.S. at the height of the Cold War and associated with the development of the atomic bomb.

It refers to Julius Rosenberg, who worked as a civil engineer, by his Soviet code names — first “Antenna” and later “Liberal” — and characterizes him as a recruiting agent for Soviet intelligence.

In a separate paragraph titled, “Mrs. Julius Rosenberg,” Gardner describes a decoded message as saying Ethel Rosenberg was a “party member" and "devoted wife” who knew of her husband's work but didn't engage in it.

Harvey Klehr, a now-retired Emory University historian, said this week that the memo notwithstanding, his position is that Ethel Rosenberg conspired to commit espionage even if she did not spy herself or have access to classified information.

“Ethel may not have been a spy — that is, she might not have actually passed on classified information — but she was an active participant in her husband’s spy network, not just someone who happened to agree with her husband about politics,” Klehr wrote in a 2021 piece for Mosaic Magazine.

Another historian, Mark Kramer of Harvard University, said this week that the interpretation of the Russian communication was debatable and that in any event other documents contain “damning evidence” of Ethel Rosenberg's involvement in spying, and her participation in tasks, even “if she was not directly participating in the way Julius Rosenberg was.”

The Meeropols adamantly dispute that, insisting the evidence is clear that the Soviets never considered their mother an asset and that she had no role in recruiting spies or assisting her husband's espionage.

The memo is the latest information that Ethel Rosenberg’s supporters say casts doubt on her criminal conviction and the public view of her. For instance, previously deciphered Soviet cables showed that she, unlike her husband, was not given a code name. The Meeropols also point to a separate memo from Gardner stating Ethel Rosenberg did “not work.”

In a 2001 television interview, Ethel Rosenberg's brother, David Greenglass, acknowledged that he lied on the stand about his sister to assure leniency for himself and keep his wife out of prison so she could care for their two children. A fellow communist sympathizer, he was indicted as a co-conspirator and served 10 years in prison.

In 2015, secret grand jury testimony from Greenglass was unsealed that contradicted damaging statements he made during the Rosenbergs' trial that helped secure their convictions.

Greenglass claimed at trial that he had given the Rosenbergs research data he obtained while working as an Army machinist at the Los Alamos, New Mexico, headquarters of the Manhattan Project, where the first atomic weapons were produced. He also said he recalled seeing his sister using a portable typewriter at the Rosenbergs' apartment to type up handwritten notes to give to the Soviets.

But in his grand jury testimony, which a judge unsealed after Greenglass’ 2014 death in response to a request from historians and archivists, he never implicated his sister.

Greenglass told the grand jury that Julius Rosenberg was adamant he should stick with his Army service so Greenglass could “continue giving him information.” But when Greenglass was asked whether his sister was similarly insistent, he replied, “I said before, and say it again, honestly, this is a fact: I never spoke to my sister about this at all.”

The Meeropols believe the newly released memo would almost certainly have reached high levels of the FBI given that Gardner, its author, worked closely with an FBI agent. They say the information may have influenced then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's recommendation that Ethel Rosenberg not receive the death penalty, though she ultimately did.

Robert Meeropol, 77, said the memo's release is a capstone of decades of work to clear his mother's name. As young boys, the brothers visited the White House in 1953 in a failed bid to get President Dwight Eisenhower to prevent their parents’ executions. They were later adopted.

In 2016, they cited the newly released grand jury testimony to try to persuade President Barack Obama to exonerate their mother.

“I'm incredibly relieved to have this out while I'm still alive, because for a lot of time, I didn't think I was going to survive to see it,” he said.

Michael Meeropol, 81, said he recalled his brother saying in 1973 that in a few years they were going to “blow the lid off the case.”

“Well, 1973 to 2024 is a little bit more than a few years, but it’s just happened as far as I’m concerned. This memo being released, thank God, blows the lid off it in terms of our mother,” Michael Meeropol said.

FILE - Ethel Rosenberg, the convicted wife of the Cold War atomic spying case, in this undated file photo. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Ethel Rosenberg, the convicted wife of the Cold War atomic spying case, in this undated file photo. (AP Photo, File)

Next Article

Teen pleads guilty in fatal stabbings at Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England

2025-01-20 21:18 Last Updated At:21:23

LONDON (AP) — A British teen pleaded guilty Monday to murdering three girls and attempting to kill 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.

Axel Rudakubana, 18, entered the surprise plea at the start of his trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of murder, 10 counts of attempted murder and additional charges related to possessing the poison ricin and for having an al-Qaida manual.

The July 29 stabbings sent shock waves across the U.K. and led to a week of widespread rioting across parts of England and Northern Ireland after the suspect was falsely identified as an asylum-seeker who had recently arrived in Britain by boat. He was born in Wales.

Rudakubana faces life imprisonment when sentenced Thursday, Justice Julian Goose said.

Defense lawyer Stanley Reiz said he would present information to the judge about Rudakubana's mental health that may be relevant to his sentence.

Rudakubana had consistently refused to speak in court and did so once again when asked to identify himself at the start of the proceedings. But he broke his silence when he was read the 16-count indictment and asked to enter a plea, replying “guilty” to each charge.

The surviving victims and family members of those killed were absent in court because they had expected to arrive Tuesday for opening statements.

Goose asked the prosecutor to apologize on his behalf that they were not present to hear Rudakubana plead guilty.

Prosecutors haven’t said what they believe led Rudakubana — who was days shy of his 18th birthday — to commit the atrocities.

The rampage occurred on the first day of summer vacation when the little girls at the Hart Space, a sanctuary hidden behind a row of houses, were in a class to learn yoga and dance to the music of Taylor Swift.

What was supposed to be a day of joy turned to terror and heartbreak when Rudakubana, armed with a knife attacked the girls and their teacher in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England.

He pleaded guilty to murder in the deaths of Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6.

Eight other girls, ranging in age from 7 to 13, were wounded, along with instructor Leanne Lucas and Jonathan Hayes, who worked in a business next door and intervened. Fifteen other girls, as young as 5, were at the class but uninjured. Under a court order, none of the surviving girls can be named.

Police said the stabbings weren’t classified as acts of terrorism because the motive wasn’t known.

Several months after his arrest at the scene of the crime, Rudakubana was charged with additional counts for production of a biological toxin, ricin and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism for having the manual in a document on his computer.

Police said they found the evidence during a search of his family's home in a neighboring town.

The day after the killings — and shortly after a peaceful vigil for the victims — a violent group attacked a mosque near the crime scene and pelted police officers with bricks and bottles and set fire to police vehicles.

Rioting then spread to dozens of other towns over the next week when groups made up mostly of men mobilized by far-right activists on social media clashed with police during violent protests and attacked hotels housing migrants.

More than 1,200 people were arrested for the disorder and hundreds have been jailed for up to nine years in prison.

People queue at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Axel Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)

People queue at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Axel Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)

A prison van believed to contain Axel Rudakubana arrives at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)

A prison van believed to contain Axel Rudakubana arrives at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)

A prison van believed to contain Axel Rudakubana arrives at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)

A prison van believed to contain Axel Rudakubana arrives at Liverpool Crown Court in Liverpool, England, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 where Rudakubana is charged with killing three girls and wounding 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England last summer.(AP Photo/Jon Super)

FILE - Police officers watch members of the public outside the Town Hall in Southport, England, Aug. 5, 2024 after three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club the week before. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, File)

FILE - Police officers watch members of the public outside the Town Hall in Southport, England, Aug. 5, 2024 after three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club the week before. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, File)

FILE - Tributes are seen outside the Town Hall in Southport, England, Aug. 5, 2024 after three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club the week before. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, File)

FILE - Tributes are seen outside the Town Hall in Southport, England, Aug. 5, 2024 after three young girls were killed in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club the week before. (AP Photo/Darren Staples, File)

Recommended Articles
Hot · Posts