Ruth Greenglass, whose damning testimony in the Rosenberg atomic-bomb spy case of the early 1950s helped lead to the execution of her sister-in-law Ethel Rosenberg, died on April 7. She was 84. (Times, today)
“I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I don’t remember,” David Greenglass said nearly 50 years later.
Then-U.S. Deputy Attorney General William Rogers, when later asked about the failure of the indictment of Ethel to leverage a full confession by Julius, reportedly said "She called our bluff".
"Rosenbergs are pathetic, government Will sordid, execution obscene America caught in crucifixion machine only barbarians want them burned I say stop it before we fill our souls with death-house horror". (Allen Ginsberg, As Ever 150)
From Wikipaedia:
Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg (September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were American citizens who received international attention when they were executed after having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage in relation to passing information on the American atomic bomb to the Soviet Union.
The guilt of the Rosenbergs and the appropriateness of their sentence have been subject of perennial debate; however, information released after the Cold War has been taken as confirming a charge against Julius about espionage, but not in relation to atomic bombs.
Nearly everyone is dead. The Old Left, the Cold Warriors, politico sludge like Cohn and McCarthy, the Soviet Union...
Living and dead artifacts remain: Levittown, aging currently Quaker red-diaper babies who sadly avert their gaze when you say Russia and Communism in the same sentence, millions of gallons of radioactive shit at Hanford, books, books, books...
They say the Rosenbergs wanted to hear a recording of "Irene Goodnight" before they fried at Sing Sing. The Weavers, not Leadbelly.
I was born late that fall.
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