Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in 1951 Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (née Greenglass; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were an American married couple who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, including providing top-secret information about American radar, sonar, jet propulsion engines, and nuclear weapon designs. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 at Sing Sing in Ossining, New York, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to be executed during peacetime. Other convicted co-conspirators were sentenced to prison, including Ethel's brother, David Greenglass (who had made a plea agreement), Harry Gold, and Morton Sobell. Klaus Fuchs, a German scientist working at Los Alamos Laboratory, was convicted in the United Kingdom. For decades, many people, including the Rosenbergs' sons (Michael and Robert Meeropol), have maintained that Ethel was innocent of spying and have sought an exoneration on her behalf from multiple U.S. presidents.

Among records the U.S. government declassified after the fall of the Soviet Union are many related to the Rosenbergs, included a trove of decoded Soviet cables (code-name Venona), which detailed Julius's role as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets. In 2008, the National Archives of the United States published most of the grand jury testimony related to the prosecution of the Rosenbergs. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed about the Rosenbergs and the legal case against them have resulted in additional U.S. government records being made public, including formerly classified materials from U.S. intelligence agencies. In September 2024, a new document was released in response to a FOIA request filed by the couple's sons: written a week after Ethel's arrest by the National Security Agency's chief decryptor and analyst, this 1950 memo provides an analysis of the decrypted Soviet Union intelligence on Julius and Ethel, reviewing Julius' spying activities and codenames, and concluding that Ethel was not engaged in espionage work for the Soviet Union. Provided by Wikipedia
Showing 1 - 1 results of 1 for search 'Rosenberg, Julius', query time: 0.01s Refine Results
1