Rosenberg Sons Statement on the 45th Anniversary of their Parents' Execution
We have been convinced for decades that our parents did not
conspire to steal the secret of the Atomic Bomb. Over the past several years, newly
released government documents and statements by government agents prove we were correct.
Now, on the 45th anniversary of our parents' death, we call for the US Government to
acknowledge that our parents' execution was not justified, and admit that our parents were
executed for a crime the Government knew they did not commit.
How did the Government justify
our parents' execution 45 years ago?
After our parents' arrest, FBI
Director J. Edgar Hoover said they committed "the crime of the century."
The Government's prosecutor at
trial said our parents helped steal the secret of the Atomic Bomb, "the most
important scientific secret ever known to mankind."
The Judge justified the death
sentence by asserting that "putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years
before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused . .
. the Communist aggression in Korea, with resulting casualties exceeding fifty thousand.
President Eisenhower denied
clemency because their actions might have condemned millions to death in a future nuclear
war and wrote that he would not halt our mother's execution because "she is obviously
the leader in everything they did in the spy ring."
But as the following ten points
will demonstrate, all of this is false. Though we cannot vouch for the accuracy of the
following documents, the Government does:
The Government endorses the veracity of the National
Security Agency's (NSA) VENONA transcriptions which state that Ethel Rosenberg was not an
espionage agent.
The NSA states that the FBI had this information in its
hands before Ethel Rosenberg was arrested.
FBI documents indicated that Ethel Rosenberg was arrested
to use "as a lever" to force cooperation from our father.
When Eisenhower was briefed on the case after being
inaugurated in 1953, the FBI recommended against clemency for our mother, not because of
any activities on her part, but because she was "cognizant of her husband's
activity" and was "uncooperative."
Just weeks before our parents' execution [and after the
briefing of Eisenhower described above], the FBI drafted questions to ask our father
should he agree to cooperate in exchange for his life. The sixth question read, "Was
your wife cognizant of your espionage activities."
Meredith Gardner, the man credited with breaking the Soviet
code that created the VENONA transcriptions, recently stated that he was shaken by our
mother's execution because he knew from the material he worked with that she was not a
spy.
General Leslie Groves, military chief of the atomic bomb
project, admitted to the Atomic Energy Commission: "I think the data that went out in
the case of the Rosenbergs was of minor value."
Justice Department attorneys would not contest the accuracy
of the top atomic scientists' sworn affidavits. The scientists swore that the material
prosecution witnesses at our parents' trial testified they conspired to steal "was to
incomplete, ambiguous and even incorrect to be of any service or value to the Russians in
shortening the time required to develop their nuclear bombs." (Dr. Henry Linschitz)
In the FBI briefing materials for President Eisenhower they
recommended against clemency for Julius Rosenberg not because he stole atomic secrets, but
because they claimed he was extensively involved in industrial espionage.
The VENONA transcriptions show the spy the government
claims was our father knew little about the Atomic Bomb project and was, instead, involved
in industrial espionage.
Do not misread us. The NSA and
FBI have not proven that Julius Rosenberg was involved in industrial espionage, any more
than General Groves' statement proved that anything "went out int he case of
the Rosenbergs." We are presenting US Government material, not endorsing it. But this
material amounts to the Government's admission that FBI officials and agents, government
prosecutors, and others, knowingly, willfully, and with malice aforethought manipulated
the judicial process to execute two people for a crime they did not commit. The Government
stands behind the accuracy of documents that lead inexorable to this conclusion. It is
past time for it to take responsibility for its misdeeds.
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