The Rosenberg File;A Search for the Truth. Amazon link here.
Posted on 11/02/2007 12:22:55 PM PDT by ckilmer
Yahoo! News Back to Story - Help Rosenbergs' Soviet spy overseer dies
2 hours, 40 minutes ago
Alexander Feklisov, the Soviet-era spy chief who oversaw the espionage work of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and helped mediate the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, has died, a Russian official said Friday. He was 93.
Feklisov died Oct. 26, said Sergei Ivanov, a spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, one of the successor agencies to the KGB. He gave no cause of death.
Born March 9, 1914, in Moscow to a railroad signalman's family, Feklisov was trained as a radio technician and was recruited into the American department of the KGB's predecessor, the NKVD, according to his official biography posted on the Foreign Intelligence Service's Web site.
He arrived in New York in 1941 and during his five-year stint "completed a series of crucial tasks aimed at acquiring secret scientific-technical information including in the areas of electronics, radiolocation and jet aircraft technology."
Years later, he published an autobiography "The Man Behind the Rosenbergs" in which he described his work guiding the intelligence-gathering work of the couple. The Rosenbergs were executed in 1953 after being convicted of supplying the Soviet Union with top-secret information on U.S. efforts to develop the atomic bomb.
Feklisov said Rosenberg was a Soviet sympathizer who handed over secrets on military electronics, but not the atomic bomb. He said Ethel Rosenberg played no part in spying — claims that were consistent with declassified U.S. intercepts of Soviet spy communications.
He was later dispatched to London, where he made contact with Klaus Fuchs, the German-born scientist who worked at the U.S. atom bomb project as well as at Britain's Harwell nuclear research laboratory. Information passed to the Soviets by Fuchs and another spy, David Greenglass, gave the Soviets crucial new information on a new way to ignite an atomic bomb.
In 1950, Fuchs was sentenced to 14 years for disclosing nuclear secrets.
"Fuchs ... provided important nuclear information, including on the structure of the hydrogen bomb," according to the intelligence service biography.
Feklisov later spent four years in Washington — where he was known as Alexander Fomin — and was a behind-the-scenes intermediary between the Kremlin and Washington during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war.
Julius Rosenberg’s Soviet Code Name was: LIBERAL..............
Good riddance!!
Someone tell the New York Times; I think they’re still trying to prove that the Rosenbergs were innocent over there.
Based on this article his wife was innocent and he was guilty.
Waves of immigrants who came to the USA from 1880-1920: the poles the italians the irish the jews. Most of them voted for FDR by large majorities in 1932, 1936 & 1940. Today only the jews still vote democratic by hefty majorities. Why? The reason for this dates explicitly to the McCarthy period from 1950-54. The reason this is so is because Hollywood still strenuously maintains the communist lie about that era. This lie is maintained by movies in the last years called “A Beautiful Mind,” and “Good Night and Good Luck”.
There are various reasons given as to why Stalin initiated the Doctor’s Plot in the early 1950’s before he died. The KGB hated Israel. Many Americans who were enthusiastic supporters of the UN were Jewish.
Edvard Radzinsky in his book “Stalin” argues that while at one time Stalin hoped Jewish financial capital would help rebuild the Soviet Union after the WWII, Stalin hated the prospect of suborning himself to the Baruch Plan and he flat out rejected IAEA nuclear controls—presented in 1946. The Russians were working on their own abomb based on stolen US designs. (Stalin’s attitude is not entirely dissimliar to that of Iran today.) The Russian Communist party was so top heavy with Jews-Stalin himself a Geogian—wanted to insure that the Russians saw a Russian face to the the communist party.
Whatever the reason, Stalin fomented the Doctor’s plot hysteria and broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. He was within days of preparing to exile the Soviet Jews to the Gulag (as was done previously with various other ethnic minorities such as the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, etc.), and initiate another great purge along the lines of 1938.
The important thing to recall is that the Doctor’s Plot happened at the same time as the McCarthy anti communist business from 1950-54
Stalin already had the concentration camps set up. And some of the preliminary accusations had gone out for the Doctor’s Plot.100 or so Russian jews had already been executed when he died in 1953.
At the same time the Rosenburgs were tried and executed for treason in the USA in 1953—and this less than a decade after the Holocaust. This naturally caused fear and suspicion in the US Jewish community. This fear and suspicion was played upon by knowledgeable communists and leftists—large numbers of whom were jewish. These folk not only knew about what Stalin had done in the 1930’s and was about to do with the doctor’s plot—before he died— but also saw the McCarthy trials as show trials american style ... that is, a prelude to an american pogrom. —For which the rosenbergs were exhibit A.
What Stalin had planned to do— in a brilliant piece of jujitsu —leftists and communists imputed to Americans on the right. But it was done soto voce. Basically a blood libel was perpetrated on Americans without their knowing it. Worse, protestant america were painted as tribal enemies tooth and claw of the US jewish establishment without protestant america even knowing it. Never again! — Was the battle cry. But there weren’t any protestant tribal enemies of Jews in the USA. If there were protestant tribal enemies in the USA — Meyer Kahane would have provoked them into a bloodletting. Why? Because he heard the same thing as everyone else. He also heard about enemies of the jews in the heartland. When he went to give battle, the only sorts of fights the JDL could find resulted in unintelligible court disputes in places like Idaho. In the end, Kahane married an american woman & helped expedite Stalin’s last wish—to rid Russia of Jews. When the american woman committed suicide Kahane lost interest in the USA and focused instead on Israel. When Kahane — died it was at the hands of a Moslem in 1990.
While the American public outside NY/LA were generally given the view that the McCarthy era was an age when innocent men were unjustly tried by suspicious anti semites like McCarthy & Nixon—the NY/LA Jewish establishment was given a very different story. They were given to understand that the democrats/liberals had prevented the US from visiting a holocaust on them. And that therefor American Jews owed their loyalty to the liberal democrats because the liberal democrats were the protectors of the Jews.
And this Meme went on untouched for decades after McCarthy.
This dual track story line didn’t crack until the early 1990’s when the kgb/nkvd/gru opened up their files on the WWII-McCarthy Period. In 1995 the US’s NSA agency opened up their Venona files. Both Russian and American spy agency files showed that McCarthy was right. The US government —as well as the Manhattan Project—had been at one time soaked with Russian Spies. The Rosenburgs were guilty. While McCarthy was wrong in most the details he got the general outline of the story right. Why did McCarthy get the outline right and the details wrong? The reason is McCarthy’s relationship to Hoover was the same as Hoover’s relationship to the NSA.The NSA told the FBI about the Venona intercepts but insisted that the FBI could not use NSA intercepts as evidence in court. The FBI had to develop their own leads. As a result most of the spies escaped prosecution. The FBI did not get their man.
In 1950 J Edgar Hoover began weekly meetings with Joseph McCarthy. Those meetings ended in 1954. The beginning and end of those meetings coincided with the beginning and end of McCarthy star turn in the national spot light. McCarthy got most of the details of the spy story wrong but he got the general outline of the story right. His predicament was the same as that of the FBI. Whatever Hoover told him—McCarthy could not use in the senate hearings. To this day the FBI denies that Hoover told McCarthy anything about the Venona Cables and maybe Hoover said nothing explicit to McCarthy for which Hoover could be liable in court.
Needless to say, an American style shoah was never in the cards.
The reason that hollywood hated Ronald Reagan so much was that he was an anti communist in hollywood during the McCarthy period. During this period to be staunchly anti communist in Hollywood or NYC was to be at least vaguely anti semitic because in the 30’s to the 50’s communism was considered to be almost a secular form of Judaism in the Jewish communities of NY/LA. Why? In Russia, communism was a way to get ahead for the jews. As well, there was a biblical antecedent for jewish communists in the bible in the person of Joseph in Egypt. Why? Because the relationship between jews to joseph’s Egypt maps over well to jews in Russia. And the history of the jews from Joseph to Moses looks very similar to the rise to prominence of many jews in the soviet communist bureaucracy from the 1917-1970 and the decades long expulsion of Russia’s jews after 1970 when it became clear that communism was not working. The Russians blamed Russian jews for the failure of communism.
Reagan was among the first wave of FDR democrats to switch parties. Reagan’s star turn in Hollywood ended after McCarthy. However, his experiences in Hollywood served him well when he went into public service. He always understood the jujitsu of media talk of the age. Something that cannot be said of Nixon.
When I hear American based Moslems talking about McCarthyism being visited on them. I have to laugh. They don’t know that they have pronounced themselves guilty in the eyes of many Americans.
The history of the McCarthy period now is forgotten among american jews except for the vague idea that somehow republicans are bad and somehow democrats are good.
As for the democrats, part of the reason for the loss of their inner coherence in the last decade —has been that part their foundational raison d’être stemming from the McCarthy era was revealed to be based on a lie. So now the core of the democratic party is the sodomites. Those folks are not just confusing. They are confused.
David Horowitz interviewed by Rush Limbaugh a couple months ago talked about how his parents were communists and he was a communist in college. He said when he was in college his views were always treated respectfully by his professors. But he said recently a young christian college student told him that his homosexual college professor had singled him out in class and asked him “Why do you christians hate queers.” Asked why he continued to do what he did in the face of all the abuse he gets, David Horowitz said like Rush he took public political positions because he had to. But also he said he did it as a matter of atonement.
He gets it.
Venona Historical Writings that include comparisons of venona and russian spy lists and the changing venona story in the academy.
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page43.html
http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/index.html
She knew who and what her husband was. She might as well have driven the getaway car.
“Good riddance!”
Definitely. But consider that the guy was just doing his job and reported to a higher up.
I wonder who the Clintons’ overseer is.
You beat me to it. Actually it was one of two code names used.
Yes, ANTENNA was the other............
Satan..............
Nowadays, instead of traitors being excecuted, they get to make movies.
In his autobiography, Roy Cohn said that Ethel Rosenberg was actually the mastermind behind the family’s spy activities. She was older, smarter, and a more committed communist that her husband was.
“Why do you christians hate queers.”
The correct answer is, excuse me, queers hate Christians. It’s the other way around.
I’m the co-author of the book The Rosenberg File, sometimes cited as the source for the notion that Ethel Rosenberg was innocent. Not so. Julius was the organizer of the spy ring. Ethel was aware of what he was doing and occasionally acted in an accessory role. At times, however, her help was very important — as when she talked her brother David Greenglass into contributing information about his work at Los Alamos.
It seems Ethel was also ready to volunteer for other tasks. Before the Soviets brought in Harry Gold as courier it was suggested in the Rosenbergs’ correspondence that Ethel would travel to New Mexico to pick up data.
There is no question that Ethel would have received a lesser sentence if Julius had confessed. Even in the absence of a confession, many observers — including J. Edgar Hoover — thought she should have been sentenced as an accomplice. But innocent she was not.
The Soviet archives exonerated Ethyl as well. Julius was as guilty as sin, but Ethyl was truly innocent when sent to her death.
Guess YahooNews is not a reliable source of information.
It's not quite as compelling as his landmark earlier book The Making Of The Atomic Bomb, but it's a particularly good read nevertheless.
In 'Dark Sun', Rhodes covers the spymaster Alexander Feklisov named in this thread as well as the sequence of events that American-born traitors used to transfer information to the USSR. Amongst these accounts are testimony from those still living, records compiled and released through the FOIA, and shocking events of the era that hadn't been revealed until just a few years after the Iron Curtain came down.
Most startling to me was learning that the USSR was utterly defenseless in an atomic scenario and would have been unable to respond to any Western nuclear attack until at least 1961, thereby forcing the Soviets' foreign policy to appear bellicose and threatening as their only means of defense. The Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon knew this and tried hard to prevent anyone from finding out that they knew while at the same time rattling the USSR's cage because the potato-head Soviets couldn't do a thing about it.
If we could get an org chart of the Chinese government, he would certainly be in there somewhere.
He had two codenames. The other [either before or after “Liberal”] was “Engineer”. Greenglass was Ethel’s brother, or brother-in-law.
Bump for later read...
“... Ethyl was truly innocent ...”
Please read posts 14 and 16.
Ignore this man behind the iron curtain, he didn’t exist, they were never spies. (Sarcasism off)
Handler? You mean to tell me that they were actual spies, putting the lives of millions of Americans at risk? Why thats not what liberals and the NY Slimes says.
That is very interesting.
Were you a Red Diaper Baby by chance like your co-author?
“The Soviet archives exonerated Ethyl as well. Julius was as guilty as sin, but Ethyl was truly innocent when sent to her death.”
Fortunately, we have accounts from others involved that put Ethyl squarely involved in the espionage. I would trust facts from the Venona intercepts. I would hesitate to use offerings from Soviet spies standing alone. These men were extremely dedicated and one needs to consider there versions as possibly being cover stories.
The "handed over secrets on military electronics, but not the atomic bomb" means to some liberals (that will admit even that much) that the Rosenbergs were not guilty of treason. Of course the atomic bomb is just one of a multitude of military secrets so obviously the Rosenbergs were guilty of treason. And the fact that Ethel didn't procure or exchange information (I believe that was the case) does not exonerate her from the reality that she knew all about her husband's doings and gave material support on a personal/local level.
I’m going to presume that you are Joyce Milton. If so- Howdy!
I’ve been meaning to read your book so I ‘ve put it on my list.
If I remember correctly your co-author, Mr. Radosh, had intially believed the Rosenbergs innocent and planned to show so to his satisfaction. Then during the course of his research he learned the truth of their activities and the revelation was a political/reality epiphany. Very similar to David Horowitz in upbringing and eventual enlightenment. I believe it was an interview or article on Horowitz’s Front Page Mag where I read of Radosh’s crash with reality.
Anyhow, nice to meet you in a cyber sense.
Thanks for the ping. The Rosenbergs were born too early. Treason is now politically correct.
Interesting thread to read.
Treason, it’s the new black.
They weren't convicted of treason. Just espionage. They re the only two Americans ever executed for espionage in peacetime; if it the prosecution had the information then that we have now, they would still have been convicted, but I doubt they would have gotten the death penalty.
“Feklisov died Oct. 26, said Sergei Ivanov, a spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, one of the successor agencies to the KGB. He gave no cause of death.”
Gave no cause of death? Could it have been a bullet to the back of the head in the basement of the Lubyanka?
Do they still do that? Just wondering.
In a conspiracy, every participant in the conspiracy is as guilty as the one who actually commits the act.
Ethel recruited her own brother for Julius’ spy ring, and Ethel typed up Julius’ notes that were handed over to the Socviet agent.
Had she cooperated with the FBI, her life would have been spared. They were pressuring her to get to Julius, and the other members of his spy ring. She was proudly defiant and refused, even when faced with the gloomy future of her two little boys.
A woman who loved Stalin more than she loved her own children and her own country.
All material from the New York Times must be properly excerpted and have a working link.
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