Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Truth Will Out
Townhall.com ^ | July 20, 2015 | Paul Greenberg

Posted on 07/20/2015 6:44:31 PM PDT by Kaslin

"The long unmeasured pulse of time moves everything. There is nothing hidden that it cannot bring to light...." --Sophocles

Call it a footnote to history. It's 46 pages long, but till now it's been kept under wraps: the testimony of David Greenglass before a grand jury some six decades ago on August 7, 1950. It doesn't contain any surprises. It's been known for some time that his testimony against his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, was false. A frame-up. He admitted it in a newspaper interview before he died, and explained why he'd ratted on her: to save his own skin. She was just a scapegoat for his own crime.

The release of David Greenglass' grand jury testimony by order of a federal judge -- at the request of various historians eager to wrap up all the loose ends for the record -- further confirms his perfidy. Not because of what it contains, but because of what it doesn't: any indication that his sister Ethel was guilty of the crime for which she was convicted -- and executed -- along with her husband Julius.

But by the time of the trial, egged on by federal prosecutors hell-bent on a conviction, David Greenglass would testify against his own sister, saying she had typed up the notes when he delivered atomic secrets to Soviet agents.

Summing up its case at the end of the trial, the prosecution charged that Mrs. Rosenberg had "struck the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interests of the Soviets."

Ethel Rosenberg may not have been wholly innocent -- she was part of her husband's spy ring and doubtless knew what was going on -- but it's clearer than ever now that she wasn't the one who typed up those notes.

That's not what the jury heard from the government's zealot of a prosecutor, Irving H. Saypol, who could have been Andrei Vishinsky leading the charge against all those old Bolsheviks put to death in one of Stalin's show trials. Ethel Rosenberg, the prosecutor declaimed in grand style, was fully deserving of the death penalty because she'd typed up her brother's notes. ("Just so had she, on countless other occasions, sat at that typewriter and struck the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interests of the Soviets.") Off with her head!

Ethel Rosenberg's having typed up those stolen secrets became the central accusation against her, and certainly the most emotionally resonant one. It was the linchpin of the government's argument for putting her to death. And the jury bought it.

Both of the Rosenbergs, duly convicted, would be executed at Sing Sing on June 19, 1953. Despite worldwide protests from Paris to Moscow organized by the Communist Party and its fellow travelers, who were always on the lookout for a good cause celebre, however inflated or short-lived, before moving on to the next subject of their agitprop. In the meantime, the Rosenberg case made fine fodder for America's enemies.

It wouldn't be the first time our Justice Department showed a disregard for justice. That pattern scarcely began with the present administration, which has only continued it, not inaugurated it. There is no shortage of precedents, legal and historical, for scandals like Fast and Furious or the IRS' selective tax exemptions.

High among those injustices has to be the execution of Ethel Rosenberg on the dubious testimony of her own brother. It's become clearer and clearer over the years that she wasn't the one who transcribed those notes of her brother's, the most inflammatory accusation against her.

But the truth has a way of outing, however long it takes. More and more of it is revealed as the years pass. Now it's happened again. And the moral standard of another historical figure has been confirmed. And in David Greenglass' case, it was the lowest.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: coldwar; intelligenceleak; justice; nuclearweapons

1 posted on 07/20/2015 6:44:31 PM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Don’t know about Ethel, but Greenglass appears to have traded his soul for his skin.


2 posted on 07/20/2015 6:47:31 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HiTech RedNeck

It sure looks like it


3 posted on 07/20/2015 6:54:35 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: JohnHuang2

One readers’ comment has a link to an essay by you


4 posted on 07/20/2015 6:58:44 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Dig her up and let her go.


5 posted on 07/20/2015 7:20:34 PM PDT by Crim (Palin / West '16)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

One of the great tenets of liberalism is that the Rosenbergs were innocent or that they were framed. All of that went out the window with the brief period the Soviet archives were open in the early 1990s. Among the finds were Stalin’s notes on his own atomic bomb project, thanking the Rosenberg’s for their contributions.

They were both guilty as hell and deserved to hang. It’s a pity the Brits didn’t hang Klaus Fuchs too. The strung up the fascist Lord Haw Haw, but not the good little commie traitor.


6 posted on 07/20/2015 7:20:52 PM PDT by henkster (Where'd my tagline go?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin; JohnHuang2
One readers’ comment has a link to an essay by you

The essay is not by JohnHuang2, it is by Ron Radosh. JohnHuang2 merely posted it.

I am confused as to why anyone thinks this needs to be brought up again. As another commenter remarked: " They were ALL a bunch of commie-rat/traitors. Ethel too. Toto too if she had typed up the stolen secrets. F Ethel. Greenglass lying his way out of the chair is the only probem as I see it."

That is the only problem I see with the result as well.

7 posted on 07/20/2015 7:21:43 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: DiogenesLamp

Yeah, you’re correct. He used to write essays though


8 posted on 07/20/2015 7:27:24 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Wow! What’s Bill Nye the science guy doing there on the left? Was he involved too?


9 posted on 07/20/2015 7:31:14 PM PDT by Lake Living
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lake Living

Cough, cough


10 posted on 07/20/2015 7:57:17 PM PDT by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson