[yooper]

"Guilty of spying for an ALLY. We were on the same side as the USSR."

You could make a weak case that the Soviets were our allies and on the same side until the end of WWII; but, even during the war the US realized that the Soviets were more of an enemy than the Nazis.

HOWEVER, Julius and Ethel were tried in the 1950's, during the cold war, when the Soviets were our arch-enemies. They weren't spying for an ally by any stretch, and the fact that they were Jewish is not relevant.

Bottom line? We were definitely not on the same side as the Soviets during this period and history shows that the two were stone cold guilty. They paid the price, and Ethel's brother should have also....

[MEG33]

It's one of those unfortunate deals you make with the devil who will talk.The Venona files could not be revealed I believe because we didn't want the Soviets to know we'd cracked a code.

[bvw]

Doesn't count. Not officially. Korea was a "police action" whatever the heck that is. On the record, the SOVIETS were our allies.

[Wondervixen]

The Rosenberg defenders who, for years, swore Julius and Ethel were 100% innocent claimed they would believe otherwise only if the Soviets admitted it. This just parallels the Clinton's two main liberal philosophies...

(1.) Tell a lie often enough to win over public opinion and it becomes the truth.

(2.)Ride that horse as far as it will take you and hope nobody gives a damn anymore that you were eventually proven to have lied in the first place.