The family of Ethel Rosenberg, who was sent to the electric chair along with her husband, Julius, in 1953 after being convicted of spying for the Soviets at the height of the Red Scare, have called on Joe Biden to formally exonerate her after a newly released document appeared to show that the US government knew she was not a spy.
The couple maintained their innocence until the end and the case of the Rosenbergs has long been seen as a possible miscarriage of justice. Though most historians see Julius Rosenberg as a real Soviet spy, questions about Ethel Rosenberg’s role have lingered and their sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, have long campaigned in their family’s cause.
Now, according to a National Security Agency document, a top US codebreaker who decrypted secret Soviet communications during the cold war concluded that Ethel Rosenberg knew about husband Julius’s activities in atomic espionage but “did not engage in the work herself”.
The Meeropol brothers, who were just seven and three years old when their parents were arrested, have worked for decades to establish that their mother was falsely implicated in spying. They now want Biden to exonerate Ethel Rosenberg by issuing a presidential proclamation stating that she was wrongfully convicted and executed.
“My brother and I are both relieved and angered to learn that the US government concluded that our mother, Ethel Rosenberg, was not a spy, seven months before her trial in 1951 and nearly three years before her execution in 1953,” Michael Meeropol, 81, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“We are relieved to know the truth, but we are angered that the US government committed this unspeakable injustice and then took 74 years to finally tell the truth by declassifying and releasing this key exculpatory memo,” he added.
Robert Meeropol, 77, said he was “deeply gratified” to have it finally confirmed “that our mother was not engaged in espionage” and to right the wrong – “this injustice committed against her and our family” – the US government must officially correct the record and that Biden must issue “a presidential proclamation stating that our mother, Ethel Rosenberg, was wrongfully convicted and executed”.
The previously unreported assessment released last month was written days after Rosenberg’s arrest. While few investigators doubt that Julius Rosenberg was a Soviet spy, questions about his wife’s involvement have been disputed.
The released NSA memo, written by the linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner from decrypted Soviet communications concludes that Ethel Rosenberg “knew about her husbands [sic] work, but that due to ill health she did not engage in the work herself”.
According to the Associated Press, the memo refers to Julius Rosenberg, who worked as a civil engineer, by his Soviet code names – first “Antenna” and later “Liberal” – and characterizes him as a recruiting agent for Soviet intelligence.
In a separate paragraph titled “Mrs Julius Rosenberg”, Gardner describes a decoded message as saying Ethel Rosenberg was a “party member” and “devoted wife” – but not herself a spy and had no code name.
The Rosenbergs were put on trial months after the memo was written despite Gardner’s assessment. The Meeropols said the memo would have been available to the FBI director, J Edgar Hoover, but he chose not to share it with those with the power to alter her conviction, including Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight D Eisenhower.
The Meeropol brothers maintain that the memo serves as the “capstone” to the body of evidence that shows their mother did not participate in spying for the Soviets.
“I was 10 and my brother was six when we were orphaned by the execution of our parents,” Michael Meeropol said.
“That unjust act by the US government shaped our lives. Despite our good fortune to have been raised by loving adoptive parents, whose last name we live out our lives with pride, we have relentlessly pursued the truth about our parents throughout our adult lives. We are deeply gratified that we finally know the truth about our mother.”
The brothers thanked the national director of intelligence, Avril Haines, for supporting a more open approach by the NSA. “We hope this release is not a one-time exception to a history of secrecy but signals a broader shift by the national security community to greater openness,” said Robert Meeropol.
A statement by the Rosenbergs’ granddaughter Jenn Meeropol said Biden had “the power to right this historic injustice, redress the harm done to my family, and bring peace to my father and uncle in their lifetimes” and called on members of the public to support their demand.
But the Rosenberg case is likely to remain controversial. The Emory University historian Harvey Klehr has said Ethel Rosenberg conspired to commit espionage because “she was an active participant in her husband’s spy network, not just someone who happened to agree with her husband about politics”.
Another historian, Mark Kramer of Harvard University, said this week that the interpretation of the Russian communication was debatable and other documents contained “damning evidence” against her.
