Rawhide is ok. Next on American History tv a panel of espionage historians talk about julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the spy couple who leaked secrets about the atom bomb to the russians. They discuss the role of antisemitism in their prosecution, and the eventual execution of the treasonous couple that sparked National Debate in the u. S. This 90 minute event to place in the National Archives in washington d. C. Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I will get us going. I am the Senior Adviser of the pulitzer center. A harvard Professor Emeritus im happy to add, and a former journalist for cbs and nbc. Our program focuses on the rosenbergs and the role they played in soviet espionage in the United States during the cold war. It is a heck of a story. To start with. Im sure you are all here because you are involved in it emotionally or intellectually. It is a story that goes back to the 1930s when young people joined the communist party in the United States, and world war ii came along, and the United States and the soviet union were allies against hitler. A number of people carried on emotionally an attachment to the soviet union. In this particular case we are talking about both people accused on the base of solid evidence of providing information in the making of atomic weapons from the United States to the soviet union. They were americans who are doing what they thought was right. It started in early 1950, when one of the most important soviet spies, a physicist, was arrested and fbi officials learned that he had passed information to moscow by courier, a courier named harry gold. Under interrogation gold identified David Greenglass as his contact. Greenglass identified Julius Rosenberg as the leader of a key spy ring. In june of 1950, julius and his wife ethel were arrested. Both of them charged with conspiracy to commit espionage under the espionage act of 1917. In march of 1951 they were convicted. In june of 1953 they were executed. Since that time, there has been no information produced, and we there has been new information produced. We will talk about some of the new information this evening. What i would like to do now quickly is get into the introduction of the people who know a great deal more about this than i. And who will be sharing some of their wisdom with us. The number two over here is harvey claire, the professor of politics and history at emory university. He has cowritten many books dealing with american communism and soviet espionage in the United States, including books coauthored with John Earl Haynes sitting to my right. Most notably spies, the rise and fall of the kgb in america. And decoding soviet espionage in america. Mr. Haynes was for many years the 20th century political historian in the Manuscript Division in the library of congress. He retired in 2012 a continues to work on the same subject. Ronald raydosh, the senior adjunct fellow at the hudson institute. He has written widely about the rosenberg case. Including a book he coauthored with joyce milton called the rosenberg file. Stephen is the senior washington editor for bio century. Com and the author of engineering communism, how two american spies founded the soviet silicon valley. He has published several major articles on the rosenberg case. Alan horn bloom is a writer and former justice official. He is the author of the invisible harry gold, the man who gave the soviets the atom bomb. At the far end to my right, i my colleague mark kramer. , the director of cold war studies at harvard. And a senior fellow for the harvard study of russian and eurasian studies. I would like to start, if you dont mind, with the history of the rosenberg case. And as professor claire should talk to us. John haynes, we have coauthored so many books we cant remember who writes what. John will offer a brief preseed of the biography of the case. I would like to take a minute and mention something i dont think will be addressed directly by any of my colleagues. I am fascinated by what the rosenberg case illustrates about the tragedy of the jewish relationship with communism. The rosenbergs and their defenders, for many years, presented themselves as ordinary American Jews committed to antifascism who had been swept up in hysteria. That is a trope that is deeply deceiving. Julius first tried to approach soviet Intelligence Officers in 1940s when the soviet union and nazi germany were allies. He continued contacts with soviet intelligence until 1950. Well past the time in which vicious antisomatic antisomatic purges were underway in both the soviet union and the Eastern European satellite states. One of the interesting psychological questions, and i think it is a tragedy, is why jews like the rosenbergs were so committed to a regime that was second only to adolf hitler and in the number of jews it killed. Why dont you pick up the historiography. The case got enormous attention in the 1950s. Not surprisingly there were hundreds of journalistic articles about the case after the 1950s. There are number of accounts aimed at the general public from the 1963 book entitled the betrayers, to the 1965 book invitation to an inquest. Both review the trial transcript, newspaper articles and secondary sources and concluded there was no reasonable doubt of the rosenbergs guilt. In contrast, using the same material argued they never participated in espionage. Key items of government evidence were forgeries and confessions were false. They said the talking points for the rosenbergs were innocents for decades. These clashing accounts are normal for a high profile case. Think of the even more enormous contradictory accounts of the kennedy assassination. There continues to this day an impressive volume of popular articles, books, tv documentaries, youtube presentations, on the rosenberg case. Many skewed to the rosenbergs were innocent side. 30 years or so after such an event, like the rosenberg case once primary materials become available, one would have expected scholarly accounts of the case to come out. Starting in the 1980s, one would have expected young graduate students to have produced dozens of dissertations later to be transformed into books reexamining with new primary sources the substance of the case. One wouldve expected study in the overall case, and focusing on the roles and biographies of rosenbergs, greenglass, and others in the espionage apparatus. Or, one wouldve expected scholarly accounts of archival documents to expose in detail the governments fake evidence in which officials directed the conspiracy to convict to innocent people. But this did not happen. This is what is abnormal about scholarly courage covering the case. Today, more than 60 years after the case enough time for two , generations of scholars to have reviewed the evidence and brought in new material, there is only a single comprehensive examination of the rosenberg case, miltons 1983 the rosenberg file. Despite a decade of service as a soviet spy theres only a single scholarly book on harry gold the aptly named, invisible harry gold. Morton sobell who is convicted and tried with the rosenbergs has yet to get a serious biographer. David greenglass has only one serious biography. The brother, by sam roberts. As for the other half dozen members of the rosenberg bring none have serious scholarly attention except for two who secretly defected to the soviet union. They are the subjects of engineering communism. There are academic articles, dissertations, and books on peripheral aspects of the rosenberg case. Studies focusing on cultural tropes, media coverage, but these peripheral studies largely avoid original research on the core of the case. Did the rosenbergs participate in soviet espionage . What did others in the apparatus actually do . These accounts often take a position of a gnosticism. A position of not asserting the rosenbergs innocence but studiously acknowledging the weight of evidence establishing that Julius Rosenberg was a soviets by. Soviet spy. Why does avoidance of research in the core of the case by academics . I hope later we will have an opportunity to discuss this. We will. Im curious about one point. If there were 50 academic studies, and 50 phds written about it, what large issues would come up that we dont know now . I dont think any new issues wouldve come up, but what you would have is Additional Details and reexaminations of the original evidence. Rons book is a wonderful comprehensive book of the case. But there is room for other scholars to redo what ron has done, ring bring in new material he didnt have access to in 1983. And to give us, i think, the main points are the same, but you would get a different perspective and a filling in of things which were not clear in the 1980s. What we know now about the rosenbergs and the rosenberg spy network, start us off. It seems every year brings new revelations about the rosenberg case. Thus, reigniting a debate about the meaning of julius and ethel s actions the extent of what , they did for moscow, and whether or not they harmed Americas National security. The debate over their guilt, i think, is over. No one who respects evidence can believe the rosenbergs were innocent, or that they only stole low level industrial information that during world war ii, the soviets shouldve had anyway. The first danger in the theory the first dagger in the theory of innocence was material made public in 1995, in the First Release of the venona project in decrips. These were the kgb cables from the Moscow Center to their agents in the United States. 21 of the files decrypted have been translated. They concern the espionage activity of Julius Rosenberg in particular. What do they show . The files reveal, first, that julius code name was liberal and antenna. They later changed it to other things. Among other findings, they show the kgb regularly made use of the American Communist Party as well as some of its front groups to get participants to engage in espionage. They used the cpusa as a recruiting tool from which to choose and develop new agents. They also showed that both julius and ethel recruited their sisterinlaw, Ruth Greenglass to work for the network. And later, she convinced her husband, david, to join as well. We move to 2008, when a man named alexander released a complete series of his notebooks. Files meticulously copied when he was working for the kgb and researching a book on its history at the kgb headquarters in moscow. The files reveal that Julius Rosenberg recruited another atomic spy, besides David Greenglass, an engineer and named Russell Mcnutt who worked at a firm atomics building facility in oak ridge, tennessee. They also reveal that Ethel Rosenberg was involved in recruiting people, like her sisterinlaw for espionage work. And that the information passed by David Greenglass manually and mutually overlapped with data sent to moscow by major atomic spies, particularly clouse and theodore. The kgb described these messages as highly valuable. Next, as our colleagues book engineering communism. He has laid out in detail the espionage in the rosenberg ring. Joel and alfred. Both escaped the United States before the fbi had a chance to arrest them. The ended up, after stopovers in czechoslovakia in the soviet , union. Where steve shows they use their expertise to develop the microelectronics industry and create moscows version of silicon valley. Most recently, alan hornbloom wrote his book, invisible harry gold. Not only does he make it clear he was a spy for the soviets contrary to the , assertion of rosenbergs defenders. But he explained sympathetically why he decided to engage in espionage, and reaches the conclusion that gold told the truth and Julius Rosenberg and his colleagues were not. Gold was labeled by the rosenbergs defenders as a delusional psychotic. While the rosenbergs and Morton Sobell were portrayed as innocent martyrs to mccarthy witch on. To the mccarthy witchhunt. Gold was very intent on making amends for what he considered his traitorous acts and telling the truth. Although his lawyers had ample legal ground that wouldve allowed gold to escape indictment and prosecution. Perhaps the most recent damming news was the confession of codefendant Morton Sobell to sam roberts of the New York Times in 2008 that he was indeed guilty. Sobell, at the time, claimed in the same interview with roberts that he only gave the soviets defensive weaponry that could not harm the United States. A few years later, steve osman and i wrote an article for the Weekly Standard based on the interview with sobell. Sobell told us he gave the soviets Major Military information. In 1948, as we speculated in our book it reached the conclusion without the hard evidence, that at the time, the most prominent aeronautic engineer in the United States doing projects for the government and working at columbia university, greenglass told us he took the files, had the file stolen by another member of the rosenberg ring, a scientist named william perl, from his safe at columbia university. During a july 4 weekend with a where they stayed up 24 hours photographing everything and then handing it, the last day of the july 4 weekend, to a kgb agent waiting for sobell at the platform of the long island railroad. From long island to new york city. From new york city to long island. That is about it for the new information. Other commentators, steve and alan, will have more details to the nature of this new evidence. Stephen will be speaking about the rosenbergs network key role in soviet technological espionage. Steve . I want to start with the word about the motivation of the rosenberg ring. It is important. It is something that harvey touched on. I got interested the good i met them i got interested because i met one of the members of the ring in moscow. We became good friends in moscow. We spent time on a sofa in my living room. I got to know him and sobell. The thing that strikes me as important is that they were not spying because they were trying to help an ally of the United States fighting fascism. They were spying because they were dedicated to communism. And because they believed the soviet union was building a utopian state and they believed the United States was a fascist state. They believed after the Second World War that the military conflict between the United States and soviet union was inevitable, and they wanted to help the soviet union. That is the way i see it, and i think that is a critical thing. Onto nonnuclear technology. A word about this. This is Julius Rosenbergs communist Party Registration card. I dont know if you can see it, but the critical thing is it is from 1940. Anyone who was a member of the communist party in 1940, at a time when the soviet union was allied with nazi germany, that tells you about his allegiance and dedication. Anyway, moving on julius , rosenbergs primary value to the soviet union is not information that he personally acquired, it was his talent of recruiting, managing and motivating spies and keeping them on track for years. He had 11 or 12 he recruited. This made the rosenberg ring and an incredibly productive espionage operation. Most of them were engineers, working for the army or defense contractors. Many of them were Quality Control engineers. Their jobs were to understand how advanced Weapons Systems were built and to fix problems and manufacture. They had to know how similar technologies were built. It put them in a fantastic position to pass information to the soviet union. They were encouraged to ring their work home on the weekend. They had cameras, that the soviets had given them. That put them in position to copy a great deal of material. We know that some of the information, we know exactly what they gave from venona, or soviet case officer or from other documents. On this slide i have some of the information we know the soviets received from the rosenberg ring. The first is the proximity fuse, which is after the atomic bomb probably the second most important and defended defended technology secret the United States developed. Help us understand why. The proximity fuse was a technology that made it possible to shoot down airplanes. Later it was used in other technology. It had a radio transmitter that would send out signals and receive them back. When a weapon became close to a target at a set range it would , explode. The idea itself was not obvious. And the idea how to make it wasnt obvious. Another reason it was critically secret laws if the enemy knew about it it wouldnt be that , difficult to have countermeasures. You could jam it, things like that. When United States first deployed it, they deployed it in the pacific where it would only be shooting down airplanes. If any of the missiles did not explode it would fall into the sea and be of no use. Julius rosenberg gave the soviet union blueprints for the proximity fuse, and a working copy like a Christmas Present