THE TRIAL OF JULIUS AND ETHEL ROSENBERG
In the book The Haunted Wood, co-authors Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev give a panoramic view of one particular epoch in American History, the Cold War. Essentially, this book claims to reveal much that is stunning and revealing about the overt and covert conflicts that divided the United States and the Soviet Union in a game of global domination, that, on the surface pitted two great economic theories Communism and Capitalism. Whether the book actually achieves its purpose is not within the scope of this paper.
What is within the scope is to focus on one event from the era of the Cold War and see just how that impacted the United States. That event is the espionage accusation, trial, sentencing, and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. The Rosenberg case is a cause celebre, and perhaps one of the most controversial trials in United States history.
With the possible exception of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, no single trial has engendered so much debate, has aroused such passion, and has produced so many articles, books, and television shows as the Rosenberg trial. There have been books and documentaries and movies about the husband and wife's arrest, their time in jail while awaiting trial, and the actions of the couple during their trial, and the publicity surrounding their execution. Add Anti-Semitism and suspected government fraud and collusion, and the trial takes on all of the aspects of an American Dreyfuss Affair.
According to the United States government, the purpose of the trial was to punish the Rosenberg's for espionage, and in so doing, send a warning to all Americans that dealing with the Russians would lead to disaster. The official government public involvement with the alleged "spies" can be traced to 8:12 a.m. on the morning of June 16, 1950. That was the time when the FBI showed up at the Rosenberg's and "asked" Julius to accompany them ...