I saw the article in the New York Times last week but with everything that’s been going on I didn’t really take the time to process it, to take it in.
A confession last week by Morton Sobell, a co-defendant and classmate of Julius Rosenberg, revealed that he and Rosenberg did indeed pass information about the atomic bomb to the Soviets.
There is no real reason not to believe Morton Sobell’s confession.
This certainly doesn’t mean that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg deserved to be executed. Goodness, no. But it does solve one of the most painful mysteries of Cold War America.
Ah, the Rosenbergs.
Think of of their sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, who have spent their lives defending their parents and trying to prove them innocent. They attended Elizabeth Irwin High School in the West Village, the same high school my sister attended many years later. Kindred spirits, I guess. We always felt a connection with them
In 1953 they lost both their father and mother, Ethel, and were adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol. The Times’ today has the an interesting story about the brothers.
Ah, the Rosenbergs.
"We believed they were innocent and we tried to prove them innocent," Michael Meeropol told the New York Times. "But I remember saying to myself in late 1975, maybe a little later, that whatever happesn it doesn’t change me. We really meant it, that the truth is more important than our political position."
Yes, the poor children (now adults). The New York Times ran a story about them today featuring a photograph of the two boys looking at a newspaper account of their parents back when they were first arrested.
In the article they admit it now appears their parents were in fact guilty of espionage, though they rightly maintain that they did not deserve to be executed.