The National Security Agency released a 74-year-old previously classified document “confirming that the U.S. government knew that Ethel Rosenberg was not a spy long before her trial and execution,” the Rosenberg Fund for Children announced this month.
The RFC says the files acknowledge that the government “knew Ethel Rosenberg never spied for the Soviet Union. . . . Her conviction was based on perjured testimony and prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. The only evidence against Ethel at trial was given by proven liars, David and Ruth Greenglass. . . . [the] files state there was insufficient evidence to indict Ethel but that she could be used as a ‘lever’ against her husband.”
Ethel and her husband, Julius Rosenberg, were executed by electrocution on June 19, 1953. They were the only two American civilians executed on espionage charges during the Cold War.
The Rosenbergs’ two sons, Michael and Robert Meeropol, and the Rosenberg Fund are now calling on President Biden to “issue a proclamation stating that Ethel was wrongfully convicted and executed.” Michael and Robert were six and ten years old when the government killed their parents.
RFC Executive Director Jennifer Meeropol, a granddaughter of the Rosenbergs, stated that Biden “has 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. The Rosenberg Fund for Children was established by my father, Robert, almost 35 years ago in memory of his parents and as a testament to the community of progressive people who stood with him and his brother when their family was targeted. The RFC joins my father and uncle in calling on President Biden to act swiftly to address this grievous injustice.”
You can sign the RFC’s petition demanding that Biden exonerate Ethel Rosenberg here.