The Rosenberg Case (Page 2)

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg get the death penalty for a crime that no one seems sure they committed.

Another Dreyfus Case?

Dear Sirs: After the French Dreyfus Case was legally considered closed the court of public opinion busted it wide open. The Rosenberg case, considered closed by many people today, can be busted wide open as soon as important facts "freely" withheld by our "free" press manage to get loose. This letter will touch on only two of those facts.

One, which has received very limited publicity, is that the jury verdict and death sentence rest on the shakiest foundation -- the testimony of two self-confessed spies who had the strongest incentive for lying. David Greenglass was unsentenced at the time he testified, and Ruth Greenglass, a co-conspirator in the indictment, was never brought to trial. The American conscience would stir more vigorously than it does if more people were aware of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals published opinion that "doubtless, if that [Greenglass's] testimony were disregarded, the conviction could not stand."

Another fact, which has received no publicity whatever, is that, whereas scientists, as far back as 1945, stated that there was no A-bomb secret for us to keep since the scientists of all countries knew it, the lawyers defending the Rosenbergs seem to have operated on the misconception that there was a secret. The trial transcript (pp. 499-500) shows that when the prosecutor introduced a diagram drawn from memory by David Greenglass, allegedly a reproduction of an A-bomb sketch which Greenglass claimed he had given to Rosenberg in 1945, the defense attorney requested that the court seal the sketch "so that it remains secret to the court, the jury, and counsel." The diagram, duly sealed, became inaccessible to scientists who might easily have exposed it as a brainstorm or fraud. That sealed sketch in the Rosenberg case bears a striking resemblance to the infamous bordereau in the Dreyfus Case, sealed legally by the French military court on the grounds of French national security and unsealed by an aroused public opinion.

In this same connection, the transcript further shows (pp. 500-501) that when the prosecutor asked Greenglass to explain his diagram, the Rosenberg defense came forth with the request that the courtroom be cleared of spectators while Greenglass was describing it. This explanation, Time said, "made little sense," and the science editor of Life thought his description of an implosion bomb "illogical, if not downright unworkable." But the dramatic clearing of the courtroom and the solemn sealing of an open "secret," both done at the inspiration of the defense attorneys, could not have failed to impress the jury, confuse the public, and lend a semblance of moral validity to the unprecedented death sentence handed down.

If, as seems to this layman, this was a serious error in judgment on the part of the defense attorneys, they could at this point best serve the interests of their hard-pressed clients by entering a motion for a new trial. Such a move, even if it carried no weight with legalistic-minded judges, is bound to carry plenty of weight with the court of public opinion before which the Rosenberg's case must now be actively prosecuted.

And speaking of the court of public opinion, I must sadly report that the left and liberal press, normally effective instruments of that court, are becoming infected with something which lies very close to thought control and censorship. As examples, a left publication, the National Guardian, which was active in publicizing the injustice in the Rosenberg case but failed to note the defense errors, rejected an ad for my recently published pamphlet, "Freedom's Electrocution," on the ground that "to pick flaws in the conduct of the defense is now an academic matter." On the other hand, the New Republic, known as liberal, refused to advertise my pamphlet on the ground that "the Rosenbergs are a Communist cause, and this being so, your advertisement falls in the category of those we no longer accept."

Amid this spreading bigotry and confusion, The Nation, which hospitably accepted the ad, shines like a beacon of genuine liberalism.

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