Defending the Rosenbergs
I’ve never really understood the radical left’s desire to lionize the Rosenbergs as martyrs: treason is the one crime specifically listed in the Constitution (with death a possible penalty); they were pretty clearly guilty; nothing in the intervening years has suggested otherwise. Yet even today, when a coconspirator admits that Julius Rosenberg was a spy and Ethel knew what he was doing (making her an accomplice to treason and thus, treasonous herself), nuts like Howard Zinn defend the couple:
“I never was going along saying I know that they were innocent, and I’m not shocked by the fact that they turned out to be spies,” said Howard Zinn, the left-wing history professor. “To me it didn’t matter whether they were guilty or not. The most important thing was they did not get a fair trial in the atmosphere of cold war hysteria.”
That use of “they” is very important, because Zinn has repeatedly argued that Ethel Rosenberg, at least, was innocent. From “A People’s History of the United States”:
His wife Ethel was certainly innocent (and known to be innocent by her accusers)
The Rosenbergs were guilty. Why am I not surprised that Zinn says it doesn’t matter?
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3 Comments - add your own
Christian Toto — September 23, 2008 at 11:29 am
Aw, you can’t let facts get in the way now, can you? Must be nice to rewrite your own history.
Daniel Kennelly — September 23, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Now, I’m not a lawyer, but is the wife’s knowledge of her husband’s crime necessarily treasonous, in a narrowly legal sense? She doesn’t become an accomplice simply by not turning her husband in, I thought, due to the fact that spousal privilege laws typically allow a spouse to refuse to testify except in certain cases involving children or domestic abuse or such. I presume that “refuse to testify” privilege also applies to refusing to report her husband’s crime to the authorities. Which is why the state in the Rosenberg case made such a big deal about whether or not she typed up those notes.
So, for instance, Robert Hanssen’s wife, who discovered him in the act of treason, didn’t turn him into the feds, and she was not even accused of treason, even when Robert subsequently resumed his spying and was finally caught.
Sonny Bunch — September 24, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I don’t know about that, Daniel. If your wife commits murder, you knew he was planning to do so, said nothing, knew he did it, said nothing, knew he was continuing to kill people, and said nothing…that’s not acting as an accomplice? I’m not sure…