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FEATURES

The Rosenbergs

Executed in frame-up
on June 19, 1953

By ALEX McLENNAN

Shortly before sunset, on Friday, June 19, 1953, Ethel
and Julius Rosenberg were executed by the government
of the United States, at Sing Sing prison, in Ossining,
New York. They were victims of the most vicious, vin-
dictive and monstrous frame-up in U.S. history.

Government files released 25 years after their trial
reveal that there was collusion between the President,
the Judge and the prosecution to railroad the Rosenbergs
to their death.

Throughout their ordeal, the Rosenbergs steadfastly

maintained their innocence. Shortly before they walked
to the electric chair, they stated, ‘‘We die with honor and
dignity, knowing we must be vindicated by history.”

Julius Rosenberg was arrested in July, 1950, one
month after the outbreak of the Korean War. He was
charged with conspiring to commit, espionage. Ethel
Rosenberg and Morton Sobell were arrested in August of
that year. All three were accused of being ‘‘instrumental
in conveying the ‘secret’ of the atom bomb to the Soviet
Union’.

The arrests took place during the period of the McCar-
thy witch hunts of the 1950s, in an environment of ex-
treme tensions and anxiety across the country as people
in the progressive movement were being denounced and
forced to sign loyalty oaths or lose their jobs. The frenzy
and the lynch mentality whipped up by sensational,
government-inspired headlines in the press, had created
an atmosphere of fear and hysteria in the courtroom
designed to intimidate the jury. Certainly, any juror who
might dare to question the instructions of Judge Kauf-
man, or express any sympathy for the defendants, would
be open to charge of un-Americanism and/or, of aiding
the “‘enemy’’.

The trial lasted for three weeks. Testimony presented
by government witnesses was contradictory and based
on fabricated evidence. The Rosenbergs were convicted
and sentenced to death. Morton Sobel received a 30-year
Sentence, of whith he Served’ 18 years, from the time of
his arrest on August 18, 1950, until his release on January
14, 1969.

Even after all the legal appeals had been exhausted,
the demands for clemency from world leaders and from
people all around the world continued to flood the offices
of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower, who each in turn
refused to grant a stay of execution.

In the three years from the time of their arrest to the
moment of their judicial murder, the universal campaign
to save the Rosenbergs became a symbol of the anger of
millions of people around the world directed against the

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Torontonians demonstrate for clemency outside U.S. Consulate, January 1953

war policies of the United States and its instrument of
terror, McCarthyism.

The Rosenbergs were convicted of the charge of
conspiring to commit espionage. This is a far cry from
the statements made by President Eisenhower and the
trial Judge, Irving Kaufman, that the Rosenbergs had
“stolen and transmitted ‘the secret’ of the atom bomb,”
and were thereby responsible for ‘‘ American casualties
in Korea’’, for the loss of ‘‘untold millions’’ of American
lives in the future, and ‘‘for changing the course of
history to the disadvantage of the United States.’’ And
yet, the indictment was merely for ‘‘conspiring to com-
mit espionage.”’

There was'no evidence presented at the trial by any
witness that the Rosenbergs had ever transmitted any
classified information to anyone. This is a matter of court
record. But the above statements by the President and
trial judge would give the impression that such evidence
did exist.

Rabbi Robert E. Goldburg has indicated that, ‘‘Long
before the executions, Judge and President and prosecu-
tion and FBI and Atomic Energy Commissioners (AEC)
were aware that the electrocutions were founded on false
premises, on the fraudulent, mythical claim of having
“transmitted the secret of the atom bomb’’. Mythical,

because, as pointed out by the leading atomic scientists,
there is no ‘‘secret of the atom bomb”’ which can be
described in a one-page diagram and some twelve pages
of~explanatory notes. *Moreover, long before the
charges against the Rosenbergs, the so-called secret of
the atom bomb had ceased tobe a secret.

Now that the truth is out, why do the kept media in the —

U.S. and Canada remain silent? Why do those who
helped to crucify the Rosenberg martyrs in the name of
the cold war, not demand that they be finally vindicated?
Why do the moral and ethical leaders, the law societies

}

and their publications not demand that justice be served |

at long last, and that the guilty be named?

The Rosenbergs were promsed life — if they would |
deny their innocence and sign a public statement of guilt.

_ Given a choice between dishonor and adherence to prin- |

ciple, they elected to die. Would their murderers have
had the same courage, if given a similar choice?

As we bow our heads in tribute to the immortal mem-
ory of these two American patriots, let us solemnly vow —

to keep faith with the ideals of peace and brotherhood for
which Ethel and Julius Rosenberg gave their lives.

*Rabbi Emeritus of the New Haven Conn. Congregation

Mishkan Israel, Writing-in the Churchman U.S. June/85

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weekly pension of $136.24 until he is 65

DUNDY
MONEY:

Insidious
job loss
payoff

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 3, 1985

By JIM TAIT
GLASGOW — It was in 1965 when
British unemployment stood at 40,000

. that redundancy payments were backed

by law with the introduction of the
Redundancy Payments Act by the Labor

~ government of Harold Wilson.

That Act made employers legally
bound to compensate workers dismissed
because of redundancy and it was wel-
comed by the trade unions because it
helped inhibit employers from too easily
declaring a redundancy and because it
provided a small financial cushion for
workers made redundant through no
fault of their own.

But what was regarded as a measure
against employers 20 years ago has been
today turned to their advantage and has
become one of the main instruments by
which British big business has shed hun-
dreds of thousands of jobs in mining, tex-
tiles, shipbuilding, engineering, steel,
autos and scores of other industries.

Under the redundancy scheme
employers can claim back from the
government 41 per cent of any redun-
dancy money paid out and on the remain-
ing 59 per cent they are allowed to claim
tax relief.

Originally the pay outs were small but
during the economic crises of the mid
and late 1970s companies began

The Labour Research Department es-
timated that by 1981 the average dundy
money lump sum was about $7,785. For
employers driven to raise profits by pro-
ducing the same goods with fewer work-
ers, paying $7,785 (then claiming a lot of
it back) to a worker earning $11,245 a
year is quite attractive, especially when
it can undermine the possibility of strike
action.

Virtually every large and medium-
sized British company has a redundancy
scheme over and above the statutory one
and many pay as much as two, three and
four times the legal minimum.

Almost all schemes recognize length
of service with older workers close to
retirement particularly vulnerable to sell-
ing their job which can give them a nest
egg for their retirement.

But even younger workers, who think
they will be lucky to find another job, are
lured by the dundy money carrot which
can help pay off their house mortgage or
other debts.

During the year-long British miners’
strike, the most significant fight for jobs
in British working-class history, the
government offered unprecedentedly
high redundancy payments to break and
undermine the miners’ militant and
united resolve.

For example, a miner aged 49 with 30

when he then qualifies for the State Pen- |

sion.

That is why during the miners’ strike,
NUM President. Arthur Scargill argued
again and again that it was immoral for

|

workers to sell their jobs because they —
were selling the jobs of future gen- —

erations.

If it’s true that eachjob soldisa job lost
to up-and-coming workers leaving
school then the significance of whether
redundancies are voluntary or compul-
sory matters little to the 107,706 school
leavers presently unemployed who
watch one job opportunity after another
lost to them forever.

The British miners’ strike for jobs gave
a lead to all workers and unions by show-
ing that they remain indifferent to the
dundy money volunteers at their peril,
that much more has to be done to en-
courage workers to fight for every single
job and to actively discourage the volun-
teers.

The miners and the Scott Lithgow ex-
perience have in their own separate ways

sharply exposed the self-destroying —

contradiction of British capitalism which

is obliterating many more jobs than it can _

create. At the same time more and more
working people are coming to believe

that a job is one of the most valuable —

possessions anyone can have and that to |

““topping-up”’ the legally required years service could receive around keep it you have to fight for it.
minimum by introducing their own $62,280 while a man of 50 or over with
schemes. the same service could get $38,060 plus a Second of two parts.
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