I was a young man in the early 1950s, when frenzied anti-communism, led by such all-American neo-fascists as Joe McCarthy, Roy Cohn and J. Edgard Hoover, dominated American headlines and newscasts.
Julius Rosenberg was 'guilty' according to the 1995 release of the Verona documents, but guilty of exactly what? There is STILL no evidence that he passed on atomic secrets to the Soviets, which is ostensibly what he was executed for. I believe he was executed for other reasons as well, including anti-Semitism and his unrepetent socialism (which was legal in the U.S. and embraced by large numbers of people in that period).
The charges against him were so hysterical that he was widely seen as all but single-handedly helping the USSR to develop the A-bomb. Such was the intolerance, vengefulness and paranoia that were pervasive during the early days of the Cold War.
Implicit in Verona is the sacrosanct belief that the U.S. government always tells the truth. It is blatantly absurd now, and it was only less blatantly absurd then.
In Ivy Meerepol's wonderful documentary, it's perhaps the question of Ethel that is most intriguing. In the Verona documents, the KGB didn't seem to know her. She no doubt had knowledge of Julius's unspecified 'activities', but socialists of that period (as this film vividly shows in interviews) were people of honor, as contradictory and even outlandish as that might seem to blindly jingoistic, 'my country, right or wrong,' right-wing flag wavers.
Ethel could have saved herself, but she chose to die with her husband rather than 'name names,' a favorite McCarthyite blackmail tactic in those days. Many could not understand why she didn't speak out, why she didn't save herself and let Julius take the fall. But Ethel was an exceptionally moral and principled human being; she could reach no other decision but to die with her husband. In my eyes, it was a transcendantly heroic act. In this age, when people routinely sell out to the highest bidder, it is hard to imagine that standing up for principles could be, and was, a life-and-death act.
The power of Ivy Meerepol's documentary is that she shows Julius and Ethel Rosenberg as very real people who loved each other beyond any conventional understanding of love. They were doting parents who adored their children. Despite the bizarre and terrifying mass frenzy that prevailed at the time, they maintained a quiet defiance and dignity, something that infuriated government fascists and blood-thirsty citizens. They just couldn't understand it. One imagines, however obliquely, that the Rosenbergs were ultimately victorious.
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