Yesterday's
front-page Boston Globe story on efforts to prove that Ethel Rosenberg was
wrongly convicted and executed for spying for the Russians includes a reference
by Michael Meeropol (Rosenberg's son) to Dukakis's proclamation on Sacco
and Vanzetti:
Meeropol.. said they specifically are not seeking a
presidential pardon. “A pardon is weird because it implies guilt,” he said. Rather,
the brothers want a proclamation similar to one issued in 1977 by then Governor
Michael Dukakis in the notorious Sacco and Vanzetti case. Dukakis declared the
pair had been unjustly executed in 1927 for murders they did not commit,
proclaiming “any stigma and disgrace should be forever removed” from their
names and those of their descendants."
The Globe
story also quotes this statement from Michael Meeropol on the
proclamation: “It would be a way of
reminding people that every once in a while, our system of justice goes awry,
especially in politically charged times."
This
statement strikes me as a keeper, a truth that goes beyond the particulars of the
Rosenberg case.
Scholars
and students of the case still disagree on whether the evidence the Meeropols
have uncovered exonerates Ethel Rosenberg. But whether or not she was guilty of
what the government accused her of doing, the charge hardly rises to a level
deserving execution.
Why do
governments choose to execute people? The reason seldom has much to do with the
evidence for the charges against them. So why the need for the judicially
sanctioned homicide called "execution"? To protect our secrets? Why
do we have so many secrets? Did we kill
the Rosenbergs to scare off other spies? To teach us all a lesson?
It is
surely the case that the Soviet Union (like other autocratic regimes) executed people left and right with no
regard, at the whim of its dictators, without regard to evidence or what
American law calls "due process." But if we do the same thing to
people such as the Rosenbergs for largely political reasons, how do we show
that we are any better a totalitarian police state?
To the best
of my understanding the trial of the Rosenbergs was a complicated espionage
case oversimplified by America's hysterical fear of Communism during the
McCarthy period.
According
to Ron Radosh (co-author of the book "The Rosenberg File") Ethel Rosenberg assisted her husband's spy work by serving as a
communication channel between him and Soviet agents. Radosh was interviewed by
the "60 Minutes" staff as a rebuttal witness for that network news
program's recent broadcast in which the Meeropols made their case for
their mother's innocende. Here's a link to that show:
www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-brothers-rosenberg-cold-war-spying/
Here's some
of what Radosh had to say:
The program’s producers and their staff worked extremely
hard. Indeed, my segment was taped last winter, and they worked for months
putting their report together. I and my associates... gave them a mountain of
copies of KGB material from the Vassiliev files, specific KGB messages from the
Venona decrypts, and answered many questions that they had. We left no stone
unturned in giving them material that proved beyond any doubt that Ethel
Rosenberg was indeed guilty of “conspiracy to commit espionage.”
While Radosh clearly believes in Ethel's guilt,
his next comment sums up the most significant point about the case's lasting historical
value: "None of us believed she should have been executed, and no one on
the program, including myself, argued otherwise."
To read
Radosh's detailed analysis of the "60 Minutes" show and his significant
points of the legal evidence here's the link:
http://freebeacon.com/issues/60-minutes-got-wrong-julius-ethel-rosenberg/
He
concludes:
The Meeropols are given the last word. They say they
were undoubtedly “damaged” by what their parents did, but are certain that
Ethel Rosenberg was “killed for something she did not do.” True, she did not
type any notes.
But the Rosenbergs were charged and found guilty of
“conspiracy to commit espionage,” not treason as many people think was the
case. In a conspiracy indictment, any party who was part of a conspiracy is as
guilty as the main perpetrator. That means legally, Ethel—who in fact did many
things for the network—was no less guilty than her husband.
Still, it
seems an unnecessarily vengeful law that exposes someone to capital punishment
for playing a decidedly secondary role in somebody else's espionage. Again, Ethel helped
her husband, but in no way deserved execution.
Radosh also
acknowledges the impact of the executions on the couple's two young sons: when
you kill people's parents, you traumatize their children.
To me the value
of looking once again at this 1951-1953 case seems to be the way it raises issues that currently bedevil American democracy: surveillance, secrecy,
espionage, routine and systematic violations of individual privacy.
Why do we
have so many "official" government secrets? So many weapons whose engineering we need to protect? So many
enemies? So many spies of our own? Why do we continue to ape the practices of
dictatorial, authoritarian and totalitarian governments?
So long as
we have secrets we will have spies. And, inevitably, betrayals.
Another conclusion the case suggests that whether you
are likely to believe or disbelieve that Rosenbergs were guilty, or framed,
comes down to political loyalty: Which side are you on? People like myself who
despise the McCarthy Era and the entire Cold War period of my childhood tend
to believe that anybody accused of helping the Communists would find it hard to
get a fair trial in the political climate of those times. And their supporters
were probably being smeared. Because
Joe McCarthy was the biggest liar in American politics before the emergence of the current
demagogue in the campaign of 2016.
While I
have not personally dug into the Rosenberg case, I have read widely about the 'notorious' Sacco-Vanzetti case, and I don't believe the state made any sort
of a rational case for their guilt the crime for which they were tried: the
robbery-murder of factory payroll in South Braintree Square.
As noted
earlier, the Rosenbergs' sons are seeking from the President for their mother what
then Governor Michael Dukakis gave to the defenders of Sacco and Vanzetti: a
proclamation repudiating their guilt. And I certainly agree with their larger
thesis that "politically charged times" tend to pervert American
justice.
In times of
stress governments have an observable tendency to reach and kill people for a host of political reasons: To demonstrate the seriousness of the threat; to
reassure a threatened populace that he full weight of the law would fall on the
enemies of public safety. To intimidate the perceived enemies. To make an
example.
That tendency remains a weakness in our democratic system that we have to guard against.
In the
desire to fulfill all the goals cited above, the state of Massachusetts (quite possibly
encouraged by branches of the federal government) reached out in 1920 to kill
anarchists.
In the
post-World War I years of 1918-1920, times were tense. Returning soldiers faced
unemployment. Crime increased. Prohibition created vast new criminal
enterprises. The example of the Russian Revolution governments and corporate interests.
According
the period's historians, some anarchists tied to the network inspired by Luigi
Galleani declared war on the US government after Galleani was tried and
deported to Italy because of his opposition to the draft and America's entry
into World War I. This Italian-American anarchist movement was suppressed;
their press shut down; their beliefs outlawed; their office raided; and associates of Galleani were
also prosecuted and deported. Other members of the movement went underground
and decided to strike back by planting bombs intended for officials or business
leaders who played an active part in their persecution. They sent some bombs through
the mail, although none reached their intended targets. Then they planted a bomb
at the home of US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.
This was
the political climate in which Sacco and Vanzetti were charged with a most
unlikely crime: robbing a workers' payroll.
When
anarchists turn to violence, history shows they have planted explosives or
sought to assassinate heads of government. They do not become "ordinary
criminals," steal money, rob banks or -- most unlikely of all -- steal workers'
payrolls. American anarchists of the early 20th century regarded themselves
as workers, and Sacco and Vanzetti were in fact workers all their shortened lives. Harming other workers by
stealing the payrolls their families depended on is the last thing in the world
they could imagine doing.
And the
government's case against them was nothing more than a vengeful fantasy. An attempt to kill anarchists, any anarchists, to get back at the bombers.
But society
cannot revisit a case in any more meaningful way than a governor's proclamation or change its mind about the fairness or truthfulness of
a judicial proceeding when the defendants have been executed.
People shake their heads mutter that 'mistakes were made.'
That sad truth remains the biggest objection to the practice of capital punishment.
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