Jun 19 — Atomic Spies

On June 19th, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple convicted of spying for the Russians and recruiting a half-dozen other spies, were executed by electric shock in New York.

If you’re ever curious how soviet spy rings came to be established and grew in the US during the 50’s + ‘60’s, it’s men like Julius Rosenberg who can bear the blame.

Let’s set the stage.

Julius grew up in the lower East side of New York City and by the time he was attending City College of New York, he had become a leader of the Young Communist League.

After graduating as an electrical engineer, in 1940 Julius joined the Engineering lab for the Army Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth.

It only took the US army 5 years to figure out that Julius had led that communist party in college, and fired him in 1945. In all that time, what was being developed at Fort Monmouth?

Oh, only communications systems, radar, and guided missile controls.

And what was Julius up to over those 5 years?

Oh, he was hard at work.

Apparently his service to the Soviets began on Labor day, 1942, when he met Semyon Semyonov. Semyonov at that time was the “spymaster” for the Soviet internal ministry (which for some reason is abbreviated the NKVD).

Who happened to introduce Julius to Semyonov? Oh, just a high ranking official in the Communist Party USA (remember when the army forgot to find out that Julius had Communist connections? I remember).

Over the years, Rosenburg was able to recruit several other spies into what came to be know as the “Atomic Spy Ring.” These included:

• Joel Barr, fellow electrical engineer at Monmouth.
• Alfred Sarant, who was working on secret military radar systems.
• William Perl, who specialized in jet propulsion and supersonic flight.
• And Morton Sobell, who was working on military and government contracts with General Electric.

Rosenburg was able to get thousands of documents to his handlers over the years, including a complete production drawing for the world’s very first jet fighter, Lockheed’s P-80 Shooting Star.

When Semyonov retired in 1944, Alexander Feklisov took over the role as Julius’ handler, and learned a very interesting fact about Julius’ wife, Ethel. Her brother, David Greenglass, just happened to be working on the Manhatten project…

Like… THAT Manhatten project. The super-top-secret Manhattan project to develop nuclear weapons.

Julius was able to recruit Greenglass (by supposedly threatening his wife, Ruth). Furthermore, Rosenburg recruited Russell McNutt, who worked on construction projects for a large laboratory that was also involved in the Manhattan project.

Everything was going great for Julius… until it all fell apart.

In January of 1950, a man named Klaus Fuchs admitted to passing on information to Soviets. Fuchs then ratted out one Harry Gold. Who then ratted out David Greenglass. Who then ratted out Julius.

So in June of 1950 Julius was arrested, and his wife shortly after.

While Ethel Rosenberg initially wasn’t implicated in any of the spying, her brother David eventually ratted her out as well, and changed his testimony to state that she would type up some of the notes he passed along.

Over the course of the next three years the Rosenberg’s went through a grand jury testimony, trial and conviction, and a campaign for an appeal (which obviously failed).

And finally, on this day exactly 66 years ago, the Rosenberg’s were executed by electric shock at Sing Sing in New York.

While the death penalty may be frowned upon, this ring of spies recruited by Julius Rosenberg:

…had provided very significant help in accelerating the production of our atomic bomb.

Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union

Originally published at http://www.todaywasterrible.com on June 20, 2019.