52 years ago this week, America made a terrible mistake. On April 5, 1951, Judge Irving Kaufman sentenced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death in the electric chair for conspiracy to commit espionage. In his sentencing, Judge Kaufman called the Rosenberg's crime "worse than murder" and blamed them for the deaths of 50,000 Americans in Korea. Specifically, the Rosenbergs were accused of convincing their friends and relatives to spy on the Manhattan Project where American scientists were working to create atomic weapons. The evidence against the Rosenbergs, especially against Ethel, was hardly perfect; witnesses changed their statements, a significant amount of evidence was rooted solely in red scare fear of communism, and one key witness has since admitted that he was coerced by the prosecution to lie. Frequently during the trial, the prosecution referenced the fact that both Rosenbergs had been members of the American Communist Party when they were younger. In the two years after they were sentenced to death, thousands of people from numerous countries protested, countless letters were sent to President Eisenhower begging for him to grant clemency, four Supreme Court Justices voted to stay the executions (it takes five) and even the Pope asked for mercy. None of this helped, and shortly after 8 pm on June 19, 1953, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed at Sing Sing Prison. The first 57 second jolt of electricity failed to kill Ethel and she had to be restrapped to the chair and shocked two more times before she was declared dead. Interestingly enough, after the fall of Communism in Russia, information came out proving that Julius Rosenberg actually was a spy working for the Communists. Alexsandr Feklisov, Rosenberg's Russian control described his meetings with Julius but also expressed his outrage at the execution of Ethel Rosenberg who he adamantly denied ever committed espionage.
So what's the lesson to be learned? Despite a poorly conducted trial with an obviously biased judge and jury, Julius Rosenberg was correctly convicted. However, because of the judicial misconduct, the strong American desire to punish someone they saw as un-American, and the president's decision to ignore the outcry from the rest of the world, an innocent woman was put to death in a particularly cruel manner. In case, you haven't noticed the parallels yet, just think of a little country called Iraq. Is Saddam Hussein a ruthless dictator with chemical and biological weapons? Probably, but we don't know. Just because we're sure that we're right doesn't mean we get to skip the proper judicial process. It's much harder to un-execute someone than it is to find a sufficient amount of proof. It's not too late to stop the war.