Re: The Rosenberg Boys in The Atlantic

I found the Atlantic article to be quite moving in telling the story of the
Rosenberg family, but the ending section, with its insistence on pursuing
the question of "why didn't Ethel tell the truth," was hard to take. It
seems to be based on the assumption that the U.S. government had the *right*
to punish Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, even if the death penalty was
excessive. But what moral rights does the criminal U.S. government possess
to judge and punish *any *of its citizens for so-called political
transgressions? After all, it was only the U.S. who used the atomic bomb to
kill hundreds of thousands of civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the
USSR, despite all of the horrors and deaths caused by the Stalinist regime,
never went to such lengths.

I would like to say that, as a child, I strongly identified with the
Rosenberg boys, with whom I am close in age. My father was the main leader
of the Rosenberg defense committee in Philadelphia, and our house was the
local organizing center. We had a mimeograph machine set up on our dining
room table, and I was even allowed sometimes to turn the crank to churn out
the leaflets. People were constantly coming in and out to pick up leaflets
or for meetings. Then, in July 1953, the FBI raided our house, and the next
day, the front pages of the newspapers portrayed my parents as the masters
of a "Red cell”; the headlines linked them with the carnage in Korea.
Luckily, my parents were not arrested, and since my father was
self-employed he did not lose his job, as happened to many friends. But
the events took a strong (and lasting) emotional toll on me and my little
sister — who could not entirely understand why none of the kids in the
neighborhood were allowed to play with us and why adults would mutter and
curse as we walked by. I remember that one adult even spit at me — an
eight-year-old boy. My family was forced to move to another neighborhood,
where nobody knew who we were.

Of course, the suffering of my sister and I as children was very slight
compared to that of Michael and Robby, but still I identified with
the Rosenberg-Meeropol boys and looked up to them — and I still do. I think
that all of their work, not least the Rosenberg Fund for Children, is
extremely important.

I read with great interest Michael's remark that times are potentially
worse now than in the McCarthyite period. Perhaps he is right, but I'm not
sure. In the early 1950s, the leftist and working-class movements were in a
tailspin. The once powerful unions were freshly bureaucratized and
disengaged from activist struggle; most of them gave at least tacit support
to the Red Scare. The Communist Party was working underground and not very
effective in its own defense. Most working people preferred to keep their
heads down and not get involved in political matters, while a great many
were even taken in by the Cold War mythology.

Today, in contrast, political activism appears to be on the upswing, and
the idea of socialism is even debated in the mass media. We saw millions
take to the streets in the No Kings marches. While it is true that the
white supremacist far right is generally in control at the top reaches of
the federal government, and that they are making use of new AI-driven means
of surveillance, there is still cause for optimism in that people are
resisting in the streets.

On Fri, Aug 14, 2026 at 9:08 AM Alan Ginsberg via groups.io <ginsberg.alan1=
[email protected]> wrote:

> I'd like to call attention to the Rosenberg Fund for Children, founded by
> Robert Meeropol. The fund assists children whose parents have been
> imprisoned, lost jobs, etc. for their political activities as well as
> assisting young people who have been targeted.
>
> For more on the Fund, you can go to https://www.rfc.org/
>
> If you wish to donate to the Fund, you can do so at
> https://rfc.networkforgood.com/projects/82193-support-the-rosenberg-fund-for-children
>
>
> 
>
>


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