Unsealing secrets of the Rosenbergs

For 50 years the Rosenberg spy case has been examined and reexamined in hundreds of books, doctoral theses, documentary films, Hollywood movies, and even a theatrical production.

It seems impossible that there could be anything left to discover.

But there is. And people may soon have access to it.

Two Philadelphia historians have joined a research institute and library in seeking what's believed to be the last trove of documents from the defining espionage case of the Cold War: hundreds of pages of secret grand-jury testimony that preceded the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who died in the electric chair at Sing Sing prison in 1953.

"All of these people who testified, what did they say about the key participants?" asked Temple University historian Allen Hornblum, one of the petitioners. "What will underscore what we believe? What will move us in a new direction?"

On Tuesday, a federal judge in Manhattan will hear arguments on whether the file should be made public. U.S. attorneys have agreed to release testimony from 35 of the 45 witnesses who appeared before the grand jury in 1950 and 1951. But they oppose opening material from witnesses who are still living, could not be found, or want their testimony kept secret.

The government mostly consented to the argument of the independent, nongovernmental National Security Archive at George Washington University that the case's historic importance merits a legal exception to the rule that seals grand-jury records forever.

The Rosenbergs were accused of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during World War II, when the Soviets were America's allies. After a sensational 1951 trial, they were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage. Two years later, they became the first - and so far the last - American civilians to be prosecuted and put to death for spying.

Among the witnesses who did not agree to release his testimony is David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother and a main witness against the couple at their trial. He allegedly gave the Rosenbergs secrets stolen from his job at the Los Alamos research lab, where scientists were creating the atomic bomb. The National Security Archive contends Greenglass waived his privacy rights by granting interviews to an author and to the news program

60 Minutes II

.

At trial, he said he had passed notes and sketches of the bomb to Julius. His testimony tying Ethel to espionage - that she typed his notes - was recanted decades later. Freed from prison in 1960, Greenglass lives under an assumed name.

What might the grand-jury minutes contain? Nobody knows for sure.

The Rosenberg case has always been dogged by questions about changed testimony, the information provided to the Soviets, and the government's insistence on the death penalty. At the least, historians say, the documents will offer a means to compare the grand-jury and trial testimony of important witnesses, and add nuance to an episode that has become an American touchstone.

For many, the Rosenberg case endures as a symbol of Cold War paranoia run amok. Some believe the Rosenbergs were persecuted because they were Jews. Others think that they were guilty of spying, but that death was too harsh a penalty. Still others see their execution as justice served.

"We need to know the full story, and we don't," said Katherine Sibley, chairwoman of the history department at St. Joseph's University and one of the petitioners.

Even today, said Sibley, the author of

Red Spies in America: Stolen Secrets and the Dawn of the Cold War

, elements of the case still shock:

That a couple who seemed so average - he an electrical engineer, she a secretary - could be spies. That the government would execute not just the husband but the wife, making orphans of two small boys. That Julius and Ethel preferred to die for their beliefs rather than cut a deal that could have spared them.

"When they were on trial, they didn't admit anything," Sibley said. "But there might have been people in the grand-jury hearings who knew something."

Robert Rosenberg had just turned 3 when his parents were arrested.

His strongest memories of them come from the prison visits. His mother seemed short, he recalled, probably because he was growing, and she wore flat, prison-issue slippers.

After his parents were executed, Robert and his older brother, Michael, were adopted by the songwriter Abel Meeropol and his wife. The brothers have joined those seeking the records.

"Myself and my brother, we have always believed in freedom of information," Robert Meeropol, 61, said in a phone interview. "We have always said the most important thing is to get all the material out and let the chips fall where they may."

Some revelations haven't come easy. The government's 1995 release of the Venona files, consisting of deciphered Soviet cables, identified Julius Rosenberg as a spy who gave up scientific and military information, though not atomic secrets. The papers suggest Ethel knew of his activity but was not directly involved.

Ethel, recent court filings say, was twice called before the grand jury and arrested immediately after her second appearance.

"I'm quite curious about what my mother was asked," Meeropol said. "I would expect the grand-jury minutes to confirm there was no mention of my mother doing the typing of David Greenglass' handwritten notes."

Meeropol is executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, which he founded to help the offspring of parents who suffered for their progressive politics. He is asked: After so long, does the question of guilt or innocence still interest him?

"Let me preface it with what an atomic scientist told me in the 1970s: 'The most important question is not whether your parents were guilty or innocent but 'Guilty of what?' . . . Did they do the thing they were killed for?"

If you accept the Venona papers as fact, he said, "you conclude Julius guilty of non-atomic espionage and Ethel not guilty of anything. And you look at that and you ask, 'Guilty of what?' "

Hornblum, the Temple historian, plans to be in court Tuesday to hear attorneys argue over the records' release.

He's writing a book about Harry Gold, a Philadelphia chemist-turned-Soviet-spy and a key witness against the Rosenbergs. Like others, he hopes the grand-jury minutes will provide new insight.

"It was the O.J. case for the Jewish community that grew up in the 1930s, '40s and '50s," he said. "They were spies, [but] they should not have been given the death penalty."