![]() How much of that ominous triumph was based on the intel acquired by Soviet spies in the U.S. 29, 1949, when they detonated their first bomb. government, which lived in fear that the Soviets might steal any sensitive information that could give them an edge in this Cold War which could turn hot at any moment.Īfter World War II ended, the Soviets raced frantically to develop atomic weaponry and succeeded on Aug. ![]() ![]() The Red ScareĪt this time, espionage was of the highest concern to the U.S. With his intel, the whole ring quickly collapsed. Army Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) discovered that Fuchs was a Soviet spy. This spy ring was only detected in 1949 when the U.S. Meanwhile, Gold also worked with a German physicist and Soviet spy stationed at Los Alamos, named Klaus Fuchs, who helped Gold to obtain classified atomic research. Rosenberg would then pass this information on to Gold who’d deliver it to the Soviets. Greenglass would reportedly give Rosenberg information about the technology being tested at Los Alamos, including special lenses used in the bomb. He later admitted he lied about his sister’s involvement to save his wife.ĭavid Greenglass, also a prior member of the Young Communist League, worked on the top-secret Manhattan Project at its lab in Los Alamos, New Mexico. But though he avoided trouble at the time, the Soviet-sponsored espionage he was supposedly carrying out would soon seal his fate - even if the truth of the matter remains somewhat in doubt.īettmann/Getty Images David Greenglass said he was recruited by Julius Rosenberg to join a Soviet spy ring and that this his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, was complicit in the arrangement. He did succeed in evading suspicion for five whole years as an engineer and inspector there while researching communications, electronics, radar, and guided-missile controls. The Spy Ring Encircling The Atomic BombĪccording to the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History’s Atomic Heritage Foundation, Julius Rosenberg left the Communist Party in 1940 in order to avoid suspicion when he joined the Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. After having two sons together, Julius Rosenberg began his engineering career - inside some highly sensitive government sites at the height of World War II-era secrecy. Three years later, in 1939, Julius Rosenberg had a degree in electrical engineering and Ethel Rosenberg as a wife. It was during the Great Depression, while he was still in college, that Julius Rosenberg became a leader in the Young Communist League and met the love of his life. While they toiled at the local shops to make a living, Rosenberg attended Seward Park High and then City College of New York where he studied electrical engineering.īettmann/Getty Images Thirty-four-year-old Ethel Rosenberg does the dishes in her Knickerbocker Village home the day after her husband was arrested. Then, she joined the Young Communist League where she met her soon-to-be husband Julius Rosenberg in 1936.įellow New York native Julius Rosenberg was born on to Jewish immigrants who moved from Soviet Russia to Manhattan’s Lower East Side when he was 11. Instead, she became a secretary for a Manhattan shipping company. 25, 1915, Ethel Greenglass initially aspired to become an actress. Julius And Ethel Rosenberg Before The Warīorn to a Jewish family in New York City on Sept. Were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg the most treacherous of spies, victims of Cold War paranoia, or both? This is the tangled story that shook a nation. To this day, their conviction and 1953 execution remain controversial thanks to the lack of hard evidence brought against them and the group of witnesses who recanted and changed statements both during the trial and long afterward. government, the nation confronted the idea that a nice young married couple like the Rosenbergs were not only Reds but that they might have given the Soviet Union the secrets of nuclear weapons.Īfter being convicted on those charges in 1951, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were offered the chance to save themselves from a death sentence if they confessed, but the husband and wife both refused and maintained their innocence. Was the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg justified - or was it the product of a nation's collective paranoia?įew episodes are more emblematic of American Cold War paranoia and Red Scare hysteria than the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.Īfter being arrested for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets in 1950, the young New York couple with communist affiliations was soon swept into a sensational trial that enthralled and frightened millions of Americans who were already terrified of both the bomb and communists.Īs Senator Joseph McCarthy was leading the Red Scare on Capitol Hill in hopes of outing suspected communists inside the U.S.
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