Details of one of the most famous trials of the Cold War era may now become a little clearer after a federal judge ordered grand jury testimony of two key witnesses to be unsealed this month. On May 19, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York ordered the unsealing of the grand jury testimony of David Greenglass and Max Elichter in the Cold War era trial surrounding the passing of nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.
The espionage case against Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who worked at the atomic bomb development site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, founded as part of the Manhattan Project during the 1940s, has long been a source of fascination for historians and legal scholars alike. In 1950, the Rosenbergs were indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage by sending information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, which had unexpectedly detonated its first atomic bomb the year prior.
Maintaining their innocence throughout, Ethel and Julius were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in the Southern District of New York before Judge Irving R. Kaufman. In his sentencing decision, Judge Kaufman told the couple,
I consider your crime worse than murder . . . . [Y]our conduct . . . has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea, with the resultant casualties exceeding 50,000 and who knows but that millions more of innocent people may pay the price of your treason. Indeed, by your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country.
After the Second Circuit, the Supreme Court, and two Presidents denied appeals and pardons, the Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953.
In the past decade or so, leading historical associations and others have lobbied strongly for the release of court files and grand jury testimony, and in 2008, Judge Hellerstein granted a petition to release grand jury transcripts of 43 of the 46 witnesses who were deceased, consented to the release, or presumed to be indifferent or incapacitated based on their failure to object. One of the most significant witnesses in the Government’s case against the Rosenbergs, however, was still alive and objected strongly to the release in 2008. That witness, David Greenglass, the brother of Ethel Rosenberg, has since passed away. Greenglass provided key testimony that helped indict her in exchange for a lenient sentence of fifteen years in prison – testimony that Judge Kaufman described as assistance in “apprehending and bringing to justice the arch criminals in this nefarious scheme” and helping to “strike a death blow to the trafficking in our military secrets.” Despite the significance the prosecution placed on Greenglass’s testimony, decades after the execution of his sister and brother-in-law, Greenglass revealed to a journalist that he had in fact committed perjury – lying on the stand to protect his wife, who had been at risk of indictment as well.
Judge Hellerstein noted this public admission in his decision to unseal the records of Greenglass’s grand jury testimony, stating that the Government’s argument that publicly releasing the testimony will prejudice members of Greenglass’s family, who have lived under assumed names for over fifty years, was insufficient. Along with dismissing vulnerability of the Greenglass family, Judge Hellerstein cites In re Craig, 131 F.3d 99, 105 (2d Cir. 1999), where the Second Circuit recognized “significant historical interest by the public” as a special circumstance allowing the release of grand jury proceedings that are normally kept sealed and secret. As such, Judge Hellerstein noted that the testimony of David Greenglass and the other witnesses in the Rosenberg trial are “critical pieces of an important moment in our nation’s history” and should be publicly available for research and review.
Now, only the testimony of one witness remains sealed, as historians and archivists have been unable to determine if he is still alive. The release of the grand jury proceedings from the Rosenberg trial, and especially of David Greenglass’s testimony, which led to what may have been a wrongful conviction and execution of his sister, will enable researchers and historians to compile a more comprehensive view and narrative of a fascinating piece of Cold War history, providing further insight into this period of U.S. history and the political, cultural, and legal factors that shaped it.