Rosenberg Trial
On July 17, 1950, Julius Rosenberg, an electrical engineer and employee for the US Army Signal Corps was "arrested for allegedly passing atomic secrets" to Soviet forces. His wife, Ethel Rosenberg, was arrested a month later on August 11th for assisting former members of the Communist Party.
Judge Irving R. Kaufman presided over the trial and Roy Cohn and co-defendant Morton Sobell served for the prosecution while father-son duo Emanuel and Alexander Bloch served for the defense. David Greenglass, Philadelphia chemist and Mr. Rosenberg's brother in law, served alongside close friend Harry Gold as primary witnesses in the conviction against the Rosenberg couple. As evidence, Greenglass presented vague sketches of a high explosive lens mold that scientists had developed at Los Alamo.
While former members of the Communist Party, flimsy and insufficient evidence coupledwith conflicting stories between the witnesses caused public opionion to find the evidence too ethereal for conviction. Even so, President Truman refused pardon to the Rosenbergs' conviction and the two were sentenced to death under the Espionage Acts of 1917, which were developed during America's first Red Scare. Julius and Ethel Rosebery were sent to Sing-Sing Prison in New York and were executed by electric chair- after two years of imprisonmnet- on June 19, 1953. Lighter sentences were offered in exchange for the Rosenberg's voluntary admittance. Greenglass admitted to disclosing secrets to the Roseberg couple who then passed it to Gold, who was arrested in May of 1950. Greenglass received only a 15 year sentence for his cooperation with the federal courts.
In the 1990s, stronger information confirming the Rosenbergs, Greenglass, and Gold's participation in espionage activites was discovered. It was confirmed that Julius Roseberg had indeed been disclosing US military secrets to the USSR through the Corps.