Sons: Memo Proves Ethel Rosenberg 'Wasn't a Spy'

A top US government codebreaker who decrypted secret Soviet communications during the Cold War concluded that Ethel Rosenberg knew about her husband's activities "but that due to illness she did not engage in the work herself," according to a recently declassified memo that her sons say proves their mother was not a spy and should lead to her exoneration in the sensational 1950s atomic espionage case. The previously unreported assessment written days after Rosenberg's arrest and shown to the AP adds to the questions about the criminal case against Rosenberg, who along with her husband, Julius, was put to death in 1953 after being convicted of conspiring to steal secrets about the atomic bomb for the Soviet Union.

The couple maintained their innocence until the end, and their sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, have worked for decades to establish that their mother was falsely implicated in spying. The brothers consider the memo a smoking gun and are urging President Biden to issue a formal proclamation saying she was wrongly convicted and executed. Questions about Ethel Rosenberg's role have simmered for years, dividing those who side with the Meeropols and say she had zero role in espionage from some historians who contend there's evidence she supported her husband's activities.

The handwritten Aug. 22, 1950, memo from Meredith Gardner, a linguist and codebreaker for what later became known as the National Security Agency, cites decrypted Soviet communications in concluding that Ethel Rosenberg was a "party member" and "devoted wife" who knew of her husband's work but didn't engage in it. "We have a situation in which a mother of two young children was executed as a master atomic spy when she wasn't a spy at all," says Robert Meeropol. However, Harvard University historian Mark Kramer says other documents contain "damning evidence" of Ethel Rosenberg's involvement in spying even "if she was not directly participating." Harvey Klehr, a now-retired Emory University historian, adds he believes she conspired to commit espionage. (More Ethel Rosenberg stories.)