Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for that couple was sentenced to death

• Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for that couple was sentenced to death

64 years ago, June 19, 1953 in the US on charges of spying for the Soviet Union were executed Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. This story is called at the same time the most romantic, the most heinous and the most mysterious. Wines of the spouses, who were called "nuclear spies", and did not get indisputable evidence, but both of them died in the electric chair. What actually was this execution - the triumph of justice, miscarriage of justice or a witch hunt?

And Julius and Ethel were born in New York in Jewish families once emigrated from Russia. Both are still at the University of enthusiastic socialist ideas and attending Communist meetings, where they met. In 1939, they were married, they had two children, and joined the Communist Party in 1942.

In 1950, the interrogation of the British scientist Klaus Fuchs Americans learned the name of the signaller - Harry Gold, transmit information to Soviet intelligence. In turn, Harry Gold called the name of the person who procured the information to him. They found David Greenglass - brother of Ethel Rosenberg. During interrogations, he was silent, but when his wife was arrested, he admitted that the spy network he was recruited by Julius and Ethel, he worked as a mechanic at a nuclear facility, where it produces for them sensitive information.

Julius Rosenberg was arrested in July 1950, his wife - a month. Both completely refuted the testimony of David Greenglass and denied any wrongdoing. At the trial in March 1951 all the defendants in the case were found guilty, and the Rosenbergs death sentence was announced. It was the first and only in American history when sentenced to death civilians accused of spying.

In spite of the strong public reaction, the new US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the death sentence, and explained his intransigence as follows: "The crime, in which the Rosenbergs were convicted, much worse than the murder of another citizen. This malicious betrayal of the whole nation, which could well lead to the death of many innocent civilians. " Couple accused because of their scientific secrets transferred to the Soviet Union as early as 1949 held a nuclear test.

However, in this case I had a lot of mysteries. Direct evidence of guilt of the spouses in fact was not. As evidence were presented only a box of cookies, on the back side of which contacts were recorded, and the drawing of the atomic bomb Greenglass. Physicists have repeatedly talked about the fact that this figure - crude caricature, full of errors, does not represent for the exploration of no value.

Executions wife waited at Sing-Sing. They filed appeals and petitions for postponement of sentence. In their defense made by many members of the international community, among whom were Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Einstein, Charles de Gaulle, Picasso and others. Their sons with signs "Do not kill our father and mother!" Participated in mass demonstrations. But the July 18 the final sentence was pronounced, and it has remained unchanged.

Before his death, the couple exchanged affectionate letters, Julius wrote to his wife: "I can only say that life had meaning because next to me was you. All dirt, pack of lies and slander this grotesque political staging, not only did not break us, but, on the contrary, instilled in us the determination to hold fast, until we are completely justified ... I know that gradually more and more people will stand up for our security and help pull us out of this hell. Gently embrace you and love you. " Ethel sons wrote: "Always remember that we were innocent and could not go against his conscience."

They can be saved only in one case: they were promised to cancel the penalty, if the spouses are recognized in espionage and call at least one name from its network of agents. But both strenuously denied any wrongdoing. They are awaiting execution in the electric chair. Julius died at the first start-up current, and the heart stopped beating Ethel only after the second discharge. Granddaughter of the Rosenbergs sure: her grandmother died "not in the name of the Soviet Union, but because of the devotion to her husband."

After the execution of "nuclear spies" in world press wrote that the case was fabricated and exaggerated because of the communist convictions spouses, Sartre called the execution a "legal lynching, smeared with blood all over the country, a witch-hunt." David Greenglass later admitted that he had given false evidence in order to mitigate his sentence. The cruelty of the sentence was a shock to many, the highest measure called a political decision in the conditions of the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

The case of the Rosenbergs is still considered one of the most mysterious. However, their involvement in espionage is not questioned. But the question of whether the couple can actually tell the Soviet intelligence secret of the atomic bomb, remains open.