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The Rosenberg Boys - When Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed by the U.S. government, they left behind two sons, ages 6 and 10. All these years later, Robby and Michael are still trying to make sense of what happened.
Sidenote I always found interesting: The boys were adopted by Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne. Abel was known for writing the poem and song Strange Fruit.
Hello fellow WNEC alum! Michael is so kind. I never took his class, but he took time out to let me interview him for a journalism class. Wonderful guy.
Here is what we know. Julius was a spy and thus guilty of treason. Now, whether or not Ethel was is questionable. I imagine for the now grown up adults and even supporters of the family, it’s been hard to realize that despite how cruel the government was, it was correct that at least the father was guilty. It’s also hard to square if Julius actually passed along anything dangerous.
The execution sentencing was considered by many who believed the two were guilty to be extreme. Most spies didn’t get killed especially two defendants whose actions were still ambiguous.
The prosecution led by Roy Cohn, acted so improperly. Not only did Roy essentially collide with the judge to get the conviction but his own insecurities and mommy issues made him extremely hateful towards the rosenbergs. Even the judge ordering people to leave the court room when discussing the nuclear weapons diagrams was so childish and stupid. The entire trial should have been handled by a new judge and the prosecution should have been disbarred.
The trial emphases so much.
The corruption within the judicial system
The widespread fear of communist spies
Potential bigotry towards Jews
Roy’s desire for power and to prove his manliness and togetherness revenge upon his mother
I try very hard to not assume any one person is “good” or “evil”, but rather are trying their best and sometimes get it wrong and inadvertently hurt others.
Then Roy, Roger, Paul and their useful idiot show up and challenge my belief system.
>I try very hard to not assume any one person is “good” or “evil”, but rather are trying their best and sometimes get it wrong and inadvertently hurt others.
It's a good way to look at things and applies to most people you meet.
But it's exploited by people who think we're stupid suckers for thinking that way.
There are people who think humans are divided into predator and prey. They'd rather be the predator than the prey. They think anyone who doesn't want to be a predator is a chump and deserves being preyed upon.
And we keep rolling back regulations that would limit the amount of harm these deranged people could do to society.
We police those that are the most vulnerable, least able to do societal harm. Yet we do not defend from those who wield the economy, the media, the state, etc. as weapons against us all.
I see no sign that we've figured out a way to deal with truly antisocial people. They leverage the benefit of doubt against us. They exploit our reticence to judge. The world is run by people who themselves or their progenitors have lied, cheated and stolen their way to commanding positions and laundered their ill-gotten resources and image to participate in society without penalty.
Yes, there will always be people out there like this, but we don’t have to live in a society where they’re allowed to have enough money to operate with impunity
I feel some sense of satisfaction that, despite all of his “accomplishments”, when i think of him, i think of Angels in America and I think he would find that displeasing.
It's not *much* in dispute that Ethel was complicit and knew what was going on. Her husband *and* brother were involved and held meetings inside their home. It's nearly inconceivable that she was clueless and at least doubtful she wasn't complicit in at least helping them conceal their crimes, if not participating to some degree. But, you are right that Cohn was a real scumbag. And he acted like a monster. But, then again, he was right in this case.
Being factually right does not somehow "make up" for his blatant abuse of process or illegal conduct by the prosecution. If he couldn't convict them on the evidence he had, the answer was not, "fabricate evidence and collude with the judge." Better 100 guilty men go free than an innocent man persecuted and murdered by the state.
The thing about it was that the prosecution offered Ethel a much lower sentence if her and/or Julius would provide evidence against others in their spy network. This would have meant she would still be around, after serving a relatively nominal sentence of a handful of years at most, to raise her children.
They literally had the ability to prevent Ethel from being executed, and given a pretty low sentence. And it's unlikely that Julius would be executed: The others in that ring that were prosecuted weren't executed. David Greenglass, Ethel's brother, testified and accepted a plea deal. He ended up spending less than 10 years in prison.
The Rosenbergs didn't accept the deal.
They were also offered clemency after they were convicted and sentenced to death: If they gave confessions and offered evidence to convict their fellow spies, their death sentences would be commuted to a prison sentence.
Again they refused.
Read that again: They refused to provide evidence to save themselves from being executed.
Apparently martyrdom in service of their ideology, and protecting their fellow spies, was more important than raising their children.
They were given at least two chances to avoid at least Ethel from being executed, and they refused them.
I do not know why you think this argument is in any way exculpatory of Cohn's criminal conduct. I. Do. Not. Care. If the Rosenbergs were callous traitors or true believers. I DO VERY MUCH CARE that US prosecutors regularly use the maximum penalty as a stick with plea deals as a carrot to intimidate people into deals and lock up people and notch wins in their judicial belt over weak cases that they could not try in a court of law. This is how mass incarceration works, it is how we got where we are now. I am NOT OKAY with a judicial system that aids and abets such conduct. None of us are free until all of us are free. If the courts let scum like Roy Cohn run these streets, I do not have to pretend their goal is justice or peace, in any sense of those words.
But they weren't innocent. And that's my point. Which is why rehashing the vile character of Cohn is barely relevant to how we should view the Rosenburgs today. The guilt of Julius and his brother in law are not in question. The guilt of Ethel may be less certain in a "beyond a reasonable doubt" courtroom environment, but we are looking at this case in the court of public opinion decades later. We ought to be perfectly willing to look at the facts and say "yeah, it's highly likely she participated in espionage against her country". In the words of Lt. Weinberg, "everything else is just smoke filled coffee house crap".
It's outlining a major point of ethical debate and government policy for the past ~80+ years.
It's a rephrasing of the trolley problem. Most democratic republics navigate the debate to find a middle ground.
The counter point is the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Which is considered by many to be the cornerstone of utilitarianism. It's often coupled with surrender of personal freedoms and totaltarianism.
The most common examples of utilitarian logic being claimed to be put into real world practice would be Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc..
Individual rights are considered the cornerstone of America/democracy/developed nations.
Was the prejudice towards Jews coming from Cohn, or was there a false Presupposition of innocence because they were Jews from their defenders? Because the fact of guilt is pretty clear.
Obviously they were guilty but the people who act like the Soviets would somehow not have gotten nukes without them is hilarious. The Soviets had the research from the Manhattan project basically once it was finished. If anything the saddest part of the whole thing is not only did both of them die and orphan their kids their work in the grand scheme of things didn’t mean much.
Yeah, too many folks imagine science as relying on irreproducible breakthroughs by lone geniuses, as opposed to the inexorable grind of exhaustive experimentation that builds incrementally on all that came before. For any given idea that looks revolutionary to outsiders, another half-dozen teams around the world are only a year behind in discovering it independently.
Plus, merely knowing that someone else managed to do something is often enough to let you figure out how, because you know what public knowledge they had and what technologies they had access to, so you can deduce what they might have tried. Getting the exact details right in terms of building something like an atomic bomb takes time, but it’s engineering, not magic, and mostly highly-parallelizable work that responds extremely well to throwing nation-state levels of money and personnel at it.
The number of people who think nuclear weapons are complicated to build is agonizingly high. They conflate "complicated to build" with "extremely expensive and resource intensive to build". But slamming two pieces of very specific metals together at high enough speeds is so trivial that they never even tested the gun type of bomb in the Manhattan project. Implosion and multi stage is a little more complex, but not significantly so, especially not with computer aided calculations
I'll let everyone else be their own judges as to how that might effect how they view current events.
>They both needed information or science developed by the US to complete their projects.
They didnt, that just made it a little bit quicker. The science of the nuclear bomb is very basic. The soviet union also built the hydrogen bomb very quickly on its own, even though that's way more challenging from a scientific standpoint.
The basic science of a nuclear bomb is very basic.
The science and engineering required to build one from scratch, including the refinement and machining of uranium and plutonium, the shaping of the explosive lenses that shape the initial compression, the exact detonator sequencing, and the design of the neutron source in the middle, are very unbasic indeed, which is why it took the Manhattan Project years instead of weeks.
Making small deliverable bombs that aren't the size of a car is even more unbasic.
The manhattan project took 3 years, which is really not a long time as big research projects go. And the scientists the soviet union had at its disposal were no slouches, they actually developed a superior method of uranium enrichment, a specific type of centrifuge.
Yet, after having a nuclear program that ran for over 10 years and for years after the Manhatten project, they still couldn’t figure it out on their own. They had to steel it because their program wasn’t working.
25 years later! That is a huge amount of time that one country could have been the only holder of that tech. You are massively underestimating the impact of that.
You are massively overestimating the impact. The US didn't manage to get anything out of nukes during the time they were the only ones with them other than a quick surrender by Japan, they didn't even use them in the korean war.
Well, that time was only four years, and part of the reason that the US didn't use them in Korea is that the USSR already had nukes. We can easily imagine the damage the US could have done to the world had the USSR not been able to produce their own.
this is a very ahistorical take. Every minute the US was the only nation with this technology was a minute that would pay dividends for decades. The power on the national stage this would have given the US is immeasurable. not to mention the USSR was is a bad way in the 1950s if they did not get the bomb for 10 or 15 more years? The USSR probably would have never gotten it, and whatever rose up in its place would have. Others would have developed it, but it leaking so early had a massive impact that is still being felt.
From what we know now the soviets scientists got there pretty much independently. They were never handed any of the details aquired by espionage. Instead the material was used to check if their program was on track.
> Instead the material was used to check if their program was on track.
You say it like that's nothing, but it was critical in the Soviet environment. Hell just the higher ups knowing they were on the right track protected the program from the usual soviet bullshit - remember we are talking about a nation, where scientific projects got shut down, because they didn't sound good to scientifically illiterate ideologues.
Who knows what would have happened. Estimates I have seen say the espionage (not necessarily just the Rosenberg’s) accelerated the existing program 2-5 years. But we also know the US was trying to impede their progress with our own spy craft. Even if it was 2 years it still would have made a huge difference.
Possibly true. Deterrence is real. But it is Likely the US would have been able to throw its weight around and likely would have vastly slowed the spread of ussr branded communism without ever dropping another one. Either way, the Rosenbergs and other spies were not acting out of benevolence and the us was not using the standard of “the greater good” when they charged them with treason. The US at the time was very invested in a global strategy that assumed we would be the only one with the Bomb for an extended period of time. This was thwarted by espionage.
We know that she knew about Julius’s actions. There comes a point where you lie and defend him enough that you become an accomplice. Now could you argue retrospectively if her sentence should have been less than Julius and arguments about forced testimony against a spouse and such sure. You cannot argue she did not commit some crime(s) during the trial process.
I don't think the point of the execution was that the Soviets would or would not have been able to develop nuclear capacity without their assistance. The point is that they committed treason. The penalty for this is execution, and it stands as a strong deterrent.
This is an interesting article about the trials of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, as well as that trial's (and the couple's eventual execution's) impact on their two sons. It also deals with the legacy of history, how it shapes the present, and how we continue to grapple with its implications.
That was a really good article. I didn’t know much about the Rosenbergs beyond the fact that they were executed for spying. I definitely didn’t know that they had two boys. Evidence does seem to point to Ethel having gotten quite the raw deal and it’s very shocking to realize that she could have gotten out of the terrible situation she was in and stayed with the boys, but she chose to follow her husband. Even though it now seems clear that her own brother sold her out, the history with the Rosenbergs and the deep sense of betrayal makes it highly unlikely that she’ll ever be exonerated.
Thanks for the link on the article. The Atlantic is always a good time.
She shouldn’t be exonerated. This article fails to mention all of the evidence that Ethel was involved, including hosting meetings ups, passing information and helping to recruit others to the spy ring.
This was all declassified after the fall of the Soviet Union.
You have to do a serious amount of mental gymnastics and overlook overwhelming evidence to think she wasn’t involved. She knew what she was doing, made the world a more dangerous place, and got exactly what she deserved.
Oh, interesting. Yeah, the article didn’t mention that all, even when it got to the declassified documents part. Instead it kind of pointed to the SIL having more involvement, but getting off scot-free. Wow.
Oh yeah, there is a lot more to the story of Ethel’s involvement. She knew exactly what she was doing and what information they were passing along.
This topic comes up every few years because her sons are desperate to exonerate her. Originally, it was both parents, until the USSR fell and the overwhelming amount of evidence Julius was a spy came out.
I feel for her sons, it is an incredibly painful way to lose your parents. That being said both in my opinion got what they deserved. They released the secrets of nuclear weapons to the world which escalated the cold war and causes problems to this day ranging from the War in Ukraine and War in Iran.
Yeah, I also took "making sense of what happened" as processing such an insane thing to go through
They were 3 and 7 when their parents were arrested, then 6 and 10 when they were executed. Especially for the younger one where that was half his life up to that point, yeah it would take a lifetime to work through especially the added on public spectacle of all that happened and what thier parents were
Thier parents being traitors essentially made them pariahs as young children that even their relatives didn't want to take in cause of the publicity. They were shuffled around and even separated a few times over three years while also not fully understanding what had happened to their parents and then imagine getting older and not only intellectually understanding the case but then growing to be an age to where you cannot just understand but also internalize it
That takes a lifetime to work through, I can't blame them for holding on to their mom possibly being innocent as long as they have
Ethel’s conviction and execution remain the most controversial aspects of the case. David Greenglass testified that Ethel typed up classified notes for Julius to pass to the Soviets. However, decades later, Greenglass admitted in interviews that he had lied and fabricated Ethel's involvement to protect his own wife from prosecution. Historians and declassified documents—including the NSA's decoded Venona intercepts—have largely confirmed Julius's role as a Soviet spy, but have revealed little to no evidence implicating Ethel. Internal government documents later suggested prosecutors used Ethel's life as a bargaining chip to pressure Julius into naming his network, a demand Julius refused.
Ethel could’ve also named names, which was the goal of giving her the death penalty. When the AG says “she called our bluff” it suggests they didn’t get what they wanted out of it
They committed treason, and everyone that pretended they didn't looked really stupid when in 1995 all the Soviet cables were released proving they committed it as part of a larger spy ring were released.
I recently read about a Ronald Radosh, a Marxist author who researched the case in the 70s and was basically forced to conclude that Julius was guilty, despite his long held belief that the Rosenberg were framed.
When he published he faced immense blowback from other leftists which eventually lead to him leaving the movement altogether.
I don't think anyone is debating that they were guilty of the legal charges. What I think most people are discussing is whether their actions actually made the world more dangerous or not. Which is not clear-cut.
There's plenty of doubt about Ethel's guilt. Her brother dobbed her in in order to save himself and his wife who were up to their necks in the whole business.
Correct. As the article points out, there is no evidence Ethel did anything wrong beyond knowing that Julius was selling secrets. That she also got executed is a travesty.
Okay, then just address her ethical culpability in this particular situation we are discussing.
Forget the bare bones of : is it ethical for a spouse to lie about criminal involvement?, since that seems to confound you, when given a new example.
Edit: as a user pointed out then immediately deleted, yes there are times the law is unethical and thus lying would be ethical. That’s why my initial example was an objectively heinous and harmful act like child abuse, but since that didn’t fly, I tried to simplify here by reverting to only discussing the ethics of the current situation
It's a stretch to say that Julius Rosenberg's espionage directly led to the Soviet acquisition of atomic weapons. There's also a difference between the potential harm of nuclear weapons and the actual harm of child abuse. As others in this thread have pointed out, the Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons might have also saved billions of lives by disincentivising the bomb's use by the Americans.
Given what we know about Stalin, giving him nukes didn't make the world safer. Given what history has proven about the USSR in general, betraying your country to them it is very, very hard to find any positive aspects.
Yea, Stalin was an authoritarian and I'm not a defender of ANY kind of authoritarianism. So I'm certainly no fan of the USSR.
But, there are likely positive impacts in there being two nuclear-armed superpowers, and not just one. Namely, that MAD doctrine meant that both of them limited themselves to proxy wars and not all-out total war.
As others have pointed out, several US generals wanted to use nukes as it was.
Can be true, but are not. Objectively, Stalinist Russia was one of the greatest evils our species ever witnessed. I know we all hate America (mild sarcasm) these days but let’s be serious.
Still was a good thing that the US’s main rival had access to the same weapons tho, one side having that kind of power would’ve ended horribly for the world.
No one nation should have sole ownership of weapons that powerful, even if it means our opponents having them too it’s better than the alternative.
I'm not debating the evil that was Russia and this has nothing to do with the US.
That doesn't mean that either power being the only nuclear-armed superpower in the world would not have been catastrophically bad.
FWIW the Soviets being an unopposed nuclear superpower would have been worse, absolutely. But that doesn't mean it would have been rainbows and unicorns had the US had nothing keeping our global dominance in check.
Do you really think the US wouldn't have used nukes again if we knew we could do so unopposed?
Are you familiar with the expression "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"?
I know it's hard to accept the US might do evil if allowed to hold a position of supreme geopolitical power, but if you rightly lay the millions of deaths in Ukraine from Stalin's policies at his door you should rightly lay millions of Iraqi deaths resulting from Bush's policies at his door, for example. Policies which if you're old enough to remember, were based explicitly on US authority to act unilaterally however it deemed fit against any other country regardless of what the rest of the world thought, which was only possible due to the US's position of extreme geopolitical dominance in the short period of essentially unipolar world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
>millions of Iraqi deaths resulting from Bush's policies
The number is 210,000 in 20 years. In Afghanistan it's more 30,000. For comparison, Saddam's invasion of Iran killed a million people in a fraction of the time.
>were based explicitly on US authority to act unilaterally however it deemed fit against any other country regardless of what the rest of the world thought
That's just blatantly not true. In fact it was the Blair administration that officially denied the UNSCOM's final report on Iraqi chemical weapons and that filed the initial memo for invasion. Several other countries were involved in that process and had been since the 90s when the weapon's inspections originally fell apart. And if we're expanding to Afghanistan, 50+ countries literally went to war on the UN-NATO side and even China and Russia voted in favor of invasion and offered assistance. This "rogue Bush America" narrative is entirely falsified modern Redditor slop.
>in the short period of essentially unipolar world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union's collapse was followed by enormous amounts of investment in the EU by the US and the urging of NATO to absorb the former Soviet states including Ukraine, it was western Europe that refused. The US brought the Russian Federation in as NATO partners (Partnership for Peace program) during this time (and the diplomatic growth later under the Obama admin was significant as well), invested massively in Japan and South Korea and China and had just seen Japan overtake the US economy briefly and were preparing for Korea and China to do the same, and made huge strides even at it's own expense to try and uplift the Mexican economy to create a massive North American trade corridor. And the beginning of the total transformation of the Persian Gulf states began around this time as well, all under US investment.
To sit here and claim that the US clamped down on some unipolar world is insanely false. The US did not want a unipolar world and immediately worked to avoid it. The US made investments and empowerments in this period that massively dwarfed anything any other nation has done and probably ever will do. To even try to tell ourselves that Russia would have done the same if the shoe were on the other foot, well we know better, we saw what Russia did once it had defeated Germany. China too, but in Korea. So no, but nice try.
You attempt to make people feel stupid or biased for portraying the US as different from Russia and China but then proceed to do nothing but lie. I think you desperately want it to be true, and therefore have only learned the version facts that suited your agenda. The reality is that the US pre-Trump was much closer to the good guy than any other powerful entity literally ever, and people like you are part of the reason it was so easy for Trump to demolish.
America deserves hate it is the worlds leading exporter of death and terrorism it is the single worst country currently in existence outside of Israel in terms of its negative global impact
Oh? Did the USSR nuke some country I’m unaware of?
As far as I’m aware, only one country has ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy, and unless I’m mistaken, the U.S. specifically chose not to engage in future planned nuclear strikes due to fear of nuclear retaliation.
(If you’re unfamiliar, Truman and Eisenhower both reconsidered plans to use nuclear weapons in Korea for fear of retaliation by the USSR.).
It’s almost as if the world was indeed a safer place thanks to the Rosenbergs.
Edit: y’all really don’t like facts (or counterarguments lol)
The counter argument to MAD in general is that fact has a small chance of changing at just about any moment and if it does change there is a high probability the casualties will be devastating.
The counter-counter argument is that limiting nuclear weapons to one country changes the calculus to the favor of the armed country to performing more violence.
Unfortunately or fortunately we don’t have a test groups for these theories.
While I’d agree with your assessment of MAD’s risk wherein it functionally must stand as an eternal deterrent, it’s pretty indisputable that the United States would have used nuclear weapons more frequently but for the Soviet threat.
Additionally, we know the USSR never launched a nuclear attack on another nation. Hell, the USSR never even planned a preemptive nuclear attack against a country other than the United States.
It’s also quite likely that nuclear weapons would’ve eventually proliferated outside of the United States as well. With the United States unchecked by the Soviets, I find it quite plausible that nuclear attacks would’ve been far more normalized in such a world.
So, if we were to weigh the possibility of a future that has still not occurred against the fairly well established alternative wherein the United States got to nuke whomever it chose? Yeah, I’m going with the former.
But the Soviets were also a single man away from MAD, twice because of computing errors. There is a non zero chance MAD occurs under false pretenses. Not that those instances discredit the idea long peace.
There are several layers of either intentional or just classic ignorance at work here. We don't have to pretend atomic bombs in Japan are anything like thermonuclear weapons of the Cold War. We don't have to pretend like the US was going to use thermonuclear warheads in Korea, nor do we have to pretend like the DPRK/PRC were on the right side of that conflict (I know this is difficult for Redditors). We don't have to pretend like the Soviet Union made some noble stand to the US for the sake of global stability through MAD. The Soviets were racing to get and use nuclear weapons long before that acronym was ever uttered, and the Soviets invaded many more places with the sole intent of conquest and global domination. and the Russian Federation to this day threatens nuclear annihilation simply over pushback on their continued annexations and violent imperialism (and I mean actual, dictionary imperialism, not the Reddit version of it where it's just kind of engaging in global trade and pop culture).
If there's one thing I can hope for the future of my generation, it's the end of exactly this brand of dangerous idiocy. Being contrarian towards the western/US establishment does not require softening Soviet Russia.
That’s a gross misrepresentation of events unless I’m mistaken. The USSR was ~~planning~~ considering* a conventional attack on Chinese nuclear facilities; that’s not the same thing.
You are mistaken. They were going to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy China's nuclear facilities. They were absolutely not going to risk a conventional attack going badly and China retaliating with a nuke. The only reason they didn't was because the US said they would retaliate against the USSR if they went through with it.
Nuclear usage in North Korea could very well have meant North Korea & China lost and the entire peninsula would be governed by what is today the wildly successful democracy in South Korea. Or not. Who knows.
it made a the world more dangerous for US citizens. the 1950s and 60s were defined by worry that the USSR would nuke us. the "hot" parts of the cold war cost many US lives that would not have had to be spent if we were the only ones with the bomb. it might have been safer for others. hard to tell. but the tech getting out so soon really changed things for the US.
You are absolutely delusional. Ethel was 100% involved. She helped get her brother recruited into the spy ring, held meetings in her home, passed information to her husbands handler and was fully aware she was helping to steal the secrets for nuclear weapons.
This was all declassified after the soviet union fell.
You have to jump through a wild amount of mental hoops to come to the conclusion she wasn’t involved.
Have you read anything other than one article about this case?
She hosted meetings at her house and all of her closest family were involved in the spy ring. She knew damn well what was going on and actively helped her brother and husband in any way possible.
Again you would have to jump through an insane amount of mental hoops to think she wasn’t involved.
I've read extensively on this. She definitely knew what was happening but, as I wrote earlier, the Soviets themselves wrote that she wasn't involved because she was too frail.
Her brother admitted lying when he said she typed the documents.
They saved Korea, Vietnam, China, and god knows who else from atomic hellfire by helping secure a deterrent against the US. The Macarthurs and LeMays would have made different calculations without it.
100% against the death penalty mostly due to fear of innocents being executed in our faulty justice system, but I find the case incredibly interesting from a history perspective and the discussion of Ethel and the brothers
It's not murder if the state does it. No unironically if somone commits a horrific crime and receives the due process needed to prove they did it then the state as the only sole monopolizer of legitimate violance may carry out execution. This was a high crime against the state. Jules and ethel rosenberg had to die
Okay game of thrones. I think the majority of us will continue to consider a death penalty a murder of some kind, regardless of technical classification
I know that you hold this opponion and its probably a genuine belife of you, but that does not make it true. Giving someone the right to murder others based on any criterion is per se a bad idea. If you legitimize murder in certain situation you are not just close to allowing it in other situations, you have also most all moral ground to judge others dor doing so.
It is not somone. It is the state. The people in collective. A legitimate monopoly of violence which extends to execution is part 1 of the very definition of government
The definition of government is whatever the hell most people agree on. Neither that nor laws are something you can even attempt to base any kind of morality or ethical framework on.
And there are very good reasons why states limit themselves in what they permit. Just because q majority of people agree on something doesn't justify it.
Please enlighten me with some of these countries out there that totally exist that have no history of violence. The mental gymnastics some people here are engaging in to justify helping a brutal dictatorship gain nuclear weapons is honestly mind blowing.
Had the USSR not ended up nuclear capable, we might not have had MAD doctrine. And the threat of a nuclear response might not have prevented another war, or the US from using nukes again.
I mean, we came frighteningly close a few times as it is.
Yeah like, a world where the US has a nuclear monopoly into the 1960s is a scary one to think about. MacArthur in Korea(and the soviets having the bomb) was the reason we made nukes a presidential-only decision rather than simply another tool in the general's closet.
Edward Teller, of Oppenheimer fame, was the driving scientific force behind Plowshare. The guy just wanted to set off nukes all day long. I mean the logic is clear to see, a nuclear explosion will create a hole big enough to be considered geography but it’s not exactly wise in the long term.
They without question made the world safer. The US was perpetually on the brink of nuclear weapon use until the Soviet program forced them to adopt MAD. The only thing standing between the nuclear annihilation of China in the Korean War was literally Truman's willpower. Now the US functionally and structurally cannot use nukes. What they did was a gift to humanity.
More dangerous for who? Certainly not the people of Korea, or Vietnam, or the Middle East. The world benefitted from the US no longer having a nuclear monopoly because they now had a deterrent.
Pretty sure the US government made the world a more dangerous place by developing nuclear bombs and then deploying them unnecessarily. But yes, the Rosenbergs also contributed.
And it's ridiculous. Because if the US didn't, others would. And then what?
As bad a things as they are and as bad as the real-world use they've seen is they did bring the end of Japan's war and ultimately saved way more lives than the deaths that could ever be attributed to their use.
And the subsequent mutual destruction capabilities of the world's most powerful nations has helped keep those nations from all out war with each other.
Well, I asked for sources to the contrary and all I got was a bunch of sources proving the traditional narrative (that the bombs were necessary), so I’ll ask you the same:
It definitely is not a crazy take. lmao. Japan was already going to surrender. There was no need to drop nuclear bombs onto civilians.
Edit: It is truly wild to see how many people in the HISTORY SUBREDDIT don't know about the actual historical context surrounding the United States military's use of atomic bombs in Japan. Shameful.
I can say some pretty well clued in historians such as Jon Parshall believe the bombs absolutely were the tipping point and Japan was not close to surrender otherwise. The actions of the military leadership in Japan really doesn't suggest any real close ideas towards surrender, quite the opposite. And even in the surrender there was a coup attempt to try to stop it.
They weren't going to surrender. The emperor intended to wind down the war and then his generals attempted to a coup to keep the war going. They also had a policy where they would kill every American pow the second that the US invaded the Japanese Homeland. The bombs were extremely necessary.
There really is none as there were no negotiations ongoing. Also take into account the way that the Japanese had been fighting in the Pacific during that period of time. Wholehearted enthusiasm for kamikaze pilots, and numerous Island battles where the Japanese literally fought the last man. They were going to commit national suicide before they were going to let American soldiers stormed the beaches of Kyoto. Add on to that. Furthermore, the ussr joining the war in the Pacific and the threat that the Communists would take over Pacific Islands and territories and add them to the Warsaw pact sphere of influence and it becomes clear that not only were the bombs necessary, but they were actually very fortunate to have them as it stopped the war quickly as opposed to a long protracted invasion that would have killed millions of people. There are many reads of History where you could say that the Japanese got off rather easy having two nuclear bombs dropped on them.
Nuclear weapons are possible, and therefore, given the human proclivity to make everything into weapons, inevitable. Someone would have figured them out eventually. All things considered, the US being first and using a fairy rudimentary version at the end of ww2, showing the horror to the world, is among the better options.
I agree, especially given the way they were used and what was spared because of it. As bad as they were, the US had caused more bloodshed by single bombing runs otherwise. Singling the nuclear bombs out as some more terrible thing than what was already happening is not a historically correct take.
For those who view the US as the good guy and the USSR as the bad guy, these guys are despicable, traitors, and so on. For everyone else, they're just players in a really complex game.
Mass genocide, like the one the US committee against the natives, who were still being forcibly assimilated, abused, and murdered in boarding schools until 1969?
You seem to have forgotten where you are. This is reddit, where even in the history sub you find uniquely ahistorical takes on a world that is well known and that is currently in living memory.
What are you, ten years old? The USSR was a complex place. They did great things and awful things, just like the US. There are very, very few “good guy, bad guy” narratives in history.
The US nuked not one, but two cities full of civilians. In that light, one can at least understand - even if ultimately condemn - the Rosenbergs' actions. In the Cold War, hardly anything is "unquestionable", especially not when viewed through a moral lens.
Stalin alone caused many millions of deaths through deliberate famines, labor camps, and his famous purges. That was all of his own people, mind you. The US has done bad things but you have to have a very small grasp of history to imply they are on equal footing.
Side note, it must be some fun communist thing to do causing unforced famines on your own people with Mao doing the same thing.
>The US nuked not one, but two cities full of civilians. In that light,
one can at least understand - even if ultimately condemn - the
Rosenbergs' actions. In the Cold War, hardly anything is
"unquestionable", especially not when viewed through a moral lens.
lol yes civilians that shunned any family or people not sacrificing their lives for the rising sun. ones that were brought up to believe they are a superior race of beings that deserve to rule over other eastern asian nations. a group of people who DOWNPLAYED THE FIRST BOMB IN ORDER TO FIGHT TO THE LAST MAN
It's easy for you to just go ahead and say how horrible it was to decide to drop a bomb but you are not experiencing the responsibility put on you to put extra 250k to 1 MILLION estimated american deaths taking japan and forcing a surrender.
hurr durr US drop not 1 but 2 nukes so baaad!!! fks sakes
It’s so funny seeing everyone whine that Reddit is so leftist when it’s literally just as susceptible to red scare era narratives and jingoism as the rest of America
You know they were like without question guilty right? Docs declassified by both the US and Russia after the Cold War confirm it. This is probably also why Eisenhower refused to pardon them despite all the campaigns for it, he had access to the smoking gun evidence.
Even his sons now accept that Julius was guilty (although they still defend their mother).
The fact their best defense for her, is “well she could have lived but she would’ve betrayed her husband to do so” made me so sad for them. Abandoned by both parents for espionage
And Ethel was herself betrayed by her brother (also a spy), who admitted in the 2000s he threw her under the bus to save his wife (also a spy). He confessed that both he and Julius were spies in the interview after decades of maintaining his innocence.
Safe to say committing espionage and treason isn’t a very good idea
Who cares if they were guilty what they did saved the world from a rabid US with a monopoly on nuclear weapons. They made the world a safer place and deserve to be seen as heroes for their sacrifice.
Could you imagine if the US had a monopoly on nukes??? They could have done such horrible things as…force the USSR to allow elections in Eastern Europe!
Lol, if it wasn't for MAD, the world would probably be a very different one today. Probably with a good bit fewer inhabitants and a good bit more people dying of cancer.
Like I'm fine with the legal arguments of why they were guilty (death penalty notwithstanding) but the moralising about them committing treason is hilarious, as if people can't imagine why any American would be opposed to their government in the 1950s
Espionage is considered treason in most countries. Why they did it is irrelevant to the fact they committed treason. There is documented proof in the archives of the Soviet Union that proves their guilt.
Their parents and uncle turned against their nation and gave secret information, including nuclear information, to our chief military and geopolitical adversary at an incredibly dangerous time in our nation's history. This is not difficult to "make sense" of. It is unreal that there are people still willing to carry the water for the these spies.
"Twenty senior government officials met secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg case. Gordon Dean, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said: "It looks as though Rosenberg is the kingpin of a very large ring, and if there is any way of breaking him by having the shadow of a death penalty over him, we want to do it." Myles Lane, a member of the prosecution team, said that the case against Ethel was "not too strong", but that it was "very important that she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence." FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote that "proceeding against the wife will serve as a lever" to make Julius talk.
"On June 19, 1953, Julius died from the first electric shock. Ethel's execution did not go smoothly. After she was given the normal course of three electric shocks, attendants removed the strapping and other equipment only to have doctors determine that her heart was still beating. Two more electric shocks were applied, and at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose from her head."
They questioned Julius right til the end about his accomplices, but not Ethel - because you don't question someone who can't give you more intel. That's probably the difficult part to make sense of. 20 men decided to kill their mom to make their dad talk - but he didn't talk, and then those 20 men had to follow through with the charade that made them orphans.
World War II was as close to them than the pandemic is to us. Everyone knew what kind of game they were playing, and it was one with a lot more on the table than we can realistically grasp now.
If you want to argue that there's some degree of question over Ethel, sure, I can accept that. But, she apparently believed more in denying the obvious truth than she did about living to be alive for her children, so, even that is at least a bit of a stretch.
Anyone that says Julius wasn't guilty is either completely ignorant, or intentionally ignoring the truth.
“The case against Ethel was much weaker. The prosecution's main witness was Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, who worked at the top-secret Los Alamos nuclear facility. Greenglass accused Ethel of typing up secret notes that he had stolen. Decades later, Greenglass admitted he had lied on the witness stand to protect his own wife from prison.”
The US Government should exonerate Ethel. Also, strange that Harry Gold was one of the main players and only got 15 years but she was executed just to try to get her husband to talk about others involved, which he wouldn’t or couldn’t. US government living up to their bad decision making, even back then.
Trying to make sense? They know exactly what happened.... TREASON. Had they been put in prison it would not have changed the fact that they would have functionally been orphaned.
Your dad stole the world’s most valuable secret and gave it to Stalin is what happened.
Julius could have saved himself and his wife by confessing (and yes they were 1000% guilty), but either he thought he’d get out of it or he was thoroughly a communist fanatic.
The bit about the AG saying “Ethel called our bluff” seems to suggest they didn’t want to give her the death penalty, but when she refused to give up information (which we now know she had) they felt they had no choice but to prosecute to the extent they had already publicly threatened to. Or else any death penalty would look a bluff
Yeah in the decades after the case it was confirmed the death penalty was meant to pressure the Rosenbergs into cooperating, esp since the gov knew for certain they were guilty.
Your parents were traitors. People tried to argue they weren't because they were Jewish. That they were traitors was confirmed by documents after the fall of the USSR. Hope that helps make sense.
I watched a crappy doco about the Rosenberg affair recently. They used AI to poorly animated photos from that time. It was exactly as bad as you picture it.
Welshhoppo | 23 hours ago
The amount of Rule 1 breaking in this thread is unbelievable.
If you can't be nice, do not comment. Attack the argument, not the person.
Use the report button if someone is breaking the rules. That's something for us to sort. Not you.
Negative_Gravitas | a day ago
Sidenote I always found interesting: The boys were adopted by Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne. Abel was known for writing the poem and song Strange Fruit.
Relax007 | 8 hours ago
I literally just learned this two days ago and my mind was blown. Definitely one of those "how the hell am I just learning this?!" moments.
Bm_0ctwo | a day ago
Michael was my economics professor in college. Super interesting dude.
dreamsinred | 23 hours ago
Hello fellow WNEC alum! Michael is so kind. I never took his class, but he took time out to let me interview him for a journalism class. Wonderful guy.
Forward-Carry5993 | 23 hours ago
Well it’s an incredibly messy case.
Here is what we know. Julius was a spy and thus guilty of treason. Now, whether or not Ethel was is questionable. I imagine for the now grown up adults and even supporters of the family, it’s been hard to realize that despite how cruel the government was, it was correct that at least the father was guilty. It’s also hard to square if Julius actually passed along anything dangerous.
The execution sentencing was considered by many who believed the two were guilty to be extreme. Most spies didn’t get killed especially two defendants whose actions were still ambiguous.
The prosecution led by Roy Cohn, acted so improperly. Not only did Roy essentially collide with the judge to get the conviction but his own insecurities and mommy issues made him extremely hateful towards the rosenbergs. Even the judge ordering people to leave the court room when discussing the nuclear weapons diagrams was so childish and stupid. The entire trial should have been handled by a new judge and the prosecution should have been disbarred.
The trial emphases so much.
mollybrains | 23 hours ago
The outsize effect that Roy Cohn has on history is absolutely astonishing
AtLeastTryALittle | 19 hours ago
I try very hard to not assume any one person is “good” or “evil”, but rather are trying their best and sometimes get it wrong and inadvertently hurt others.
Then Roy, Roger, Paul and their useful idiot show up and challenge my belief system.
CaptainRhetorica | 14 hours ago
>I try very hard to not assume any one person is “good” or “evil”, but rather are trying their best and sometimes get it wrong and inadvertently hurt others.
It's a good way to look at things and applies to most people you meet.
But it's exploited by people who think we're stupid suckers for thinking that way.
There are people who think humans are divided into predator and prey. They'd rather be the predator than the prey. They think anyone who doesn't want to be a predator is a chump and deserves being preyed upon.
And we keep rolling back regulations that would limit the amount of harm these deranged people could do to society.
We police those that are the most vulnerable, least able to do societal harm. Yet we do not defend from those who wield the economy, the media, the state, etc. as weapons against us all.
I see no sign that we've figured out a way to deal with truly antisocial people. They leverage the benefit of doubt against us. They exploit our reticence to judge. The world is run by people who themselves or their progenitors have lied, cheated and stolen their way to commanding positions and laundered their ill-gotten resources and image to participate in society without penalty.
DontHaveWares | 13 hours ago
Only way I can think of is to predate the predators, steal their wealth, and redistribute it.
PoppyFire16 | 11 hours ago
Yes, there will always be people out there like this, but we don’t have to live in a society where they’re allowed to have enough money to operate with impunity
raelianautopsy | 10 hours ago
Who is Paul?
UNC_Samurai | 9 hours ago
Manafort. He and Roger Stone used to be business partners, and were good friends with Reagan’s favorite campaign trickster Lee Atwater.
Nezrite | 22 hours ago
And going, and going, and going...
izzmosis | 17 hours ago
I feel some sense of satisfaction that, despite all of his “accomplishments”, when i think of him, i think of Angels in America and I think he would find that displeasing.
ibetthisistaken5190 | 14 hours ago
I can't believe I'm not the only one
mollybrains | 3 hours ago
Angels in America is the reason I know who he is!!!
Garconanokin | 20 hours ago
Republicans are very proud to have Roy Cohn
ragingmoderate1776 | 14 hours ago
I doubt most know who he is.
Solid-Signal3214 | 4 hours ago
should be top comment really
Low-Flamingo-9835 | 12 hours ago
One little turd spread all across the walls of this nation.
ChrissyBrown1127 | 20 hours ago
We all hate Roy Cohn.
Frosty_Warning4921 | 23 hours ago
It's not *much* in dispute that Ethel was complicit and knew what was going on. Her husband *and* brother were involved and held meetings inside their home. It's nearly inconceivable that she was clueless and at least doubtful she wasn't complicit in at least helping them conceal their crimes, if not participating to some degree. But, you are right that Cohn was a real scumbag. And he acted like a monster. But, then again, he was right in this case.
akestral | 22 hours ago
Being factually right does not somehow "make up" for his blatant abuse of process or illegal conduct by the prosecution. If he couldn't convict them on the evidence he had, the answer was not, "fabricate evidence and collude with the judge." Better 100 guilty men go free than an innocent man persecuted and murdered by the state.
dittybopper_05H | 5 hours ago
The thing about it was that the prosecution offered Ethel a much lower sentence if her and/or Julius would provide evidence against others in their spy network. This would have meant she would still be around, after serving a relatively nominal sentence of a handful of years at most, to raise her children.
They literally had the ability to prevent Ethel from being executed, and given a pretty low sentence. And it's unlikely that Julius would be executed: The others in that ring that were prosecuted weren't executed. David Greenglass, Ethel's brother, testified and accepted a plea deal. He ended up spending less than 10 years in prison.
The Rosenbergs didn't accept the deal.
They were also offered clemency after they were convicted and sentenced to death: If they gave confessions and offered evidence to convict their fellow spies, their death sentences would be commuted to a prison sentence.
Again they refused.
Read that again: They refused to provide evidence to save themselves from being executed.
Apparently martyrdom in service of their ideology, and protecting their fellow spies, was more important than raising their children.
They were given at least two chances to avoid at least Ethel from being executed, and they refused them.
akestral | 4 hours ago
I do not know why you think this argument is in any way exculpatory of Cohn's criminal conduct. I. Do. Not. Care. If the Rosenbergs were callous traitors or true believers. I DO VERY MUCH CARE that US prosecutors regularly use the maximum penalty as a stick with plea deals as a carrot to intimidate people into deals and lock up people and notch wins in their judicial belt over weak cases that they could not try in a court of law. This is how mass incarceration works, it is how we got where we are now. I am NOT OKAY with a judicial system that aids and abets such conduct. None of us are free until all of us are free. If the courts let scum like Roy Cohn run these streets, I do not have to pretend their goal is justice or peace, in any sense of those words.
Frosty_Warning4921 | 21 hours ago
But they weren't innocent. And that's my point. Which is why rehashing the vile character of Cohn is barely relevant to how we should view the Rosenburgs today. The guilt of Julius and his brother in law are not in question. The guilt of Ethel may be less certain in a "beyond a reasonable doubt" courtroom environment, but we are looking at this case in the court of public opinion decades later. We ought to be perfectly willing to look at the facts and say "yeah, it's highly likely she participated in espionage against her country". In the words of Lt. Weinberg, "everything else is just smoke filled coffee house crap".
bjewel3 | 20 hours ago
You shouldn’t get a murder sentence for knowing someone else is guilty of espionage against the United States government
thebarkbarkwoof | 18 hours ago
I can think of someone today who openly gave Russia secret intelligence, yet he got elected again.
billytheskidd | 18 hours ago
Well it’s different because he declassified it in his head first.
MandolinMagi | 21 hours ago
The bit about 100 guilty go free rather than an inncocent convicted is an inane soundbite, not an actual bit of law or anything meaningful
My_dreams_r_strange | 19 hours ago
It's outlining a major point of ethical debate and government policy for the past ~80+ years.
It's a rephrasing of the trolley problem. Most democratic republics navigate the debate to find a middle ground.
The counter point is the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Which is considered by many to be the cornerstone of utilitarianism. It's often coupled with surrender of personal freedoms and totaltarianism.
The most common examples of utilitarian logic being claimed to be put into real world practice would be Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc..
Individual rights are considered the cornerstone of America/democracy/developed nations.
Soosietyrell | 18 hours ago
You should tell that to these 250 people who were found to be not guilty after conviction https://innocenceproject.org/states/illinois/
chefybpoodling | 16 hours ago
Only a couple words on this list need to be changed to make it equally relevant today.
BoldlySilent | 15 hours ago
Wait why was the judge ordering people out of court when talking about nuclear weapons childish?
LordFrosch | 12 hours ago
The diagram was supposed to be very crude and not of any real intelligence value, at least according to Wikipedia.
BoldlySilent | 3 hours ago
I find it hard to believe a nuclear weapons diagram in the 1950s can be considered not sensitive
kyeblue | 8 hours ago
isn’t Cohn a jew himself?
Necessary-Reading605 | 8 hours ago
On point 3, the case becomes even more bizarre when you take in account that Roy Cohn was also jewish.
Petrichordates | 7 hours ago
Only bizarre if you think that's relevant for some reason.
Lafemmefatale25 | 13 hours ago
Oh Roy Cohn again eh? He is so bad the devil probably doesn’t even want him.
ragingmoderate1776 | 14 hours ago
Potential????
DJC_Kowalski | 7 hours ago
Was the prejudice towards Jews coming from Cohn, or was there a false Presupposition of innocence because they were Jews from their defenders? Because the fact of guilt is pretty clear.
Ven18 | 22 hours ago
Obviously they were guilty but the people who act like the Soviets would somehow not have gotten nukes without them is hilarious. The Soviets had the research from the Manhattan project basically once it was finished. If anything the saddest part of the whole thing is not only did both of them die and orphan their kids their work in the grand scheme of things didn’t mean much.
ThePowerOfStories | 21 hours ago
Yeah, too many folks imagine science as relying on irreproducible breakthroughs by lone geniuses, as opposed to the inexorable grind of exhaustive experimentation that builds incrementally on all that came before. For any given idea that looks revolutionary to outsiders, another half-dozen teams around the world are only a year behind in discovering it independently.
Plus, merely knowing that someone else managed to do something is often enough to let you figure out how, because you know what public knowledge they had and what technologies they had access to, so you can deduce what they might have tried. Getting the exact details right in terms of building something like an atomic bomb takes time, but it’s engineering, not magic, and mostly highly-parallelizable work that responds extremely well to throwing nation-state levels of money and personnel at it.
JumboTree | 19 hours ago
"too many folks imagine science as relying on irreproducible breakthroughs by lone geniuses" that's it right there!
wkearney99 | 15 hours ago
like the simps that believe Edison or Musk actually did any inventing. beside their marketing lies, that is.
Termsandconditionsch | 7 hours ago
You can say what you want about Edison but he did more inventing than Musk did. Quite a lot more in fact.
Brambletail | 5 hours ago
The number of people who think nuclear weapons are complicated to build is agonizingly high. They conflate "complicated to build" with "extremely expensive and resource intensive to build". But slamming two pieces of very specific metals together at high enough speeds is so trivial that they never even tested the gun type of bomb in the Manhattan project. Implosion and multi stage is a little more complex, but not significantly so, especially not with computer aided calculations
I'll let everyone else be their own judges as to how that might effect how they view current events.
FatGoonerFromIndia | 18 hours ago
Your idea is further proven right because India developed nukes despite lack of support from both blocs back in the 70s.
Painted_Mushr00m | 16 hours ago
India didn’t develop nukes on their own, they bought key parts of the development from France.
FatGoonerFromIndia | 16 hours ago
The Rosenbergs were executed for sharing the science, not the materials.
Painted_Mushr00m | 16 hours ago
You are arguing two different points, in one you say “it’s not that hard India did it” when that isn’t true.
Neither USSR or India independently developed nuclear weapons. They both needed information or science developed by the US to complete their projects.
TheArtofBar | 13 hours ago
>They both needed information or science developed by the US to complete their projects.
They didnt, that just made it a little bit quicker. The science of the nuclear bomb is very basic. The soviet union also built the hydrogen bomb very quickly on its own, even though that's way more challenging from a scientific standpoint.
TheOtherHobbes | 9 hours ago
The basic science of a nuclear bomb is very basic.
The science and engineering required to build one from scratch, including the refinement and machining of uranium and plutonium, the shaping of the explosive lenses that shape the initial compression, the exact detonator sequencing, and the design of the neutron source in the middle, are very unbasic indeed, which is why it took the Manhattan Project years instead of weeks.
Making small deliverable bombs that aren't the size of a car is even more unbasic.
TheArtofBar | 8 hours ago
The manhattan project took 3 years, which is really not a long time as big research projects go. And the scientists the soviet union had at its disposal were no slouches, they actually developed a superior method of uranium enrichment, a specific type of centrifuge.
Painted_Mushr00m | 6 hours ago
Yet, after having a nuclear program that ran for over 10 years and for years after the Manhatten project, they still couldn’t figure it out on their own. They had to steel it because their program wasn’t working.
TheArtofBar | 3 hours ago
Wtf are you talking about? The soviet atomic bomb program only started in 1942.
And they didn't HAVE to steal anything, it was just easier and quicker.
always_an_explinatio | 18 hours ago
25 years later! That is a huge amount of time that one country could have been the only holder of that tech. You are massively underestimating the impact of that.
TheArtofBar | 18 hours ago
You are massively overestimating the impact. The US didn't manage to get anything out of nukes during the time they were the only ones with them other than a quick surrender by Japan, they didn't even use them in the korean war.
flashoverride | 17 hours ago
Well, that time was only four years, and part of the reason that the US didn't use them in Korea is that the USSR already had nukes. We can easily imagine the damage the US could have done to the world had the USSR not been able to produce their own.
always_an_explinatio | 15 hours ago
Yes. Exactly. So we agree that the espionage greatly impeded US interests. Your opinion on the validity of US interests is besides the point.
TheArtofBar | 13 hours ago
That's complete nonsense. The intel acquired by the Rosenbergs did very little to accelerate the soviet nuke, attested by experts from both sides.
TheArtofBar | 13 hours ago
>part of the reason that the US didn't use them in Korea is that the USSR already had nukes.
Only a very minor one, if at all.
>We can easily imagine the damage the US could have done to the world
Not really. What would have happened?
always_an_explinatio | 18 hours ago
this is a very ahistorical take. Every minute the US was the only nation with this technology was a minute that would pay dividends for decades. The power on the national stage this would have given the US is immeasurable. not to mention the USSR was is a bad way in the 1950s if they did not get the bomb for 10 or 15 more years? The USSR probably would have never gotten it, and whatever rose up in its place would have. Others would have developed it, but it leaking so early had a massive impact that is still being felt.
Chopper-42 | 16 hours ago
From what we know now the soviets scientists got there pretty much independently. They were never handed any of the details aquired by espionage. Instead the material was used to check if their program was on track.
That means you vastly overestimate the US lead.
hameleona | 13 hours ago
> Instead the material was used to check if their program was on track.
You say it like that's nothing, but it was critical in the Soviet environment. Hell just the higher ups knowing they were on the right track protected the program from the usual soviet bullshit - remember we are talking about a nation, where scientific projects got shut down, because they didn't sound good to scientifically illiterate ideologues.
always_an_explinatio | 15 hours ago
Who knows what would have happened. Estimates I have seen say the espionage (not necessarily just the Rosenberg’s) accelerated the existing program 2-5 years. But we also know the US was trying to impede their progress with our own spy craft. Even if it was 2 years it still would have made a huge difference.
LOUDPACK_MASTERCHEF | 12 hours ago
you went from "probably never would have gotten it" to "accelerated the Soviet program 2-5 years" pretty quick
dankpete | 6 hours ago
Every minute the US had a monopoly on the bomb was a minute the world was MORE likely to see another used.
always_an_explinatio | 5 hours ago
Possibly true. Deterrence is real. But it is Likely the US would have been able to throw its weight around and likely would have vastly slowed the spread of ussr branded communism without ever dropping another one. Either way, the Rosenbergs and other spies were not acting out of benevolence and the us was not using the standard of “the greater good” when they charged them with treason. The US at the time was very invested in a global strategy that assumed we would be the only one with the Bomb for an extended period of time. This was thwarted by espionage.
dankpete | 6 hours ago
Julius, probably. I think they railroaded Ethel.
Ven18 | 5 hours ago
We know that she knew about Julius’s actions. There comes a point where you lie and defend him enough that you become an accomplice. Now could you argue retrospectively if her sentence should have been less than Julius and arguments about forced testimony against a spouse and such sure. You cannot argue she did not commit some crime(s) during the trial process.
strps | 14 hours ago
I don't think the point of the execution was that the Soviets would or would not have been able to develop nuclear capacity without their assistance. The point is that they committed treason. The penalty for this is execution, and it stands as a strong deterrent.
[OP] Quouar | a day ago
Archive link
This is an interesting article about the trials of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, as well as that trial's (and the couple's eventual execution's) impact on their two sons. It also deals with the legacy of history, how it shapes the present, and how we continue to grapple with its implications.
jenorama_CA | 23 hours ago
That was a really good article. I didn’t know much about the Rosenbergs beyond the fact that they were executed for spying. I definitely didn’t know that they had two boys. Evidence does seem to point to Ethel having gotten quite the raw deal and it’s very shocking to realize that she could have gotten out of the terrible situation she was in and stayed with the boys, but she chose to follow her husband. Even though it now seems clear that her own brother sold her out, the history with the Rosenbergs and the deep sense of betrayal makes it highly unlikely that she’ll ever be exonerated.
Thanks for the link on the article. The Atlantic is always a good time.
Howaboutnopers | 23 hours ago
OMG two people who actually read the article.
jenorama_CA | 23 hours ago
It’s honestly really good. I love The Atlantic and have access to it through AppleNews+.
Painted_Mushr00m | 16 hours ago
She shouldn’t be exonerated. This article fails to mention all of the evidence that Ethel was involved, including hosting meetings ups, passing information and helping to recruit others to the spy ring.
This was all declassified after the fall of the Soviet Union.
You have to do a serious amount of mental gymnastics and overlook overwhelming evidence to think she wasn’t involved. She knew what she was doing, made the world a more dangerous place, and got exactly what she deserved.
jenorama_CA | 16 hours ago
Oh, interesting. Yeah, the article didn’t mention that all, even when it got to the declassified documents part. Instead it kind of pointed to the SIL having more involvement, but getting off scot-free. Wow.
Painted_Mushr00m | 16 hours ago
Oh yeah, there is a lot more to the story of Ethel’s involvement. She knew exactly what she was doing and what information they were passing along.
This topic comes up every few years because her sons are desperate to exonerate her. Originally, it was both parents, until the USSR fell and the overwhelming amount of evidence Julius was a spy came out.
I feel for her sons, it is an incredibly painful way to lose your parents. That being said both in my opinion got what they deserved. They released the secrets of nuclear weapons to the world which escalated the cold war and causes problems to this day ranging from the War in Ukraine and War in Iran.
Rolling_Beardo | 19 hours ago
I haven’t read it in a long time but the book “The Brother” by Sam Roberts was a interesting read about the Rosenbergs
no-onwerty | 14 hours ago
Geesh. So many of these comments.
They were young children when their parents were murdered by their government. Of course they are still trying to work through that into adulthood.
Ill_Act7949 | 7 hours ago
Yeah, I also took "making sense of what happened" as processing such an insane thing to go through
They were 3 and 7 when their parents were arrested, then 6 and 10 when they were executed. Especially for the younger one where that was half his life up to that point, yeah it would take a lifetime to work through especially the added on public spectacle of all that happened and what thier parents were
Thier parents being traitors essentially made them pariahs as young children that even their relatives didn't want to take in cause of the publicity. They were shuffled around and even separated a few times over three years while also not fully understanding what had happened to their parents and then imagine getting older and not only intellectually understanding the case but then growing to be an age to where you cannot just understand but also internalize it
That takes a lifetime to work through, I can't blame them for holding on to their mom possibly being innocent as long as they have
AlexMhmm | a day ago
"Your parents traded top secret government information and made the world a more dangerous place,"
There you go boys.
Tr1pline | 23 hours ago
Ethel’s conviction and execution remain the most controversial aspects of the case. David Greenglass testified that Ethel typed up classified notes for Julius to pass to the Soviets. However, decades later, Greenglass admitted in interviews that he had lied and fabricated Ethel's involvement to protect his own wife from prosecution. Historians and declassified documents—including the NSA's decoded Venona intercepts—have largely confirmed Julius's role as a Soviet spy, but have revealed little to no evidence implicating Ethel. Internal government documents later suggested prosecutors used Ethel's life as a bargaining chip to pressure Julius into naming his network, a demand Julius refused.
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
Ethel could’ve also named names, which was the goal of giving her the death penalty. When the AG says “she called our bluff” it suggests they didn’t get what they wanted out of it
Ernesto_Bella | 22 hours ago
> have largely confirmed
And by largely you mean completely
highmodulus | a day ago
They committed treason, and everyone that pretended they didn't looked really stupid when in 1995 all the Soviet cables were released proving they committed it as part of a larger spy ring were released.
xxwarlorddarkdoomxx | 23 hours ago
I recently read about a Ronald Radosh, a Marxist author who researched the case in the 70s and was basically forced to conclude that Julius was guilty, despite his long held belief that the Rosenberg were framed.
When he published he faced immense blowback from other leftists which eventually lead to him leaving the movement altogether.
lostPackets35 | a day ago
I don't think anyone is debating that they were guilty of the legal charges. What I think most people are discussing is whether their actions actually made the world more dangerous or not. Which is not clear-cut.
TiberiusTheFish | a day ago
There's plenty of doubt about Ethel's guilt. Her brother dobbed her in in order to save himself and his wife who were up to their necks in the whole business.
[OP] Quouar | a day ago
Correct. As the article points out, there is no evidence Ethel did anything wrong beyond knowing that Julius was selling secrets. That she also got executed is a travesty.
kinkykusco | a day ago
Refusing to testify about your spouse should never be a capital crime.
acidwxlf | 20 hours ago
My lawyer says you can't arrest a husband and wife for the same crime
VictorEcho1 | 18 hours ago
You have the worst attorney.
ThePrussianGrippe | 18 hours ago
They don’t allow you to bring bees in here.
Safe-Ad4001 | 15 hours ago
It is when the charge is TREASON!
cobaltaureus | a day ago
I’m against the death penalty, but she withheld information about the spywork and lied about it right?
And even then, where is the ethical culpability if not legal, like for example a wife who knows her husband abuses their children.
[OP] Quouar | 23 hours ago
There is a vast difference between child abuse and espionage.
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
Duh, it was an example of ethical culpability not a 1:1 comparison between the two
[OP] Quouar | 23 hours ago
My point is that it's not a valid example of ethical culpability.
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
Okay, then just address her ethical culpability in this particular situation we are discussing.
Forget the bare bones of : is it ethical for a spouse to lie about criminal involvement?, since that seems to confound you, when given a new example.
Edit: as a user pointed out then immediately deleted, yes there are times the law is unethical and thus lying would be ethical. That’s why my initial example was an objectively heinous and harmful act like child abuse, but since that didn’t fly, I tried to simplify here by reverting to only discussing the ethics of the current situation
Safe-Ad4001 | 15 hours ago
That makes no sense. Please tell us you're not in law school.
karmapuhlease | 22 hours ago
Both are pretty bad! The latter created dangers that might have killed billions of people.
[OP] Quouar | 22 hours ago
It's a stretch to say that Julius Rosenberg's espionage directly led to the Soviet acquisition of atomic weapons. There's also a difference between the potential harm of nuclear weapons and the actual harm of child abuse. As others in this thread have pointed out, the Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons might have also saved billions of lives by disincentivising the bomb's use by the Americans.
RemoteBoner | 22 hours ago
So like we would be ok with executing Einstein and Nobel then?
rlnrlnrln | 22 hours ago
Nobel was Swedish and died more than 20 years before the Russian revolution.
highmodulus | a day ago
Given what we know about Stalin, giving him nukes didn't make the world safer. Given what history has proven about the USSR in general, betraying your country to them it is very, very hard to find any positive aspects.
lostPackets35 | a day ago
both of those things can be true.
Yea, Stalin was an authoritarian and I'm not a defender of ANY kind of authoritarianism. So I'm certainly no fan of the USSR.
But, there are likely positive impacts in there being two nuclear-armed superpowers, and not just one. Namely, that MAD doctrine meant that both of them limited themselves to proxy wars and not all-out total war.
As others have pointed out, several US generals wanted to use nukes as it was.
smokeynick | a day ago
Can be true, but are not. Objectively, Stalinist Russia was one of the greatest evils our species ever witnessed. I know we all hate America (mild sarcasm) these days but let’s be serious.
InfiniteLuxGiven | a day ago
Still was a good thing that the US’s main rival had access to the same weapons tho, one side having that kind of power would’ve ended horribly for the world.
No one nation should have sole ownership of weapons that powerful, even if it means our opponents having them too it’s better than the alternative.
lostPackets35 | 23 hours ago
Yes. This is the point I'm trying to make.
Not that the US and the USSR were morally equivalent. They weren't.
There are plenty of valid things to criticize about the US, but we were still leagues better than stalinist USSR.
lostPackets35 | a day ago
I'm not debating the evil that was Russia and this has nothing to do with the US.
That doesn't mean that either power being the only nuclear-armed superpower in the world would not have been catastrophically bad.
FWIW the Soviets being an unopposed nuclear superpower would have been worse, absolutely. But that doesn't mean it would have been rainbows and unicorns had the US had nothing keeping our global dominance in check.
Do you really think the US wouldn't have used nukes again if we knew we could do so unopposed?
Clothedinclothes | 21 hours ago
Are you familiar with the expression "power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"?
I know it's hard to accept the US might do evil if allowed to hold a position of supreme geopolitical power, but if you rightly lay the millions of deaths in Ukraine from Stalin's policies at his door you should rightly lay millions of Iraqi deaths resulting from Bush's policies at his door, for example. Policies which if you're old enough to remember, were based explicitly on US authority to act unilaterally however it deemed fit against any other country regardless of what the rest of the world thought, which was only possible due to the US's position of extreme geopolitical dominance in the short period of essentially unipolar world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
TheGrayBox | 21 hours ago
>millions of Iraqi deaths resulting from Bush's policies
The number is 210,000 in 20 years. In Afghanistan it's more 30,000. For comparison, Saddam's invasion of Iran killed a million people in a fraction of the time.
>were based explicitly on US authority to act unilaterally however it deemed fit against any other country regardless of what the rest of the world thought
That's just blatantly not true. In fact it was the Blair administration that officially denied the UNSCOM's final report on Iraqi chemical weapons and that filed the initial memo for invasion. Several other countries were involved in that process and had been since the 90s when the weapon's inspections originally fell apart. And if we're expanding to Afghanistan, 50+ countries literally went to war on the UN-NATO side and even China and Russia voted in favor of invasion and offered assistance. This "rogue Bush America" narrative is entirely falsified modern Redditor slop.
>in the short period of essentially unipolar world order following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union's collapse was followed by enormous amounts of investment in the EU by the US and the urging of NATO to absorb the former Soviet states including Ukraine, it was western Europe that refused. The US brought the Russian Federation in as NATO partners (Partnership for Peace program) during this time (and the diplomatic growth later under the Obama admin was significant as well), invested massively in Japan and South Korea and China and had just seen Japan overtake the US economy briefly and were preparing for Korea and China to do the same, and made huge strides even at it's own expense to try and uplift the Mexican economy to create a massive North American trade corridor. And the beginning of the total transformation of the Persian Gulf states began around this time as well, all under US investment.
To sit here and claim that the US clamped down on some unipolar world is insanely false. The US did not want a unipolar world and immediately worked to avoid it. The US made investments and empowerments in this period that massively dwarfed anything any other nation has done and probably ever will do. To even try to tell ourselves that Russia would have done the same if the shoe were on the other foot, well we know better, we saw what Russia did once it had defeated Germany. China too, but in Korea. So no, but nice try.
You attempt to make people feel stupid or biased for portraying the US as different from Russia and China but then proceed to do nothing but lie. I think you desperately want it to be true, and therefore have only learned the version facts that suited your agenda. The reality is that the US pre-Trump was much closer to the good guy than any other powerful entity literally ever, and people like you are part of the reason it was so easy for Trump to demolish.
gumgumbeerdrinkin | 20 hours ago
America deserves hate it is the worlds leading exporter of death and terrorism it is the single worst country currently in existence outside of Israel in terms of its negative global impact
daemos360 | a day ago
Oh? Did the USSR nuke some country I’m unaware of?
As far as I’m aware, only one country has ever used nuclear weapons against an enemy, and unless I’m mistaken, the U.S. specifically chose not to engage in future planned nuclear strikes due to fear of nuclear retaliation.
(If you’re unfamiliar, Truman and Eisenhower both reconsidered plans to use nuclear weapons in Korea for fear of retaliation by the USSR.).
It’s almost as if the world was indeed a safer place thanks to the Rosenbergs.
Edit: y’all really don’t like facts (or counterarguments lol)
Raammson | 23 hours ago
The counter argument to MAD in general is that fact has a small chance of changing at just about any moment and if it does change there is a high probability the casualties will be devastating.
The counter-counter argument is that limiting nuclear weapons to one country changes the calculus to the favor of the armed country to performing more violence.
Unfortunately or fortunately we don’t have a test groups for these theories.
daemos360 | 23 hours ago
While I’d agree with your assessment of MAD’s risk wherein it functionally must stand as an eternal deterrent, it’s pretty indisputable that the United States would have used nuclear weapons more frequently but for the Soviet threat.
Additionally, we know the USSR never launched a nuclear attack on another nation. Hell, the USSR never even planned a preemptive nuclear attack against a country other than the United States.
It’s also quite likely that nuclear weapons would’ve eventually proliferated outside of the United States as well. With the United States unchecked by the Soviets, I find it quite plausible that nuclear attacks would’ve been far more normalized in such a world.
So, if we were to weigh the possibility of a future that has still not occurred against the fairly well established alternative wherein the United States got to nuke whomever it chose? Yeah, I’m going with the former.
SeamenGulper | 18 hours ago
But the Soviets were also a single man away from MAD, twice because of computing errors. There is a non zero chance MAD occurs under false pretenses. Not that those instances discredit the idea long peace.
TheGrayBox | 23 hours ago
There are several layers of either intentional or just classic ignorance at work here. We don't have to pretend atomic bombs in Japan are anything like thermonuclear weapons of the Cold War. We don't have to pretend like the US was going to use thermonuclear warheads in Korea, nor do we have to pretend like the DPRK/PRC were on the right side of that conflict (I know this is difficult for Redditors). We don't have to pretend like the Soviet Union made some noble stand to the US for the sake of global stability through MAD. The Soviets were racing to get and use nuclear weapons long before that acronym was ever uttered, and the Soviets invaded many more places with the sole intent of conquest and global domination. and the Russian Federation to this day threatens nuclear annihilation simply over pushback on their continued annexations and violent imperialism (and I mean actual, dictionary imperialism, not the Reddit version of it where it's just kind of engaging in global trade and pop culture).
If there's one thing I can hope for the future of my generation, it's the end of exactly this brand of dangerous idiocy. Being contrarian towards the western/US establishment does not require softening Soviet Russia.
daemos360 | 23 hours ago
You typed a lot without ever refuting a word I said. Weird how your types always defer to accusations of bad faith without substantiating a thing.
Lootlizard | 23 hours ago
The USSR asked the US if they would be ok if they nuked China in 1969 and the US told them no. That was over a minor border dispute.
daemos360 | 23 hours ago
That’s a gross misrepresentation of events unless I’m mistaken. The USSR was ~~planning~~ considering* a conventional attack on Chinese nuclear facilities; that’s not the same thing.
Lootlizard | 22 hours ago
You are mistaken. They were going to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy China's nuclear facilities. They were absolutely not going to risk a conventional attack going badly and China retaliating with a nuke. The only reason they didn't was because the US said they would retaliate against the USSR if they went through with it.
TheGrayBox | 23 hours ago
Hilarious that you think so.
daemos360 | 23 hours ago
Please, then. Enlighten me. Where exactly did you refute my claims?
Edit: the chud responded to this comment with an ad hominem rant and blocked me. Bravo.
_VNAV_PTH_ | 16 hours ago
Nuclear usage in North Korea could very well have meant North Korea & China lost and the entire peninsula would be governed by what is today the wildly successful democracy in South Korea. Or not. Who knows.
always_an_explinatio | 18 hours ago
it made a the world more dangerous for US citizens. the 1950s and 60s were defined by worry that the USSR would nuke us. the "hot" parts of the cold war cost many US lives that would not have had to be spent if we were the only ones with the bomb. it might have been safer for others. hard to tell. but the tech getting out so soon really changed things for the US.
ShutterBun | 21 hours ago
And not run of the mill treason, either.
northern-new-jersey | 19 hours ago
Julius was a spy but it is clear that Ethel wasn't involved. This is what the Venona transcripts said.
Painted_Mushr00m | 16 hours ago
You are absolutely delusional. Ethel was 100% involved. She helped get her brother recruited into the spy ring, held meetings in her home, passed information to her husbands handler and was fully aware she was helping to steal the secrets for nuclear weapons.
This was all declassified after the soviet union fell.
You have to jump through a wild amount of mental hoops to come to the conclusion she wasn’t involved.
northern-new-jersey | 16 hours ago
That's wrong on everything. Did you even read The Atlantic article? In the Venona transcripts the Soviets themselves say she wasn't involved.
Painted_Mushr00m | 16 hours ago
Have you read anything other than one article about this case?
She hosted meetings at her house and all of her closest family were involved in the spy ring. She knew damn well what was going on and actively helped her brother and husband in any way possible.
Again you would have to jump through an insane amount of mental hoops to think she wasn’t involved.
northern-new-jersey | 4 hours ago
I've read extensively on this. She definitely knew what was happening but, as I wrote earlier, the Soviets themselves wrote that she wasn't involved because she was too frail.
Her brother admitted lying when he said she typed the documents.
MandolinMagi | 21 hours ago
Technicaly not treason because the Soviets werent officially our enemy.
Treason is a very high bar to clear in the US, legally speaking.
HomoProfessionalis | a day ago
You fixed their trauma way to go!
[OP] Quouar | a day ago
I recommend reading the article. Reality - as it usually is - is more complicated than that.
cobaltaureus | a day ago
I just finished.
It’s not really more complicated than that though? Unless you mean the dubious culpability of their mother, who lied under oath about the whole thing.
It’s a heartbreaking article filled with emotional reasoning, but the facts are pretty cut and dry once it gets to the reveal of evidence
Theron1997 | a day ago
Just a tragic outcome for these kids but their parents knew what they were doing.
TipResident4373 | a day ago
Judge Kaufman literally said as much during their sentencing, declaring that the Rosenbergs "loved communism more than their children."
kyeblue | 8 hours ago
communists are proud being that kind of person.
dankpete | 6 hours ago
They saved Korea, Vietnam, China, and god knows who else from atomic hellfire by helping secure a deterrent against the US. The Macarthurs and LeMays would have made different calculations without it.
kyeblue | 6 hours ago
"save"? they starved 10s of millions to death.
Howaboutnopers | 23 hours ago
doubles down on not reading
k410n | 23 hours ago
Yeah, but still: murdering people because you don't like what they do is somewhat problematic
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
100% against the death penalty mostly due to fear of innocents being executed in our faulty justice system, but I find the case incredibly interesting from a history perspective and the discussion of Ethel and the brothers
kritwritgay | 23 hours ago
It's not murder if the state does it. No unironically if somone commits a horrific crime and receives the due process needed to prove they did it then the state as the only sole monopolizer of legitimate violance may carry out execution. This was a high crime against the state. Jules and ethel rosenberg had to die
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
Okay game of thrones. I think the majority of us will continue to consider a death penalty a murder of some kind, regardless of technical classification
myrmonden | 21 hours ago
No the majority won’t as the word means unlawful killing
Woodie626 | 3 hours ago
FFS, can you not tie your favorite fiction to this?
cobaltaureus | 3 hours ago
I called the person that because their way of thinking seemed strangely archaic and outdated to me.
I despise that show, and was not tying any event here to it, only that user’s comment. Hope that helps with your assumption
“High crime against the state. They had to die” is just so melodramatic and over the top way of discussing it
Woodie626 | 3 hours ago
Drive right up to the point, only to go right past it.
cobaltaureus | 3 hours ago
Comment an assumption, get corrected, ignore correction and explanation with no retort.
k410n | 23 hours ago
I know that you hold this opponion and its probably a genuine belife of you, but that does not make it true. Giving someone the right to murder others based on any criterion is per se a bad idea. If you legitimize murder in certain situation you are not just close to allowing it in other situations, you have also most all moral ground to judge others dor doing so.
kritwritgay | 23 hours ago
It is not somone. It is the state. The people in collective. A legitimate monopoly of violence which extends to execution is part 1 of the very definition of government
k410n | 22 hours ago
The definition of government is whatever the hell most people agree on. Neither that nor laws are something you can even attempt to base any kind of morality or ethical framework on. And there are very good reasons why states limit themselves in what they permit. Just because q majority of people agree on something doesn't justify it.
Woodie626 | 3 hours ago
Morality and ethics are also human constructs, with similar eye of the beholder mentalities. It's how government got where it is.
k410n | 3 hours ago
That's highly debated in philosophy
myrmonden | 21 hours ago
Murder is unlawful
The state execution someone can’t be murder
gumgumbeerdrinkin | 20 hours ago
No they didn’t that’s ridiculous.
kritwritgay | 16 hours ago
What would you have done? Let espionage go unfinished? Spies die. Everyone knows that
myrmonden | 21 hours ago
Yeah but that js not what Murder means
Execution is legal ergo it’s not murder
Mammoth-Building-485 | a day ago
They are the parents of the children, it is quite possible there is some significant bias at play
Howaboutnopers | 23 hours ago
Right?
There's an awful lot of people here pretending to know what the article is about and failing.
In response to the person below:
Are the people I responded to discussing the actual article?
No.
They don't know what the article is about.
They are guessing what it's about and attacking an imaginary article.
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
Are your three comments claiming people who disagree with you didn’t read the article contributing to the discussion though?
Saoirse_libracom | 23 hours ago
The alternative was one country, with a violent history, having a monopoly on nuclear arms btw
po-jamapeople | 18 hours ago
Please enlighten me with some of these countries out there that totally exist that have no history of violence. The mental gymnastics some people here are engaging in to justify helping a brutal dictatorship gain nuclear weapons is honestly mind blowing.
lostPackets35 | a day ago
that's debatable no?
Had the USSR not ended up nuclear capable, we might not have had MAD doctrine. And the threat of a nuclear response might not have prevented another war, or the US from using nukes again.
I mean, we came frighteningly close a few times as it is.
robothawk | a day ago
Yeah like, a world where the US has a nuclear monopoly into the 1960s is a scary one to think about. MacArthur in Korea(and the soviets having the bomb) was the reason we made nukes a presidential-only decision rather than simply another tool in the general's closet.
MagicWishMonkey | 23 hours ago
Nope, moving nukes under the purview of POTUS happened well before Korea. Otherwise MacArthur would have blanketed the peninsula in nuclear fire.
Truman understood the danger and made sure it wasn’t left in the hands of the military immediately after ww2
quondam47 | a day ago
MacArthur would have used a nuke to light his corn cob pipe if he could.
catsloveart | a day ago
Wasn’t there some scientist that lobbied to use nukes to dig the Panama Canal?
faberge_surprise | 23 hours ago
not just that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
quondam47 | 23 hours ago
Edward Teller, of Oppenheimer fame, was the driving scientific force behind Plowshare. The guy just wanted to set off nukes all day long. I mean the logic is clear to see, a nuclear explosion will create a hole big enough to be considered geography but it’s not exactly wise in the long term.
faberge_surprise | 23 hours ago
tbf, that's pretty on brand for the guy who said "nuclear bombs? pfft, that's just the starter charge!"
ThePrussianGrippe | 18 hours ago
Yeah I’ve never taken the father of the hydrogen bomb go be a particularly grounded mind.
not-a-prince | 21 hours ago
Arguably they made the world safer by putting the two superpowers on more equal footing and making MAD possible.
Argikeraunos | 23 hours ago
They without question made the world safer. The US was perpetually on the brink of nuclear weapon use until the Soviet program forced them to adopt MAD. The only thing standing between the nuclear annihilation of China in the Korean War was literally Truman's willpower. Now the US functionally and structurally cannot use nukes. What they did was a gift to humanity.
Howaboutnopers | 23 hours ago
Translation: I don't know what this article is about, but I'm going to guess that the article doesn't cover this one thing.
Way to dumb it down to your level.
dankpete | 6 hours ago
More dangerous for who? Certainly not the people of Korea, or Vietnam, or the Middle East. The world benefitted from the US no longer having a nuclear monopoly because they now had a deterrent.
matsie | a day ago
Pretty sure the US government made the world a more dangerous place by developing nuclear bombs and then deploying them unnecessarily. But yes, the Rosenbergs also contributed.
CrustyOldTurtle | a day ago
Deploying them unnecessarily is a crazy take
gumgumbeerdrinkin | 20 hours ago
It was completely unnecessary to deploy the bombs against Japan
Yrcrazypa | a day ago
It's an incredibly common take.
Bourbon-neat- | 23 hours ago
So is believing the earth is flat and the moon landing was faked... All of them are equally ridiculous.
fordry | 23 hours ago
And it's ridiculous. Because if the US didn't, others would. And then what?
As bad a things as they are and as bad as the real-world use they've seen is they did bring the end of Japan's war and ultimately saved way more lives than the deaths that could ever be attributed to their use.
And the subsequent mutual destruction capabilities of the world's most powerful nations has helped keep those nations from all out war with each other.
dankpete | 6 hours ago
It’s not crazy at all. You have bought into a common narrative to excuse one of the US’ most blatant crimes.
CrustyOldTurtle | 4 hours ago
Well, I asked for sources to the contrary and all I got was a bunch of sources proving the traditional narrative (that the bombs were necessary), so I’ll ask you the same:
Do you have a source?
matsie | a day ago
It definitely is not a crazy take. lmao. Japan was already going to surrender. There was no need to drop nuclear bombs onto civilians.
Edit: It is truly wild to see how many people in the HISTORY SUBREDDIT don't know about the actual historical context surrounding the United States military's use of atomic bombs in Japan. Shameful.
fordry | 19 hours ago
We do know, very well. You're pushing a propaganda take, not reality.
How about you explain why the A bombs were worse than than the firebombing of Tokyo. Or any of the rest of the warring that has gone on?
CrustyOldTurtle | a day ago
Can you provide a source that Japan was going to surrender? Because everything I’ve been taught has been counter to that idea
fordry | 23 hours ago
I can say some pretty well clued in historians such as Jon Parshall believe the bombs absolutely were the tipping point and Japan was not close to surrender otherwise. The actions of the military leadership in Japan really doesn't suggest any real close ideas towards surrender, quite the opposite. And even in the surrender there was a coup attempt to try to stop it.
HotbladesHarry | 23 hours ago
They weren't going to surrender. The emperor intended to wind down the war and then his generals attempted to a coup to keep the war going. They also had a policy where they would kill every American pow the second that the US invaded the Japanese Homeland. The bombs were extremely necessary.
CrustyOldTurtle | 23 hours ago
This was my understanding as well. I’m interested to see evidence to the contrary. Thanks for sharing
HotbladesHarry | 23 hours ago
There really is none as there were no negotiations ongoing. Also take into account the way that the Japanese had been fighting in the Pacific during that period of time. Wholehearted enthusiasm for kamikaze pilots, and numerous Island battles where the Japanese literally fought the last man. They were going to commit national suicide before they were going to let American soldiers stormed the beaches of Kyoto. Add on to that. Furthermore, the ussr joining the war in the Pacific and the threat that the Communists would take over Pacific Islands and territories and add them to the Warsaw pact sphere of influence and it becomes clear that not only were the bombs necessary, but they were actually very fortunate to have them as it stopped the war quickly as opposed to a long protracted invasion that would have killed millions of people. There are many reads of History where you could say that the Japanese got off rather easy having two nuclear bombs dropped on them.
lostPackets35 | a day ago
upvoting, not because I agree with you - but it's very rare to see a non-defensive, curious response like this and I'd love to see more of it.
I wish more people clarified and asked for sources, rather than shouting and arguing immediately.
suolattu-saatana | a day ago
Nuclear weapons are possible, and therefore, given the human proclivity to make everything into weapons, inevitable. Someone would have figured them out eventually. All things considered, the US being first and using a fairy rudimentary version at the end of ww2, showing the horror to the world, is among the better options.
fordry | 23 hours ago
I agree, especially given the way they were used and what was spared because of it. As bad as they were, the US had caused more bloodshed by single bombing runs otherwise. Singling the nuclear bombs out as some more terrible thing than what was already happening is not a historically correct take.
karlpoppins | a day ago
For those who view the US as the good guy and the USSR as the bad guy, these guys are despicable, traitors, and so on. For everyone else, they're just players in a really complex game.
myrmonden | 21 hours ago
Everyone views ussr as the bad guys except
If u are total insane
gumgumbeerdrinkin | 20 hours ago
This all happened pre civil rights during the height of Jim Crow lmao if the USSR are bad guys so was the US.
myrmonden | 19 hours ago
so u are insane
u think jim crow law equals mass genoicde.
Twins_Venue | 9 hours ago
Mass genocide, like the one the US committee against the natives, who were still being forcibly assimilated, abused, and murdered in boarding schools until 1969?
ProfessionalOil2014 | 22 hours ago
The USSR were unquestionably the bad guys. If you think otherwise you don’t know anything about the USSR.
UCanBdoWatWeWant2Do | 22 hours ago
You don't know anything about the US then
mustard5man7max3 | 20 hours ago
The US has done bad things. The USSR was just plain bad.
They're on two different leagues. Whatever you dislike about the US, the USSR did the same except worse. The world is far better off without it.
strps | 14 hours ago
You seem to have forgotten where you are. This is reddit, where even in the history sub you find uniquely ahistorical takes on a world that is well known and that is currently in living memory.
wrychime | 22 hours ago
What are you, ten years old? The USSR was a complex place. They did great things and awful things, just like the US. There are very, very few “good guy, bad guy” narratives in history.
FormulaKibbles | 19 hours ago
So bad guy US and comically evil bad guy USSR, got it.
myrmonden | 21 hours ago
They did bad thing basically only
karlpoppins | 21 hours ago
The US nuked not one, but two cities full of civilians. In that light, one can at least understand - even if ultimately condemn - the Rosenbergs' actions. In the Cold War, hardly anything is "unquestionable", especially not when viewed through a moral lens.
FormulaKibbles | 19 hours ago
Stalin alone caused many millions of deaths through deliberate famines, labor camps, and his famous purges. That was all of his own people, mind you. The US has done bad things but you have to have a very small grasp of history to imply they are on equal footing.
Side note, it must be some fun communist thing to do causing unforced famines on your own people with Mao doing the same thing.
strps | 14 hours ago
Don't forget Pol Pot!
hugganao | 21 hours ago
>The US nuked not one, but two cities full of civilians. In that light, one can at least understand - even if ultimately condemn - the Rosenbergs' actions. In the Cold War, hardly anything is "unquestionable", especially not when viewed through a moral lens.
lol yes civilians that shunned any family or people not sacrificing their lives for the rising sun. ones that were brought up to believe they are a superior race of beings that deserve to rule over other eastern asian nations. a group of people who DOWNPLAYED THE FIRST BOMB IN ORDER TO FIGHT TO THE LAST MAN
It's easy for you to just go ahead and say how horrible it was to decide to drop a bomb but you are not experiencing the responsibility put on you to put extra 250k to 1 MILLION estimated american deaths taking japan and forcing a surrender.
hurr durr US drop not 1 but 2 nukes so baaad!!! fks sakes
northern-new-jersey | 19 hours ago
To me the real question is why Ethel went to her death, making her boys orphans, when all she had to do was confirm the truth that Julius was a spy?
ethanb473 | a day ago
It’s so funny seeing everyone whine that Reddit is so leftist when it’s literally just as susceptible to red scare era narratives and jingoism as the rest of America
Signed,
An American
xxwarlorddarkdoomxx | 23 hours ago
You know they were like without question guilty right? Docs declassified by both the US and Russia after the Cold War confirm it. This is probably also why Eisenhower refused to pardon them despite all the campaigns for it, he had access to the smoking gun evidence.
Even his sons now accept that Julius was guilty (although they still defend their mother).
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
The fact their best defense for her, is “well she could have lived but she would’ve betrayed her husband to do so” made me so sad for them. Abandoned by both parents for espionage
xxwarlorddarkdoomxx | 23 hours ago
And Ethel was herself betrayed by her brother (also a spy), who admitted in the 2000s he threw her under the bus to save his wife (also a spy). He confessed that both he and Julius were spies in the interview after decades of maintaining his innocence.
Safe to say committing espionage and treason isn’t a very good idea
northern-new-jersey | 19 hours ago
There is no evidence Ethel was involved in any way.
gumgumbeerdrinkin | 20 hours ago
Who cares if they were guilty what they did saved the world from a rabid US with a monopoly on nuclear weapons. They made the world a safer place and deserve to be seen as heroes for their sacrifice.
xxwarlorddarkdoomxx | 19 hours ago
Could you imagine if the US had a monopoly on nukes??? They could have done such horrible things as…force the USSR to allow elections in Eastern Europe!
Imagine the horror
saywhaaaaaaaaatt | 12 hours ago
Lol, if it wasn't for MAD, the world would probably be a very different one today. Probably with a good bit fewer inhabitants and a good bit more people dying of cancer.
Suspiciouslaughs | 21 hours ago
Like I'm fine with the legal arguments of why they were guilty (death penalty notwithstanding) but the moralising about them committing treason is hilarious, as if people can't imagine why any American would be opposed to their government in the 1950s
DJC_Kowalski | 19 hours ago
Espionage is considered treason in most countries. Why they did it is irrelevant to the fact they committed treason. There is documented proof in the archives of the Soviet Union that proves their guilt.
Frosty_Warning4921 | a day ago
Their parents and uncle turned against their nation and gave secret information, including nuclear information, to our chief military and geopolitical adversary at an incredibly dangerous time in our nation's history. This is not difficult to "make sense" of. It is unreal that there are people still willing to carry the water for the these spies.
Manungal | 16 hours ago
"Twenty senior government officials met secretly on February 8, 1950, to discuss the Rosenberg case. Gordon Dean, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, said: "It looks as though Rosenberg is the kingpin of a very large ring, and if there is any way of breaking him by having the shadow of a death penalty over him, we want to do it." Myles Lane, a member of the prosecution team, said that the case against Ethel was "not too strong", but that it was "very important that she be convicted too, and given a stiff sentence." FBI director J. Edgar Hoover wrote that "proceeding against the wife will serve as a lever" to make Julius talk.
"On June 19, 1953, Julius died from the first electric shock. Ethel's execution did not go smoothly. After she was given the normal course of three electric shocks, attendants removed the strapping and other equipment only to have doctors determine that her heart was still beating. Two more electric shocks were applied, and at the conclusion eyewitnesses reported that smoke rose from her head."
They questioned Julius right til the end about his accomplices, but not Ethel - because you don't question someone who can't give you more intel. That's probably the difficult part to make sense of. 20 men decided to kill their mom to make their dad talk - but he didn't talk, and then those 20 men had to follow through with the charade that made them orphans.
strps | 14 hours ago
World War II was as close to them than the pandemic is to us. Everyone knew what kind of game they were playing, and it was one with a lot more on the table than we can realistically grasp now.
steveamsp | 16 hours ago
If you want to argue that there's some degree of question over Ethel, sure, I can accept that. But, she apparently believed more in denying the obvious truth than she did about living to be alive for her children, so, even that is at least a bit of a stretch.
Anyone that says Julius wasn't guilty is either completely ignorant, or intentionally ignoring the truth.
researchandrepeat | 19 hours ago
“The case against Ethel was much weaker. The prosecution's main witness was Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, who worked at the top-secret Los Alamos nuclear facility. Greenglass accused Ethel of typing up secret notes that he had stolen. Decades later, Greenglass admitted he had lied on the witness stand to protect his own wife from prison.”
The US Government should exonerate Ethel. Also, strange that Harry Gold was one of the main players and only got 15 years but she was executed just to try to get her husband to talk about others involved, which he wouldn’t or couldn’t. US government living up to their bad decision making, even back then.
Gold_Reception_2154 | 20 hours ago
Parents should have chosen their children over being traitors.
ragingblackmage | 23 hours ago
The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow is a good fictional story based on this
bookluvr83 | 18 hours ago
My boys are exactly these ages right now. I can't imagine how terrified they must have felt going through this.
cobaltaureus | a day ago
The boys seem like their perspectives are just to protect their own psyche.
It’s so tragic but their mother could have lived. She chose to die
FoughtStatue | 13 hours ago
The Rosenbergs were definitely guilty, but morally I think it was the right thing to do.
CNBGVepp | 23 hours ago
Ummm they were spies who gave nuclear secrets. That's what happened. Hope the boys understand now.
Whythisisnotreal | 23 hours ago
Too much time passed between their crimes and their trial. They got over punished as a result. You know, among all the other complex stuff
juggarjew | a day ago
Trying to make sense? They know exactly what happened.... TREASON. Had they been put in prison it would not have changed the fact that they would have functionally been orphaned.
xxwarlorddarkdoomxx | 23 hours ago
>still trying to make sense of what happened
Your dad stole the world’s most valuable secret and gave it to Stalin is what happened.
Julius could have saved himself and his wife by confessing (and yes they were 1000% guilty), but either he thought he’d get out of it or he was thoroughly a communist fanatic.
cobaltaureus | 23 hours ago
The bit about the AG saying “Ethel called our bluff” seems to suggest they didn’t want to give her the death penalty, but when she refused to give up information (which we now know she had) they felt they had no choice but to prosecute to the extent they had already publicly threatened to. Or else any death penalty would look a bluff
xxwarlorddarkdoomxx | 23 hours ago
Yeah in the decades after the case it was confirmed the death penalty was meant to pressure the Rosenbergs into cooperating, esp since the gov knew for certain they were guilty.
VaelFX | 22 hours ago
Their parents were traitors and got what all traitors deserve
GatorUSMC | 23 hours ago
Make sense of what?
It was said from the start that their parents loved communism more than them.
flashoverride | 18 hours ago
Highly recommend this organization: Rosenberg Fund for Children
UltraShadowArbiter | 17 hours ago
What can't they make sense of?
Their parents were traitors and got punished for it.
Seems pretty clear to me.
DJC_Kowalski | 20 hours ago
Your parents were traitors. People tried to argue they weren't because they were Jewish. That they were traitors was confirmed by documents after the fall of the USSR. Hope that helps make sense.
riamuriamu | 17 hours ago
I watched a crappy doco about the Rosenberg affair recently. They used AI to poorly animated photos from that time. It was exactly as bad as you picture it.
PhillithJohnsonius | 9 hours ago
Are we supposed to have sympathy for their parents or something?