Facts trump politics -- the Rosenbergs were guilty (or at least Julius was)

When I was quite young I ran across a book about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and their spying trial in 1951.



The Rosenbergs were both executed for passing atomic bomb secrets on to the Soviet Union.



The book I read was a leftist manifesto which argued that the Rosenbergs had been railroaded; there seemed to be more than a whiff of anti-semitism (which ignored the fact the judge, and just about everyone on both sides of the case, were Jews; of course Jews are not immune from being anti-semites).



Being a teenager I tended to believe what I read, but time went by I read more about the case and slowly began to realize the facts were more complex than I thought.



But the factual complexity wasn't decisive. The case was seen as an American Dreyfus and your view on the guilt or innocence of the Rosenbergs had less to do with the facts than the politics. This was a situation that could continue so long as the facts were murky.



When the Soviet archives were (briefly) opened the guilt of Julius was all but certain but the Rosenbergs' co-accused, Morton Sobell, continued to deny the charges.



That's all done now.



On Thursday, Mr. Sobell, now 91, dramatically reversed himself, shedding new light on the Rosenberg case.



In an interview, Mr. Sobell admitted for the first time that he had been a Soviet spy. And he implicated his fellow defendant Julius Rosenberg, in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information and what the American government described as the secret to the atomic bomb.



I guess the facts trump the politics. Julius was guilty -- Ethel maybe still uncertain but the trial was, at least in large part, right.