"We are innocent, as we have proclaimed from the time of our arrest. To forsake this truth
is to pay too high a price even for the priceless gift of life-- for life
thus purchased we could not live out in dignity and self-respect."
Rosenbergs' letter to President Truman, January 9, 1953. |
CURRENT ACTIVITY
Our Annual Memorial Meeting was held
Thursday, June 19, 2008,
and our next meeting will be held
Thursday, June 18, 2009
at the Tamiment Library,
the 10th floor of the Bobst Library at N.Y.U.
70 Washington Square South, in NYC from 6:00 to 8:30 PM.
Richard Corey & Julie Eigenberg sang
his setting of "Ethel's Last Letter."
Helene Williams sang Edith Segal's
"My Loved One" and "Underneath the Spanish Stars"
in memory of Moe Fishman and Muriel Goldring
and an excerpt from the
Leonard Lehrman-Kim Rich opera in progress, ALGER.
In memory of
Susan Blake, 15 members of
The Metropolitan Philharmonic Chorus
performed
"Conscience" and "Lost Forever"
by Abel Meeropol & Leonard Lehrman,
concluding with "The House I Live In"
by Meeropol & Earl Robinson, arr. L.Lehrman.
Speakers included Georgia Wever, Morton Sobell,
Margaret Ratner Kunstler,
Miriam Moskowitz, and Carol Jochnowitz.
Info: 718-667-4740
Miriam Moskowitz read from her memoirs
the chapter on Ethel Rosenberg.
You can read it here.
Carol Jochnowitz's important article in the May-June 2008
Jewish Currents on the man who actually did
what the Rosenbergs were convicted of doing,
and the U.S. government's deliberate cover-up
of their own negligence, may be read here.
Her article refers to two articles and a Letter to the Editor
(from the Meeropol brothers) which appeared in The N.Y. Times.
Here are links to them:
First is William Broad's article about George Koval,
"A Spy's Path: Iowa to A-Bomb to Kremlin Honor"
N.Y. TImes, Nov. 12, 2007.
Second is the Meeropols' letter, published Nov. 17, 2008.
Finally, the account of the FOIA lawsuit filed by
Professor David C. Vladeck,
the National Security Archive at Georgetown University,
and others, with the Meeropols' support:
"Release of 1950s U.S. Grand Jury Transcripts
Is Sought in Rosenberg Atomic Spy Case"
Feb. 1, 2008.
For more information on this lawsuit, click here.
Click here for the Meeropols' latest letter to the Committee, read at the meeting of June 19, 2008.
Click here for the French Committee's statement, sent and read at the June 19, 2008 NCRRC meeting.
Our letter to the New York Times appeared in the Book Review
Oct. 29, 2006. You can read it here
and at
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/books/review/Letters.t-4.html.
Leonard Lehrman & Richard Corey, Co-Directors
NCRRC letter to committee members.
December 2002.
taPlease
help with our appeal for a Senate Judiciary
Committee hearing.ettarget
Featured Members' Letter:
Roger and Nancy Lienke have written Senator
Mark Dayton (MN) regarding NCRRC efforts to have the Senate Judiciary Committee
review the Rosenberg case. To view this concise yet comprehensive
appeal, click
here. It would be of great assistance
to our cause if readers send letters to their Senators. The Lienke letter,
like ours, might be helpful in drafting your letters. |
IMPORTANT EVENTS
INNOCENCE REVEALED
2002 From CBS 60 Minutes:
FBI aided in frame-up of innocent man.
2001 Greenglass admits he committed perjury at the trial.
Ethel Innocent!
1997 Justice Department letter reveals unjust application of law.
1997 Real spies for the USSR do not implicate Rosenbergs.
1995 In France, the fight to exonerate the Rosenbergs continues.
1993 American Bar Association moot trial - Rosenbergs
not guilty.
1990 Robert Meeropol founds the Rosenberg Fund for Children.
Click
here to read his (2002) article on the Rosenberg case.
1982-present Mumia Abu-Jamal case
strikes blow against Capital Punishment.
targettarget
David Greenglass admits he
committed perjury at the trial.
48
years later, the defense is vindicated. Prosecution case destroyed.
The brother of Ethel Rosenberg
has admitted on a 60 Minutes II
interview and in a new book (The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David
Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric
Chair by Sam Roberts), that he lied under oath at the trial.
It was his perjured testimony that provided the evidence which led to his
sister's conviction and subsequent execution, along with her husband Julius.
Greenglass,
who claims that he gave the Soviets information, was under indictment and
was worried that if he and his wife Ruth did not cooperate, she would be
indicted (because of her testimony as a government witness, Ruth, an
admitted
spy, was never indicted). He says Roy Cohn, an assistant prosecutor
(and later aide to Senator Joseph McCarthy), encouraged him to lie about his
sister Ethel. [more details]
targettarget
ABA moot court trial of
Rosenbergs yields unanimous verdict of not-guilty.
In August of 1993, members of
the American Bar Association Section of Litigation re-enacted the 1951 trial of
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. A moot trial was conducted with expertise and meticulous concern for accuracy.
The unanimous verdict of the twelve jurors was "Not Guilty." This
"trial" and its dramatic outcome was widely reported by the media - for one day only.
targettarget
Justice Department letter
reveals unjust application of law.
The Justices
Department's letter plus the NCRRC's response and appeal to President Clinton.
In the United States, courtroom
trials are supposed to be meaningful, with a judge earning respect for
fairness before jurors and spectators. Judges should sentence on the basis of
the indictment and the trial record; not based on untried, untested and
unchecked "out of court" information. However, this is exactly what happened
in the sentencing of the Rosenbergs !
This explains why around the world, concerned citizens protested
Judge Kaufman's death sentences, and his total absence of fairness. The
world understood, but not the United States, which was caught up in
McCarthysm; the paranoia and hysteria generated by the anti-communistic frenzy of the
late 40's and the 50's.
One would expect the Justice Department of today to clearly recognize
the unjust nature of Judge Kaufman's sentences. However, examination of the
above-mentioned letter demonstrates that our government's thinking is
still firmly entrenched in the cold war consciousness of those earlier times.
targettarget
targettarget
Real spies for the USSR do
not implicate Rosenbergs.
In 1997, Aldrich Ames, American
CIA operative, was arrested, tried, declared "guilty," and imprisoned for passing
highly sensitive information to the USSR. In cross-examination Ames did not
implicate the Rosenbergs in any way.
Also
in 1997, the book "Bombshell: The Secret Story of America's Unknown
Atomic Spy Conspiracy" by Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, was
published by Times Book Corp., NYC. This book documents the role of the brilliant
American physicist Theodore Hall and other scientists who gave vital
information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. In this book, Theodore Hall
makes no reference to any complicity by the
Rosenbergs in his or any other espionage activities of which he was aware.
In France, the fight to exonerate the
Rosenbergs continues.
In 1995 the French Committee to Re-examine the Rosenberg Case was formed. This action was due to a lack of
response by President Clinton to appeals signed by hundreds of prominent American citizens
concerned about the Rosenberg case. In France, the Rosenberg Case is seen
as equivalent to their infamous Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906). Many streets
throughout France have been re-named in tribute to the Rosenbergs, and,
in a Paris suburb, a crèche was established and named The
Ethel Rosenberg Nursery. Click here for the Committee's statement, sent and read at the June 19, 2008 NCRRC meeting.
target
Mumia Abu-Jamal case strikes blow against Capital Punishment.
Mumia Abu-Jamal has been
on Pennsylvania's death row for close to 20 years and confined 23 hours daily in a tiny cell at State Correctional Institute Greene in Waynesburg, Pa. In 1982, Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting officer Daniel Faulkner.
This allegedly occurred during the early-morning hours of December 9, 1981,
after the officer pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a downtown traffic stop.
Mumia has always maintained that he is innocent. In fact, in a 1999
affidavit, Arnold Beverly has confessed that he was hired by the mob to kill
Faulkner because the officer had interfered with mob payoffs to police.
In a recent ruling (Dec. 18, 2001) to have the case overthrown, Federal
Judge William Yohn, Jr. stated that the confession by Beverly was
not sufficient to have the conviction overturned. However, he did rule
that the sentencing aspect of the original trial was invalid and that
the death sentence no longer applies. He ordered the state
of Pennsylvania to hold a new hearing within 180 days. If the state
refuses in this time period, Judge Yohn said that he would impose a life
sentence without parole on Mumia. This would be a gross injustice. We believe
that Yohn's reasoning is incorrect and that Mumia deserves to have the
entire case reviewed and overturned.
While it appears that Yohn's decision, at minimum, would remove the
execution threat from Mumia's case, we cannot take this for granted. The
prosecution has stated that they will appeal Yohn's decision - THEY WANT TO KILL MUMIA.
To find out more about this case you can go to http://www.freemumia.org
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