The Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Trial of 1951

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953, convicted of conspiring to pass U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. The Rosenbergs were the first U.S. citizens to be convicted and executed for espionage during peacetime. From their arrest, through the trial and rulings on the appeals, the Rosenberg’s story was dubbed, “The Crime of the Century.”

The Rosenbergs were charged, convicted, and executed for supposedly stealing the secret of the atom bomb and placing our nation's very survival in jeopardy. To understand the significance of the case, you have to start there — not with the crime they were technically accused of: conspiring to commit espionage in wartime to the advantage of a foreign power, but with the public perception that they committed the moral crime of treason.

The Rosenberg case has always been controversial, not only because of the death penalty and the pre-trial discussions of the need for the death penalty, but also because of discoveries made since the trial and the executions. Such discoveries have included, among other things, findings of misrepresentations and outright perjury, the finding of a missing piece of evidence which would have supported the testimony of the Rosenbergs, gross misrepresentations as to the nature of the "crime", and recantations on live TV by the main witness against the Rosenbergs, i.e. Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, many years after their executions. Further, the use at trial against Ethel and Julius Rosenberg of their assertion of their Fifth Amendment rights at the pre-trial grand jury proceeding has been severely criticized through the years and banned outright by the U.S. Supreme Court just a few years after their deaths in another case. The many controversies over the years have caused some to question the guilt of the Rosenbergs, and / or the nature of Julius or Ethel’s guilt, if any.

Join us for a unique insight into this history-making case as one of the Rosenbergs’ sons — Michael Meeropol — and a panel of lawyers and experts on the Rosenberg trial present this gripping historical and analytical view of the trial, its place in history, and its aftermath.