By John Rutherford and Jim Popkin, NBC News
Ethel Rosenberg refused to tell a grand jury in 1950 whether she and her husband Julius were Soviet spies, but it didn't make much difference because she was done in anyway by her sister-in-law.
The testimony of Ruth Greenglass, the wife of Ethel's brother David, helped lead to the indictment, conviction and execution of the Rosenbergs for passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
Transcripts of the grand jury testimony of Ethel Rosenberg and Ruth Greenglass were released today by the National Archives, as a result of a lawsuit filed by historians and the nongovernmental National Security Archive in Washington. It's the first time the grand-jury documents have seen the light of day in more than half a century.
According to several historians who reviewed the documents, the most striking new evidence comes from the grand jury testimony of Ruth Greenglass, sister-in-law of Ethel Rosenberg. In contradiction to Ruth Greenglass’s later trial testimony, her grand jury testimony does not mention Ethel Rosenberg’s typing any of the information being passed to the Soviets about the U.S. atomic program. In fact, the grand jury testimony describes that information being passed in Ruth’s own longhand.
Ronald Radosh, co-author of The Rosenberg File and one of the experts who filed affidavits in the case, commented, “The grand jury documents cast significant doubt on the key prosecution charge used to convict Ethel Rosenberg at the trial and sentence her to death.”
The secret testimony:
In the grand jury documents released today, Ethel Rosenberg repeatedly pleads the 5th.
"I decline to answer that question on the grounds that this might tend to incriminate me," she said over and over again in testimony before a New York grand jury on Aug. 11, 1950.
Ruth, her sister-in-law, was much more talkative.
Question: "Do you know, of your own knowledge, whether Julius Rosenberg is a card-carrying Communist?"
Ruth: "Well, I never saw the card, but I always assumed he was a Communist ..."
Question: "Now, do you know whether Ethel Rosenberg was a card-carrying Communist?"
Ruth: "Well, as I said in Julius' case, I never saw the card, but I believe she was."
Ruth Greenglass described for the grand jury how Julius Rosenberg asked her in November 1944 to convince her husband, David, who was working at the atomic laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., to pass atomic secrets to the Russians through Julius and other Soviet agents.
Ruth: "He [Julius] had been trying for two years to get in touch with people in - I guess it's the Soviet underground, that he could work more directly to help Russia ... He felt there was not a direct exchange of scientific information among the Allies and that it would be only fair for Russia to have the information, too ..."
Question: "And did she [Ethel] take part in the conversation?"
Ruth: "Well, she urged me to talk to David."
Ruth said her husband agreed to join the spy ring and smuggle atomic secrets out of Los Alamos. David later left the Army and moved back to New York. In May 1950, with the FBI closing in on them, Julius urged the Greenglasses to flee.
Ruth: "He said, 'You have to go,' and I said, 'Where are we going?' and he said, 'You are going to the D.S.U.,' and I said, 'What is that?' and he said, 'To the Soviet Union.'"
Julius told Ruth that he and Ethel would be leaving, too, but not at the same time.
Ruth: "I said, 'Is Ethel happy about leaving?' He said, 'Well, she is disturbed; her ties are here, but of course she realizes it is a thing we have to do.'"
Ruth said she and David decided to stay put.
Ruth: "But my husband felt if we told Julius that we would not leave he would consider this dangerous to himself, and that some physical harm might befall myself or my children ..."
Question: "Did you ask him [Julius] what you were going to do if and when you got to the Soviet Union?"
Ruth: "I always assumed we would be shot when we got to the Soviet Union."
Ruth's grand jury testimony ended there.
On June 19, 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were electrocuted at Ossining, N.Y. David Greenglass served 10 years in prison and then resumed married life with Ruth. Ruth, who was never charged, died on April 7 at the age of 83. David, 86, is still living.
The National Security Archive, an independent research institute at George Washington University, successfully sued to allow the National Archives and Records Administration to unseal the grand-jury records. The Archive, along with historians and journalists, filed a petition in January 2008 seeking the release of grand jury records from the 1951 indictment of the Rosenbergs, arguing that public interest outweighed privacy and national security concerns.
