Grumpy lefties and VENONA

[Katha Pollitt]

What is so devastating about evidence that julius rosenberg did in fact
pass some sort of secret to the Soviets is that he SAID he was innocent,
and his defense was organized on that basis. If he had argued, with
Yoshie and others, that he was performing a service to humanity,
preventing WW3 and so forth, that would have been a different story. But
the reason the Rosenbergs were such a huge, wrenching experience for
progressives is that they were portrayed, and widely believed to be,
innocent victims of anti-communist hysteria, the charges against them
trumped up and fabricated, and so on. 

  It is too late now to claim that whatever Julius did was trivial, or
even a good idea. (An idea that popped up only when he began to look
guilty, if memory serves.) It sounds like a lawyer claiming that his
client is innocent, and anyway the victim deserved it.

  
Katha