>>> Katha Pollitt <kpollitt at thenation.com> 12/08/99 04:01PM >>>
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.
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Charles: Without accepting the latest claims to prove that the Rosenbergs were guilty, for the sake of argument, no , it is pretty unrealistic to think that Rosenberg throwing himself on the mercy of "humanity" would have helped his defense in the middle of the anti-communist hysteria of the anti-humanity U.S.of the period. It is a completely unrealistic proposal to say Rosenberg should have tried to get off by saying to the U.S. injustice system that he was trying to prevent WWIII. In other words, his defense couldn't be organized on any other basis than that he didn't do it.
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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.
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Charles: For _some_ progressives.
It is not too late to claim anything. If he did it ,good. If he didn't ,he was framed. But for purposes of getting him off at the time, the former wouldn't have worked. The key thing is not the people who relied on him being innocent, but thought he should be fried if he wasn't. It was trying to prevent Rosenberg from being executed, by any means necessary.
Even the law allows people to plead contradictory alternatives, but in this case, "I did it for peace" was not a legal defense.
CB