[Fwd: Ceremonies of Innocence, or, a Secret Affinity with the

[Michael Hoover]

> Given the CP's wartime patriotism, by the time the political winds changed,
> they probably couldn't have done otherwise.  Besides, if they had argued
> the way I am doing now, more people might have been executed, not just the
> Rosenbergs, given the ideological conditions during the pre-60s, post-WW2
> America.  
> Yoshie

CP's support of 1943 Smith Act trial against SWP Trotskyist leaders
of Minneapolis Teamster's union was among most foul examples.  Of 
course, government used law against CP leaders after WW2 (trial was
in 1949, I think) which makes Julius Rosenberg's remark to his lawyer
Emanuel Bloch even more tragic: 

'This death sentence is not surprising.  It had to be.  There had to
be a Rosenberg case because there had to be an intensification of the
hysteria in America to make the Korean War acceptable to the American
people.  There had to be a hysteria and fear sent through America in
order to get increased war budgets.  And there had to be a dagger
thrust in the heart of the left to tell them that you are no longer
gonna get five years for a Smith Act prosecution or one year for
contempt of court, but we're gonna kill ya!'  (22 September 1953)

If Soviet Union had not existed after WW2, US would have invented it.
Same goes for Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.    Michael Hoover