Never mind the respect JR's KGB controllers may have had for him. He was convicted for giving the Soviets crude drawings of "lenses" or shaped pieces of high explosive necessary to compress a sphere of plutonium oe U-238 to critical mass. The problem is that if the lenses are not precisely engineered the stuff just squirts and you get radioactive dust, no chain reaction, no explosion. It is absolutely crucial that the mathematics and engineering of the lenses be perfect.
The solution to these problems strained the greatest minds in world physics. JR totally lacked the knowledge and technical ability to provide the solution they came up with, and did not have the contacts to get that accurate information from people who did have it -- like Klaus Fuchs. What he gave the Rsussians was worthless. Garbage. It did not accelerate the Soviet nuclear program by 10 minutes.
This is irrelevant to whether JR violated the Espionage Act, he did -- but just to be clear -- as a spy, he was a flop.
The rest of the post is fairly accurate.
* * * *
Why does anyone case about this shit anymore? I know this stuff because back when there was a Cold War I taught classes on it and when then was a US-Soviet arns race I organized against it and researched the issues. Now this is ancient history.
If there is a reason that dragging up Hiss and the Rosenbergs and all this crap is a bad idea if conducted in any other spirit that chilly and disinterested historical inquiry, it is because it still has, for most of those who know or care about it, the resonance it has back when it was a live issue.
The R's & Hiss were never about Communism (Soviet Threat, Red Menace, etc.). Their cases were part of the attack on the New Deal and the welfare state: see, the New Dealers are all commie traitors! I don't say we should deny what's true, e.g., that JR was an atomic spy, if a bad one. But at this point liberalsim needs our defense, and there isn't even a Soviet Union around to associate with it. Pick your fights.
Peple like Mike P and Charles B who are still interesting in fighting about an ex-country with a dead religion was a good idea are wasting their time and everyone else's. We need people fighting the Patriot Act, supporing single payer, opposing bad judges and the Iraq War and the rest of the Bushie agenda.
Stalin was a bloody tyrant, take it as read. Lenin was too, if you like, I don't care, does it matter any more? Trotsky was a tyrant when he had a chance. Soviet Communsim was not the worker's p[aradise it aspired to be, and ultimately failed and disappeared. It's not clear that there was any particularly good alternative, but suppose we say that Kerensky could have established a modern liberal democratic republic that would have made Russia a modern European state -- I don't believe it, but say it was so --, so the whole Soviet experiment was a disaster. What does it matter? The CPUSA members who shut their eyes to the crimes of Lenin and Stalin did some great things here but deceived themselves or worse. Take it as read. Move fucking on. This is boring and pointless.
jks
jks
--- "John K. Taber" <jktaber at charter.net> wrote:
> Mike Ballard <swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au> asks
>
>
> > I don't mean to nitpick. I remain unclear on what
> the Rosenbergs were
> > executed for. I was a child at the time. I just
> remember seeing
> > Julius and Ethel getting into a truck of some
> kind. I thought they
> > were convicted of "conspiracy". I wasn't aware
> that the powers that
> > were, convicted them of espionage.
> >
> > Thanks in advance to anyone for clearing this up
> for me. I think
> > that's my three posts for the day.
>
> Technically they were executed for atomic espionage.
> Actually they were
> executed because of FBI pressure to force Julius to
> cooperate. The idea
> was, Julius once apprehended was supposed to help
> the FBI "roll up" his
> espionage ring. You threaten the culprit with death,
> which is a credible
> threat, but in return for the culprit's cooperation,
> you guarantee him a
> lesser punishment.
>
> JR refused to cooperate. He kept his mouth shut and
> named nobody.
>
> So, the FBI then threatened to execute his wife.
> That was supposed to
> make him talk. But both Julius and Ethel accepted
> martyrdom instead of
> cooperating.
>
> Ironically, the VENONA decrypts exculpate Ethel. The
> KGB officer
> remarked that her health was too poor to enable her
> to "work" and the
> NSA footnote makes clear that "work" meant
> espionage.
>
> What exactly was the espionage? That is not clear
> from the VENONA
> decrypts. It was involved with our atomic weapons
> program, but specifics
> are lacking. It had something to do with
> microfilming data relating to
> atomic weapons, and that's about all that can be
> inferred. I do not
> think a prosecutor could base a charge on the
> information in the
> decrypts.
>
> But it was not IMO "minor, unimportant" info as
> somebody here
> maintained. The respect, indeed awe, that the KGB
> officers showed
> Julius, are indications that Julius was a
> considerable figure. They
> consulted him, and his opinion was very much
> respected. His devotion,
> intelligence, hard work (at one point the decrypts
> worry about his
> "work" affecting his health), and loyalty to the
> cause made him IMO the
> kind of person who in other circumstances would get
> medals.
>
> Somebody, I think Schwartz, here said that Julius
> was framed, though in
> fact guilty. I think that is correct.
>
> The idea of keeping VENONA secret needs more
> elaboration. There is an
> FBI memo by Alan Belmont laying out the evidentiary
> problems of VENONA.
> Also, the Soviets already knew about VENONA -- they
> had been informed at
> least by Donald MacLean, not to mention an NSA
> cryptanalyst who got on
> to the decrypts as Meredith Gardner was doing them.
> Belmont maintained
> that the decrypts could not be used as evidence
> because they were
> hearsay. They could be used only as expert witness
> testimony, which he
> said would lay the decrypts open to defense attack.
> The decrypts are so
> sparse and fragmentary, that I could understand his
> point. Keeping them
> secret as a favor to the NSA was Belmont's secondary
> clincher.
>
> BTW, when I say "KGB" I am using the term loosely to
> mean Soviet
> Intelligence whether NKVD, MGB, Naval GRU, Military
> GRU, and whatever
> else. Similarly, I use "NSA" loosely to mean
> American cryptographic
> intelligence whether SIS, ASA, or any other NSA
> predecessor.
>
> John
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>
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