The family of Ethel Rosenberg, who was sent to the electric chair along with her husband, Julius, in 1953 after being convicted of spying for the Soviets at the height of the Red Scare, have called on Joe Biden to formally exonerate her after a newly released document appeared to show that the US government knew she was not a spy.
The couple maintained their innocence until the end and the case of the Rosenbergs has long been seen as a possible miscarriage of justice. Though most historians see Julius Rosenberg as a real Soviet spy, questions about Ethel Rosenberg’s role have lingered and their sons, Robert and Michael Meeropol, have long campaigned in their family’s cause.
Now, according to a National Security Agency document, a top US codebreaker who decrypted secret Soviet communications during the cold war concluded that Ethel Rosenberg knew about husband Julius’s activities in atomic espionage but “did not engage in the work herself”.
