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Legal Arguments in Court

The attorneys for the U.S. government

U.S. Attorney Irving Saypol and assistant U.S. attorneys Myles Lane, Roy Cohn, John Foley, James Kilsheimer, and James Branigan argued that:

1. The defendants—Julius Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg, and Morton Sobell—in addition to David Greenglass (who had pleaded guilty), Ruth Greenglass (who was not indicted), Harry Gold (who had pleaded guilty and been sentenced), and Anatoli Yakovlev (who had left the United States), engaged in a conspiracy to violate the Espionage Act of 1917.

2. The members of the conspiracy shared a common purpose to violate the statute by transmitting to the Soviet Union information related to the national defense of the United States. The prosecution defined the object of the conspiracy broadly, without reference to the atomic bomb, in order to include Morton Sobell, who was not linked to atomic espionage.

3. The members of the conspiracy were motivated by their belief in Communism, which led them to devote themselves to the welfare of the Soviet Union above that of the United States; as a result, they acted with the intent of advantaging a foreign nation, as prohibited by the statute.

4. The members of the conspiracy committed several overt acts in furtherance of their common purpose, including traveling, holding meetings, and receiving and transmitting information. It was not necessary for the government to prove overt acts with respect to all defendants; under the law of conspiracy, proof of one overt act on the part of one member was sufficient.

5. The conspiracy, which began in 1944, existed during wartime, making the defendants eligible for the death penalty under the statute. It did not matter that the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in World War II, because the law made no reference to the status of the foreign nation to which information was transmitted.

The attorneys for the defendants

Emanuel and Alexander Bloch, the attorneys for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Harold Phillips and Edward Kuntz, the attorneys for Morton Sobell, argued that:

1. None of the documentary evidence introduced by the prosecution—such as the replicas of sketches and descriptions of the atomic bomb David Greenglass made—tied the Rosenbergs to espionage.

2. David and Ruth Greenglass, on whose testimony the entire case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg depended, committed perjury so that David would receive a lighter sentence and Ruth would avoid prosecution. The Rosenbergs were easy targets for the Greenglasses to implicate because of their alleged Communist ties and pro-Soviet views. The Greenglasses were further motivated to accuse the Rosenbergs by business disputes between David Greenglass and Julius Rosenberg.

3. The defendants’ alleged Communist beliefs and membership in the Communist Party USA were irrelevant to the case, as well as unduly prejudicial, and did not constitute proof that they had ever conspired to engage in espionage.

4. Harry Gold, a key figure in the alleged conspiracy, did not know the Rosenbergs and had no dealings with them.

5. Morton Sobell was not mentioned in any of the overt acts listed in the indictment. The only witness against him was Max Elitcher, who was not credible because he was attempting to avoid prosecution for having falsely taken an oath that he was not a member of the Communist Party.

6. Elitcher’s claim that Julius Rosenberg first approached him regarding espionage was not believable because Rosenberg had not seen Elitcher for many years prior to the alleged conversation, and it would have made more sense for Sobell, a close friend of Elitcher’s, to have approached him initially.

7. When Sobell traveled to Mexico in June 1950 after the arrest of David Greenglass, he flew under his own name and rented an apartment using his own name, only later using aliases, weakening the government’s claim that he was attempting to avoid prosecution.