By Ann W. Parks

Photos courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (www.fbi.gov Famous Cases archive)

For many students, the names of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg are facts to be learned, memorized and dusted off for an exam or paper on Cold War history. For students at Georgetown Law, the Rosenberg case is as relevant and alive as any they might encounter in their law school careers.

More than 57 years after a federal grand jury in New York first charged the couple with espionage — an indictment that would lead to the Rosenbergs’ conviction and execution three years later — lawyers and students from Georgetown Law have filed a petition seeking the disclosure of documents relating to those grand jury proceedings. The petition, filed January 31 in federal district court in New York on behalf of various historical associations, was submitted by Georgetown Law Professor David Vladeck; the Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation; IPR fellow, Kathryn A. Sabbeth; and Debra L. Raskin of the New York firm of Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard.

“All of the legal work here — a huge amount — was done by Georgetown University Law Center students at IPR,” Vladeck said. “They wrote the petition, the memorandum, worked with the experts on all the declarations and did a fabulous job.”

Eight IPR students worked intensively on the case, including Jennifer Dillard (L’08), who was primarily responsible for drafting the extensive memorandum filed in support of the petition, and Joy Welan (L’08), who obtained a 60-page declaration on the Rosenberg case from historian and University of Prince Edward Island Professor Bruce Craig.

“Joy had to work with Bruce Craig to present the historical information that Bruce developed in a form that would work for litigation purposes,” Vladeck said. “That took time, effort and skill.”

Students Emil Bove, Deanna Durrett, Consuelo Kendall, Jonathan Small, Lucy Tufts, and Stephanie Wagner (all L’08), also assisted in the project.

The final door

The 1950-1951 grand jury records are an integral part of the Rosenberg case, which in turn was the “defining event” in the early Cold War, according to the petition and its accompanying memorandum. The records sought are the last government documents to remain sealed in the matter.

“If any grand jury records ever merited release because of their historical importance, the Rosenberg records surely qualify,” the petition states. “The release of the records will open the final door in the wall of secrecy that once surrounded the Rosenberg prosecution.”

According to the petition, which draws on the work of Professor Craig, intelligence officers learned in the late 1940s that people involved in the Manhattan Project were passing the Soviets top-secret information about the development of the atomic bomb. Confessions by physicist Klaus Fuchs and chemist Harry Gold led authorities to machinist David Greenglass and his brother-in-law, Julius Rosenberg. Greenglass and his wife Ruth claimed that Rosenberg had persuaded Greenglass to engage in espionage and that Ethel Rosenberg was also involved.

The Rosenbergs were arrested in the summer of 1950. A grand jury, after hearing testimony from dozens of witnesses, handed down a number of indictments charging the couple with various crimes of espionage. They pled not guilty at each juncture.

 They were convicted following a trial in March 1951 and executed in June 1953 after appeals and requests for clemency were denied.  

Special circumstances

If past history is any indication, the petition stands a good chance of success. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York — the same court involved in the Rosenberg case — granted a request in 1999 to release the grand jury indictments of Alger Hiss, convicted in 1950 of perjury relating to espionage activities. Professor Vladeck served as counsel on that petition as well.

Though grand jury records are generally kept secret, a court may order their release when warranted by “special circumstances” such as historical interest. The historical interest in the Rosenberg case is much stronger than in the matter of Alger Hiss, say Vladeck and the other petitioners.

“While Hiss’s alleged espionage involved unclassified diplomatic cables, the Rosenbergs’ espionage allegedly revealed atomic military secrets that enabled the rapid production of the Soviets’ nuclear bomb, thereby triggering the arms race and escalating the Cold War,” the petition states. “The Rosenberg case … continues to inspire not only a volume of scholarly research but also intense interest among the general public that far exceeds the interest in any other case from the Cold War era.”