Sunday, September 21, 2008
"Still some weep"
The New York Times has an amusing and, frankly, surprising story that recounts how elements of the old left, for whom defending Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was both a passion and a requirement for invitation to the best cocktail parties, have not changed their mind even as their guilt became clear.
You could choose to ignore, or somehow explain away, the Hitler-Stalin pact, or be wedded to the original Port Huron Statement instead of the “compromised second draft,” but if you seriously considered yourself fiercely loyal to the far left, you believed that the Rosenbergs were not guilty of espionage. At least you said you did.
For more than 50 years, defending Julius and Ethel Rosenberg was an article of faith for most committed American leftists. That the couple was framed — by officials intent on stoking anti-Soviet fervor and embarrassed by counterespionage lapses that allowed Russian moles to infiltrate the government — was at the core of a worldview of Communism, the Korean War and the ensuing cold war, and an enduring cultural divide stoked by McCarthyism.
Now, that unshakeable faith has been rattled seismically.
The whole is worth reading, but especially this bit of wisdom from left-wing historian Howard Zinn:
“To me it didn’t matter whether they were guilty or not. The most important thing was they did not get a fair trial in the atmosphere of cold war hysteria.”
In 1952 it appeared from every angle that the West was fighting a losing battle for its own survival. Communism was spreading through the world like a brushfire. The largest country in the world had only just fallen in 1949, and we were already at war with it in Korea. The Soviets got the atomic bomb and then built them in quantity far faster than anybody predicted. Communist economies, at least measured by statistics that we could not refute, were growing far faster than Western ones. Communist armies far outnumbered the West. Communist parties were rising fast in Europe, threatening to do there what they had done in China. It is far from clear that popular sentiment at the time was "hysterical," in the sense of overreacting. It is also far from clear that a "fair trial" for the Rosenbergs was more important to the defense of freedom in America than quickly proving that spying for Communism was a deadly game.
15 Comments:
By 
Dross, at
Sun Sep 21, 08:35:00 AM:
What never ceases to bewilder me, they the American Leftists would be the first to suffer. How could they never see that?
I am reminded of Emma Goldman and how she was treated in the Soviet Union after being deported from the US. She later denounced the Soviet's use of force and violence.
Dear Emma and other lefties, what other tools do they statists have?
By 
, at
Sun Sep 21, 09:21:00 AM:
I'm not sure what you mean that a fair trial may not have been as important as proving that spying was a deadly game. Since I know little about the Rosenberg case, I don't know if they received a fair trial or not. But the Soviets were masters of the meaningless "show trial" and imprisoned, tortured and killed millions with little or no cause, all in service to a supposed greater good: survival of the state. It would be ironic (and sad) to learn that we adopted their tactics as similarly expedient because it served our own larger purpose.
By , at
Sun Sep 21, 09:43:00 AM:
When the House Committee on Un-American Activities was looking into Nazi sympathizers, the American Bund, etc. in the late 30's and 40's, that was great. When the same tool was turned on the presence of Soviet sympathizers in the US Government in the late '40's and '50's, that was fascism.
The Left never forgives and never forgets. They will never forgive Richard Nixon for going after Alger Hiss, even though both are dead.
They will never forgive the Hollywood Blacklists of the '50's, even though there were "whitelists" of people that co-operated with the hearings, that never worked again. Can you say Elia Kazan? Even now, 50 years on (and he's dead, too), the Left still hates him.
Julius was guilty as Hell, and Ethel was a dumb stooge of her husband, but as some of the Venona papers indicate, Stalin was very aware of who they were and how much they helped the USSR.
If I live another 50 years, it will be fun to see who is now secretly helping the Islamists to hasten the demise of the West to usher in a revolution.
-David
By , at
Sun Sep 21, 09:45:00 AM:
Between the post and the first comment, I think we are confused about the goals of the American Left. It is to have unchallenged dominion over others. Communism looked like the best bet to achieve that in the 50s and 60s. Today it's some form of slowly spreading, insidious nanny-state socialism facilitated by religious environmentalism plus the irrational fear (and discrediting) of capitalism.
Zinn and his fellow travelers don't give a fig about whether the Rosenbergs got a fair trial; they still find it incomprehensible that they are not yet in control of the poor pathetic cattle like you and me. There's nothing high minded about their goals. Corral us, milk us while we're useful, slaughter us when we cease to be necessary.
By , at
Sun Sep 21, 10:22:00 AM:
See this one:
Transcripts Suggest Ethel Rosenberg May Have Been Convicted, Executed on Perjured Testimony,
"The Rosenberg case illustrates the excesses that can occur when we're afraid," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, one of the private groups that fought in court for the release of the grand jury material.
"In the 1950s, we were afraid of communism; today, we're afraid of terrorism; we don't want to make the same mistakes we made 50 years ago," Fuchs said.
and this:
Rosenberg Sons Acknowledge Their Father Was a Spy
"We believed they were innocent and we tried to prove them innocent," he said. "But I remember saying to myself in late 1975, maybe a little later, that whatever happens, it doesn't change me. We really meant it, that the truth is more important than our political position."
Robert Meeropol, a lawyer who runs the Rosenberg Fund for Children, which advocates on behalf of young people whose parents have suffered because of their progressive politics, said he, too, was willing to admit that he and his brother were wrong.
The high-minded stuff knows no bounds.
We don't want to repeat the mistakes of 50 years ago, but we will unabashedly glorify the mistakes of 40 years ago.
Its tough when the kids suffer on account of their parents being spies or terrorists. Just ask poor Chesa Boudin.
By Steve M. Galbraith, at
Sun Sep 21, 10:45:00 AM:
Re Zinn's "The most important thing was they did not get a fair trial in the atmosphere of cold war hysteria."
We hear echoes of the same argument today in dealing with Islamic terrorists. We must give them fair trials, habeas corpus, all of the Constitutional protections afforded US citizens.
Meanwhile, those same proponents of full protection for terrorists demand a "Truth Commission" be established where Bush Administration officials must profess their guilt.
Post hoc laws, no presumptions of innocence, forced confessions. Shades of Soviet show trials. Proceedings that folks like Zinn, who was so concerned about "fair trials", defended.
Everything old is new again.
By , at
Sun Sep 21, 10:49:00 AM:
The pitable thing for the left is the lack of knowledge. In the Soviet show trials, the victims were tried for crimes that were entirely made up. Perhaps, there was hysteria at the time but unfortunately there was spying going on. What was happening with respect to the left is what happened during the 30's during the real show trials. A wholesale wanton disregard for the truth.
By Mystery Meat, at
Sun Sep 21, 02:58:00 PM:
On a lighter note, Obama and Biden have both said, if elected, there will be an investigation of the actions of Bush and Cheney to see if crimes were committed.
The modern Left has mostly elected to follow the Gramsci model of stealth incrementalism to achieve the goals of world communist revolution. They are doing just fine toward the achievement of that goal.
By , at
Sun Sep 21, 08:47:00 PM:
Re Sally's comment:
In the whole episode being discussed, the US executed exactly two people, the Rosenbergs.
That is hardly equal or equivalent to Stalin, their patron, who executed at the minimum a couple million.
By , at
Sun Sep 21, 11:13:00 PM:
"Re Sally's comment:
In the whole episode being discussed, the US executed exactly two people, the Rosenbergs.
That is hardly equal or equivalent to Stalin, their patron, who executed at the minimum a couple million."
I wasn't comparing the results, I was questioning the purpose. The Soviets justified their behavior as necessary to the survival of the Stalinist state. If the Rosenbergs were railroaded in some way, denied due process that would have been afforded to any other defendant, should it be justified for the same reason, that Communism was such a threat due process could be disregarded to protect our country?
I don't know if it was or not in the case of the Rosenbergs, I said that. But I cringe whenever anyone raises the idea that the rule of law should be abandoned or diminished if we decide the alleged illicit conduct is serious enough. Our rule of law is intended to protect the individual from the powers of the state. It's not supposed to be a convenience to be tossed aside whenever the government tells us the threat is too serious for such niceties. It's supposed to be one of the things that makes our system better than Communism.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Sep 22, 12:14:00 AM:
When did justice change from a result into a process?
If a guilty party is accidentally, or even deliberately, denied a right or defense, that's still justice.
If a guilty party receives all due rights and procedures and walks free, that is not justice.
"It's not supposed to be a convenience to be tossed aside whenever the government tells us the threat is too serious for such niceties."
But it is. For example: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it."
Our Constitution (hallowed be its name) very explicitly states that such protections can be suspended, and they have been, most famously during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
And the fact that such provisions are laid out in legally passed and approved writing *makes it* 'Rule of Law.'
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Sep 22, 12:16:00 AM:
I seem to have left out a phrase, as you might infer from the other.
"If a guilty party is accidentally, or even deliberately, denied a right or defense, *and is appropriately punished*, that's still justice."
By Brian, at
Mon Sep 22, 12:49:00 AM:
Dawnfire, you're forgetting that the present debate acknowledges the possibility that Ethel either was wholly innocent or knew but took no part (i.e., didn't participate in the conspiracy).
That's why process is important.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Sep 22, 08:11:00 AM:
If she knew and took no part, then she *was* part of the conspiracy by maintaining the cover of those who did take part.
Scenario: If you are aware of an ongoing espionage plot by, say, your brother, involved in stealing nuclear secrets and supplying them to a hostile foreign power and you do nothing and tell no one, can you really say that you were innocent? It's not like an act of violence, where you would be put at personal risk if you got involved. You just have to make a phone call.
I'm not arguing that process is unimportant. It's certainly important to prevent systematic abuses of power. However, simply going through the motions is not 'justice.' And I did feel compelled to point out that 'tossing it aside' is in fact written into our law and is sometimes appropriate.
By Consul-At-Arms, at
Tue Sep 23, 01:56:00 AM:
I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2008/09/re-still-some-weep.html
